A question about ghosts.
How does a ghost possessing a PC work? Does the ghost just attempt to possess and the PC resists? Likely with Attune? Does the ghost possess the PC indefinitely until it’s challenged (when it eats the PC’s life essence, etc.)? Is the draining of life essence reflected in physical harm or stress/trauma?
Can a ghost attack physically, or in some other way than possession? Somewhere in the book it mentions that ghosts take limited damage from physical attacks, but that infers that they take SOME damage. So is that perhaps zero to one harm? I understand that NPC’s (including ghosts) don’t have hit points, but EFFECT has some effect on them, no?
I haven’t introduced ghosts to my crew yet. They haven’t had a Whisper in the ranks so up till now I didn’t know if they could even harm a ghost. They recently got a Whisper though, and so of course I’d like to add more of the supernatural element. I’m just not sure how to adjudicate those elements.
PCs resist using Insight/Prowess/Resolve (Not any of the action ratings).
You could ask players to resist with Resolve to avoid getting possessed for example.
You as the GM decide the duration of a possession or more specifically how often a PC can attempt to remedy that situation.
Stress and trauma is player facing. You could reflect a ghost draining by inflicting an appropriate level of harm (with or without an option for the PC to resist it).
GM and PCs can decide together whether a ghost can attack physically. Even with hints to the corporeal nature of ghosts in the book, the canon police aren’t going to come knocking on your door and reprimanding you about how you choose to handle it.
NPCs don’t take harm. Focus on what it means, in your game, to have a POTENT attack against ghost. That’s what’s important. A ghost might laugh at a regular sword stab unless the blade has recently been dipped in electoplasm for example.
Cool! TYVM!
What Omari said, and I would add that possession raises tricky questions of player agency, so tread carefully… Have a good table conversation about how possession should work, if it comes up. One fun option is that the player keeps playing their character, but with the knowledge they’re actually playing the possessing ghost (at least for now). Another option would be to create a Blades version of Jason Cordova’s Dungeon World mind control move (basically the GM/ghost can try to get the PC to do stuff – if the PC does it, they get XP. If they don’t, they don’t. Simple): reddit.com – r/DungeonWorld – Suggestions and Mental Domination
That’s a good idea. I have a couple of players who would love a license to be the bad guy to the bad guys.
The way I do it is that the ghost attempts to deal level 3 harm “possession” to the PC. Unresisted, this means the PC cannot act without help unless they push themselves. Fictionally, resisting possession can cause things like level 2 harm: ghost burns.