Table of Contents
This is a draft. Comments are most welcome!
The Tell rules are unclear and inconsistent. Additionally, it seems that the Tell is more difficult to notice when the Lunar is in any true form, which we feel is inverted from the way the Tell ought to work. This proposal seeks to remedy the Tell by reworking the rules regarding noticing the Tell.
In this proposal I very purposeful demote the capitalized "Tell" to "tell". As I propose it, the tell is not some special supernatural effect, and as such it does not deserve the special capitalization reserved for distinct game concepts.
Spotting the Tell
A Lunar's tell is an integral part of the Lunar's personality and animal totem, expressed even when they assume other shapes. It is not a special "flaw" in their shapeshifting—though some Lunar's might experience it as such—but an effect of the strong personality of the Lunar. After all, those with a weak will are unlikely to become stewards.
Since a Lunar's tell is unique to them personally, noticing that Lunar's tell in a specific creature gives a level of certainty that that creature is, in fact, the Lunar in disguise.
Noticing a Lunar's tell requires a (Perception + Alertness) roll at difficulty 6. Several modifiers influence this roll by either lowering or increasing the difficulty (though always with a minimum of 1), or giving an external penalty. The following table summarizes these the roll's difficulty and modifiers:
| Situation | Modifier |
|---|---|
| Lunar is in a true form | -4 difficulty |
| Observer is looking for shapeshifters | -2 difficulty |
| Observer knows Lunar's tell | -2 difficulty |
| Lunar is in a false form | -4 external penalty |
Design Comments
Base difficulty
I tried setting the base difficulty at some value related to the Lunar. However, (Lunar's Essence) is on the low side, since normal mortals (estimated at dice pools 4-8) should not really have a solid chance of seeing through it.
I settled on (Lunar's Willpower / 2) for a while, but that suffers from the same problem really. The idea of weak-willed Lunar's being easier to discover though... Then again, the conceptual idea I had was that the tell is visible exactly because Lunar's have strong wills. Which goes against the mechanic of relating base difficulty to Willpower.
On External Penalties
because "Lunar is in a false form" is set up as an external penalty this allows all manner of Essence users that focus on observations, and commensurately have some "Ignore external penalties" effect, to ignore the additional penalties originating from the Lunar's shape-shifting into a false form.
Split false form penalty
There is a common-sense argument to be made for splitting up the -4 external penalty into the following two (otherwise the "But I'm a perfectly fine moose" claim works even in an office building):
| Lunar is in a false form | -2 external penalty |
| Lunar's false form is expected in this environment | -2 external penalty |
This makes it so the Lunar should exercise a little more care in what shapes they can don for the given environment. This makes it so that Lunar's can specialize in an environment, by careful selection of shapes in their heart's blood library.
The exact mechanic is to be discussed, since the counter-argument would be: "But an unexpected shape is just that: unexpected. That does not necessarly make it less difficult to spot the tell."