Quote from: WilConjunctional Synthesis: Freeform ability to bring dreamlike effects into the real world. The only limitation is that the effect must relate to one of the character's Eminences, as you can see from my example there is a lot of slush room.

Hmm... if it was phrased like that... no wonder I don't recall any freeform powers thing. I'm one of those concrete sort of people, and that phrase to me suggests at most 'illusionary' powers. Not clear? The world is real, not dreamlike, and bringing dreamlike effects into the real world would... to me personally, mean almost nothing, the 'real world' remains unaffected.   Failure on my part to understand what they meant or failure on their part to communicate, either way I obviously missed a HUGE aspect of the game, which may explain why I wasn't so interested in playing or running it.

Quote from: SpikeHmm... if it was phrased like that... no wonder I don't recall any freeform powers thing. I'm one of those concrete sort of people, and that phrase to me suggests at most 'illusionary' powers. Not clear? The world is real, not dreamlike, and bringing dreamlike effects into the real world would... to me personally, mean almost nothing, the 'real world' remains unaffected.   Failure on my part to understand what they meant or failure on their part to communicate, either way I obviously missed a HUGE aspect of the game, which may explain why I wasn't so interested in playing or running it.

I think the key to understanding it is that Synthesis is literally the synthesizing (or combining) of the real world and the dream world. A physical attack using Synthesis (which is possible, if difficult) hurts the target permanently; someone who uses Shadow to move from shadow to shadow isn't just pretending, they actually leap into the shadow and leap out again. I think it's a disconnect between what "permanent" means; the flame you conjure up might be temporary, but it still gives off light and the the burns it inflicts will stick around. Think less Changeling and more Freddy Kruger.

I highly, highly suggest that if you are actually interested in giving it a second look get hold of Tribe 8 2e. I'm not fond of the advancement of the setting from Vimary, but they did a good job clearing up Synthesis use. There is also some good advice in Adrift on the River of Dream, but I think most of that got folded in to 2e anyway.

Quote from: BalbinusThat was the issue, whenever I wanted to quickly look up a setting detail I couldn't, I had to read a story instead.

When DP9 accepted my Population and Economics essays for publication in the Tribe 8 Companion and told me that they wanted it as an essay and not as a story, I was a bit disappointed as a writer but it was probably better that way.