Could Ranma believably join the Society of Sensation?

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Could Ranma believably join the Society of Sensation?

Postby SpaceKnight of Chaos » Wed Oct 27, 2010 3:07 am

I've dabbled in a fair share of roleplaying games in my time; one I was only ever partially interested in is a 2e D&D setting called "Planescape", focused on literally existential philosophy (as in, what you believed truly did define reality) and how it interacted with the Inner Planes (elemental planes of Earth, Air, Water and Fire) and Outer Planes (planes of the nine alignments). Anyway, to avoid getting off tangent, one of the Factions (philosophies with clubs) was the Society of Sensation.

The Sensates, as they're also known, believe that the purpose of existence is to experience existence. Sensation brings understanding, and their cause is to attain a perfect understanding of the multiverse. That means they must experience all there is to experience - they have to know true love and meaningless lust, purest joy and deepest despair, true friendship and utter enmity, lifelong loyalty and absolute betrayal, intoxicating pleasure and excruciating pain, they need to feel it all. They want to touch, taste, hear, see and smell everything that the multiverse has to offer; each and every thing you experience brings you closer and closer to a perfect understanding of reality, a perfect definition of reality.

Now, with this in mind, Ranma would be very attractive to a recruitor for this philosophy; after all, he can already experience so very much that he normally couldn't because he can switch between being male and female. He can approach things with different arrays of senses, from different points of view; that's solid gold to a Sensate. The thing is... would Ranma be interested in joining the Sensates if they asked him to?

What do you think?
Water, water, everywhere, and all was cursed and black!
Drowned ones cast bad spell and out come pig, girl, duck, panda!
Swirl, swirl, slithery pond, and join with magic spring!
Swirl, swirl, dirty pond, and rid the cursed sting!
Here my prayer, I beg you please!
Now turn these curses BACK!

http://www.issendai.com/rpgs/japanese-boys-names.shtml
http://www.issendai.com/rpgs/japanese-girls-names.shtml
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Re: Could Ranma believably join the Society of Sensation?

Postby Wyrd » Wed Oct 27, 2010 8:11 am

It would take a very skilled recruiter to get him to join. One of the things the society provides is recordings of other people's experiences, so that members can experience things that would be physically impossible for them to personally experience, though personal experience is considered superior when possible. Given how much there is to experience, many sensates tend to focus on areas of sensation that they want to explore. If the recruiter told him how many martial arts styles and battles from around the multiverse were recorded in their databases, that could get Ranma to join, and while there he could be led into more fully exploring the possibilities of his forms.
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Re: Could Ranma believably join the Society of Sensation?

Postby Drawde2 » Wed Oct 27, 2010 11:09 am

Plus the recruiter would have to convince Ranma to explore sensations in his female form. You know, the form Ranma would prefer to get rid of as soon as possible. I see it as more likely that in a D&D setting Ranma would seek out a cleric to cast Remove Curse as soon as he learned of that spell.
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Re: Could Ranma believably join the Society of Sensation?

Postby Wyrd » Wed Oct 27, 2010 11:14 am

If writing Ranma in D&D, I would definitely make the Jusenkyo curse too powerful to remove with a simple remove curse spell. There are plenty of curses in D&D that require more than a remove curse, though in some it is a series of actions or a specific ingredient that has to be combined with the spell for it to be effective. A wish or miracle spell could be strong enough, since convincing someone to cast such a spell for him would give you plenty of story opportunities to balance out the loss of the curse portion of Ranma's stories.
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Re: Could Ranma believably join the Society of Sensation?

Postby SpaceKnight of Chaos » Wed Oct 27, 2010 1:35 pm

Why would the Jusenkyo curse need a Wish or Miracle to cure it? What makes you so certain that it's strong enough that a mere Remove Curse wouldn't take care of it? After all, no spell-breaking magic of any sort has ever shown up in the canon - Ranma has always gone for Nanniichuan does and equivalents. And these cures always go bust for Ranma because they either weren't cures to begin with, have been drained of power before he got to them, or somebody else screws things over and wastes it before he gets a chance to use it.

Anyway, on topic, just what sorts of sensations could Ranma believably provide when he first joins the Sensates? What memories/feelings of his will they want him to copy to a sensory stone - which may even be how he ends up joining; not because he wants to, but because he finds that selling his experiences to the Sensates gives him the cash he needs to survive, and in his desire to keep paying the bills, he finds himself drawn into the Sensate lifestyle and from there to their philosophy.

The most obvious experience to sell would be his experiences at Jusenkyo, at the very least the actual first transformation.
Water, water, everywhere, and all was cursed and black!
Drowned ones cast bad spell and out come pig, girl, duck, panda!
Swirl, swirl, slithery pond, and join with magic spring!
Swirl, swirl, dirty pond, and rid the cursed sting!
Here my prayer, I beg you please!
Now turn these curses BACK!

http://www.issendai.com/rpgs/japanese-boys-names.shtml
http://www.issendai.com/rpgs/japanese-girls-names.shtml
SpaceKnight of Chaos
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Posts: 2561
 

Re: Could Ranma believably join the Society of Sensation?

Postby Wyrd » Wed Oct 27, 2010 2:28 pm

Most curses in D&D powerful enough to transform someone require more than a remove curse. Quite a few of those can only be cured by direct intervention by a deity, represented by the miracle spell. Often, all a remove curse spell does is allow the subject to be separated from the source of the curse, but Ranma isn't carrying around an item that bears the curse, it is a part of him. The fact that it continues to shift him back and forth would make it similar to varieties of lycanthropy, which generally can't be cured at all, merely controlled.

Of course, we have already established that we have different views on the importance of the curses to Ranma 1/2 and to where we like to see the stories taken. You prefer to remove the curse because you think it gets in the way of what you are interested in, and I prefer to keep it because it opens many possibilities that I am interested in.

As to what he could offer them, from his existing memories: The memories I think they would be most interested in are related to his messed up relationships, especially to involuntary gendershifting and how it impacted his life and relationships in a world that mostly considers magic to be myth. All of the styles of martial arts he has picked up over the years would be interesting to them, but not enough for him to join, though if he showed them memories such as the martial arts tea ceremony they might change their minds about that. That one is weird enough to possibly qualify as an unique addition to their stores of memories.
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Re: Could Ranma believably join the Society of Sensation?

Postby SpaceKnight of Chaos » Wed Oct 27, 2010 2:47 pm

It's not the value or lack thereof of the curse that made me ask, it's just why you seemed convinced that such a high level spell would be needed when we haven't seen whether or not any simpler spells could actually work. When you explain it like that, when you point out that Remove Curse is more for weakening the curses on blighted items so that the victim can cast them away, and that the uncontrollable physical transformation aspect of the curse identifies it as an exceptionally powerful curse in D&D parlance (as in the sort of thing beyond Remove Curse's capabilities), then it makes sense that Ranma would require a Wish or Miracle (or epic tier Remove Affliction ritual).

To be honest, having Ranma need such a powerful spell, when it's properly explained, appeals to me more than making it a simple matter of using Remove Curse - the latter works fine for cheap comedy oneshot type stories, but for an actually serious take, the struggle to find such a caster and then earn enough "merit points" to get is a perfect overarching goal, an excellent "hook" for the story as a whole. This is a situation in which the curse offers more to the story than the cure - it forms the backbone for the entire work and ensures a satisfying, cathartic ending when Ranma finally receives his fondest wish. A story like this, I'd feel ashamed if I didn't use the curse, simply because for once it's not merely cheap gag material. Of course, I don't want to follow Ranma 1/2's failure and drag it out for too long, but anyway.

Is it at all likely that Ranma would, after the first "batch" is gone, think that he may be able to find work (of a sort) by selling new experiences to the Sensates, thusly giving him a reason to further explore the multiverse?
Water, water, everywhere, and all was cursed and black!
Drowned ones cast bad spell and out come pig, girl, duck, panda!
Swirl, swirl, slithery pond, and join with magic spring!
Swirl, swirl, dirty pond, and rid the cursed sting!
Here my prayer, I beg you please!
Now turn these curses BACK!

http://www.issendai.com/rpgs/japanese-boys-names.shtml
http://www.issendai.com/rpgs/japanese-girls-names.shtml
SpaceKnight of Chaos
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Posts: 2561
 

Re: Could Ranma believably join the Society of Sensation?

Postby Wyrd » Wed Oct 27, 2010 3:09 pm

While I doubt he would seek experiences for the purpose of selling them to the Sensates, I can definitely see Ranma wandering the multiverse on his own, either looking for a way home or seeking new martial arts to learn. Over time, I can see his associating with other Sensates leading to him slowly opening up to seeking different kinds of experiences. If he has reason to regularly return to the Sensates, or visit different branch offices, then selling whatever experiences he has come across would be believable as well.
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Re: Could Ranma believably join the Society of Sensation?

Postby Drawde2 » Wed Oct 27, 2010 10:29 pm

They'd probably like his experience with the nekoken. As in learning it in the first place.

The Sensates believe in all experiences. Painful included.
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Re: Could Ranma believably join the Society of Sensation?

Postby SpaceKnight of Chaos » Wed Oct 27, 2010 11:22 pm

Indeed. As I tried to explain, the Sensates believe that pleasure and pain are both equally important, and so one cannot truly know anything until one has experienced both. There are those who consider the Society merely a way to bask in hedonism, but they are regarded as heretics.
Water, water, everywhere, and all was cursed and black!
Drowned ones cast bad spell and out come pig, girl, duck, panda!
Swirl, swirl, slithery pond, and join with magic spring!
Swirl, swirl, dirty pond, and rid the cursed sting!
Here my prayer, I beg you please!
Now turn these curses BACK!

http://www.issendai.com/rpgs/japanese-boys-names.shtml
http://www.issendai.com/rpgs/japanese-girls-names.shtml
SpaceKnight of Chaos
Prism Power Senshi
Posts: 2561
 

Re: Could Ranma believably join the Society of Sensation?

Postby Drawde2 » Thu Oct 28, 2010 11:03 am

Not heretics. Just low-level flunkies with no advancement possibilities. They're not considered true Sensates by the higher ups, and will never advance past the lowest levels. But still useful to the organization.

In fact it's considered a sign of actually being a Sensate to be able to get past the hedonist stage.
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