Precognition represents the power to predict the future. This power is perhaps the most difficult to incorporate into games, and the Storyteller should proceed cautiously. Precognition is also difficult for characters to use properly. While precognitive visions might give a psychic a clear vision of a future event, the future changes constantly based on people’s actions. Thus, when a psychic receives a completely “accurate” vision of the future, time remains in flux, and a seer can never be entirely sure whether his actions in response to the vision will prevent the it from coming to pass or ensure that it will do so. Even with an exceptional success, a character’s vision can still be distorted, blurry or possibly even wrapped in symbolism, particularly in the case of dream precognition or precognition though a focus. Characters must generally use the Occult Skill to interpret what they perceive. Psychics who possess the Precognition Merit are sometimes called “precogs.” Those who require foci such as cards or tea leaves are sometimes referred to as “seers” or (often disparagingly) “fortune-tellers.”

A precog can never predict the immediate future (i.e., what will happen next within the current scene). That is more the purview of the Danger Sense Merit. A roll to see the future suffers a penalty based on temporal proximity, and the Storyteller should always roll for a character who uses Precognition, since the player may be able to deduce when something might occur from noting the penalty applied, even if the roll is unsuccessful. Each success on the roll allows the player to ask one question about the future event.

Example: Madame Zora tells the fortune of a young girl who wants to know when she’ll be married, and to whom. The Storyteller knows the girl will most likely get married in about three years, so a –4 penalty is applied to Zora’s dice pool, which is rolled by the Storyteller. Zora gets two successes, and Zora’s player can ask up to two questions about the girl’s wedding. Triggering the vision costs Zora one Willpower point.

Cost: 1 Willpower
Dice Pool: Wits + Occult
Action: Instant

Roll Results
Dramatic Failure:
The seer has a wildly false or misleading vision. Since the Storyteller makes the roll on the player’s behalf, allow him to ask an arbitrary number of questions, say one to three, and invent erroneous or misleading information about the scene observed.

Failure:
Failure indicates that the precog fails to produce a vision.

Success:
The character has a precognitive vision. The player may ask one question about the vision per success. No more than one successful vision about a specific scene may be had every 24 hours.

Exceptional Success:
Additional successes are their own reward. The Storyteller may point out significant details about which the player does not think to ask.

Option [Precognitive Dreams]: The psychic’s visions come to him in the form of dreams. Thus, he can trigger visions only after entering a trance state.

Option [Required Foci]: The psychic requires some form of divination tool in order to predict the future. Common types of divinatory tools are listed in the “Tools of the Fortune-Teller”. The psychic can attempt to force a vision without using such tools, but doing so reduces the effort to a chance die.

Option [Touch Precognition]: The psychic can predict the future of other people only while physically touching them. The psychic can predict a person’s future with some object close to that person if the seer also has the Psychometry Merit. Otherwise, the psychic can only try to force a vision, which reduces the effort to a chance die. All attempts by a psychic to predict his own future are reduced to a chance die.

Option [Uncontrolled Precognition]: A psychic whose powers are uncontrolled has precognitive visions only at times of the Storyteller’s choosing, although the psychic should generally have at least one vision per session.