Characters with a powerful 'Dark Side'

[Ihadris]

Hey all,

One of my players has said that he would like to play a Wizard with a 'Darker side' of his personality that is normally surpressed through some form of magical intervention and when that is block is removed his character is more powerful then normal but also more likely to break the laws of magic.

 I think this request is coming from his fondness of the scenes

(click to show/hide)

inside Harry's head where he talks with his subconscious/ Lasciel and use of hell fire.

Obviously power such as that is out of the question for a starting player but I want to try and accomodate my players as much as possible.

I tried to think of a couple of ideas of how to handle this-
- Changing around his skill pyramid when he 'lets loose'. As suggest at the end of the were-form write up
- Giving him access to a different list of more offensive, possibly lawbreaking, orientated rote spells
- Compelling the living hell out of his trouble aspect whenever he does this.

Im trying to make this something that will have consequences for his character and as such something that he has to think carefully about before going ahead with it. Any other ideas on how to go with this? 

[Rechan]

Building a separate stat-set for his darkside is probably a good way to go.

One method might be to compel him to Give In to his darkside early and often.

[PapaBear]

You could also weaken his "good" side persona. It stands to reason that if the darker side is his released state, its his "normal" state. And the good side is actually the aberration. So if you're having characters of a certain level, then the "sealed" state would be a bit weaker than them, while the DarkSide state would be on par with the rest of the team (or just a tad bit stronger, to make up for being the runt most of the time).

[Ihadris]

I handn't thought about weaking his good side, Ill run that by him!

Hmm I suppose if he's adding this to his character as his main trouble aspect that he wants to be compelled on it often.

[Bosh]

Like you said, probably the simpliest way would be to compel the hell out of his evil aspect. This serves too purposes:

1. It makes him weaker when he's being good since he has to spend Fate points to resist those compels and since he's spending Fate points doing that, he's not spending Fate points doing Awesome stuff.

2. Offer him big gobs of Fate points to have something happens to let his dark side come out and when his dark side comes out give him big gobs of Fate points to do crazy destructive things, as in "You're going to fry the cop's brain? What kind of wimp are you? I'll give you 2 Fate points for your "I want to see the world burn" Aspect if you try to blow up the whole police station instead." These big gobs of Fate points then allow him to do crazy awesome things but spending Fate points to power up his spells etc. etc. etc.

The things to watch out for are:
A. Make sure you don't get caught in the "hey my character will get to be powerful than anyone else's character in exchange for causing lots of trouble for the whole party" trap.
B. Balance how you compel things so that you don't screw him over when he's beeing good or turn him into a god when he's being bad.

[PapaBear]

Another point, though this might be minor: How will you have him revert to his normal side after he's gone Dark? I doubt the character himself would willingly seal his persona, and no one on the team will probably know about the dark side much less how to seal/release it, right?

Actually, now that I think about it, you could just give the dark side a time limit. Or have him go dark only under specific (and temporary) circumstances.

[kytanos]

Dont weaken his good side and give him a dark side to deal with.

That a double negative, no carrot. all stick, Unless you want to punish the player. It seems like a great way to alienate him
"Hey, your weaker then everyone else, and part evil. Enjoy."

dont compel the hell out of his aspect either, that's just cheesy. and will lose it's "Flavor and interestingness" quick. and by session 2 or 3 the eye rolling will start

Tempt the character and player, in roleplay. Give them little boons and on occasion larger bonus's, Think of it as compelling the players aspect's instead of the characters. If you be rude to this shop owner, next roll you get a +1. If you take the dark spellbook for yourself, You will be able to get the juice to break the curse on elza....(okay, bad examples, but you get the gist)

Dont make it a on off evil switch, Lead him bit by bit over to the darkside. Evil isnt just the big temptation's. it's the small ones too. remember that ^_^

[Erifnogard]

Another point, though this might be minor: How will you have him revert to his normal side after he's gone Dark? I doubt the character himself would willingly seal his persona, and no one on the team will probably know about the dark side much less how to seal/release it, right?

Actually, now that I think about it, you could just give the dark side a time limit. Or have him go dark only under specific (and temporary) circumstances.

Or compel a different aspect to 'break him out of it'.  To  borrow an example from a different universe, Xander gets Willow to come down from her 'Dark Willow' rampage in season six of Buffy by compelling her Friends Forever with Xander aspect (Yeah, I know lousy name for the Aspect, work with me here).

[Ihadris]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions, theyre a really big help!

Another point, though this might be minor: How will you have him revert to his normal side after he's gone Dark?

From what he has said he seem to want the inhibiting magic in question to be in the form of an echanted item such as a pendant and even if one of the characters doesnt share a common history with his, which knowing the way he and some of the others play seems likely, the time limit, specific circumstances and aspect compell all seem to be sound options.

dont compel the hell out of his aspect either, that's just cheesy. and will lose it's "Flavor and interestingness" quick. and by session 2 or 3 the eye rolling will start

I havn't ever run a game before even though I bought the rules for SotC. It was my impression though that these sorts of aspects were the ones you were meant to compell often? Hooks into the story, drive the action foreward etc?

I certainly dont want to making things predictable and boring could you give more examples of other ways around it like bonus rolls you mentioned. I didnt even know I could do things like that!

[iago]

The suggestions here are great. Let me also say this: the whole implementation of the Laws of Magic in the system will help you out a bunch.  Breaking the Laws *will change the character* over time, gradually but critically for the worse.  He'll need to be careful not to go so far that he falls into losing control of himself, and becoming that monstrous Warlock that the White Council was created to prevent.