Conflict with Campaign Style

[Bruce Coulson]

This is a campaign/rules/style conflict.

My take on the game is that it includes everything we've seen; but that there's a lot of room for expansion. (i.e. Harry hasn't seen everything in the supernatural world...or the real world, for that matter).

One of the players (who's been thinking about being a co-GM) is big on Rules As Written and doesn't want anything in the campaign that's not in the books.

The big sticking point is psychic powers.  One player wants to run a psychic with powers not listed in the game book.  The possible GM/player is very much against this.

The power in real question is telepathy, a standard psychic (if not seen in the Dresdenverse) power.  With proper limitations, I felt that it wouldn't unbalance the game, nor ruin the adventures I had vaguely in mind.  He feels very much otherwise.

Primarily, I see the Fate system as allowing a lot of cool things for the players; of me saying Yes as much as possible when a player wants something (and explaining why the game will be better for the group when I say No when that's required).  Am I reading something that isn't there?

[Ala Alba]

A canon example of Telepathy can be found in Turn Coat, if that helps.

Not to mention also in White Night, and maybe Summer Knight(I'm very iffy on this one).

[rickayelm]

I would think that telepathy would be covered under supernatural senses. The real problem with telepathy is that it violates the laws of magic, so if you use it the wardens will try to kill you.

[luminos]

The basic rule is, as long as things don't contradict whats already there, go wild with putting in new stuff.  The Rules as Written explicitly encourage players to tinker with stuff in certain frameworks.  

The only real problem with a telepathy power is that mind reading would be a big time violation of one of the laws of magic in most cases.  But as long as the consequences of breaking a law of magic is handled, go for it.

[austinmonster]

well... Other than a conflict with the Laws of Magic (how's THOSE for rules as written)  that could easily just be a Minor Power (-1) type ability if it only allowed the character to communicate with those who would be willing to communicate with them.

They they wanted to start walkin' around and bustin' up the laws, you could just take Channeling "mental" (-2) I suppose.  It would allow for psychomantic attacks, as well as forceful communication.  

Remember that "psychic powers" in the dresdenverse are just minor talents that don't have proper training.  All those psychics out there are really mages that just learned a few spells on their own.  If they studied, they might have the ability to do far, far more.

[Ravangames]

I would think that telepathy would be covered under supernatural senses. The real problem with telepathy is that it violates the laws of magic, so if you use it the wardens will try to kill you.

Doesn't that only count if you are a wizard concept? 

It's not like they go around killing Fae for poking around in people's minds.

[Crion]

Primarily, I see the Fate system as allowing a lot of cool things for the players; of me saying Yes as much as possible when a player wants something (and explaining why the game will be better for the group when I say No when that's required).  Am I reading something that isn't there?

I would have to agree with your point that yes, Fate does allow you to say "yes" to your party more often. You aren't misreading something there.

Now, to this other co-GM/player, I'd point out the difference between the Rules As Written (i.e. the Seelie Accords) and the Spirit of the Rules (White Council stuff). If you go in as-written, you are just focusing on blocks of texts and restraining yourself because the system can't cover everything, especially since, as you thoughtfully mentioned, what we see in the game consists of what Harry and the Alphas have seen.

Besides, if you take a look at most of the margins and sidebars, you'll see that they offer possibilities for things that haven't been directly encountered or explained yet. For example, we've seen Kincaid for what he truly is, but we don't know what that is yet. Does this mean we can't put him in the game?  What about Mouse? We don't have a Scion template, but instead notes and guidelines on how to make it instead of the hard and fast rules.

Long story short: I think you have a better grip on the spirit of the rules, but there is still the Golden Rule of Gaming: Have Fun. If you and the players aren't having fun, then why are you playing?

And it seems like everyone else beat me to the comments field, but I think the point still stands. Go crazy on adding things that are fitting to the Dresdenverse, and enjoy yourself.

[DFJunkie]

The real problem with telepathy is that it violates the laws of magic, so if you use it the wardens will try to kill you.

Not necessarily.  Consentual mind-to-mind communication is perfectly kosher,

(click to show/hide)

after all, no one was talking about taking the Merlin's head when he sent psychic messages to the entire damn council at the end of Turncoat

.  

A couple options for making this sort of psychic playable:
1) It could be possible to pick up a person's surface thoughts without invading their minds, maybe they somehow affect the aether/mana-sphere/whatever in a way the player can read.
2) Include a certain amount of precognition.  Sure it might butt up against the Sixth law, but as long as the PC sticks to the gray area it should be points well spent.
3) Be sure to throw plenty of inhuman foes at the players.  Your psychic can go ahead and mindrape vampires, faeries, and other non-human sentients at will.

Your co-GM needs to learn to say yes to the players more.  So long as no one is being immature and attempting to break the game there's really no reason to turn down a player's concept.  If I was worried about anything when I picked up Dresden it's that the characters would have too much weight, and no one would want to play anything/anyone original (ie. we'd have a Harry clone, a Murphy clone, a Thomas clone, etc.).  You and your co-GM got lucky in having a player who wants to break some new ground.

[neko128]

For violations of the laws of magic, wouldn't it depend heavily on the type of telepathy?  I would have thought that broadcast telepathy, for example, was fine - reading someone's mind is not necessarily the same as hearing their thoughts.

Also, there's a fine line between empathy and telepathy and mind-reading.  I'd have said there's definitely room for grey in there.

[luminos]

Oh yes, there are rooms full of grey areas for the laws, especially on the telepathy front.  Sending a message by mental route is perfectly acceptable.  Maybe getting a surface "feel" of a person is still in the grey areas (I doubt the wardens agree).  But actually digging into their mind looking for information is law breaker, wizard template or not.

[Crion]

Oh yes, there are rooms full of grey areas for the laws, especially on the telepathy front.  Sending a message by mental route is perfectly acceptable.  Maybe getting a surface "feel" of a person is still in the grey areas (I doubt the wardens agree).  But actually digging into their mind looking for information is law breaker, wizard template or not.

I'm going to second this idea. There is a TON of grey area (as we've seen in the books), but I think this idea is a pretty good guideline to consider, especially if the character is just "sensitive" enough to "hear" surface thoughts.

Just my two cents.

[Steed]

I agree with Luminos on this one.  There have been several mentions in the books of Wardens paying little check-up visits to minor talents and focused practitioners in the books.  Some of them become decidedly less cooperative with Harry once he dons the grey cloak because of this, in fact.  So it doesn't really matter whether you're a wizard, sorcerer, or just a waitress at a bar that hears people's thoughts sometimes.  If you deliberately go digging around in someone's noggin looking for anything, you're probably violating the law.

Harry has also proven there can be grey area.  If you're in there because somebody else borked up someone's mind and you want to see what was done, that might be grey area, especially if you have some authority, like Harry did when he went spelunking in the minds of Molly's friends.  He notes that it's a grey area during that process.

So using it solely to communicate?  Acceptable, and even a good tactical decision for when verbal or physical communication is unavailable or a bad idea.  Using it to excavate some mook's mind so you know what that dark sorcerer did to him?  Grey area.  Plucking specific memories out from the mind of an uncooperative witness?  Lawbreaker.

[austinmonster]

I think the thing he is wondering is not weather it's a lawbreaker type thing, but weather the system can handle it.  It really depends on what he wants his psychic to be able to do?  Reading surface thoughts?  Defending against mental intrusions?  Obfuscation and misdirection?  full-on psychic assaults?

Protip: Tell your partner to loosen up a little bit, maybe get him a beer before you start GMing.  FATE is a fairly loose system that gives the players a great deal of control over their character.  Heck, in what other system can you control what happens when you loose a fight?  How many other systems allow you such control over the story and NPCs?  (decelerations and compels).  It's by no means free-form, but to my myopic eyes, it all seems to be about taking good ideas and running with them.

[Bruce Coulson]

Unfortunate, the beer option is out; I can't drink, and he doesn't...

The telepathy ultimately derives from the Fae side of the fence (a variant group of changelings).  The psychic powers really aren't magic, although I agree a Warden might not see it that way.  So, the Lawbreaker flaw doesn't apply (although, again, the White Council may see things differently..)

The primary use of telepathy is communication (crosses language barriers) and sensing lies (using Conviction).  It can be used to read minds...but the user takes a point of Mental stress for trying (it's opposed automatically) and a point of Mental stress per fact uncovered.  This stress would last for some time (at least for the remainder of the story).  As for psychic assualt...not at the refresh level we're considering starting at...

And the group that actually has considerable capability with these psychic powers has been avoiding the White Council and its Wardens for some time...although the proposed character doesn't know that yet.

[luminos]

okay, yeah, that all sounds great.  I would put up some resistance to mortals have full mind reading without law breaking, but the mechanics for it seem pretty cool, and it should make for a fun campaign.