+0 Catch for WCVs?

[Eunomiac]

Could someone please help me understand why WCVs get a +0 Catch?  By my math, it should be at least +2.  Following the first three bullets on YW185:

• [+0] Focused vs. General -- Protects against all physical attacks, so no +2 bonus here.
• [+1] Access to Catch -- Even a +1 is pretty cynical, implying that "True Love" is comparable to True Magic (something "only a rare class of people in the world have").  It's certainly not comparable to a Sword of the Cross, something "only one or two people in the world have access to or could produce."
• [+1] Knowledge of Catch -- At the very least, "access to specific research material that could be restricted (like a wizard's library)" should turn up the general "WCVs are hurt by the opposite of their flavor-of-choice."  This is hardly a secret on the same level as Nicodemus' noose.

Black Court Vampires add up to +4 by the same math.  (The examples given at OW75 give them a Catch of +3, but only because their Toughness powers top out at -4 and you can't Catch yourself to lower than -1.  The same argument doesn't fly with the WCVs, though, as the Raiths starting at OW207 still have +0 Catches.)

Lastly, WCVs are mechanically outshone by evokers and the faithful.  I think they could use a little bump in refresh provided by upping the value of their Catch.

[devonapple]

Old debate. Lots of disagreement. Difficulties of "weaponizing" the actual Catch.

[Richard_Chilton]

Huge amounts of disagreements.

Personally, I think something that is so rare that only a few people have access to it should be +0 regardless of how well known the catch is, but that's my view.

Richard

[Eunomiac]

Hmm. Apologies for resurrecting an old debate (I seem to do that a lot with the WCVs).  But wherever the line has been drawn in the sand, I think we can agree that the Catch rules do not comport with the Catch value given for WCVs.  (As for weaponizing the Catch:  Grapeshot + Taj Mahal pebbles = Pure. Awesome.)

And a +0 Catch... that's harsh.  That's "Sword of the Cross that no one knows about" harsh.  No, I'm squarely in the "WCV catch = +2" camp.

[ways and means]

Could someone please help me understand why WCVs get a +0 Catch?  By my math, it should be at least +2.  Following the first three bullets on YW185:

• [+0] Focused vs. General -- Protects against all physical attacks, so no +2 bonus here.
• [+1] Access to Catch -- Even a +1 is pretty cynical, implying that "True Love" is comparable to True Magic (something "only a rare class of people in the world have").  It's certainly not comparable to a Sword of the Cross, something "only one or two people in the world have access to or could produce."
• [+1] Knowledge of Catch -- At the very least, "access to specific research material that could be restricted (like a wizard's library)" should turn up the general "WCVs are hurt by the opposite of their flavor-of-choice."  This is hardly a secret on the same level as Nicodemus' noose.

Black Court Vampires add up to +4 by the same math.  (The examples given at OW75 give them a Catch of +3, but only because their Toughness powers top out at -4 and you can't Catch yourself to lower than -1.  The same argument doesn't fly with the WCVs, though, as the Raiths starting at OW207 still have +0 Catches.)

Lastly, WCVs are mechanically outshone by evokers and the faithful.  I think they could use a little bump in refresh provided by upping the value of their Catch.

I agree with you but there is no right answer, if this comes up in a games and people insist this is a +0 catch I would count true love as meaning the silly transcendent version of love that romantic period of literature was in love with. So love is only true when it is both requited and absolute (and when I say absolute, I mean ABSOLUTE) to justify it. So it is only true love when both parties would be willing to sacrifice EVERYTHING for each other and I would also say objects related to True Love do not fulfil the true love catch.  There is also the even sillier fate descriptor of love so that everyone has one person they are fated to be in love with so unless this couple are fated to be together it doesn't count as true love.

[Richard_Chilton]

I'd argue anything you actively use as a weapon goes from being a symbol of love to being a symbol of a weapon.  The new emotions writing over the old ones.

Actually, I have argued that.

I've also argued that just because everyone knows that a tear cried by someone who died 150 years ago in your catch - when there are no such tears in existence - should be +0, not +2.  That if something cannot be effectively used against a creature then the catch should be +0 regardless of the number of people who know about it.

Now that I've summarized my position I'll stop beating this dead horse.

Richard

[devonapple]

At the end of the day, the Catch is as much a reflection of narrative impact as anything else. And the WCV Catch just doesn't come up that much, and that's alright. The best that tends to happen is that True Love ends up being the equivalent of a landmine. For Thomas, it has some serious life impacts, but those are story effects: weaponizing True Love in a combat situation just is not happening in the source materials, and we have to do some serious stretching to try to weaponize it in our own games.

[sinker]

• [+1] Knowledge of Catch -- At the very least, "access to specific research material that could be restricted (like a wizard's library)" should turn up the general "WCVs are hurt by the opposite of their flavor-of-choice."  This is hardly a secret on the same level as Nicodemus' noose.

Something I just realized is that our knowledge of the white court's catch (and our perspective on how accessible it is) comes from Harry. Harry has received this knowledge from Bob, who is a very powerful and rare contact who's specialization is in supernatural knowledge, and from Thomas, a very close personal connection to the white court. It's entirely possible that the knowledge of the court's weakness is much harder to obtain, however because we see the universe from Harry's eyes it seems much easier.

This is all speculation though, I have no idea how difficult it would be to obtain said knowledge.

Otherwise I'd echo what others have said, that often I equate the refresh value of a catch to how often it should come up in the narrative. Something else to consider as well is that the dresdenverse is a dark and a bit cynical place. Perhaps true love is harder to find there than it is here.

Edit: A last final bit. If the system is getting in the way of your fun or the story then screw what the book says. If you (and your table) want the WCV catch to be worth +2 then make it worth +2. However really make it worth +2. Don't just give someone the refresh bonus and then forget all about the catch. Make it that much more important to the game.

[evileeyore]

I go with the "Info not available" and "Impossible to weaponize" on this one.  Easily a +0 Catch.

[Eunomiac]

THIS:

At the end of the day, the Catch is as much a reflection of narrative impact as anything else. And the WCV Catch just doesn't come up that much, and that's alright. The best that tends to happen is that True Love ends up being the equivalent of a landmine. For Thomas, it has some serious life impacts, but those are story effects: weaponizing True Love in a combat situation just is not happening in the source materials, and we have to do some serious stretching to try to weaponize it in our own games.

... should have been included, verbatim, somewhere in the Catch section of YW185.  I completely agree; the Catch's value should track its narrative significance, since that defines its value to the character's interests in the story.  The problem is that the system for calculating the Catch value is flawed, in that it's too formulaic and misses the whole "narrative impact" angle; this is then obscured by fudging Catch values for the White Court without explanation, which irks me just a bit (... especially after creating an NPC and working out the Catch value yourself, to find it's inexplicably inconsistent with the template... so, maybe a misprint... better check the intertubes... *three hours later*...).

Okay, anyone who's tired of reading about this can stop here; I've made my non-argumentative points

Onward: Gotta disagree with the "rules and novels are in harmony" crowd.  Under "Access," there have to be more symbols and trappings of True Love in any one city, town or village than all the Swords of the Cross in the world.  It's the essence of conflict and story, and the Dresdenverse would be a boring and desolate place without it.  Besides, hasn't True Love turned up in relatively benign places in the books? (I vaguely recall a, er... something... being used defensively to burn a Raith, uh... at some point... between books, um ... 3 and ... 10?)  And if the White Court switched places with the Red, I guarantee you the White Council would have figured out a way to weaponize True Love.  As for "Knowledge," I know that we see this through the lens of Harry and his White Court brother, which makes the White Court a little more central than the norm.  But even taking that into account, the White Court is inarguably a Big Player, whatever their size.  There's no way this universal and poetic weakness has not made the rounds, filtering down through the ranks of the White Council and others.  This is not "personal knowledge required."  Jade Court Catch?  Sure.  White Court Catch?  No.  And even if I'm wrong about one of "Access" or "Knowledge", you still can't get "+0" out of the rules.  Ergo, my confusion and irritation are justified, with insurance.  QED.

I hereby declare myself the victor of a forum debate.  This has never happened before: Accordingly, I further declare myself the victor of the Internet.

Fulfillment at last.

*bows*

[Eunomiac]

Edit: A last final bit. If the system is getting in the way of your fun or the story then screw what the book says. If you (and your table) want the WCV catch to be worth +2 then make it worth +2. However really make it worth +2. Don't just give someone the refresh bonus and then forget all about the catch. Make it that much more important to the game.

Oh -- I should be more clear:  We've already made the change, and a few others, mostly to balance our Sorceress and WCVirgin (who, given her extra refresh in Incite Emotion upgrades and our chronicle's focus on social/political drama, makes her almost as narratively powerful as a full WCV).  I'm just arguing that the rules as written can't possibly result in a +0 catch for a WCV, requiring some fudging. 

[Richard_Chilton]

Just thought of something - something that might explain why it's only worth +0 without bringing logic into it.

True Love is the catch for one type of WCV.  Others feed on other emotions and have other catches.  If you hit Thomas with something that is laced with Bravery it will do nothing.  If you hit one that feeds on fear and is repelled by Bravery with something oozing with True Love, then nothing will happen to it.

So a WCV comes up to you - what's his catch? You have to know him to know what emotion he feeds on and thus what his catch is.  Having to know the person is +0 as far as the knowledge part of the catch goes.
Very rare: +0
Must know the person: +0
Total: +0

And for those of you who doubt its rarity, head over to the spoiler forum and read some WoJ's on the subject.

Richard

[ways and means]

Im not sure I buy the above arguement, you have to know a Black Court Vampires a black court vampire before you know what catch they have the same with any other group of supernatural creatures. Though I admit most of them leave quite obvious clues compared to the white's, though if a PC suddenly for no apparant reason feel an intense amount of lust for a perfect bishojo (pretty boy) he has just met, then the PC should be able to work out what she is faceing. Unless her luck is really bad and she is dealing with one of those Seduction Fae (the ones that consumate you to death) .

[Richard_Chilton]

But what if you met something you think feeds on love and it feeds on despair? Or fear? Sure, it's a WCV - you spotted that, but what emotion does it feed on? What emotion hurts it?

BCV - you spot one and reach for the garlic.  They all share the same weakness.  WCV don't.

Richard

[evileeyore]

But what if you met something you think feeds on love and it feeds on despair? Or fear? Sure, it's a WCV - you spotted that, but what emotion does it feed on? What emotion hurts it?

Not only that, but they are simply harderto spot out of the crowd of humans.  Also, just because it hit you with Incite Lust does nto make it a Raithe automatically... they can learn to incite and feed from outside their family lines.

BCV - you spot one and reach for the garlic.  They all share the same weakness.  WCV don't.

That's my take.  BCV can't hide in a crowd of norms.