Military black-ops warlocks (no law talk...sort of)

[sinker]

So I had an idea for a campaign I might or might not run. Basically since the White Council stays away from all governments, it's safe to say that most governments as a whole are in the dark. And as mentioned in a couple of books, the White Council is too small (proportionally) to catch most of the minor or wizard class talents before their powers fully manifest.

Bearing those two concepts in mind I was thinking about a government psi-ops program that stumbles upon people with talent. None of these people (the government especially) knows about the White Council, the laws, or actual magical practices/concepts. So finding what it believes is actual psychic talent, the government trains them to become psychic soldiers, black-ops style (espionage and assassination, etc), or at least helps them to develop their talents with that in mind. The players are these psychic soldiers.

So here's the dilemma I present to you. I put no law talk in the title, but what I'm looking for are ways to deal with the laws (or the lawbreaker powers). There's no question that these people will be breaking the laws. That's what they are trained to do considering no one even has a basic understanding of the laws. What I'm wondering about is how to work this idea so that all of the PCs remain PCs, but I don't want to ignore the laws entirely, because I do want to represent the slow twisting of these people.

Should I simply give everyone enough refresh to deal with lawbreakers? But then players with talents that can't break the laws, or with less opportunity to break the laws have a ton of fate points. Do I ignore the lawbreaker power, assuming that they all have it to some extent (and what all players have isn't worth buying individually)? But then I don't have an interesting way of recording that descent. Should I lengthen the number of instances between Lawbreaker powers? Should I allow a way to (sort-of) repair the lawbreaker damage? Maybe replacing aspects still, but not loosing refresh? Any other good ideas?

[Sanctaphrax]

Why not just replace the seven Lawbreaker powers with one?

That way, it costs two refresh at most. Which is affordable.

[sinker]

That sounds like a perfectly reasonable option, that I have as usual overlooked due to it's simplicity.

As a secondary I forgot to ask what people think of the concept (the players as a team of magic special ops) as a whole. Any thoughts there?

[admiralducksauce]

I think it's an awesome idea.  A while back I started a similar thread about MKULTRA and its possible descendant programs dabbling in black magic.  I came at it from mainly a source for villainy, but it works as a PC group as well.

[The Happy Anarchist]

I like the idea, but I am not seeing where the problem is.

Go for the 10 refresh - or better yet 8 if you don't want anyone to be a full on wizard.  Probably for the best, will also help them all differentiate.  Make them channelers, or evokers only, or ritualists or minor talents.

They will take Lawbreakers.  And they will slowly descend into insanity.  And eventually one or more will break and become NPCs.  This sounds like a dark story you are telling and that sounds intentional, why does it by necessity have a happy ending?  Why not ask what is worth selling your character's soul for?  This game is all about the characters being twisted, so let them be twisted.

Keep in mind, you are not going to be getting like 10 lawbreaker stunts all at once.  Just make sure to advise people not to fill up their refresh costs, then let them get down 2-3 points of refresh.  If you want it to last a bit longer, make sure there are major milestones to add refresh.  That will add the feel that they are constantly riding the edge.

*EDIT* Just to clarify, I feel like dropping to max -2 refresh and combining to one Lawbreaker stunt will lower the flavor, lower the impact and really marginalize it to just a general - I am a bad guy and good at doing bad things.

As opposed to the more flexible, I am a mindbender, and your minds are as toys before me - vs another character that might be killing people and start thinking of themselves as a tool or weapon, or start to enjoy it.  Or a fleshcrafter that begins to find the art in it.

There is just so much more impact and more potential for good story if you don't try and lessen/remove the consequences.  Make it a dangerous game.

[Sanctaphrax]

I think the problem arises because the characters do not know about the laws. When you have only 1 refresh left, you're probably going to do everything you can to avoid becoming an NPC. Which will likely lead to behaviour that makes no real sense for your character.

[sinker]

I think I'm simply trying to lengthen the game. The way I see it these people will at the very least be breaking the first law every conflict with the possibility of breaking more on a regular basis. That seems like a game that will last all of a session before all of the characters have gone off the deep end. Perhaps some of these solutions are a little too lenient, and I do want a dark game that explores some dark places, but I also want a game.

It occurs to me though that the lawbreaker power is not the sole way of exploring those themes, and in fact it isn't even the best current way. As one takes lawbreaker one must also change aspects. That is the core of the power, and how it explores those dark concepts. If the player's sole connection to the character is as a plaything then I could see the power being more important than the aspect, but I'm lucky to have a group of excellent role-players, so I'm less worried about penalizing refresh as a means to create drama. Maybe I should focus on reflecting that in aspect changes.

Go for the 10 refresh - or better yet 8 if you don't want anyone to be a full on wizard.  Probably for the best, will also help them all differentiate.  Make them channelers, or evokers only, or ritualists or minor talents.

Of note I was already thinking they would definitely be less than functional wizards. Channelers, evokers, and minor talents. I was thinking ritual and thaumaturgy would imply too much trained knowledge, but perhaps an naturally talented crafter or similarly focused ritualist would work. Especially if whatever ritual focus was steeped in folklore.

Another thing I was thinking about that I know you addressed in your MKULTRA thread admiral, What to do with tech in a situation where it's so very prevalent? I can't really rely on magically created equivalents, as that seems like too much trained/refined magic.

[Tedronai]

If you want to keep the players as PCs despite their lawbreaking and resultant spiraling descent, I would suggest scrapping most of the Lawbreaker powers entirely.  Keep the aspect-twisting rules, but ignore the refresh cost and the casting bonus.

[benign]

I think you could keep the lawbreaking powers as-is, have your characters descend into madness slowly, and describe how it is affecting them the whole time. Maybe have some other agents go off the deep end before the PCs do, and have the PCs hunt them down. Describe how every time they kill someone with magic or invade someone's mind during an interrogation, it feels deeply and horribly wrong . . . but that some part of them rejoices at it at the same time. Throw lots of compels at them in the form of nightmares, newly gained neurosis, and dark urges, and link them in any way you can to their most recent lawbreaking activities.

This way your players will understand the dark road they are treading, but on some level so will the characters. Then it won't be so out of place for your military-trained characters to begin wondering whether all this killing and mind-breaking with magic is really a good idea, as they will have some well-founded concern for their sanity. If they ever decided to stop this behavior and leave their lives in the military as a result, well, I can see that leading to more story developments and conflicts as well .

[Masurao]

I can see they will be getting in a lot of situations where they will be tempted to use the forbidden arts, but there are ways around them just as easily. Need to assassinate someone? You could magic him into a charred and roasted crisp... Or sneak in under a veil and shoot him in his sleep. Need to influence some official's decision making? Enter his mind and force him to do it magically! Yay! Or, kidnap his family with the help of magic and blackmail him into making the decision you want.

Unless your PCs are the very, very first magically talented people the government has put in this program, they will have found out how killing and maiming with magic affects people. They already know how important psychology is to black ops people and I would assume these are closely monitored for any abnormal behaviour. A project with these 'psychics' would be even more closely monitored and the changes in psyches would be even more readily and quickly apparent.

Look at it this way: would the government want operatives who can only function because of their 'crutches', i.e. magic? Or do they want capable, willful people, who just get the regular business done that more easily and efficiently thanks to their personal 'tools', i.e. magic? Even the best government assassin would be out of a job, if he could only function at normal (peak) efficiency while high. (Then again, it would be a fun plot to hide the fact that there is such a crutch)

[ways and means]

For zero lore characters I only really see the first, third and fourth laws coming up as the other laws usually require a true understanding of magic or thaumaturgy, it would be reasonable to merge the fourth and the third rules (mind bending law) so you would only be dealing with (-4 -6) worth of refresh with most characters as these characters are unlikely to have refinement (no true understanding of their power) the game should last quite a while. Also lawbreaker doesn't necessarily make you insane it makes you into a monster (Cowl seemed a fully functioning human being capable of logic and reason) the government might like its super soldiers being very dedicated to the job and willing to do ANYTHING to succeed.

[Ren]

Another possible option could be that the organization in particular is somehow considered an Accorded Group in and of themselves, thus avoiding the whole Law-Breaker thing entirely.
Or heck they could even be an unknown faction of the White Council that runs under the Auspices and watchful eye of the Blackstaff so they are allowed to break certain laws under certain conditions.
But on the whole limiting the kind of magic they can do and leaving the Lawbreaker rules in place as is should be fine. I believe that the intend behind usage defines the actual law-breaking or lack thereof. i.e. using magic to murder a mortal because they peed on your shoes; very bad. Using magic to assassinate an evil Dictator who is responsible for genocide...not so bad. Only the White Council looks at things in black and white, granted they kind of have to or their control would dissolve in a hurry, but would they really want to poke the hornets nest of killing off a bunch of mortal-aligned warlocks? Or even make them aware of the existence of the White Council and the Laws?
As a side note you could also do a variation where the characters are descendants of old Nazi Black Magic Programs from WWII or so...go ahead and be evil, you know you want to...

[Rubycon]

Why not introducing a npc who tells them about the council and the laws?

[devonapple]

There are two aspects (ha ha) of the Laws of Magic here. There are the offenses that will get you beheaded if discovered by the White Council, and the acts which will stain your soul and get you Lawbreaker Stunts.

If the conceit of the game is that these black ops warlocks are well and truly beyond the White Council's notice somehow, then the beheading element is (for the moment) moot.

As for the soul-staining Lawbreaker element, this depends on what kind of game you want to play. The DresdenVerse establishes that warlocks - who are almost invariably ignorant of the White Council until they are breaking down the door - are corrupted by using magic in particular ways, *whether or not* the White Council is there to point a finger and say "bad warlock!" Butcher has set it up as a fairly immutable consequence of mortal spellcasting, a "natural" effect of doing these things.

So if you want to play a canon-compliant DresdenVerse game, then yes, these acts are going to warp and twist these black ops wizards in the ways that the RAW have set up, in line with the rules of the DresdenVerse as it has been more or less established.

The government may or may not be savvy enough to deploy these wizards in such a way as to slow this descent, or know what to do with them when they turn bad. The government may even have an agreement with another supernatural group to provide them with the equivalent of

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Ebenezar McCoy's Blackstaff

(I am also reminded of an anime series I saw recently, called in English "Puella Magi: Madoka Magica"

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in which "magical girls" fight evil until they, themselves give into the futility of their new lives, turn evil, and become the very things they were originally fighting

.

But, if you want to play a Dresden-flavored black-ops game in which this doesn't matter - because they are going to "Special Ops Heaven," then set those rules aside. "Special ops Heaven," of course, from this bit in the Venture Brothers episode "¡Viva los Muertos!":

Hunter: What is all this namby-pamby feel-bad-about-good-wetwork

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bullshit

?! You're beyond good and evil, Superman! You work for the government.
Brock: What about uhhh, humanity and empathy and all that garbage?
Hunter: Who cares? You're going to special ops heaven.
Brock: Really?
Hunter: Really! And it's god-damned great! The G-Man Valhalla! There's trim and guns everywhere. And we eat steak flavored clouds and poop secrets!
Brock: But you're not even dead. You're a woman!
Hunter: And you're a tool, boy, a tool! Built for a single purpose by the United States of shut your third god-damned eye for a good

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fucking

reason! You can't teach a hammer to love nails, son. That dog don't hunt!

[Mindflayer94]

What I'd do is introduce a stress track, similar to hunger stress. When a character violate one of the laws of magics, they take a hit on the lawbreaker track (which I propose being based on discipline, so as to have characters with plenty of stress), with a number of required shifts. When the operatives are taken out on that track have them take the lawbreaker power that correlates to the action that set off the hit. This way, you can still have the feel of a Dresden game (the descent into madness a la lawbreaking), while not having the players go full on warlock in the first session.