Common Rituals

[Taran]

Highlighted the relevant part. It specifically mentions the preparation, and then says, that's all you need.

Maybe they just mean that you don't have to go through all the declarations to make the power deficit based on your lore.  So if you find a 36 shift ritual, you can just start casting it...

[Addicted2aa]

It appears to be discussing 'in character' requirements ("...the ritualist...") rather than game mechanics.  It also states you still need the skills used by standard thaumaturgy - Lore, Discipline, and Conviction.  I don't think you'd need all three if you weren't controlling the power.

Well, not to start that whole argument up again, but those are pretty standard skills for making declarations to help summon power for thaumaturgy. I think we can all agree on that. And Lore really only comes into play in the preparation, not in the casting. So that argument could go both ways. Also they occasionally use "the wizard" or "wizards" in the thaumaturgy section when discussion mechanics

a wizard can just go straight to
casting if the complexity falls within the wizard’s
Lore.

Maybe they just mean that you don't have to go through all the declarations to make the power deficit based on your lore.  So if you find a 36 shift ritual, you can just start casting it...

Possible. The temporary access passage says the user pays 1 debt in order to access the sponsored magic ability. I've been reading this as, 1 to get the ability and benefits, and for any more shifts the sponsor covers, they have to continue to accrue debt. So that suggests that you would still have to make the declarations, unless I'm also reading that wrong.

If common ritual's only benefit is that it lets non casters have access to magic, then yeah it seems like summoning power and controlling it should be the same. It just seems like there's something missing

[UmbraLux]

Well, not to start that whole argument up again, but those are pretty standard skills for making declarations to help summon power for thaumaturgy. I think we can all agree on that.

Eh, not really.  Any skill could potentially be used for declarations.  In my experience, knowledge and resource related skills are most commonly used.  It would be easy to avoid using Conviction or Discipline for prep and declarations...which would make them unnecessary unless you're also controlling power.

Shrug.  Interpret how you will. 

[Addicted2aa]

Shrug.  Interpret how you will.

OK. Done. Lore counts as the trigger, so using a ritual that calls on powers from beyond as the main source works just like thaumaturgy, but lore can(doesn't have to be) substituted for either conviction or discipline, but not both. Any have any thoughts?


Now, Sanctaphrax said in the OP he thought one of the main problems was a lack of cool examples. As I've lost 2 of the casters from my group, and the remaining one may be leaving soon as well, I'm thinking throwing these around might be a really good idea. So some ideas. I didn't spend that much time checking the math, so the mechanics might be a bit off, but I think the flavor is there.


Secret for a Secret, Divination ritual.
This ritual trades information for information. The user must collect artifacts of knowledge as preparation material, and share one secret no one else knows in order to summon the power. In return the entity will give knowledge that the asker was unaware of. Comes in 3 flavors, Specialized knowledge (limited to 1 a type of people EG, Practitioners, Criminals, Doctorates of physics) 5 complexity, Protected Knowledge (limited to a single small group, The White council, Las Cosa Nostra, Brain Surgeons) 10 Complexity,   Hidden Knowledge (Limited to a few specific individuals, The Senior Council, the People involved in the JFK assassination, Mathematicians who have solved Fermi’s last theorem.)

GM’s Note, when compelling the sponsored debt focus on knowledge for the spirit summoned. Reveal to it True names, or aspect of Individuals, including the debtee. Reveal to it secrets that the player or someone else may want hidden. Destroy access to knowledge that the spirit has, that it wants no one else to have. Any extra points of debt the caster wishes to call after the first must be paid off during the spell, offering up some form of information in trade.


Shadow Assassin, Summoning/Binding Ritual. This ritual trades a servant for service. User must arrange candles and figures to create a pentagram of shadows on the floor. Stand in front of significant source of light and cast their shadow in the middle of the pentagram. Three drops of virgin blood must be dropped onto the shadow. They must then fix in their minds their target and the offering they have brought forth. Erribus, The Lord of Shadow, will accept the offer or strike down the prideful mortal that dared offer so meager a bounty. If he accepts the shadow in the pentagram will disappear to destroy its target, powering itself off the casters life-force

This ritual will call up 1 of 2 assassins of shadow. The first requires 9 shifts of complexity to summon from the depths of shadow and 9+ shifts equal to take the caster out mentally including a mild consequence(13-15). The second, more powerful assassin requires 11 shifts of complexity to summon and 11+ shifts to take the caster out mentally, including a mild and moderate (19-21). If successful this monster will appear and go to kill the target. Any stress dealt to the shadow will be dealt to the caster and any consequences will also be dealt to the caster including extreme. Taken out results cannot kill the caster.

Shadow Stalker
-3 Shadow Walk, This is the rapid teleportation power from the custom list, reskined. The entity can disappear in to any shadow and appear in another within the distance covered in the above power.
-2 Silent as a shadow. Cloak of shadow, also immune to senses other than and touch
-3 Amorphous form with all trappings.
-2 Inhuman Toughness, Potent Catch +3 sunlight
-2 Inhuman Recovery
-2 inhuman Strength
-11 refesh
Fists 3, Stealth 3, Alertness 2, Athletics 2, Conviction 3,

Death from the Shadows
-3 Shadow Walk, This is the rapid teleportation power from the custom list, reskined. The entity can disappear in to any shadow and appear in another within the distance covered in the above power.
-2 Silent as a shadow. Cloak of shadow, immune to senses other than and touch
-3 Amorphous form with all trappings
-5 Potent Armor Piercing Ranged Area Weaponry
-4 Supernatural Toughness, Potent Catch +3 sunlight
-2 Inhuman Recovery
-2 inhuman Strength
-19 Refresh
Fists 4, Stealth 4, Alertness 2, Athletics 2, Conviction 5, Endurance 2, 

[atavistic]

My quick take on actual use of common rituals:  you find the instructions, which tells you what the complexity and effect of the spell are.  The actual instructions should also state what the some or all of the decorations which are required to complete the ritual as if the instructions were the wizard designing the ritual.

  Once you're ready you attempt to cast the spell, you take your sponsor dept and then start discipline rolling to build up your power, with shifts less then your conviction just like normal, and if you're not a caster you'll probably be taking some damage, or paying fate or taking more dept during the ritual to avoid backlash. Then boom, it goes off like any other thaumaturgy spell without actually having to possess the ritual or thaumaturgy power.
A wizard would probably have little to no reason to use common rituals unless it was for a kind of magic outside of his realm of knowledge.

IT might just be me, but I always took it to be that determining the aspects/decorations of a ritual was part of the ritual design and not just done ad hock or done on the fly as the spell is cast, thus the working together or doing mini-scenes to complete the prep, and give it a good narrative feel.

[Mrmdubois]

Just had a thought on another example of a possible common ritual.  At the end of Death Masks, Marcone invokes the equivalent of an EMP on Dresden's tracking spell.  He probably learned it from Gard but since he was traveling alone it's unlikely he had someone else with power to do it for him.

[Haru]

The way I look at it, what you need to build complexity are components. Objects of power or linked to the spell's outcome or structure, or significant changes (consequences). Whatever it is, it has to be solid or lasting in some way, not transient like a maneuver.

What is transient about a maneuver? I could do a resources maneuver and buy, for example, a silver chalice. I have now created, through a character action the aspect "silver chalice", that I can tag on the ritual. But the chalice will not suddenly disappear, not even after the ritual, it will probably just become unimportant.

Just had a thought on another example of a possible common ritual.  At the end of Death Masks, Marcone invokes the equivalent of an EMP on Dresden's tracking spell.  He probably learned it from Gard but since he was traveling alone it's unlikely he had someone else with power to do it for him.

That's pretty much my take on the preparation phase, too. If you don't have enough shifts for the complexity of the spell, you'll have to earn the rest. If the player is suggestion something that won't fit his character or the ritual or is just plain boring, I as a GM will happily veto it, until he comes up with something better. This will especially go for declarations, where I would only allow very few, and only if it actually makes sense. Lore is the number that decides how far you can go without getting something extra, it is what you are usually prepared for. Why then should you have half a dozen aspects suddenly lying around that you can tag? No, you are going to have to go and buy/steal/make/bargain for them. Sometimes, that can be resolved in a single roll, sometimes that will be a scene or even a campaign in itself, all depending on what you are trying to accomplish.


On the topic of common rituals, I just had a game last night, and one of my players wanted to play a Supernatural style hunter, a mortal who has a lot of guns and weapons and knows a few security rituals, like those pentagrams and angelic sigils in the show. I chose to use the common ritual part for that, since it seemed fitting, and it isn't really enough to warrant a supernatural power. At one point,  I had them run into an old bunker, where the big bad was summoning a demon, and he stopped for a moment to put a sign on the bunker door, so if the demon was summoned and they were to retreat, it would buy them a few moments to regroup. Together with the heavy bunker door, it made for a pretty good barrier, enough to let them catch a few breath and enough to clear their stress, which otherwise wouldn't have happened. I think it worked pretty well.
It is obviously not for putting up wards or something big like that, but for minor stuff like the above, I think it works rather nicely. It is basically a slightly ramped up magic circle, which pretty much everybody can do anyway.

[Tedronai]

What is transient about a maneuver? [...] it will probably just become unimportant.

Asked and answered.

[Haru]

Asked and answered.

Not quite. The aspect will still be there, it just doesn't matter for what is going to happen AFTER the ritual. And up until and during the ritual, it will be an important part of the story.

[Tedronai]

Aspects are Truths of the world that matter.
If it stops mattering enough, it can stop being an aspect for that reason alone.
Thus the impermanence of some aspects.
Thus is your question answered (in some cases).

[Mrmdubois]

Like an apple eventually going bad and losing its "Delicious" aspect.  If it gets thrown away because its no longer useful then the aspect passes away completely.

[Tedronai]

An apple going bad, and thus losing its Delicious aspect is more an example of an aspect disappearing because it is no longer True.
An aspect disappearing because it no longer matters is probably more easily shown in characters' permanent aspects, where, just because Harry loses his Dirt Poor (paraphrased; I don't recall what OW used, and I'm away from books) aspect doesn't actually necessitate him having more money to spend, it just means that that facet of his story will no longer be taking center stage regularly.

[Mrmdubois]

Which was basically my point because I was agreeing with you, but yeah thanks for elaborating.

[Mr. Death]

What is transient about a maneuver? I could do a resources maneuver and buy, for example, a silver chalice. I have now created, through a character action the aspect "silver chalice", that I can tag on the ritual. But the chalice will not suddenly disappear, not even after the ritual, it will probably just become unimportant.

That's not really a maneuver, though, at least the way I see it. That's more of a declaration--declaring true that "I have a silver chalice" or, alternatively, "I have enough money and know a store to get a silver chalice."

What I mean by transient is that a maneuver is supposed to create a temporary advantage--things like meditating, or a ritual cleansing for thaumaturgy, or tripping someone up in combat.

[Haru]

That's more of a declaration--declaring true that "I have a silver chalice"

I would interpret that to mean "My wizard is regularly going through antique stores to find interesting things, and just last week, he's found this silver chalice, that I think would be perfect for this ritual. I'll get it out of the cabinet and add it to my ingredients."
Time spent creating that aspect: none.

or, alternatively, "I have enough money and know a store to get a silver chalice."

This I would take as "My wizard often goes to this one goldsmith that specialized in making things for the magical community. He's probably got something that I could use, I'll visit him to see what he's got available."
Time spent creating that aspect: as long as it takes to get to the goldsmith, find something and get back. Maybe an hour, hour and a half.

The first one I would call a declaration, the second one I would call a maneuver. The big difference to me is if the character is taking action or the player is revealing something. That reveal doesn't necessarily have to be something the character has done, it can be anything that is a fact in the story right now.

In the example above, If the roll failed, the declaration would simply not be true. The maneuver on the other hand could still be made true by taking shifts from the time table. So the goldsmith doesn't have anything that suits your needs, but when you tell him what you need, he says he is just about to finish something along those lines for another customer. After you explain to him what you need it for, he decides that it is a worthy cause, and he just has to make a new one for the other customer. It takes him two more hours to finish, but he can incorporate some symbols you describe to him, that will make the chalice even better for a use in this specific ritual.

What I mean by transient is that a maneuver is supposed to create a temporary advantage--things like meditating, or a ritual cleansing for thaumaturgy, or tripping someone up in combat.

Yes, maneuvers can be transient, but so can declarations. The transientness (is that a word?) has nothing to do with how the aspect is created, but what the aspect is. A wet street can be declared (it rained an hour ago), or it can be maneuvered (pushing over a rain barrel). It will in effect basically the same, one will not be more transient than the other. The difference is just how you come up with the aspect, and often enough, there is a cool way and a boring way to go, and I think maneuvers tend to be more interesting than declarations, since they are an action rather than a fact. There can be cool declarations, too, don't get me wrong, but the scale tips heavily towards maneuvers in my book.