Comments thread for "The Laws of Magic: Part 6 of 8"

[cephis]

Warlock means "oathbreaker" just tossing that out there

[DrygonDM]

So an untrained Wizard could be a Sorcerer? 

Would the Alphas be considered Sorcerers because they have learned the one spell? or just minor talents?

From my understanding, Harry considered them to be slightly more powerful then 'minor talents'
the phrase "One Trick Ponies" seems to come to mind, from Dead Beat.

I suppose that if they dedicated enough time, they could become more powerful
- but it would take a very long time for them to get anywhere.
And none of the "Wizards" - including Harry - seem willing to take them in and train them.

Warlock means "oathbreaker" just tossing that out there

That's the great thing about words, see. Their meaning keeps changing.

In the Dresdenverse, Warlock is a "Shop term" for Sorcerer/Wizard/Witch and those "Have nots" of the Magical Community (the Lesser/Least powered) that have fallen to "the Dark Side".

[KeyMasterOfGozer]

Quote from: cephis on Today at 12:32:54 PM
Warlock means "oathbreaker" just tossing that out there

That's the great thing about words, see. Their meaning keeps changing.

In the Dresdenverse, Warlock is a "Shop term" for Sorcerer/Wizard/Witch and those "Have nots" of the Magical Community (the Lesser/Least powered) that have fallen to "the Dark Side".

That's not really a far stretch, in a way, someone who has gone to the dark side has broken their oath to follow the Laws.  Even if it's an unspoken oath.  I can see how they might get from point A to point B.

[DrygonDM]

Indeed.
Although I tend to agree with Harry, in the fact that if no one helps them to really understand what is going on,
more and more "new born Practitioners" are going to fall to the Dark Side.

Prevention being the best medicine for dealing with this problem.
The biggest thing about keeping secrets, is that is can also be used against you.

If no one can confirm who you really are, then you have no existance - in any 'legal' sense.
Both for the Mundane and the Supernatural Worlds.

[Kristine]

If no one can confirm who you really are, then you have no existance - in any 'legal' sense. Both for the Mundane and the Supernatural Worlds.

for the topic at hand - I think it would be advantageous for a "new born Practitioner" to be known by the White Council so they can be trained and if a practitioner slips up and fractures one of the laws then, of course, it is more of an advantage to be unknown.  I wonder if Molly had not had any interaction with a wizard if she would have ever been caught.  How many patients in jails or asylums (in the Dresdenverse) are accidental victims of practioners who were never caught or who don't even know they did anything wrong..?  Some game ideas there.

The Fifth Law of Magic is:  Never reach beyond the borders of life.

I think the active word here is  "reach" - if a spirit is within shouting distance and comes when you ask it, that is one thing, but if the person beyond the boarders of life wants to stay that way and a practitioner forces them back in some way, that is breaking the law (once again contingent on impeding a persons free will).

I think there are some grey areas here - what if a spirit comes back willingly and then is tethered to something in some way - is that reaching or does that break the law about enthralling someone?  Is it reaching beyond if you go after a malicious spirit who has retreated to the Nevernever?

[DrygonDM]

for the topic at hand - I think it would be advantageous for a "new born Practitioner" to be known by the White Council so they can be trained and if a practitioner slips up and fractures one of the laws then, of course, it is more of an advantage to be unknown.  I wonder if Molly had not had any interaction with a wizard if she would have ever been caught.  How many patients in jails or asylums (in the Dresdenverse) are accidental victims of practitioners who were never caught or who don't even know they did anything wrong..?  Some game ideas there.

Humm. Actually, I think that it might have taken longer, but eventually one of the Wardens would have figured it out.
Those guys seem to me to be the magical combination of Miami Vice and C.S.I. Miami with just a touch of Gangbusters and The Untouchables. These Wardens have such a reputation and enough results that even Harry has a healthy fear of them, and he became one.

Harry said it left a kind of magical mark, almost like a signature - so that even two people doing the ""exact same thing", the affects would still look different under The Sight.Harry also said that it left a mark on the one that does it (this seems to be a reoccurring theme - Using Dark Magic and breaking the Laws does bad things to the one that does it, as well as to those it affects), and that this is the evidence that is what the conviction is based on. Other methods might also be used, like Soulgazing, to determine if the person is still 'redeemable' - but that in most cases by the time these perps were caught, it was already too late. "Earlier Detection and Aid" is what Dresden was talking about.

This is not to say that anyone never gets away with breaking one of the Laws,
heck even in real life, C.S.I. etc, don't always get the perpetrator.

I not just a matter of not knowing that the did anything wrong, they have to be shown that what they did was wrong, and how it did more harm then good to those that it affected. And then acknowledge that it also hurt them.

Just because a Practitioner is not a member of the White Council does not make them illegal.
They only have to be a member of another acknowledged Group.
Of course, we have not really heard about another acknowledged group of Practitioners as of yet.
Just the Knights and the Ventorium {sp?} which were a bunch of mundanes that knew about and aided the Wizards.

[Kristine]

Other methods might also be used, like Soulgazing, to determine if the person is still 'redeemable' - but that in most cases by the time these perps were caught, it was already too late. "Earlier Detection and Aid" is what Dresden was talking about...This is not to say that anyone never gets away with breaking one of the Laws, heck even in real life, C.S.I. etc, don't always get the perpetrator.

If you watch things like Cold Case Files or The First 24 there seem to be quite a few cases that are never solved.  If someone commits a crime and moves to another area and doesn't do it again then it is hard to figure out who did what.  Of course in a game setting, if doing the wrong thing leaves a mark on the perp it could be seen but not necessarily connected to the victim.

Other methods might also be used, like Soulgazing, to determine if the person is still 'redeemable' - but that in most cases by the time these perps were caught, it was already too late.

I got the impression (possibly erronious) that the white Council did not give out fines or warnings, you were either guilty and executed or innocent and let go - possibly watched (or in the one-in-a-million chance that someone on the council wants to vouch for you - put under the Doom) So if you do something wrong you might as well run for your life.  Self defence is not forgivable either - your still guilty and executed...

[DrygonDM]

If you watch things like Cold Case Files or The First 24 there seem to be quite a few cases that are never solved.  If someone commits a crime and moves to another area and doesn't do it again then it is hard to figure out who did what.  Of course in a game setting, if doing the wrong thing leaves a mark on the perp it could be seen but not necessarily connected to the victim.

Indeed. And though it is indeed possible to get away with the crime, the GM should always remember that the Player’s Character should not really be allowed to get away with it.

Remember that all the various C.S.I.s and other Investigational Organizations (Like Cold Case, etc.) communicate with each other, trading unsolved crime files and odd stories. This increases the odds that if the perp moved to another City, and did anything similar, they would get caught. I would say that this is more true of the Wardens, and maybe also include a few Wizards of the White Council as well – Like Harry, even before he became a Warden.

And that's just the semi-Mundane aspects of it - there are still lots of other ways to have it come and bother the offending PC.
A Ghost haunting them until they repent and return to undo the damage to everyone else in the victim's life.

A victim becomes a type of supernatural creature: Werewolf, Vampire (Any Court, except White) or a Warlock and hunts the PC for revenge.

Strange things seem to happen whenever the offending PC gets near a Warden...

The various Fey become very interested in the PC, especially Winter...
                                                                    Lots and lots more!!!

I got the impression (possibly erronious) that the white Council did not give out fines or warnings, you were either guilty and executed or innocent and let go - possibly watched (or in the one-in-a-million chance that someone on the council wants to vouch for you - put under the Doom) So if you do something wrong you might as well run for your life.

This was not how I saw it. The Wardens just showed up, and gave the speech: “These are the Laws. Don’t break them, ever. The penalty is death.” Notice how there is no offer to Aid them, or Train them.

Self defence is not forgivable either - your still guilty and executed...

Self defense is the only exception – or our dears, Harry and Molly, would not be alive today.
It is still needed that the “perp” has a Council Wizard take them in and train them as an Apprentice, and they still get the Doom – and the Doom applies to both the Apprentice and their Master.

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Remember that we only have one example of someone “Outrunning the Law” – Elaine.
And she has become very much like Harry – by using her powers to help protect people.
She just doesn’t trust the White Council to be lenient with her, and she refuses to allow them to decide how she is going to live her life, and how she can use her power. Her challenge was to overcome her fears, and decide to fight back against them. And she still allowed a Council Wizard (Harry) to know that she existed, and what she was doing. Harry himself does not really like the way that the Council does things, and so long as it helps with keeping those monsters back, he is fine with it.

But, should she cross the line, I really do believe that Harry would take her down. It would be the hardest thing he ever did, but he would do it.

I love the fact that Harry is helping Elaine to build a new network for all the Lesser Talents to use.
Allows them to report things that they have no hope of dealing with themselves:
the information still gets back to a Council Member
- and the reporting party never has to meet one of those scary Wardens.

[Kristine]

Self defense is the only exception – or our dears, Harry and Molly, would not be alive today.

Er....Molly didn't break the law in self defense - the only reason those two law breakers are alive is because someone in good standing on the White Council was willing to stick their neck WAYYYYY out for them.  The average law breaker won't have these kind of higher up connections to save their bacon.

I got the impression (possibly erronious) that the white Council did not give out fines or warnings, you were either guilty and executed or innocent and let go - possibly watched (or in the one-in-a-million chance that someone on the council wants to vouch for you - put under the Doom) So if you do something wrong you might as well run for your life.

This was not how I saw it. The Wardens just showed up, and gave the speech: “These are the Laws. Don’t break them, ever. The penalty is death.” Notice how there is no offer to Aid them, or Train them.

If the wardens look for law breakers - if that is part of their job- and a new practitioner breaks one of the laws and then finds out that the penalty is death afterward-no exceptions, I would think they would run for their lives and keep their heads low, staying away from wardens at any cost.  It will hang over their heads for the rest of their lives - I would think that many of the one-time law breakers would start wearing those fashionable sun glasses to avoid any accidental soulgaze.  Any PC would have to know that the GM could take advantage of that at any time, and I would think any GM should have something hassling the character about this particular aspect all throughout the game.

Remember that we only have one example of someone “Outrunning the Law” – Elaine.
And she has become very much like Harry – by using her powers to help protect people.

We, as readers of the books, have only seen one person 'outrun the law' because Harry hasn't seen anyone else do it.  Harry has pretty much been in the Council's circle of influence since his father died.  Don't forget, Justin was a member of the Council.  If all the law breaking, more powerful practitioners try, understandably, to stay away from anything that smacks of Magical Lawmen, then they would duck and cover the minute he is in the room.  I think the world is a very divers complicated place and no matter how good your communications network, you can't watch even a majority of people most of the time.  One of the things I saw all the time on Cold Case Files is how some fairly clever people got away with some pretty heinous crimes over and over again and only got caught because they finally did something stupid -like confessing to someone they couldn't trust.  Go read up on the Green River Killer, or the Unibomber.  These guys were smart but hardly brilliant, and they had every law enforcement organization in the country looking for them, analyzing everything they touched.

I think players should be allowed to break the laws without being killed, if the need is great enough, but it should come with the certain knowledge that they will have to pay for their transgression for the rest of their existence.   They will never be safe again.

I think Harry (and I would like to think Carlos) would not kill someone out of hand for breaking the law if they did not have an evil intent, understood what they did was wrong, and would not do it again.  I would very much like to see what Harry would do if he found someone else like Molly - someone who broke the law with the best of intentions, only to find it actually hurt someone.  He couldn't do the same thing for this new person that he did for Molly as I'm sure the Council knows his time would not allow for a whole class of apprentices to follow him around, and considering the Merlin was willing to kill Molly, the new person is screwed.  Harry can fight the system only so far.  He would know this and would have to let the person off with a warning or be willing to execute them at the next Council meeting.

I love the fact that Harry is helping Elaine to build a new network for all the Lesser Talents to use.
Allows them to report things that they have no hope of dealing with themselves: the information still gets back to a Council Member- and the reporting party never has to meet one of those scary Wardens.

That may be great for the more powerful newbees who head straight into darkness and need the Wardens to come take them out of the gene pool, but for the person who only made their first mistake, one could hope this new grapevine is not sending a blacklist of one-time law breakers to someone like Morgan who will follow the letter of the law, and execute someone who has repented.

[DrygonDM]

Ah, I see my error, now.
Harry did break a Law in self defense.
Molly did break a Law, but not in self defense, but she had not "Fallen" all the way - She was redeemable.
Harry saved Molly based on this potential. And yes, Harry stuck his neck waaay out for Molly; let’s all hope that she realizes just how far, soon. There is no doubt that she knows a little about it, even now.

As for another case like Molly's - hard to say.
You’re correct that Harry has limits as to how far he can go in defying The Merlin and Warden Morgan.
Harry would need to have a lot of evidence to prove that this perp was still redeemable, and then have to convince one of the other Wizarding Members to adopt the perp as an Apprentice.

But, Harry does have status in the Council, as well as supporters within the Senior Council.
This is becoming more political. Remember that not every Player is going to want to play politics all the time.
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Some of the problems that I see for any GameMaster is –

(1) Whether the all the Players of the Group are members of the Council - in which case it's less of a problem:
A group of Apprentices and friends going around and doing their best to solve problems, and without breaking any of the Laws.
Over-all Success could eventually get some, or even all, of the PCs elevated to Warden Status.

No one should be expected to solve every case - not all Players can pull off the Holmes/Batman Detective-ing tactics.
In matter of fact, most are going to be lucky to duplicate the Dick Tracy style of Detective-ing.

(2) None of the Magus PCs are members of the White Council, and may have to learn the Laws and such the extremely hard way.
This can cause the GM no small amount of headache, since it will place the Wardens, and indirectly the White Council, as antagonists to the Party member's Characters.

(3) If each Player wants to be a different Type - Like:
A Wizard Type (Harry); a Shaman Type (Indian Joe); a Werewolf Type (Billy); a White Court Vampire Type (Thomas); and a Half-Red Vampire Type (Suzan).

This creates the most amount of potential RP, true.
But keep in mind that these different Types are not going to be constantly around each other, and it will be up to the GM to find creative reasons for why they are together every time a problem pops up that is too much for any one member of the Group to deal with.

I also see a lot of temptation for Buffy– and WoD –Fans out there to want and try to be Vampires, of either Black Court, or Red Court. The viewpoint of the Books appears to be: becoming a full Vampire made the Character a NPC. Examples like Ortega, imply that not every person that becomes a Vampire loses all personality. Although it is possible for this to be done, the GM should be very strict about enforcing the problems that being one of these really causes. Red might be able to get away with not killing people very often;
But, from what I understood in the Books - when the Blacks do feed, it’s never gentle. (Blood Rites)

– And, it should be decided by the GM which ones of these they will be allowing at all.
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Some things that the GM can remind their Playing Group Members is:

(A) The series has always shown that having Allies and trustworthy Contacts is a very important thing.

(B) Strength in numbers: Not just a cliché, a fact of Life !!

(C) There are always more ‘bad things’, some with un-imaginable power, out there then can be dealt with.
Some of these things can’t be gotten rid of at all – like the Winter Fey.
(Even Summer Fey can be nasty – when peeved off.)
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I would advise every GM to seriously encourage the Players have their Characters find creative ways around breaking the Laws while stopping the Bad Guy(s); instead of them trying to find ways to ‘get away with it’.
There are several examples in the books, starting with Storm Front.

Which is why I included several examples of the PC’s having problems until it is resolved.

And while the White Council may be filled with arrogant, pompous, self righteous assholes, it is dedicated to making the Entire World a better place to live, for People.

[DrygonDM]

And now, to play GM’s Devil’s Advocate:

Now, a lot of the Grey Areas that have been pointed out here by the other Members are very good Plot-Lines for the GM to use.

Solid foundations as to how – and why – a current VPC is the way that they are.

Remember that even The Shadowman, Victor Sells, started out with the “good purpose” of making life better for his wife and kids, and then just got pulled deeper, and deeper, into the path where the magic (or, more accurately, the Powers behind where he got/learned the magic) controlled him, instead of the other way around.

Shadowman’s feeling of needing to succeed was a huge indication to me for the existence of an “outside control” – almost like he was back at “work”, trying to get that Huge Promotion, fast. Sure, Vic had a “pet demon”, but how much of his own Soul did he lose to get it?

A huge flaw of the Magical Dark Side is this overwhelming Flaw of:
“I’m right, and I’ll destroy anyone who stands in my way, with my favorite trick or spell.”
Wiser VPCs have different tactics – Like in Cowl’s case: ‘Any means available.”

The GM needs to balance the Challenge that the Party’s Characters face with the Experience of the Players, in addition to each PC’s personal skills and powers.

Some questions that each GM needs to ask themselves are:
Would it be better to give more clues that there is something bad brewing?
If so, how do I give these Clues, and not give the answer to the Plot away?

In the Shadowman case, Harry might have been able to get all the answers right away if he had broken into the house and went inside.
He didn't, because it was too close to breaking a Law. "It's bad Mojo to go stomping into another person's place uninvited. Besides, it's impolite."

There are several things that the GM can do to "punish" someone that wants to just storm in and kick ass.

(1) Right house, Wrong time. There is nothing here to use as evidence, and no one to question.

(2) Right house, but only for meeting. Place where ritual is happening is at another, still unknown place.

(3) Totally wrong house - oh, boy! Now you have to deal with the Mortal cops as well as maybe the Wardens.

How does the NPC learn where the PC(s) are?
After all, not every Player is going to want an office, like Harry.

And why did the NPC(s) choose to contact them at this time?

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As for letting the PCs break the Laws?

Yeah, sure – let them. I’m just telling the GM to enforce the consequences on them for doing it. As per the examples given above.
Yes, it may seem harsh and unforgiving to the Players, but keep in mind that this is exactly the way that the Council, and the Wardens, come across as to the rest of the Lesser Magical World. The Wardens can’t allow anyone to cross the line: Vampire, Demon, Fey, Outsider, and especially not any Mortal Magus. And the price for being lenient may well cause the whole world to pay the cost of that mistake.

Can the Perp escape the Long Arm of the Magical Law? Yes, it's possible.
But just because the perp(s) got away with it, does not mean that the problems that stem from it go away.

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I like being here, and the things that are shared on here is great.
I just hope that others kinda like having me here, as well.

Well, until next time.
Happy Trails.

[Gallowglass]

That particular scene has caused some debate on the boards before. The concensus seemed, IIRC, to be that real distinction is that when Harry did his trick, he was simply giving power to what was already present (thanks to the Nightmare) with his own energies, whereas necromancers bring raise ghosts from slumber, and empower them with the energies drawn from death. The drawing on death, not life, seemed to give a very different feel to the magic in Dead Beat. Perhaps Harry managed to do his bit only because the bit that really required necromantic energies had already been done for him. Even then, not that the GP ghosts had to make bodies for themselves in order to harm the living whereas the spectres raised by Cowl could do so while remaining incorporeal.

I thought that the ruling was that Ghosts are not the actual dead but rather reflections of them.   This of course gives a differentiation between Ghost and spirit in that one is simply a less powerful reflection of the other.  This also allows ectomancers like Morty to deal with Ghosts and not break the Necromancy laws.

[harleshade]

Necromancy, Now the rule in it's fullest makes a difference between willing and unwilling spirits. That's how morty gets away with what he does. And it's an interesting read on hos Harry got away with what he did. He used a wording loop-hole that allowed him to summon a spirit back as long as it was non-human.  Long live Tyrannosaurus-Bob!