Author Topic: How would you model this specific magic from Dr. Strange?  (Read 2971 times)

Offline Diceling

  • Participant
  • *
  • Posts: 12
    • View Profile
How would you model this specific magic from Dr. Strange?
« on: November 14, 2016, 01:26:09 PM »
DISCLAIMER: If you have not seen Marvel's Dr. Strange yet and would like to avoid spoilers, I suggest you stop reading now!

Still here? Good.

(click to show/hide)

Say I have a character in Dresdens Files RPG who would like to construct such a "device". Would you consider that possible and, if so, how would you model it?

« Last Edit: November 14, 2016, 01:44:38 PM by Diceling »

Offline Quantus

  • Special Collections Division
  • Needs A Life
  • ****
  • Posts: 25216
  • He Who Lurks Around
    • View Profile
Re: How would you model this specific magic from Dr. Strange?
« Reply #1 on: November 14, 2016, 01:50:06 PM »
DISCLAIMER: If you have not seen Marvel's Dr. Strange yet and would like to avoid spoilers, I suggest you stop reading now!

Still here? Good.

(click to show/hide)

Say I have a character in Dresdens Files RPG who would like to construct such a "device". Would you consider that possible and, if so, how would you model it?
Anything's possible.  It would require a hell of a power source, and I'd personally tie it to Ley Lines, so that you can't literally pop up anywhere, but you can pop up anywhere that there is a resonant Ley Line confluence, which could get you to the right ballpark for most purposes, similar to a competent Way's traveler.     
<(o)> <(o)>
        / \
      (o o)
   \==-==/


“We’re all imaginary friends to one another."

"An entire life, an entire personality, can be permanently altered by just one sentence." -An Accidental Villain

Offline potestas

  • Conversationalist
  • **
  • Posts: 300
    • View Profile
Re: How would you model this specific magic from Dr. Strange?
« Reply #2 on: November 14, 2016, 03:50:48 PM »
my opinion from someone who still plays marvel superheros on occasion, the two types of magic aren't the same and trying to cross them would pretty much destroy anything Dresden in this game. i know i am always wanting to increase the power of the dresden wizards but i just cant see this being a really good avenue. By definition in the Dresden world Dormammu is an outsider, the Dark dimension is the outsider dimension. The other critters you can call on in the marvel universe are also outsider dimensions (beings) even the good ones. That's what makes them so powerful in the marvel universe. Also much of what the marvel wizards can do can be done relatively quickly because they aren't using their own power. You would need some kind of evothuam just to simulate it and would have to come at a very low cost considering how much crap they were flinging around.

Love teh movie so glad it made money so we can probably get another one out of it.

If you want to play marve lsuper hero wizards here is a site you can go to to get all the stuff released in its hey day http://www.classicmarvelforever.com/cms/

I've downloaded everything just in case but it has been up for years.

Offline dragoonbuster

  • Conversationalist
  • **
  • Posts: 498
    • View Profile
Re: How would you model this specific magic from Dr. Strange?
« Reply #3 on: November 14, 2016, 04:14:45 PM »
This just sounds like a plot device. I wouldn't treat it as anything else. Stick an aspect on the building where it exists.

From a Dresden canon perspective, the only Earth->Earth gate we've seen was one created by none other than Odin, and it was considered to be a masterful use of Way magic. I'd say you're looking at someone around that ability or Merlin as the only ones able to create something like the teleport closet from Dr. Strange.
I'm a blacksmith! Here's some of what I do: https://www.etsy.com/shop/SoCalForge

Offline Mongward

  • Conversationalist
  • **
  • Posts: 146
  • Dwarf of the Or-Tench Citadel
    • View Profile
    • Polish FB fanpage of Dresden Files
Re: How would you model this specific magic from Dr. Strange?
« Reply #4 on: November 14, 2016, 04:39:23 PM »
I'd go with the ley line thing, if anything. With the knob-thingies changing how far along the ley line the Way leads. Because why not.

That said, my erstwhile GM tends to squeeze everything he sees into Mage: the Awakening setting, so I try to avoid doing it as much as possible. Some things just don't work for other universes (universa?).
Self-appointed Warden of my hometown. Poland is vastly understaffed, is what I'm saying.

The dice are on fire, and it's totally my fault.

Offline Quantus

  • Special Collections Division
  • Needs A Life
  • ****
  • Posts: 25216
  • He Who Lurks Around
    • View Profile
Re: How would you model this specific magic from Dr. Strange?
« Reply #5 on: November 14, 2016, 06:02:48 PM »
This just sounds like a plot device. I wouldn't treat it as anything else. Stick an aspect on the building where it exists.

From a Dresden canon perspective, the only Earth->Earth gate we've seen was one created by none other than Odin, and it was considered to be a masterful use of Way magic. I'd say you're looking at someone around that ability or Merlin as the only ones able to create something like the teleport closet from Dr. Strange.
To be fair, the one Vadderung made was on-the-fly.  It proves it's possible, but it should be significantly easier to enchant a magic doorway with months or years or generations of work put into them.

That being said I agree that it might be easier to just treat it as an aspect on the location and not get too intricate with it's function.  Saying it works via Ley Lines keeps it from being a star trek teleporter, so the DM still has ways to steer the story without the "why dont we teleport in/out" question always throwing a wrench every story. 
<(o)> <(o)>
        / \
      (o o)
   \==-==/


“We’re all imaginary friends to one another."

"An entire life, an entire personality, can be permanently altered by just one sentence." -An Accidental Villain

Offline Second Aristh

  • Posty McPostington
  • ***
  • Posts: 3819
  • Numeromancer
    • View Profile
Re: How would you model this specific magic from Dr. Strange?
« Reply #6 on: November 14, 2016, 06:36:36 PM »
To be fair, the one Vadderung made was on-the-fly.  It proves it's possible, but it should be significantly easier to enchant a magic doorway with months or years or generations of work put into them.

That being said I agree that it might be easier to just treat it as an aspect on the location and not get too intricate with it's function.  Saying it works via Ley Lines keeps it from being a star trek teleporter, so the DM still has ways to steer the story without the "why dont we teleport in/out" question always throwing a wrench every story.
Yeah, having a ley line superhighway would probably be a good bet.  I would probably also consider requiring the doors to be "tuned" for each destination along the lines of having a thaumaturgic-style connection.  That way in the narrative, you can put the heavy magical lifting of opening a few NN gates and zipping between them aside as being powered by the ley line.  Aiming your NN catapult would get handled each time by the "tuning" and would be reasonable for a party to do during a campaign without much issue.
We shall not fail or falter, we shall not weaken or tire...Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.--Winston Churchill

Offline Nepene

  • Conversationalist
  • **
  • Posts: 143
    • View Profile
Re: How would you model this specific magic from Dr. Strange?
« Reply #7 on: November 14, 2016, 07:27:00 PM »
If you want to include it and change standard dresden canon to make teleportation easy you could just give them inhuman speed or above and an aspect to represent them being able to teleport.

http://ryanmdanks.com/?p=165

Quote
Because there are lots of flying characters in the Battle of Manhattan, the GM likely laid out “air” zones. Only those who can fly, or jump really high, have narrative permissions to enter those zones (and Stark can because of the previously mentioned permissions granted by his Mark VII Iron Man Armor). However, since the characters on the ground interact pretty regularly with those who fly, it’s also possible that the GM didn’t make such zones, and thus anyone can move anywhere (flight in this instance becomes a descriptor of how they get around, but doesn’t change any narrative permissions).

In the same way, teleportation would just be a way to cross zones in an interesting fashion. If you wanted to get somewhere you'd have to have good athletics representing your ability to find portals that got you there.
« Last Edit: November 14, 2016, 07:30:57 PM by Nepene »

Offline Taran

  • Posty McPostington
  • ***
  • Posts: 9860
    • View Profile
    • Chip
Re: How would you model this specific magic from Dr. Strange?
« Reply #8 on: November 14, 2016, 07:59:29 PM »
There is a teleport power that lets you jump zones with ease.  It has an upgrade that let's you concentrate in an area anywhere in the world and teleport there.  I think it's "one minute of concentration".

Obviously, If you don't think it suits the Dresden canon very well, you wouldn't use it but, I think, it's balanced. 

Offline Ulfgeir

  • Posty McPostington
  • ***
  • Posts: 1566
    • View Profile
Re: How would you model this specific magic from Dr. Strange?
« Reply #9 on: November 14, 2016, 08:07:58 PM »
Well, an other idea is that it opens to different parts of the NeverNever,

/Ulfgeir
I have not lost my mind, it is backed up somewhere on disc...

Offline Nepene

  • Conversationalist
  • **
  • Posts: 143
    • View Profile
Re: How would you model this specific magic from Dr. Strange?
« Reply #10 on: November 15, 2016, 03:03:59 AM »
Dr Strange.

High concept. Supreme sorcerer, supreme ass.

Trouble. Broken hand and broken surgical career.

Aspects. Master neurosurgeon, pain is my constant companion, top student of the ancient one.

Skills. Scholarship 5, Athletics 5
Discipline 4, fists 4
Lore 3, Endurance 2
Presence 2, Rapport 2
Survival 1 weapons 1.

Super human speed (-4), sponsored magic (-4) allows you to use athletics or fists as a substitute for conviction for spell casting and use portal magic and astral projection and conjuration of weapons which can be used with fists. Item of power, cloak of levitation (+2) granting an upgrade in speed, Stunt doctor of neurosurgeon (-1). Chest deep, 1 refresh left.

By the end of the movie he's probably got a couple more skill points, which he could use to round out his skills as sorcerer, and probably gets another refresh and so gets a new stunt, mystic trappings, allowing him to use scholarship for arcane research (representing him actually reading the warnings on the books now).

Superhuman speed represents his portal talent, and using a fate point he can declare a portal to another region that's emotionally close to him, or freely travel between safehouses of their order. He can do nevernever style stuff thaumatology with the speed of evocation. The time infinity stone is a plot device, and has independent stats and powers of its own.

Note that he is mediocre at driving.

The doors would be a lore +3 placing an aspect on the wielder to make them mythically fast, +12 for mythic speed, +x for duration, and would require an aspect and a sponsored magic relating to portal magic to create.
« Last Edit: November 15, 2016, 03:11:35 AM by Nepene »