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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Kaldra on November 03, 2010, 09:56:49 AM
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had a intense session today/night, it opened up with the party going toe to toe with Two Nickel heads, they managed to down one of them and the other ran off after two people taking serious consequences, they picked up the nickle and then put it into a vault untill they could drop it off at the church, while nursing their wounds they proceeded to make calls pound the pavement and try to track down where the other Nickel head went. They proceeded to track it down to the mayors house where they found out it was the mayor who held the other coin who had the players house raided while the two mobile had tracked him down. the only players who were not captured were a pure mortal based off of eliot from leverage and a true beliver who went to the church and prayed while the Greg, the pure mortal went to the vault took up the coin and went off the deep end to save his friends ( he acepted 5 compels his HC Portlands cop in the know, his trouble: death knocks my friends doors, and 3 of his other aspects ) and saved the day, i hadnt intended for the situation to seem dire enough to warant that but well it happened and then near the end of the session the true beliver made the move to redeem him. now the true beliver is going to get a sword in 1 refresh, and this seems like a great opportunity to have the true beliver really shine, but at the same time it feels like the player who went off the deepend should have to roll up a new character.... any thoughts i am torn as what to do.
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The RAW specifically state that a PC becomes an NPC at 0 Refresh. I'd say that's pretty clear.
What I'd do is take the new Nickelhead away from the player, have him make a new PC. Have the new PC tied to the True Believer, and bend the story towards the redemption of the New Nickelhead as well as the ramifications of the New Nickelhead's transformation from good guy to Demonic Host of Evil.
Then, if the redemption is successful--and it can take as little or as much time as the story demands, as long as it's still fun-- the "new" PC can retire or fade into a recurring NPC if you want, and the Redeemed Nickelhead can come back as a PC, likely with some aspects changed, maybe an Extreme Consequence, and perhaps some residual powers left over to compensate for the party's advancement during the adventures that redeemed him.
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aye, that could work. he could probably take up one of the faces we have lying around.
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I agree with blues.soldier - the player made the choice to give up his choices, to sacrifice his free will for his friends' sake, and I would think you need to enforce that. I would play Denarian-Greg as still someone who cares, in a way, for his friends. Just make it caring in the most deliciously psychopathic murdering fashion you can. True Believer's church having trouble raising funds for some Christmas play? Nickel-Greg runs out, blows up an orphanage as a distraction to draw emergency services, then robs a bank and leaves the money with the True Believer. He's just trying to help! :D
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talked it over with him, he would like to come back to the character down the line if he could. till then he is going to roll a new char and ironically enough he is looking at a true beliver... i am tempted to let my player run the Nickle head greg from behind the scenes and let him make his own trouble.
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Hey, if the player wants to feed good ideas to the GM, then by all means let him. Just keep in mind that the character is no longer under his control, so the GM gets the final say (but is willing to entertain ideas).
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Of note the rules do allow for temporary increases in power. If he gives it back there's no reason he couldn't keep playing the character.
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hmmm hadnt thought about that. i still want them to feel that going off the deep end is a major thing though so if i went with that what do yall think about throwing the extreme consequence of Tempted by power?
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No - give him the extreme consequence of Fallen Angel Shadow In My Head and make him take the power Demonic Co-Pilot to represent it.
He can invoke for tons of effects (for reference see the books with Lash) and it can be compelled for lots of fun stuff too.)
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My take on the corrupting influence of The Coins:
0) If a character touches a coin, give them an appropriate aspect, like "Curse of the Blacked Denarius" or "Touched by a Fallen" or "Shadow of <Fallen's Name>" or some such. Either swap out an existing aspect (like getting an extreme consequence) or make it a "bonus" aspect. Getting rid of this aspect should be all but impossible. This aspect can be compelled as normal, granting Fate (or costing Fate to refuse). This is a very powerful (negative) aspect, but don't abuse this much at first; it's better to be subtle -- besides, keep in mind that each compel gives the character Fate, so the Fallen Angel should make any such compels important ones. A good time to use the compel would be when the character is out of Fate, and facing dire circumstances.
1) As to powers, the FA doesn't *force* the player to accept the power. He just makes it available, and encourages/tricks/etc the character into accepting. If the player refuses ... well, he doesn't get the power and the FA keeps trying, or bides its time until the character's need is greater.
2) The FA might be willing to offer a power temporarily as a free trial, or might accept some sort of bargain to do so. It's the FA's choice to offer the power as temporary, not the character's, and the FA would be offering the power to further its own cause. Basically, it's like offering a kid a free sample of a drug in the hopes of getting him hooked: "the first one's free!" In this case, use the temporary powers rules, and give the character Debt (unspecified future free compels). Use the Debt compels to get the character into a situation in which he needs more power. (Note that this includes access to Hellfire, as described in Sponsored Magic.)
3) Sooner or later, (possibly right away) the character is going to accept a power permanently -- either he forgot to negotiate it as a temporary power (with the deal ALWAYS defaulting to permanent unless specifically agreed otherwise), or the FA refuses to grant the power as a temp and the player is desperate. In this case, there are no take-backs -- at least, not by the character's choice. The FA may decide to allow the player to swap the power for another (generally bigger) power. Remember that for each power added to the sheet permanently, the character loses a Fate point ... or gains a Debt if he can't or won't pay.
4) Once the character starts using FA-granted powers (temporarily or permanently), he will start to change, in much the same way as described for Lawbreaking. That is, for each minor milestone reached, let the FA reword one of the character's aspects if he used an FA power since the last milestone. You can scale this based on how much power was used -- if a character accepted a minor temporary power but the bought off the compel with Fate, you might skip this step or make a very subtle change. If the character accepted Inhuman Strength permanently, make the change significant.
5) Once powers are accepted, setting down the ring will cause the character to lose access to the powers but not regain any refresh. Regaining the refresh might be possible, but should be very, very hard. At least as hard as getting rid of an extreme consequence. In addition, the character will still have that demonic aspect continually tempting him to take the ring back up ... and starving him of Fate if he resists.
Well, those are my ideas, at least to start. These are completely homebrew, so don't take them as Canon. But I think they fit.
In your particular case, if you and the player would like to continue with the character as a PC, you could do a minor re-write of what happened, inserting the above mechanics. Perhaps some of the powers accepted were permanent (at least some should be) while others were temporary. Figure out how much Debt he accumulated from both temporary and permanent powers (by your use of 'deep end', I'm guessing this will be high, perhaps ten or more), figure out what permanent powers he now has, give him the freebie demonic aspect and do a significant rewrite for one of his existing aspects (or maybe more than one if it seems appropriate; an example of a significant rewrite might be to change "Protective of my friends" to "Those who cross my friends PAY!"), and go from there.
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thank yall for your responses, how would you compel Fallen Angel Shadow In My Head Tbora?
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Anything to accept more power from the Power giving it more control, anything to corrupt the characters morals, anything to obtain more power in general, etc, etc.
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so would you compel the character every time you offered power? or could be useful?
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In would compel everytime the Fallen Offered power, think like Harry was in Dead Beat when he was beat up and Lash offered him the coin to boost him and save him while he was in that really tight spot.
That would be a compel.
I would not do it too often, but when your in a really difficult position where saying yes becomes a lot easier then know, at the cost of your free will....
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To clarify, did the character actually drop to 0 refresh or below, or do you just want him to be unplayable because he took up the coin?
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to list the powers he took up super str spd tough recov hellfire then he pimped out a anlternate form
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oh yikes. Well yeah, thats pretty much making the choice to become an NPC. Have a bittersweet farewell ceremony for the character, get him to introduce his new character, and revel in evil GM glee at the potential to bring in his old character in later on as a denarian antagonist.
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the evil gm glee came after the true believer made a heartfelt prayer for assistance calling upon all that was good in the world to help save those in need, to send forth a emisarry to save those who have saved so many and was answered by Greg stepping out of the shadows saying "And save them i shall"
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the evil gm glee came after the true believer made a heartfelt prayer for assistance calling upon all that was good in the world to help save those in need, to send forth a emisarry to save those who have saved so many and was answered by Greg stepping out of the shadows saying "And save them i shall"
that's just super BA :o
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the evil gm glee came after the true believer made a heartfelt prayer for assistance calling upon all that was good in the world to help save those in need, to send forth a emisarry to save those who have saved so many and was answered by Greg stepping out of the shadows saying "And save them i shall"
*slow clap* Bravo, sir. Bravo.
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Remember, Michael (i think it was him) said.there is only one way to get rid of a fallen angel shadow: willingly give up the coin.
So, if he willingly gave up he coin, in theory he shouldn't have a shadow anymore.
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Only, he could not do that. With negative refresh, he gets no fate points. No way to overcome compels.
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I'd argue that that a Knight of the Cross could engage a Denarian in a Social Conflict urging them to give up the coin, with take out as being forced to give it up, rendering them positive refresh PC's again.
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Possibly, but I'd say they could always concede and run. They'd have to stick around to be taken out.
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it would only be able to after a physical conflict severe enough to surround the denarian.
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Well, either you need to write the character off as an NPC, or you need to come up with an alternative that does not trivialize the EXTREMELY SERIOUS choice the character made to accept the help of a Fallen Angel. The first option is, of course, a lot easier than the second.
Even if you tried the second option, here's the minimum situation:
* You work out the total refresh worth of powers accepted. That's your starting Debt. (Looks like over twenty!) Add in some for any bonuses he got from Hellfire use.
* Reduce the powers back down to the point at which he has 1 net refresh, and retcon the others to be 'loaner' powers.
* Alter one of his Aspects to a Fallen Shadow aspect.
Then continue playing. Make the Debt painful (which shouldn't be too difficult, since he'll have little Fate). Don't allow him to simply drop the coin, because he wants and needs that coin! The only way he should be able to free himself is to somehow burn through (in non-trivial ways) all of that Debt. And in the meantime, the FA is going to be using those compels to try to put him into situations in which he'll get even more debt back due to loaned power to get him out of the situation.
The odds should be against him. If he fails, try to come up with a suitably epic exit into NPChood. But if he somehow manages to pull himself out, there should be reason to be proud of the accomplishment -- not just "Well, I lost a social challenge against the Knight, so he convinced me to drop the coin!"
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okay, wow, I really like Becq's idea. That sounds like something you should pitch for your player to see if they are interested in that approach.
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as do i, now time for some math. argh blast you becq i get enough of this in my major >.>
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as do i, now time for some math. argh blast you becq i get enough of this in my major >.>
There's not really much math, just add up the powers used, and done.
By the way, you might want to consider charging debt for the use of permanent demonic powers, too. I'm not sure how that balance would work out. But if you only pay two debt to get the Inhuman Strength permanently, and can use it forever 'for free', then there's much less reason to want a temporary power (which would cost the same two debt, but go away. I'm thinking one of the following options:
1) If you use any demonic powers in a scene, you get a point of debt (total).
2) If you use any demonic powers in a scene, you make a discipline or conviction roll (kind of like for hunger); if you fail you get a point of debt
3) If you use any demonic powers between milestones, you get a point of debt.
Any temporary powers don't count toward this, since you already paid for them (and will pay again if you want to use them later). The main point here is that if the character is really trying for that road of redemption, he not only needs to atone (by burning off the debt in a way that doesn't corrupt them utterly) but he also has to obstain from using his demonic powers, as well. And meanwhile, the FA will be goading him on, telling him that he and his friends wouldn't be suffering so much hardship if only he'd accept a little help...
If you end up using any or all of the mechanics I've suggested, I'd love to hear feedback as to how it worked out and whether or not it 'felt' right. :)
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I still think, especially with the play you've already done, that actually removing the PC from play is the best idea. Otherwise, you're going against the spirit of the world, IMO.
However, if you want to go the "still a playable character" route, hacking the Hunger track to represent his temptation to use the power of the Coin is a good way to go.