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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Mattastic on May 19, 2011, 06:51:25 PM
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How would you go about having a character that has a pet monster?
Like a kid who befriended some monstrous fey and grows up and now has a monster for a best-friend/guardian.
Let's assume the fey can become invisible.
I see them being helpful to each other and getting each other out of trouble.
Would it just be like a permanent summoned creature?
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Well, as always: it depends.
If the player wants to play the kid, and the monster is just his pet, you could model it after a sponsored magic, only it is sponsored... everything, so to speak. The kid could collect a debt (hey, fey don't work for free) in order to let the presumably tougher and stronger fey do something the kid couldn't. Maybe the kid on the other hand can give the fey something it needs or wants, to make it a mutual partnership. Which... probably is what you mean by "permanent summoned creature", come to think of it.
Another way to go would be to play both the kid and the fey as separate characters, either by the same player or another one on the table. The fey would probably be a character with less then zero refresh, but still playable, because he has the kid, a pure mortal, as a balance to this. The fey is bound to his nature, but the kid can compel this with his tons of fate points from being a pure mortal to let the fey gain something like a free will. The kid on the other hand has the trouble of... well being a kid, and therefore pretty limited in everything. Getting out to rescue someone for instance could be foiled by his parents attention to his bedtime.
Hell, this could be fun to play :P
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Thanks for the reply. :)
The inspiration for this comes from the Monsters and Other Childish Things RPG.
I am thinking of a grown-up/adult character that has had his best-friend/monster most of his life.
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Monsters and Other Childish Things RPG.
I hadn't heard of this yet, but after a quick google search I found the quote
Can you make it through a school day without having to explain why your monster ate the substitute teacher?
and I definitely need to look into it ;D
As far as an adult character like this is concerned, it is a tough one. It all depends on how much of an impact you want the fey friend to have on the game.
A simple aspect like "my imaginary friend" could be invoked to aid in any task and could be compelled if the fey is trying to eat the substitute.
If you want more than that, and specifically if you want it to be reliable, you would probably need a bond of some sort, reflected by a supernatural power. Maybe something like the righteousness power from a true believer, only instead of using conviction for anything, you can use your imaginary friend to do the task for you, at his skilllevel (or you use your conviction or contacts to do this, and the fey friend is simply the explonation, why you can do this).
If he is a full fledged ally, You should treat him like that, bargain with him for tasks he might do for you and such. Give him aspects that represent his loyalty to you and likewise have one or two of your own to represent that bond.
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Enter the code 'paycheck'. Expires 5/20/11.
I like the idea of "My Imaginary Friend" and using contacts or conviction for the resolution.
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Another possibility would be simply making as a single character. I'll assume that you want to, for the most part, play the kid so you'd start by building him as a character.
4: Empathy
3: Stealth, Deceit
2: Rapport, Contacts
1: Lore, Athletics
or something like that, then you overlay the monster, having the combat skills personified as him.
5: Fists
4: Might
3: Endurance
2: Intimidate
toss well you get the idea, toss in whatever skills you want as skills. Then you make sure you have an aspect or two
A BOY AND HIS BEAST
And then buy whatever powers you want the monster to have but simply define them as being part of the monster.
Now with this sort of build you can't be in a different location than your monster, but it works just find to represent what you want.
Another possibility is to buy it as a Werewolf style character, define a full skill set for both the kid and the monster, buy a number of powers for your monster (with the Human Form adder or whatever it's actually called) and make sure you have an aspect or stunt to represent that whenever one 'character' is there the other is also always around to be attacked.
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Then you make sure you have an aspect or two
A BOY AND HIS BEAST
...
Now with this sort of build you can't be in a different location than your monster, but it works just find to represent what you want.
Depending on the GM, a player might conceivably be allowed to Invoke this Aspect (using a Fate Point) to Declare that he could indeed be in two places at once because he is actually two separate beings. It shouldn't come up all the time, and may just not be that different from Invoking the Aspect for other numerical bonuses. Creativity could open up a lot of possibilities.
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Depending on the GM, a player might conceivably be allowed to Invoke this Aspect (using a Fate Point) to Declare that he could indeed be in two places at once because he is actually two separate beings. It shouldn't come up all the time, and may just not be that different from Invoking the Aspect for other numerical bonuses. Creativity could open up a lot of possibilities.
Note: I am using a Blob as the example Monster to avoid confusion and because that'd be my use for that character type.
If you used the "Boy and His Blob as one character" route, you could do that and then be able to self-compel in situations where the skill you are trying to use is in one but not the other when they are separated.
Example: Boy is trapped in a building. He sends his Blob to go and get help, invoking his high concept. Some monster attacks the boy while the Blob is away. Boy self-compels his Blob aspect since his real Attack skills are in the hands of the Blob.
Boy and His Blob as a were-form....you actually could use the same logic. You'd get points back by saying that when the Blob is summoned to fight a Monster, the boy's stats change to the Blob's stats reflecting the summoned Blob. If you invoked the Blob Aspect to make a Declaration "Blob is going for help", if your boy was attacked while Blob is away, you'd compel the Blob aspect so that you couldn't "Shape-shift" leaving you with only the Boy's Stats.
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You could also adapt Item of Power into Companion of Power perhaps; replace the "Unbreakable" part of the power with the part about it being able to do things when apart from you. The discount could be +1 for the companion being large and another for being obviously unnatural (so a rat is +0 and the only bonus is to invoke the aspect referring to it for separate activities, a polar bear or jackalope would be +1, a sasquatch would be +2).
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How would you go about having a character that has a pet monster?
Like a kid who befriended some monstrous fey and grows up and now has a monster for a best-friend/guardian.
Let's assume the fey can become invisible.
I see them being helpful to each other and getting each other out of trouble.
Would it just be like a permanent summoned creature?
I personally don't know the rules well enough to say, but I just LOVE the idea!
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I once had an NPC like this in a superhero game I ran.
I would go a slightly different route. I'm not sure it's entirely legal.
I would build him by splitting the skill pool like earlier posts mentioned, but I'd follow up with the kid performing navel-gazing maneuvers then invoking them for effect with the free tag. Consider them "commands" issued to the Monster. Navel-gaze with Rapport to apply "Monster attacks the Red Court Vampire" on self or scene, then free-tag for effect. Is this legal?
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It seems like a really clunky way to do it, when compared to some of the other ways suggested but legal as far as I can tell.
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Clunky? Yes. But allowing those aspects to be something like "Scouts the Area" or similar gets around the requirement to be co-locating with the monster. This method also eludes sponsored debt, losing access to the kid's skills in the case of the wereform approach, and avoids hassles like a Companion of Power or having two characters.
I might evolve the idea and use it in my game.
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As a somewhat different option, you could build the character as a monster with 'human form'. Instead of actual shapeshifting, you just 're-skin' the power by saying that when needed, the monster just 'steps in' to take the place of the child. Perhaps the child is temporarily transported to the monsters demesne, or he's simply 'backstage'. An oddity of this concept would be that they'd share stress tracks and consequences, but perhaps the two share some sort of mystical bond...
This isn't really the concept you proposed, but is kind of similar. (On the whole, I think that the idea of building the pair as a monster with a pet kid -- then RPing the kid -- probably works best.)
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This looks like a job for a custom power.
One written by someone else, who has a better idea of how to do it.
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This looks like a job for a custom power.
One written by someone else, who has a better idea of how to do it.
How about Human Form (+1) from the book? It gives you a human form (say the form of a child) and while you are in it you can't use your powers?
Beast Change (-1) is easily adapted to Other Form Change (-1) by taking out the words "beast" and "animal" and replacing them with "other form". Technically it's a custom power but it's virtually identical to a published one.
Richard
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I really like the were-form build of this! Very creative.
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You know...I really like the creativity in this thread. Quite a lot. I've got a question though:
Why not just just play two characters who share skill points and refresh (you could even have them share "skill stacks" as if they were one character). Just charge -1 refresh or something.
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You know...I really like the creativity in this thread. Quite a lot. I've got a question though:
Why not just just play two characters who share skill points and refresh (you could even have them share "skill stacks" as if they were one character). Just charge -1 refresh or something.
Having them share skill stacks doesn't even require a refresh, personally I see this as similar to Harry Dresden. Bob is represented not by an Aspect (although I contend that he should be) but is actually the personification of Harry's Lore and Scholarship skills. If I were running Harry as a GM I would tell him to make his relationship with Bob one of his aspects, compel him to force him to use a much lower Lore and Scholarship when he doesn't have access to Bob and allow him to invoke Bob to gain +2 on those rolls or in some cases just to know things automatically.
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@Richard_Chilton: Well, that's close to right. But it has a few problems:
1. Mental skills cannot be raised by Beast Change.
2. The two forms will always be equally skilled by that method.
3. That method assumes that only one of the two will be relevant at any given time, which takes away a big part of the point.
4. That method doesn't let you give both characters different powers (at least not with any kind of efficiency).
@InferrumVeritas: Sounds interesting, but I don't really know how it would work. Can you provide an example?
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@Richard_Chilton: Well, that's close to right. But it has a few problems:
1. Mental skills cannot be raised by Beast Change.
2. The two forms will always be equally skilled by that method.
3. That method assumes that only one of the two will be relevant at any given time, which takes away a big part of the point.
4. That method doesn't let you give both characters different powers (at least not with any kind of efficiency).
True, that doesn't allow for the Kid and the monster to be there at the same time, but the idea of it being a shapeshift was raise. And the equally skilled bit is a problem that I ran into when I tried to do a Shazam type character.
As for the inefficient ways of giving them different powers - sometime efficiency should give way for a cool concept. It's like a wizard whose concept involves having a low discipline or conviction - it's not efficient to play a wizard who doesn't have discipline and conviction near (or at) the top of his pyramid but if you're playing Stoner Wizard you give up the efficient point spread to play the concept. Take an tutored sorcerer with Average Lore - Average Lore is very low for anyone who uses thaumaturgy but if it fits the concept it fits the concept.
Richard
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I think that mechanical weakness resulting from fluff choices should be kept to a minimum, so that players don't have to choose between being competent and fitting a concept.
Obviously, you can't make all concepts equally viable. But you can try.
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You can treat them as one creature if they got a "sympathetic link" as flavor and are treated mechanically as a single creature. This is how you do it;
Monster Skills:
+5 (insert 1 skill)
+4 (insert 3 skills)
+3 (insert 2 skills)
Other skills default to mediocre
Child Skills:
+3 (insert 1 skill)
+2 (insert 3 skills)
+1 (insert 3 skills)
Other skills default to mediocre
Powers:
(insert X refresh worth of powers)
[+0] Sympathetic Link; the child and the monster share lifeforce. They share the same stress tracks and consequences and they are limited to the number of actions of a single character in situations number of actions would matter. When performing an action other than defense, they use their own part of the skill tree (see above).
[-3] Spirit Form
[+2] Involuntary Change; if the monster is not in the same zone as the child for a number of turns exchanges to their conviction, they revert to non-manifested spirit form and must return to the child to reform.
Stunts:
(insert 8-X or fewer stunts)
Otherwise, have them as entirely different characters both played by the same player.