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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: JediDresden on May 07, 2012, 04:41:16 AM
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If I understand the RAW, if my wizard casts a spell that 'takes someone out' I as the attacker can determine what happens and how he is taken out. If that is the case the only wizards who would actually kill people are those who want to. But maybe it is just me trying to reconcile the novels with the game, in the novels it seems like magic is very uncontrolled and powerful, so how can a wizard let loose a fireball and say 'oh yeah, I took them out, but they arent dead - just unconscious because of smoke inhalation.'
We talked about this after a session and decided that a GM could possibly say we have a mental cosequence of 'Afraid of my power' or 'I don't think I killed them...or did I.'. Do you think this might be acceptable. It just seems like there should be some ramifications to handling the powers of the universe.
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Compel.
This is exactly what compels are for.
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As Sancta said, compels can work quite effectively, here.
Additionally, any taken-out results must pass a 'reasonableness test' as adjudicated by the table as a whole, meaning that if the table deems the victim surviving that attack to be unreasonable, then they're not going to survive.
Beyond that, it doesn't require the character to decide that they want to kill or not to kill the target of an attack for that to be the taken out result; what happens is decided by the player, and those two can, and sometimes should be at odds.
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Some things to cover before the discussion even starts.
Remember that the game system is not an attempt to 'exactly simulate' the game world. That is, what the game system says happens, happens, but has very little to say about how it happened.
So, for example, the system can say something like:
Wizard Alice throws a fireball at Goon Bob, He takes 6 stress, since he only has 4 stress boxes, he has to take consequences if he doesn't want to get taken out. So he takes the mild consequence of 'sprained ankle' and fills in his fourth stress box.
Huh? how does a fireball cause a sprained ankle?! Because the GM says, "Bob barely manages to dive out of the fireball in time, but he lands badly getting out of the way and sprains his ankle."
So, what determines whether the 'text' of the consequence is an acceptable result of what the dice say? Whatever the people at the table will put up with.
Next, being 'taken out' does have to mean 'death'. Expanding on the previous example, Goon Bob is just a goon, and will only mechanically take a mild consequence, and will get taken out after that. Does mean that Bob is really a bag of blood and gore under high internal pressure, just waiting for a good, sharp poke to explode and spray gibs everywhere? Not really. Bobs take out could just as easily involve him running away, or giving up, or something else like that.
Here's another system disconnect that you need to pay attention to: 'weapons' designed to take out narratively important people look a whole lot like tank canons when you turn them on people who don't have consequences.
For example, when I first wrote up Jing Wei (http://dresden-sanfran.wikidot.com/xiao-jing-wei) I gave her a 'tazer ring' enchanted item that was power 7. Why? because I wanted to be able to bring down someone 'important' like Victor Sells with only a few shots. And the fact that sells has plenty of consequences to soak up attack from the tazer ring means that I'd maybe also have to spend some time hitting him over the head or something too to actually take him out. But when the same ring gets used on a goon with 3 stress, some people might complain about me using a power 7 weapon (even bigger than a hand grenade, fer cryin out loud!) and expect it to not instagib normal people.
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So, finally, on to the actual discussion. The first line of defense is to have a discussion around the table to exactly what kinds of consequences and take out results are acceptable what sorts of attacks. Another thing you can do if you want to constrain the power someone can throw out in a scene is to compel them.
For example, Wizard Alice normally calls down massive gouts of fire from heaven upon her enemies, but somehow, people are only ever knocked out by them. If you wanted to contrain here power for a fight, you could try offering a compel of her high concept, something like "The gods of death are watching this fight closely, any massive and/or lethal looking attacks are probably going to kill someone."
Then, the players can accept the compel and have to come up with something creative, or they can just buy out of it and throw fire from heaven around as usual.
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[...]
Next, being 'taken out' does NOT have to mean 'death'. Expanding on the previous example, Goon Bob is just a goon, and will only mechanically take a mild consequence, and will get taken out after that. Does mean that Bob is really a bag of blood and gore under high internal pressure, just waiting for a good, sharp poke to explode and spray gibs everywhere? Not really. Bobs take out could just as easily involve him running away, or giving up, or something else like that.
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FIFY ;)
Also, i think your post sums it up quite nicely. No more discussion needed *g*
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I agree, of course, with everyone here's advise to discuss what 'reasonable' means at your table. As a suggestion, if you're looking for a hard line, I know some people on the boards have adopted a Weapon limit on reasonable. What applies at tables ranges, I personally put it at anything Weapon 4 or higher has the potential to kill the target even if the wizard didn't intend it to. I like going to a hard number because then the players know before taking the action what the risks are.
The problem that I have with using compels exclusively for this is that it is generally what I would consider an unfair compel. Wizards often sit at 1 refresh (not always, but often) so if compelling for Law Breaker comes up there can only be 2 possible results. One, the has a fate and has to decide whether he wants to continue playing the character, or two he doesn't have a fate and with a single compel you kill his character, probably upsetting him. There are many people on the board who advocate this method, so far as I know their games have not blown up as a result, but for me avoiding those potentially game ruining situations is best.
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The problem that I have with using compels exclusively for this is that it is generally what I would consider an unfair compel. Wizards often sit at 1 refresh (not always, but often) so if compelling for Law Breaker comes up there can only be 2 possible results. One, the has a fate and has to decide whether he wants to continue playing the character, or two he doesn't have a fate and with a single compel you kill his character, probably upsetting him. There are many people on the board who advocate this method, so far as I know their games have not blown up as a result, but for me avoiding those potentially game ruining situations is best.
The solution in these situations, if it comes to them, is to allow GM-backed Debt (or debt from some in-world entity if there is one available that would plausibly give the character some assistance in the matter).
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I am kind of the opinion it is never a good idea to force a player to take law breaker, considering even without becoming an NPC lawbreaking represent a massive character defining change that really shouldn't be forced on a player.
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I am kind of the opinion it is never a good idea to force a player to take law breaker, considering even without becoming an NPC lawbreaking represent a massive character defining change that really shouldn't be forced on a player.
You should always give them the choice but the concept should be on the table at all time.
And i still think it is okay to compel a "low discipline" type aspect to say "if you attack these mortal goons with magic they might die so don't attack them".
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Yeah our game ended up looking like an episode of the old A-team, lots of flashy explosives - but no death. Compels do seem the way to go here. Thanks for the input.
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In one of our games where were facing off against some mostly mundane gang members our GM at the time handled this by saying that any attack of Weapon 3 or above could be considered lethal. This forced us to all consider how to handle our conflicts with the gangers and some pretty nifty non-lethal solutions were devised. For example my Wizard summoned a bunch of ghosts (he has Ghost Speaker and is specialized in Spirit magic) in the area of a big fight and had them manifest and Harrow the gang scaring the piss out of them. Sadly he lost control of the spell and some of the spirits went after a few people who were in the parking lot of the grocery store as well but that is another story...
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In the interest of everyone having fun, I would talk to your group before implementing any of this. In my experience, players who want that drama will come looking for it without the GM's help, and players who don't will be incredibly frustrated when the GM drops the Lawbreaker hammer. It's worth taking the time to make sure that Lawbreaker is something that the table wants to deal with (and if they don't then that's totally ok).
And you don't even have to reach a consensus. You can have wizard A who throws around lots of power but always perfectly controlled and never really harms anyone, and wizard B who occasionally slips, has close calls and worries about what may happen if he slips at the wrong moment. These characters are not mutually exclusive. They are both good/fun and they can coexist in the same game even.
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Yeah, compels of one sort or another are the way to handle this, though as far as I know there's no solid consensus on exactly what the compels should consist of. In short, what seems most agreeable is that the compel be something linked to the situation or the wizard in particular (a compel to say fire spells cast at a gas station will prove fatal, or that the wizard has poor control, for example), and that the compel not force the player or character into taking the Lawbreaker stunt.
For my own two cents, I prefer compels that make it clear to the player beforehand, if you do X with your magic and take the dude out, he's gonna die. I prefer to attach a weapon rating to it, but there's some dispute as to whether that's a good idea.
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So, if a fire wizard accepts a Compel on his Fiery Temper aspect, do you feel he could opt to simply stop using magic at all in that encounter, for fear of losing control, just as easily as he could play out giving in to a rage-filled fit of pyromania?
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So, if a fire wizard accepts a Compel on his Fiery Temper aspect, do you feel he could opt to simply stop using magic at all in that encounter, for fear of losing control, just as easily as he could play out giving in to a rage-filled fit of pyromania?
Sounds like a legitimate negotiation of the compel. ;)
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I personally don't like the weapons rating basis as stress in DFRP is meant to be abstract merely a measure of success in a type of encounter rather than a HP track.
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So, if a fire wizard accepts a Compel on his Fiery Temper aspect, do you feel he could opt to simply stop using magic at all in that encounter, for fear of losing control, just as easily as he could play out giving in to a rage-filled fit of pyromania?
Yeah. The compel could easily be the Wizard realizing that if he starts hurling fire, he's not gonna be able to hold back. Or he could just not use attack spells. Those are definitely reasonable terms for the compel.
I personally don't like the weapons rating basis as stress in DFRP is meant to be abstract merely a measure of success in a type of encounter rather than a HP track.
Yeah, but it makes it a pretty clean-cut, mechanical divider of what kinds of spells the character can get away with.
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Yeah, but it makes it a pretty clean-cut, mechanical divider of what kinds of spells the character can get away with.
I can't say that I was at all thrilled when the GM first proposed this but it worked out pretty well in context of that game. So despite my misgivings it actually worked and like I said it led to some pretty fun and creative game play. It helped that the GM brought it up the week before he started his run on the game so we all had time to think about it and debate it a bit before hand.
All that said I have to say that compells do seem like a better solution in many ways.
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Thanks again for all the input, I really appreciate the Forums when players come up against questions in play. Thanks everyone!
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Remember, there's fiction here too, not just mechanics. Fiction forward. If a player narrates unloading with a blast of fire, the GM should ask if they're trying to kill the dude. Cuz that's what fiery blasts of fire do. If they're trying not to kill anyone, they need to narrate accordingly and describe what they're doing so the human isn't torched. In the books, Harry is constantly hitting people with his force ring to knock them back without killing them when a blast from his rod would be more effective, if deadly.