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Messages - GrinningIdiot

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DFRPG / Re: What happens if you hex something designed not to work?
« on: September 15, 2010, 02:28:02 PM »
Becq, that depends on your definition of Hexing.  It's purposefully undefined in the RAW beyond "causing something to fail." If you're viewing the item as a whole failing, then you're using my second definition of hexing and looking at it as a magical golf club to beat the works to submission.

But if your hex surges over poorly constructed product and causes one-way diodes to suddenly flow the opposite direction (because they chose that moment to fail) and free-flowing connectors to suddenly triple in resistance (due to poor manufacture), then it could cause an item to start functioning. 

Saying that improbability-hexing a gun causes it to shoot roses isn't really what I was going for. My answer would be more that improbability-hexing a gun causes an unlikely but possible imperfection in the casting process of the firing mechanism to pick that moment to cause the gun to cease to function. Imagine it as an even smaller version of the smaller version of entropy curse.  :)

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DFRPG / Re: What happens if you hex something designed not to work?
« on: September 10, 2010, 06:14:18 PM »
I actually both agree and disagree here.

I found there are two kinds of thought for hexing. They're both covered in "Your Story" (p. 229) really well.

View one: Improbability
Quote
Maybe the root cause is magic’s bending of probability. That’s certainly supported by the facts; after all it’s very improbable that when some lady points at an insolent minion, fire will leap from her hand and burn his face off. That’s assuming probability enters into it at all. A scientist looking at this might say quantum mechanical effects rely on probability, and magic
messes up the math.

If you look at it this way: It's "unlikely" that the gun will jam/resistor will give out/camera will short circuit, because these things are made to function and bear the stress of normal operation.  Magic brings that small (but present) likelihood that a component will give out at THAT PRECISE MOMENT to the front of statistical chance. 

Under that definition: Yes.  Hexing the technology that is designed to not work will bring forward the chance that it functions.

The second view on hexing: Overload.  I don't have the quote, but it's basically that excess energy floods into the target and "breaks the dam" so to speak. 

Under THAT definition: No.  Hexing the technology that is designed to not work is basically the same as hitting it with a golf club.  It will just stubbornly insist that it remains useless. :-)


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