Well, here's the cheat - so long as a reasonable case can be made for an explanation (as is the case with both 2 and 3/4 here) then the best answer is th eone that works best for play, which is often going to be #2.

My litmus test is this: do we imagine that, if Harry were to hand the item over to someone else, it would continue to function?  I generally answer "no", partly because I think there's a component of being a wizard to make them go, and partly because if he _could_ do that, and in all this time he hasn't given Murphy _something_, then he's kind of a tool.

Now, part of the power of #2 is that it's very, very vague.  Does the item need time in the lab, tunig it up?  Does it need to stay within the wizards aura? Does it need to be occaisionally dipped in puppy blood?  On one level, this is purely color: since we're talking maintenence that has to be done occaisionally, it's easy to just assume the wizard does whatever he needs during downtime.  Sometimes these can be plot seeds (Your usual source of puppy blood isn't answering calls, and wasnt' that fire you read about near his shop?) but the last thing I want is to turn every possible magic gimmick into a bookeeping extravaganza. 

That's a strong case for #2 and #3, but #3 has it's own problems.  Most of the abusive scenarios that i can immediately conceive of for magic items are at least moderately curtailed by "It's hard to make something that works without you keeping an eye on it."  This won't stop every abuse, and frankly I don't want to - coming up with creative uses of magic is half the fun.

So ultimately, there are three goals:
* Be consistent with the books
* Minimize bookeeping
* Cut down egregious abuses
* Makes for a good story/game

And those are the goals that lead to that sort of breakdown.

Now, here's the other really dangerous part.  Magic in the books has its own rough sort of physics, and in an ideal universe, we could express those principals so clearly that the capabilities of magic are as clear as the extent of physics, and it will be as obvious that a threshold stops power as it is that you can't jump to the moon.  That's not entirely doable, and it creates a dangerous situation where we have an incomplete set of rules.

Figure day to day physics has a lot of implicit checks on crazy things we might want to do, and we naturally understand them.  Magic is the same way, and when presented with a magical proposition that takes advantage of the rules we have and has no apparent check, that's when we need to start thinking like Jim.  See, for all the magic, the Dresdenverse _hasn't_ been split in half by some wizard's perpetual motion machine or magic eating tribbles or god know what else.  Some of that is because if you do something like that, someone will probably punch you in the face, but mostly it's because the world of magic is robust and dynamic and because Jim can make stuff up that fits within the _less_ strict logic of the setting.

Which brings us back to sunrise.  Really, do you know what spells are disrupted by sunrise?  The really inconvenient ones.  Oh, if you've got a black belt in Dresden Logic, as Jim does, you can easily enough justify it according to some nuance or detail, but the reality is that it's a decision that mostly hinges on what makes a good story, or in our case, game.

And that's why you'll find some waffling.  If we lay down specific details without the whole supporting web of logic behind it, we're begging for trouble, and honestly, I get enough trouble from the shield bracelet that I don't need to hunt for more.

I realize that's not entirely satisfying because, frankly, it's kind of cool to think "Ok, if magic can get energy from kinetic energy, I'm going to hook up a feed to the interstate and get a little energy from each car passing, and have a limitless supply of whupass."  But there are at least 3 reasons for that not to work, possibly many many more, and until we give the tools to make those reasons transparent (and more specifically, the tools to deal with it in a better way than just saying "no"), we're only telling half the story, and doing a grave disservice to anyone looking to play.

-Rob D.

-Rob D.

The two systems are going to be very similar for most core activities.  Climbing a wall, seducing your date and punching someone in the nose are handled in roughly the same way.  What we're going to need to test with Dresden (though I'll not say anything about when) is going to be drilling down on the things that specifically make it Dresden, which is to say, the length and breadth of the supernatural world (as well as the nature of mystery games).  We are, to be frank, obsessing over this.  Coming up with _a_ magic system is trivial, as those who have read the Fate rules can attest.  Coming up with one that reflects both the details and the spirit of the books in their own terms, rather than shoehorning them into some sort of game-structure is a bit more involved.

Especially with that shield bracelet.

Man, how I hate the shield bracelet.

I have dreams about it.

Bad ones.

-Rob D.

Worth noting that in addition to definitely, I will almost always spell criteria incorrectly.

Just one of those things.

-Rob D.

Curiously, it's not my flipper typing that inspired that, so much as events on the various mailing lists we frequent.

Were one to go to the Fate list archives, you would find it full of posts that Iago and I both replied to.  However, you would also find that they were almost always replied to within a minute or three of each other, and his always got there first.  Always.  Dozens and dozens of times.

Something like that happens often enough, and cursing is the only option.

-Rob D.

Legal Shmegal.  I dream of a wolrd where Jim has that kind of _time_.

-Rob D.

The rub is "like".

Yes, absolutely there is some similarity, but this is an area that it's very, very hard to get hard and fast with.  Butters has some excellent theories, but they also don't account for why Harry is more likely to jam an automatic than a revolver, despite the fact that the automatic may be a simpler machine.  Go figure.

Now, that said, Butters is definitely on track of some interesting stuff, and there's a lot that can be done with it, but it is, at best, pseudo-science.  Even if Butters were the most brilliant researcher on the planet, his sample pool is remarkably small and his control group nonexistent.  Were one a cynic, one might point out that Butter's conclusions are remarkably similar to a lot of superstition (i see something, I explain it in the terms I know and understand!).

Given all that, the real answer is that the interaction of magic and technology works exactly the way Jim needs it to at any given moment, and when it is inconvenient or problematic, it's magic.  All author's cheat,  like this, Jim just has a better excuse.

So, this becomes an area where we need to separate the needs of a game from those of, say, an official fan guide.  If we provide an answer to this which is concrete (such as yes, it's a lot like EM, and can be dealt with) we have just cascaded headfirst away from the world of the books because as soon as that door is opened, a whole lot of mess comes through.

As such, in terms of the game, the explanation will err on the conservative side. 

In terms of private theories of explanation on the books, I've got little to say - the range of possibilities is far wider than mere EM and far more interesting, and I encourage people to run with it as far as they can.   That is, however, a different set of needs.

-Rob D.

Heh.  Sounds awesome.

Conveniently, I got off a recent research jag, as Spirit of the Century, our pulp game, is set in the 20s so at the very least I can suggest a few resources.

The Investigator's Companion is probably the second most useful RPG reference I have on the period, so excellent start.  If you want to pick up something else, the new Pulp Hero is magnificent.  I have no love of the Hero rules system but it's about 2/3rds  setting background and ideas. If you can get the writer's guide to the 1920s, you will have hit the jackpot, but it's a bit hard to find at any reasonable price.

On the web, I figure I'll cut out the middleman: Here's the link to my del.icio.us pulp tag, which has a ton of useful period links.

http://del.icio.us/rdonoghue/pulp

Even if you're not going pulpy, a lot of those links are just history and background, useful to mine for a game.

Anyway, I think this is a great idea.  it's a fun era, and it really lets you make the game your own, so  good luck, and I hope you'll let us know how it goes!

-Rob D.

I actually agree that Cinematic Unisystem is _far_ better, but Witchcraft/Armageddon have better magic support.  Belmonte's nailed it on the head though - were I to run a Dresden game using commercial stuff currently available, I would purchase three books:

The Angel RPG for core system
The Armageddon RPG for all the rules for magic, plus a ton of other usable stuff.
The Magic Box book for Buffy for ease of conversion between the two.

If I were feelign more frugal, I'd just get the witchcraft PDF (which is either free or cheap, I can't recall which) and call it a day, though.

-Rob D.