The First Law Question.

[srl51676]

Sorry but again I point to Molly. She was an "innocent" and new nothing about the laws or rules of magic but look at her character sheet and read the book. The magic enforces the laws weather you know about them or not. Even if the bomb is never used the act of constructing an indiscriminate weapon with the force of your life and the direction of your will twists your soul. The only argument I could see would be someone with a child like IQ that just wanted to see the pretty lights and hear a loud boom. No functioning person over 10 or 13 could really deep down think that bombs are like the movies and that the henchmen crawl out the windows of the car after it blows up. I was 10 when I watched the A-Team and I knew that it was lame that they used machine guns but no one ever got shot. If you really want to play him then play the events make the bomb take the stunt and then have him work to change his ways just like Molly and Harry it a great character development to figure out how to atone for what you have done in the past.

[Deadmanwalking]

Molly didn't know the Law, but she still chose to break it. The guy I'm talking about would, hypothetically, not be making that choice. He'd be having misplaced faith that the people he's making the bombs for wouldn't let that happen.

And you don't need a low IQ or being child-like to put your faith in the wrong people, particularly if they're very persuasive. As I suspect certain anti-Vampire freedom fighters/terrorists would be f they got their hands on a magical bomb-maker.

[Korwin]

Normally I would give the Bomb-maker the "Lawbreaker First Law" Power. (-2 Refresh, for more than 3 bombs).

I could see an argument, that the First Law is only an Human (as opposed to an natural law) law.
That the White Council tries with it to limit the Powers of Wizards over Mortals.
(Killing/Dying is natural, ask any meateater).

But then you would need to seperat the seven laws into.
Only an Law because the White Council said so, and
An Law because it twists your soul.

[KnightFerrous]

Also don't forget during Changes:

(click to show/hide)

Molly says that Merlin wrote the laws of magic

So did he discover what taints your soul and quanitfy it? Or did he warp mortal magic to fit his laws?

[Moriden]

So did he discover what taints your soul and quanitfy it? Or did he warp mortal magic to fit his laws?

I could make a strong argument that breaking the laws in no way warps your soul any more then just plain using magic dose. The effect of the lawbreaker stunts is that if you do it to much your aspects start to change to reflect the law that your breaking right?

The catch is two fold, one to use magic to do anything you need to completely believe that that action is right and secondly that at every minor milestone you may change an aspect to reflect a change that has happened to your character.

Combine this thematic rule and statistical rule and completely ignoring the laws of magic, if your playing a blaster who likes to kill people with fire all of your aspects will reflect that fact over the fullness of time. 

So whats the point of the lawbreaker stunts at all? Play balance, plain and simple. you have to take them and they cost refresh entirely to "force" a character over the npc limit if you go "to far". im going to stop here before getting into my personal opinion on weather or not play balance on this scale is necesary. 

[vultur]

Also don't forget during Changes:

(click to show/hide)

Molly says that Merlin wrote the laws of magic

So did he discover what taints your soul and quanitfy it? Or did he warp mortal magic to fit his laws?

I would assume the former; the latter seems ... a bit beyond what I would expect even him to be capable of.

However, we don't know that all the laws taint the soul; Kumori does not seem to be twisted in the way Victor Sells or that Korean kid in PG are or the way Molly was beginning to head down the path towards. Even Cowl may be a bad guy, but it seems to be a qualitatively different sort of evil than the twisted-by-their-black-magic warlocks; those seem to become subjugated to their baser desires and become almost animalistic, while Cowl has retained high and ambitious (if likely extreme) goals and the full capacity to act towards them.

And Jim has said that the Laws don't line up precisely with the things that taint your soul; from DB, I'm tending to think necromancy is largely one of those exceptions. (Time travel may be too! I can see the 5th/6th and maybe 7th Laws being the Council saying "this stuff is too dangerous to screw with" rather than about crimes against people like the 1st-4th. I think necromancy is only 'tainting' if you use it in nasty ways. It seems to be the 'crime against a person' aspect that makes killing with magic tainting -- thus why killing vampires etc. doesn't do it; I think it's because (as Harry has said often) you have to really want that person dead and doing that to another human being is going to be damaging/corrosive to anyone who was remotely a healthy human being to start with. I'm not sure using necromancy even against humans in, say, the way Kumori uses it to save a life would do that. (On the other hand, it still might; it still sounds like it had creepiness going on.)

[Saedar]

A couple points. I think that discussion of the Laws, whether they are destructive on intent or intrinsically corrupting and ways in which there is gray area is a fantastic thing. I'd be willing to bet that, insofar as the setting is a "real" place, that these discussions occur with some degree of frequency among wizards who trust one another.

Here is how I conceptualize the in-setting dialog about the Laws. Imagine for a second that I am a psychological researcher (and I am). There are certain codes of conduct and ethical standards that we adhere to when doing research with human subjects because we have deemed that to do otherwise is wrong, whether because it is naturally wrong or because it has the potential to harm other people. However, it is not uncommon for people to get frustrated because these standards can hamper the flow of research. Take, for example, research on children. It is VERY difficult to perform this research because there are HUGE roadblocks based on parental consent, individual consent, potential harm and so on. However, were these blocks not in the way, research could flow unhindered.

I view the Laws (and discussion of them) in much the same way. Like it was mentioned above, not all of the Laws seem intrinsically corrupting. Killing and mind things seem to be intrinsically wrong but only so as it applies to humans. In the research example, it is much easier to perform studies that would be considered wrong, ethically speaking, when applied to people if they were instead applied to animals.

As to the bomb question, I'm going to side with the dissenters and say that a bomb serves one function, and one function only. To kill. Even young people know that bombs kill people. It would be VERY hard to say that even a very young practitioner could reasonably believe that his/her bomb could never be misused or kill unintended targets. Even if it didn't bring down the Lawbreaker stunt (depending on how intrinsically corrupting the Laws are in your world), I would probably say he becomes Target 1 should the Wardens find out about it.

[srl51676]

Saedar Thank you for the well reasoned response. The research analogy is a good one.

Why the hell is it so damn hard for people just to play by the damn rules! why does every other thread on this board devolve into "here is why the Laws do not apply to my character."? If it helps use the characters from the books as your guide. Cowl is dead because he was a evil necromancer who tried to consume the souls of human beings to make himself a god. so that he could remake the world in his image so Harry put him down. His sidekick is just as bad because she wanted to help him. Molly did not choose to break a law ,she did not know it existed, but it damaged her soul anyway and mad it harder to resist doing the wrong thing the next time. The Stunts are way more than balance they reflect the metaphysical reality and the moral structure of the game world and ones self control. Try to think What would Harry Do WWHD or would Murphy want to stop me from doing this. Anti-heros are bad people with good rationalization. The point of the Laws is that the ends do not justify the means. If you think that animating human corpses, Killing innocent bystanders with a bomb, or consuming the souls of the dead is OK then their is already a dark spot on your soul.  

[Saedar]

SRL: I think you and I have had a similar discussion in another thread. The point is that some people are interested in pushing the boundaries in their game worlds. You don't. That is just fine. I have a thing for evil characters but I'm not playing one right now. Assume, for the sake of the discussion, that magic DOES work with more flexibility, because it just might in other people's worlds. How would you approach this issue, in that specific case?

[Moriden]

The Stunts are way more than balance they reflect the metaphysical reality and the moral structure of the game world and ones self control.

These repercussions will happen regardless of weather or not it says lawbreaker on your charecter sheat. Thats what i was trying to say earlier.

[Deadmanwalking]

Why the hell is it so damn hard for people just to play by the damn rules! why does every other thread on this board devolve into "here is why the Laws do not apply to my character."?

For the record, I'm not trying to get out of anything (and tend to agree with you that doing so is annoying), and would never play the stated character, I'm just a firm believer in a consistent and specific interpretation of how the Laws work, and will continue to bring that perspective to discussions.

[chadu]

For the record, I'm not trying to get out of anything (and tend to agree with you that doing so is annoying), and would never play the stated character, I'm just a firm believer in a consistent and specific interpretation of how the Laws work, and will continue to bring that perspective to discussions.

One interesting interpretation might be that the Laws are absolutely true immutable axioms of the cosmos, no matter how people interpret them into gray areas.

So, yeah, that would mean that Harry picked up an LB stunt for killing people in GP, and another for raising Sue from the dead, and what not.

But that would ALSO mean any pre- or retrocognition spell grants an LB stunt for "swimming against the currents of time."

How sick would it be if an NPC said to a PC, "You want to know the name of who's after you? The Outsider known as She Who Hovers Above" and the PC gets instantly smacked with an LB stunt.

THINK ABOUT IT.

(Me, I'm psyched that the LoMs can be interpreted various different ways by people -- IC and OOC -- and that has a mechanical effect.)

[srl51676]

SRL: I think you and I have had a similar discussion in another thread. The point is that some people are interested in pushing the boundaries in their game worlds. You don't. That is just fine. I have a thing for evil characters but I'm not playing one right now. Assume, for the sake of the discussion, that magic DOES work with more flexibility, because it just might in other people's worlds. How would you approach this issue, in that specific case?

If the Laws were this flexible as a GM I would have to have a very strong and active Warden force to introduce the appropriate tension and create a dividing line between what is legal/social acceptable and what is not. In the current IC conditions of the Vampire War you would have a world lousy with necromancers and charred mortal corpses. one of the defining characteristics of the modern setting is the need to deal with a modern (mortal & magical) legal system and its ability to investigate ones actions. This is not the wild west its the modern world and the modern world comes with cops. It is a element that is often missing in RPGs in general. If power corrupts the ability to burn someone to ash for stepping on your toe must be contained. 

[KnightFerrous]

If the Laws were this flexible as a GM I would have to have a very strong and active Warden force to introduce the appropriate tension and create a dividing line between what is legal/social acceptable and what is not. In the current IC conditions of the Vampire War you would have a world lousy with necromancers and charred mortal corpses. one of the defining characteristics of the modern setting is the need to deal with a modern (mortal & magical) legal system and its ability to investigate ones actions. This is not the wild west its the modern world and the modern world comes with cops. It is a element that is often missing in RPGs in general. If power corrupts the ability to burn someone to ash for stepping on your toe must be contained. 

See this is kinda iffy. I think you are over estimated the amount of practitioners who could amount to corpse burning necromancers, even with demonic help. And under estimate the efficacy of mortal police. Remeber the SIs of the world, if you are roasting people alive left and right the bodies will start stacking up and someone will come knocking at your door. Toss a few fireballs at the cops and they will gun you down but don't worry the report will say "assailant attacked officers with jury-rigged flamethrower"

[Tom Bombadillo]

A couple of things:

First, messing with a monster's mind (apologies to Mr. Butcher if I have it wrong) seems to me a less damaging maneuver because in the Dresdenverse monster's don't have free will, really. 

Humans have the power of choice, and so if someone drills into your head and your human, it does more damaage because it's a more foreign concept to be compelled to behave a certain way than it is for a nonhuman.  As Harry says in several of the novels, with humans, it *always* has a negative effect when someone messes with your brain...it's just a matter of degree.  And it's always bad for both the messer and the messee.

Second, I see the Laws as a good tool to keep the PCs in line.  That's *always* going to be a judgement call based on intention, recklessness, respect or the lack thereof, ignorance, prior behavior and so forth.  To try to settle any situation on the fora is a fool's errand.  Can a GM use it to whack the PCs mercilessly?  Sure.  But GMs always have that option in most RPGs.

Cheers,
Tom