Thaumaturgy Limitations and Difficulty

[Wordmaker]

My Boston campaign's been going well, but I'm having some trouble adjudicating thaumaturgy complexity, specifically its use for "making the impossible possible."

For starters, are there any guidelines to follow for how much of a conenction there needs to be between the focus object of the ritual and the target? Say you're casting a tracking or locator spell, would a photograph be enough? I'm kind of thinking not, since all the cases I know of from the books and in the rules specify things like blood, hair, a True Name, or personal belongings. The more recent the target touched the item, and the deeper the emotional or metaphysical connection, the better the object is as a focus for the spell. I don't really think a simple photo would have a strong enough connection to attempt the spell, not unless it had some emotional significance like a picture of someone's wedding day.

Secondly, I know the rules say that the difficulty for such a spell should be based on how difficult it would be to track the target if it were possible to track them with the item used in the ritual. That's all well and good, but we don't get any guidelines on how to apply that reasoning. Should I be using a Stealth check for the target? This is really important because it's not just a case of deciding how difficult I want the attempt to be, but also of determining whether any extra time and work is needed to prepare the ritual.

[Deadmanwalking]

Dude, you're overthinking this.

For the first point, it sounds like you have a very clear idea of what's needed. Go with it. The book may nor specify in detail, but your interpretation sounds right to me, and you're the GM so it's the law in your game.

For the second, would a Stealth check help to hide someone tracking emotional resonance? I'd say not, but maybe a Discipline check would (to leave less resonance in the first place). What skill they can defend this, and what bonuses they have, are more or less entirely at your discretion (as they should be). Make it as difficult as it should be, story-wise.

[Wordmaker]

You're right, I probably am overthinking this. Despite how much I love FATE, I still need to shake my roots in working out modifiers and difficulty levels for more traditional games.

I suppose I just want to be consistent with my decisions. Of course, even deciding that there needs to be some kind of emotional or metaphysical connection for an item to lead to a particular target should help. I can focus then on deciding how easy it is to track someone with their own blood compared to a discarded cigarette they smoked.

[Deadmanwalking]

Exactly. Consistency is good, but it doesn't require you to come up with huge difficulty charts, just to be consistent in your own rulings.

Finding someone shouldn't be too hard (barring things like Wards) anyway, look at Harry's tracking spell it's Complexity 4 to 8 and can find most people.

[Wordmaker]

That's true. The tricky part should be finding an item that has a connection to your target.

[Slife]

Depends on what school of magic you're using, I'd imagine.  Aren't there some people who held the belief that taking a photo took part of someone's soul?

[Wordmaker]

Hmm, I might allow that if it was the person in the photo who believed it, and if they were aware of the photo being taken.

[Rel Fexive]

The rules say you could use a photo of a location as a link, but it might be harder with a person.  A casual photo taken just last night would be no good, but a photo from their wedding day, graduation day or any other event important to them would work much better.  Though only if that day still mattered to the target - marriages that ended in divorce or graduations into institutions that ended badly (kicked out of the police force, your degree taken away because of cheating) might not work.  Although... those incidents are as much a part of that person as a current marriage or job.

In other words, if you think it'll work and you can convince the table of this, you're golden.

[toturi]

Exactly. Consistency is good, but it doesn't require you to come up with huge difficulty charts, just to be consistent in your own rulings.

Finding someone shouldn't be too hard (barring things like Wards) anyway, look at Harry's tracking spell it's Complexity 4 to 8 and can find most people.

Consistency is good but it does not simply mean that you have to be consistent in your own rulings. Self-consistency is good if the game is for a limited group of people. Let's say you have 2 or 3 GMs collaborating for the same multi-story and players move freely between GMs. What one GM rules may conflict with what the other GMs may rule. That is when common ground comes in and often the common ground is what is written in the rule book.

[Deadmanwalking]

Absolutely! Though I'll note that that particular situation is NOT the default, and all advice given on this forum (by most people, jnot just me) is usually given under the assumption of a more typical group structure unless such an arrangement is mentioned up front.

But in that case, particularly on things like this where the GM is clearly intended to rule on difficulty, any group of GMs like that described should definitely make a pre-game ruling to avoid inconsistency. Bt they're honestly going to need to do a fair bit of that, just because of the customizable nature of the game and it's rules.

[Wordmaker]

My group is a fairly traditional set-up. Any given game has just the one GM.

I'm happy enough making it very difficult, or even impossible, to reliably use a random surveillance photo to represent the target in thaumaturgy.

[theevillime]

That seems fine. I'm just used to Awakening, so I figured that there'd be a link from a photo to the person. Under that system, you can even use a description of them.

I can imagine a thaumaturgy ritual based on  a photo, or even a description - it's automating the mundane action of walking the streets looking for the person. The thing is, you could get fooled by someone who looks similar enough.

edit: For everyone else's benefit: I play the only wizard in this campaign

[Slife]

The rules say you could use a photo of a location as a link, but it might be harder with a person.  A casual photo taken just last night would be no good, but a photo from their wedding day, graduation day or any other event important to them would work much better.  Though only if that day still mattered to the target - marriages that ended in divorce or graduations into institutions that ended badly (kicked out of the police force, your degree taken away because of cheating) might not work.  Although... those incidents are as much a part of that person as a current marriage or job.

In other words, if you think it'll work and you can convince the table of this, you're golden.

Rereading Blood Rites, Harry says he's heard a good photo can work for the target of an entropy curse, so it's canonical at least.

[KOFFEYKID]

Really it just depends on the skill of the caster. Harry has said that the best wizards in the world can do nearly anything with a bunch of salt and a wooden spoon. Being able to use a photograph is entirely possible **if** you are a good enough wizard.

[Wordmaker]

It might be worth my while compiling a list of ritual objects and how much they affect the complexity of a ritual. Just for ease of reference.