Paging Dr. Hicks, Dr. Fred Hicks please

[Fyrchick]

And if that is likewise insufficient, then tell me and I'll vacate the premises.

Just a note... if you had REALLY damaged his calm you would have been involuntarily vacated. At least for a little bit. 

[Morfedel]

A lot of role playing games -- especially some of the older ones -- try to have a rule for everything. There's a rule for falling, and a rule for fire, and a rule for how long you can hold your breath. This results in a lot of support, but also a lot of rules.

The way most Fate games work is by giving you a small number of rules, showing you how you might apply them, and then letting you use the tools you need to run the game you want. And those rules apply to story logic, not to physics logic.

So let's look at a burning room.

The obvious thing to do is slap an Aspect on it. This opens up your typical suite of options, with players invoking it, compels happening, and all that.

For whatever reason, you decide that's not enough. You want the fact that the room is burning to be way more important than that. You want it to really up the danger. How do you do that?

Environmental hazards (page 325) are one place to start. You want this to be pretty dangerous, so you assign a hazard rating of +4, and you give it weapon:3. Now, being in or crossing the zones that are on fire is frigging dangerous.

Or maybe that's too harsh. Hm, what else could you do?

A block seems reasonable. So you assign it a rating based on how hard you think it is to cross that area. Now anyone who wants to cross the fire has to bypass the block somehow.

A maneuver also seems reasonable. Anyone in a fire based zone needs to resist a maneuver to place some Aspect such as, "Choking on smoke," on them. Anyone affected gets free tagged into choking helplessly, which they can resist either by rolling better on the maneuver or by spending a fate point.

The reason there isn't one standard way of handling a room being on fire is that its importance to the story varies from instance to instances. Sometimes it's a coat of narrative spray paint. Sometimes it's the central conflict of the scene. Having one carefully defined set of rules to cover all house fires means that sometimes you're going to be fighting the rules to use them in a particular scene.

Right.

This almost seems to be a bit like a halfway point between Ars Magica and the Amber Diceless RPG. Less rules than the former, more than the latter, with the idea of cooperative play and game construction shared by the two.

[Morfedel]

So then, using this train of logic as an example... making a magic circle to take out Binder's horde of gray weird-mouthed demon thingies, who are using ecto-suits:

1. I could rule it as a threshold of sorts. How would you rate the strength of said threshold? I ask because even Butters made a magic circle, with no training and only a brief explanation really, so it seems that no real skill is entailed. So, perhaps something seemingly innocuous, like Conviction or Discipline, which everyone has at least a little of, believing that they are actually going to make a circle, and when completed, snaps shut, creating the threshold? Although perhaps Molly started by applying the aspect "slow but steady" on herself, since she had to make it right the first time, and make it big to capture everything?

2. Meanwhile, Dresden, in his own circle to protect him... perhaps again using Conviction or Discipline, made his circle, as a Block against anything trying to get in at him, from the supernatural sect of things?

3. Another possibility, a maneuver (again using Conviction or Discipline perhaps?) put on a zone, that applies the aspect "Magic Threshold" on said zone... then the GM uses the aspect as a mass compel against Binder's thugs, ruling it as an all-or-nothing, they all accept or all are refused, since they are the exact same type and strength, thus all being effected the same... (in the same vein that every human would be effected the same way when exposed to a vacuum, if they don't have the gear to prevent it?) Only problem with this last is, Binder would get a heaping ton of fate points that way.... unless his goons, in this case, each got their own fate point as they faded away, so if Binder ever brought them back...?

[Lash Dresden]

"He who spoils the cheer buys the beer."  (Or something very much like that. )

[Morfedel]

"He who spoils the cheer buys the beer."  (Or something very much like that. )

Crap. I hope that doesn't include everyone who is a member of the forum...

[Lash Dresden]

Crap. I hope that doesn't include everyone who is a member of the forum...

I don't like beer, so I'll pass.  Can't speak for everyone else, though.

(Seriously, in case you haven't read the short stories, that was a quote from Day Off, from the gaming group at Will & Georgia's place in response to Harry attempting to make the game they were playing conform to his knowledge of how magic really works.  Good humor in that story.)

[Morfedel]

Agreed, that was a great and really funny story, hehe!

[devonapple]

Crap. I hope that doesn't include everyone who is a member of the forum...

::holds out his beer stein::

[devonapple]

3. Another possibility, a maneuver (again using Conviction or Discipline perhaps?) put on a zone, that applies the aspect "Magic Threshold" on said zone... then the GM uses the aspect as a mass compel against Binder's thugs, ruling it as an all-or-nothing, they all accept or all are refused, since they are the exact same type and strength, thus all being effected the same... (in the same vein that every human would be effected the same way when exposed to a vacuum, if they don't have the gear to prevent it?) Only problem with this last is, Binder would get a heaping ton of fate points that way.... unless his goons, in this case, each got their own fate point as they faded away, so if Binder ever brought them back...?

Ah, in this case, I think D&D 3.x may be able to help us out. In that game, you didn't get XP for defeating creatures which an enemy summoned during combat - those were already figured into the summoner's original Challenge Rating. So I'd give Binder 1 Fate Point total for that Compel, and none to the goons because they were essentially enslaved to Binder's will at the time.

If that sounds problematic, then perhaps we can consider the Magic Threshold Compel to be against Binder's Summoning Ritual and not against the individual goons summoned by the Summoning Ritual.

[wyvern]

Yes, definitely the above; one zombie or a hundred zombies, their summoner gets just the one fate point for that compel - I'd say this is already in the rules; if you get compelled on "can't attack with magic", then just trying again with a different spell/minion/whatever just plain fails with no new fate point.
(Well, ok, if it's, say, 25 zombies from each of four different summoners, each competing to see who can slaughter you first, then all four summoners might get a fate point.)

Note, also, that I run this as a GM compel; the player doesn't need to spend a fate point to make their magic circle do its thing.  (Though I might allow them to try to escalate an existing fate point conflict if, say, they were trying to keep out something that actually bought off the compel...)  This may or may not be suitable to your game, though; if your players are drowning in fate points, then maybe they should need to spend their own to make a magic circle work - as it is essentially a plot device power.

[Shecky]

Yes, yes, you're right and I'm wrong. Have a cookie, on me.

Now if I could just travel back in time and stop that email from going out... sigh....

S'okay. We all get our dander up now and then. And, as Fyrchick said, no calm was damaged in the filming of this episode, merely mildly perturbed.

[dannylilly2000]

So then, using this train of logic as an example... making a magic circle to take out Binder's horde of gray weird-mouthed demon thingies, who are using ecto-suits:

1. I could rule it as a threshold of sorts. How would you rate the strength of said threshold? I ask because even Butters made a magic circle, with no training and only a brief explanation really, so it seems that no real skill is entailed. So, perhaps something seemingly innocuous, like Conviction or Discipline, which everyone has at least a little of, believing that they are actually going to make a circle, and when completed, snaps shut, creating the threshold? Although perhaps Molly started by applying the aspect "slow but steady" on herself, since she had to make it right the first time, and make it big to capture everything?

2. Meanwhile, Dresden, in his own circle to protect him... perhaps again using Conviction or Discipline, made his circle, as a Block against anything trying to get in at him, from the supernatural sect of things?

3. Another possibility, a maneuver (again using Conviction or Discipline perhaps?) put on a zone, that applies the aspect "Magic Threshold" on said zone... then the GM uses the aspect as a mass compel against Binder's thugs, ruling it as an all-or-nothing, they all accept or all are refused, since they are the exact same type and strength, thus all being effected the same... (in the same vein that every human would be effected the same way when exposed to a vacuum, if they don't have the gear to prevent it?) Only problem with this last is, Binder would get a heaping ton of fate points that way.... unless his goons, in this case, each got their own fate point as they faded away, so if Binder ever brought them back...?

I think I'm missing something because I see no need for rules for circles.  Just like in the books when a player draws a circle and throws a bit of will into it, it blocks all magic.  Simple as that, no mess no fuss and the story moves on.

[Morfedel]

I think I'm missing something because I see no need for rules for circles.  Just like in the books when a player draws a circle and throws a bit of will into it, it blocks all magic.  Simple as that, no mess no fuss and the story moves on.

True, except there has been the suggestion that a circle can.be penetrated. Chauncy tried to break through Dressed's circle, and when failed, put on a pair of glasses and said forms.had to be observed.

So,.the implication that circles can be penetrated.is there... we've just never seen it happen.

[devonapple]

One Circle is keeping stuff out. One Circle is keeping something nasty IN. It would be great if there was a unilateral correlation between the two, but the fiction seems to draw at least some distinction.

Harry spends a lot of time building up the strength of his Circles when he is containing a bad nasty creature, but his attitude about defensive Circles seems much less uncertain - almost casual. It may be that in the case of Butters' quick Circle, it was like a "full defense against magic" action, and there was more narrative interest in focusing on the monsters beating up on Harry and others, so the writer/GM turned down the heat on the relatively noncombatant NPC.

[TheMouse]

We know that sufficiently powerful things can break through circles. You have only to look to Fool Moon and the loup-garou. That thing goes through normal circles like they're made of paper.

Likewise, I wouldn't expect a line of chalk to stop Mab or an angel. And I can't imagine that it would hold a Denarian for too terribly long

That's why rules for circles would be nice. I like having rules more solid than, "Eh, leave it up to the GM."