"Official" Perspective on Lawbreaking

[Lavecki121]

Thats an interesting way to think about it. Its not the intent its the result of the intent...hmmm

[Mrmdubois]

Makes sense to me.

[narphoenix]

1: You cast a fire evocation that burns a human to death.

Lawbreaker and WC coming to kill you.

2: You tie your enemy to a wooden pillar, pile wood all around him, and then light the fire with a fire evocation.

Lawbreaker and WC coming to kill you.

3: You tie your enemy to a wooden pillar, pile wood all around him, and then light the fire with a lighter that has been conjured.

No Lawbreaker. WC may gnash its teeth, but probably won't kill you.

4: You tie your enemy to a wooden pillar, pile wood all around him, and then light the fire with a torch that has been lit with a fire evocation.

Same as 3.

5: You tie your enemy to a wooden pillar, pile wood all around him, and then light the fire with a torch that has been previously lit with a fire evocation for the purpose of providing illumination.

Same as 4.

6: You use a fire evocation to incinerate a building that you honestly believe to be empty.

Lawbreaker. Harry escapes this one because I subscribe to "they were already dead in the Velvet Room. If the WC finds out, choppy choppy stab stab.

7: You tie your enemy to a wooden pillar, pile wood all around him, and then light the fire with a regular lighter.

Nope.

My metric for Lawbreaker First is "was the last act of will a use of Power that killed?"

[Asleif]

Hello there,

We have had a pretty interesting discussion the other day, due to an ingame happening.

What happens if a kid, lets say around 12 years old accidentally kills somebody with their emerging magic?

Especially the questions is, how does the White Council handle this? No matter how hardcore the Wardens are, I have a hard time picturing them killing kids...

cheers
Asleif

[Tedronai]

Hard-line old-school warden gets the case?  A ten minute 'investigation, 5 minute 'trial', and a quick death.
Ramirez-era or similar warden gets the case?  A much longer investigation, an actual trial, and the potential for rehabilitation.

[blackstaff67]

Hard-line old-school warden gets the case?  A ten minute 'investigation, 5 minute 'trial', and a quick death.
Ramirez-era or similar warden gets the case?  A much longer investigation, an actual trial, and the potential for rehabilitation.

Put much better than I did.

[horngeek]

I suspect this is the sort of thing that would actually be a 'even the most hardliner of Wardens would at least consider the Doom over execution'. 

Hope, anyway. 

[dragoonbuster]

I have a hard time picturing them killing kids...

The Wardens are by and large fanatical about taking down Lawbreakers. Harry's mentioned multiple times that they murder child Lawbreakers. We don't know the proportion of them like Morgan who are hard-mouthed and go about their business without complaint and the ones that will carry it out but aren't happy about it. In my opinion, only the young, Harry-worshipping Wardens would consider the Doom for even a young kid if the 1st Law violation is obvious.

The Doom is implied to be a rare situation, partly because most of the time the Wardens just lop heads, partly because there isn't usually a wizard willing to take responsibility for the one with the Doom over their head, since recidivism means death for the sponsor too.

[Escher]

Harry got Lawbreaker from that first event, killing Justin, but the Velvet Room wouldn't be enough to give him a second rank since he'd have to kill thrice to get it again, right?

But that aside, in the light of Turn Coat, I guess we have to consider that the Wardens' behavior (and the senior council's, actually) is suspect to being mentally influenced.  Molly said if it was her, she'd tweak and nudge their behaviors, amping up some aspects of personality (paranoia, anger, conservatism, fatalism, etc) and suppressing others (mercy, empathy, trust, etc).  Do we have any way to tell how long Peabody had been exerting influence on the Council?  It's possible that he's been doing it for a very long time, so the 'old-school hardline wardens' may or may not be an accurate look at wardens in general.  The new-school wardens may be more in line with what the wardens looked like three hundred years ago.

[BearsDragon]

Ohhh, I like the way you think.

[whitelaughter]

Hi, just bought the DFRPG, and have a question on Lawbreaking:

Does it apply when non-mortals are the spellcasters? (frex when the Leannansidhe acquires a new set of dogs in Changes). It's pretty important given that a Changeling can be running around with some serious juju.

(Of course, 'don't transform others' is easily avoided by having an item that the victim is bullied into using themselves - and that's probably the best use, a magistrate's court's Bible being an Unseelie item of power that accepts oaths daily and transforms oathbreakers into something useful the following midnight - but it's still worth knowing).

Oh, given one of the tangents was the humanocentric aspect of the Laws, it would make sense if the Laws are actually "don't zap your own species": so a Dinosaur Wizard could calmly raise human zombies but would have been hit with an Aspect for copying Dresden's trick with Sue.

[Mr. Death]

The laws are human-centric largely because the White Council is human centric, according to Jim, and don't necessarily align completely with the actual, cosmic, metaphysical laws of magic.

That said, breaking the laws, I think, doesn't apply to non-humans because they lack the malleability of free will. Leanansidhe isn't going to be corrupted by using her magic to turn Dresden into a dog, because using magic to turn Dresden into a dog is already in line with who and what she is.

That said, a dinosaur necromancer sounds awesome and I wholeheartedly encourage it.

[Sanctaphrax]

Pretty sure it's more about free will than about humanity/mortality.

Faeries can do whatever they want, but changelings are bound by the Laws. And angels, being free-willed (I think) but immortal and utterly inhuman, probably need to stick to the Laws.

[whitelaughter]

awesome, thanks.

Hadn't considered the whole 'free will' aspect.

Hmm, so a Changeling who kills with their magic will get Lawbreaker unless they've just chosen to go full fae...and if they chose to go full human, will lose their magic but not Lawbreaker?

[Sanctaphrax]

Well, they'd keep the Aspect-based corruption from their law-breaking. But I don't see much point in docking their Refresh.