New Free Casefile: Evil Acts!

[wyvern]

I wonder if it makes sense for it to be easier to overhear something by accident than on purpose. It sounds wrong, but I know from personal experience that sometimes trying is counterproductive.

Yes and no.  The thing with investigation is, in some cases, it will offer lower difficulties (or potentially even automatic success) compared to alertness.  Consider, for example, the disguise trapping of deceit - which outright specifies that, without an appropriate stunt / power, any investigation check will beat the disguise.  Or consider a piece of paper in an unlocked desk drawer - alertness won't find it no matter how high you roll, but even a mere +0 investigation check would be sufficient to turn it up.

Or, yes, sometimes you overhear things by accident that you would never have heard if you'd been trying.

[finnmckool]

Firstly let me say that as a theatre guy...ZOMG I'M HAVING SOME SORT OF NERD SPASM! Seriously. It's all my favorite things, and I was already toying with the idea myself. I've even got access, maybe, to an older community theatre that's even supposedly haunted to game in! SqueeEEE! So get out of my head, but THANKS! Also, really good call on the Tempest stuff. It's fantastic. As well, I adore Prospero's and Miranda's spells.

Secondly, I really love all the NPC's, though I think Miranda's gonna be neither helpful nor hurtful or both really. Because why choose? She could be good daughter on the one hand but completely pushed to the brink of her patience since her father is the DOUBLY career obsessed between theatre, which is a widow maker, and magic, which is literally a widow maker. But otherwise...LOVE the NPC's. 

But I gotta say, for some reason, I'm just not digging the PC's yet. I mean, I've gotta play it and all, but I just don't like them immediately like I did the whole Neutral Grounds gang. Everyone just fit together so nicely. Cal's cool, and Kross I really dig as a back stage guy, though I gotta say, she looks kinda glam for a techie. We tend to be a bit more rough and tumble since we may have to crawl on the floor with a flash light at a moment's notice. However, I DO love the notion that it's the SM/tech person who's the Emissary. That's super neat.

I'll give it a whirl and see if the characters grow on me, or find out what's bugging me about them.

[iago]

Alex should have gotten that part. The role of Miranda should be hers by all rights. Instead the director put his daughter in the role AND stuck her back stage. The nerve! It's not like she'd mess up something about the performance... Right?

[iago]

Also of note: these characters aren't a "group" in the same way as the other case files. They're individuals, some of whom will have agendas putting them at cross purposes. That may be part of why they don't seem to fit together nicely -- they're not supposed to.

[sinker]

Oh, there'd be setting-based issues with having Sycorax be an

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Outsider

, believe you me. It would be a tricky bit of writing to stay true to the Dresdenverse canon and our insights into it.

I'm wondering if any of you would be willing to take that on with us. The concept intrigues me, however not having your insights I'm not sure about treading that path. Can you do so without revealing anything that you aren't supposed to?

Specifically I'm wondering what sort of problems you see in making that change. Obviously Prospero and Miranda's motivations change as discussed, but what else?

[chadu]

I'm wondering if any of you would be willing to take that on with us. The concept intrigues me, however not having your insights I'm not sure about treading that path. Can you do so without revealing anything that you aren't supposed to?

Specifically I'm wondering what sort of problems you see in making that change. Obviously Prospero and Miranda's motivations change as discussed, but what else?

Well, the key thing, setting-wise (and this is the whole issue for the entire DFRPG enchilada) is we only see things through Harry's perspective in the casefiles, filtered through Billy for the RPG.

This means:

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We know almost nothing about how to rulesify Outsiders. The only one we've seen or heard tell of much is He Who Walks Behind, in Harry's backstory and quickly onscreen in Blood Rites.

In Ghost Story, we:

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Get some more details on what HWWB is like and can do (always behind; seen in mirrors, very strong and quick, etc.), but...

...none of that has been mechanized as of yet.

We can extrapolate some other stuff from mordite and the mistfiend, and that's about it.

Ultimately, we can't talk about or make stuff up out of whole cloth any stuff Jim hasn't shown -- or told us about during our writing of stuff -- yet. That's why there's only a little information about say, dragons or the Jade Court. Indeed, some of this is because Jim hasn't made it up yet.

It made writing the RPG a challenge. Ultimately, IMAO, the only way it could have been written was as a first-person POV from a character in the series -- then again, that was my idea, so I may be biased.

(If you have the PDFs, do a search for the word "speculation" to see where we deviate/analyze/extrapolate from WoJ in the books, online, or in backchat conversations.)

Does that make sense?

[sinker]

Ahh, I thought maybe you had other problems in mind. Yes, that makes plenty of sense.

[memethief]

Something I noticed: Alex should have four social stress boxes, not three, for her Great Presence.

[memethief]

Oops, found another: in Taylor's description of The Catch, you call him Simon.

[finnmckool]

Alex should have gotten that part. The role of Miranda should be hers by all rights. Instead the director put his daughter in the role AND stuck her back stage. The nerve! It's not like she'd mess up something about the performance... Right?

I have to say that as a techie I'd be SHOCKED. Appalled. Blacklisted. No matter how bad you hate them, you don't mess with the show. Now that's not to say there's nothing one can DO. We can make YOU look bad without making the SHOW look bad. It's a subtle, vengeful art.

[chadu]

I have to say that as a techie I'd be SHOCKED. Appalled. Blacklisted. No matter how bad you hate them, you don't mess with the show. Now that's not to say there's nothing one can DO. We can make YOU look bad without making the SHOW look bad. It's a subtle, vengeful art.

And the mentality of the Chorus is now displayed (only from the actor side, and mostly aimed at other actors rather than techies).

[sinker]

Calls to mind a number of stage pranks done in my high school years. The best one I remember was when we covered the top of a ladder one of the actors had to climb in dirty pictures and then vaseline. He got up on the ladder, placed his hands right in the vaseline, which of course drew his attention to the ladder, and the dirty pictures hiding there, which then obliterated any lines he may have had memorized. He stammered through the scene while awkwardly wiping his hands on his pants.

Then of course there was the porn wound into the typewriter, and there are a rather large number of things you can do with a four foot tall actor (well ok, there's only one thing you can do, and that's hide him in places, but you can do it a number of different ways).

[finnmckool]

And the mentality of the Chorus is now displayed (only from the actor side, and mostly aimed at other actors rather than techies).

But Alex is the Stage Manager! SM's aren't allowed to throw the show! Ask the lighting designer to make your big dramatic special light to be unflattering? We can do that. Tweak your mic to make you sound a bit high pitched? Nasally? Or low and mush mouthed? We can do that. Now, that's pretty extreme and you have to earn that kind of ire, and it can't make anyone else look bad, and you can't do that to really talented performers no matter how bad you hate them, because that hurts the show. But if the performer sucks anyway, and theyr'e jerks...

My point being, ON stage revenge is tightly proscribed.

[chadu]

But Alex is the Stage Manager! SM's aren't allowed to throw the show!

Oh, Alex wouldn't be in on such shenanigans.

Now, that's pretty extreme and you have to earn that kind of ire, and it can't make anyone else look bad, and you can't do that to really talented performers no matter how bad you hate them, because that hurts the show. But if the performer sucks anyway, and they're jerks...

My point being, ON stage revenge is tightly proscribed.

My point being: community theater.    (Community theater actor friends have told STORIES.)

Seriously, though: I think petty bullshit is one of the reasons the ritual can go so, so wrong. (I mean, with a devotee of the Muses around, you'd think it'd go fairly well as a matter of course...)

[iago]

Oops, found another: in Taylor's description of The Catch, you call him Simon.

Thanks for these, by the way (this and the other one about the stress box) -- I've corrected them in the source file, so if we end up pushing another update, they'll be addressed. For now, errata.