The Glass Jawed Wizard

[Centarion]

OK, lets look at that second example.

If it happens a different way, such as the player strolling up with his stick and demanding entry out of the blue (rather than the theoretical planning phase the previous paragraph described) you slide a fate point and say something like, "The burly troll at the door eyes your staff and puts a stopping hand out.  'No staffs, wizard,' he says."  The player would need to slide a buy-off and say something like "I am here to perform a service to Maeve.  She will need me armed." or some-such.

You show up out of the blue, the bouncer doesn't know you, Maeve may have heard of you, but isn't your friend. You say you want to perform a service and need to be armed. The troll probably says "You can have it back when you leave, you won't need weapons in there." He doesn't trust you, also he thinks your excuse is stupid. He knows that if you are performing sanctioned magic in the club you can easily come back with permission and pick up your staff, and if you are going in to get instructions and then leave to perform a service you can pick it up on the way out. The only reason he sees for you to want to be armed in the club is if you want it for protection against the fae in there.

In this case simply buying out just doesn't seem appropriate to me. Do you think that was an appropriate buy-off? Convincing the troll that Maeve wants you to keep your staff is likely a social conflict in its own right. I would allow the player to accept the compel and then start such a social conflict (or try to sneak the staff in, or whatever), absolutely, I am not against players finding their own ways around obstacles. But in your second example buying off the compel is basically just making the compel "mystically go away."

[Orladdin]

In this case simply buying out just doesn't seem appropriate to me. Do you think that was an appropriate buy-off? Convincing the troll that Maeve wants you to keep your staff is likely a social conflict in its own right. I would allow the player to accept the compel and then start such a social conflict (or try to sneak the staff in, or whatever), absolutely, I am not against players finding their own ways around obstacles. But in your second example buying off the compel is basically just making the compel "mystically go away."

Is the player actually there to perform a service to Maeve?  Then the troll leans his head in, gets the OK, and the player enters.  Why slow the game down by making them come back out?

In any case, they are using their FP in exchange for the social skill roll to convince the troll.  Remember how aspects created with skill rolls get a free tag?  Skill rolls and FPs are somewhat interchangable.  They use the FP to convince the troll.  That's what they're really doing here.  It's essentially the same as making the declaration "I convince the troll." You just forced them to do it.

OK, lets look at that second example.

You show up out of the blue, the bouncer doesn't know you, Maeve may have heard of you, but isn't your friend. You say you want to perform a service and need to be armed. The troll probably says "You can have it back when you leave, you won't need weapons in there." He doesn't trust you, also he thinks your excuse is stupid. He knows that if you are performing sanctioned magic in the club you can easily come back with permission and pick up your staff, and if you are going in to get instructions and then leave to perform a service you can pick it up on the way out. The only reason he sees for you to want to be armed in the club is if you want it for protection against the fae in there.

Your deep and intricate reasoning and detailed character motivations here are nice to see.  It shows how much thought you put into the world all on your own.
Have you explained this paragraph to your table?  It's a very reasonable and rational explanation as to why he can't take it in.  You could even escalate the compel with each couple sentences of that paragraph you lay out.  "He doesn't trust you.  Maeve hasn't told him you were coming. <slide a second fate point, escalating the compel>  <Player buys off again> If you were going to perform sanctioned magic here, you could come back out and get it. <slide the third fate point, escalating again>"
Also, since we're talking in-character motivations, here, Is the troll really smart enough to think this entire, detailed motivation out?  Trolls aren't exactly known for their sharp intellect.

Most importantly of all:
As nice as your detailed thought process above was, it is also mostly irrelevant. 
You need to talk with your table on this.  If they don't think any encounter with the no-name bouncer is going to be an interesting improvement to the story and, more importantly, they are willing to pay valuable narrative currency to avoid it, why are you trying to force them to play through it?  Because you took the time to stat it out?  That's nothing but hubris.

Just this weekend I ran a FATE game.  I had planned out 3 different combat encounters.  My players, through sheer cleverness, buy-outs and subterfuge, bypassed ever fighting a single one of them.  And you know what?  They abosultely loved the session.  Your players are telling you what they want.  Why aren't you listening?

[Centarion]

I think we should note here that I am currently not GM'ing any FATE campaigns. I GM'ed a one shot once, and I talk to my GM about this kind of thing a lot (and of course think about it a lot), but I am currently not GM'ing.

Is the player actually there to perform a service to Maeve?  Then the troll leans his head in, gets the OK, and the player enters.  Why slow the game down by making them come back out?

When I gave this example, my assumption was that the players were here to fight/capture something, and that Maeve probably wouldn't be too pleased. If their business is actually legit I wouldn't go through the trouble of disarming them (or maybe I would, but in this case a buyout would make sense, just as you described).  Also, in my head this troll was not meant to be an encounter, he was meant as a compel like device to weaken the wizard before a fight, because the original topic of this thread is what to do when wizards are too powerful in your campaign and making it less fun and one possible answer was take away their foci.

I appreciate players being clever, and using narrative power and subtle skill roll to bypass fights. And if that is what my group wanted to do I would certainly let them. But I probably would not let them do it by just walking past an encounter by paying 3 fate points to buy out (maybe if they had a really good reason, but using a fate point to substitute for deceit to lie to the guard, and then spending 2 more when I escalate to make it a "really good" deceit just isn't natively interesting) , they would have do some other scene about how they sneaked past it, or sweat talked the combatants or whatever they do.

I would never make the group fight an NPC they had a reasonable way to get around just because I wanted them to, you are right, that is just hubris. I also wouldn't force them into a scene to bypass it if they thought it was boring. But I don't know if I would let them get away from this situation without acknowledging the troll in any way but spending a pile of fate points to buy off the compel and barging past (however they want to flavor it, that is whats happening). In this case they could fight it/have a social conflict/try to sneak in the staff under it's nose/case the joint a break in etc or they could just give in and ditch the staff. They have tons of options, from clever, to brutal, if they want to get around my "nerf" (I am not railroading/using GM fiat here) but if they don't want to put in the time/effort why should I let them just walk through my bouncer?

Also, while the troll may not be bright, he was probably told to not let anyone in with iron weapons or magic items unless he has a direct order otherwise. Since he is so dense, he would likely not be easy to persuade otherwise. He would likely just say "Nope, can't let ya in, orders are orders" even if he believed you were there on legit business.

[Orladdin]

Ah, I was under the impression that this was something that happened to you, and not a completely hypothetical question.  In general, it sounds like you've got your head on straight, and won't really have many problems in practice. 

But one thing that I'll reiterate because it's really important:
Three fate points is a pretty huge expendature to bypass something like that.  Consider that's a +6 (numerical) coming accross the table (or three really potent invokes-for-effect).  How many times would he need to cast spells to get that kind of output?  You make it sound like this is a trivial expendature.  It is not; by any means.  Especially since it is presumably the wizard who has to pay it, and Wizards are notoriously low on FPs pretty much all the time.  You probably just cost him h(is/er) whole load of chips (if he even could pay it off).  Think of it: even if you let him in with his staff now, he can't pay off other compels, reroll abysmal rolls or give himself that extra little oomf to turn a miss into a hit.  You're neutering him just as much, just in a different way.  And, in so doing, put the option of how it happened in his hands.

If you simply don't want to handle it with a compel, that's fine, but its no more or less effective mathematically.

[Centarion]

I understand your point, and I agree 3 fate points is a lot. On a pure mechanical basis (and I do remember that the purpose of this was to handicap a wizard running amok) this probably works as you want, maybe even harsher. And on a game play basis it may be best to allow this sort of thing just to speed up play. But I got drawn into the argument and started thinking about it from a pure narrative perspective, and I could totally see one of my friends really not wanting to part with his staff, but also too lazy to think of a solution and just paying his way out; and I thought that was just boring.

Anyway, if I was GM'ing it I would probably say "There is a troll at the door, as you come up he looks at your staff and holds out his hand" *slides fate point for compel* "He isn't gonna let you take that in." Then I would pretty much tell them to either give up the staff or if they pressed me on it to look for a clever alternative, I likely wouldn't let them buy out at all, but if they pressed I may escalate once and give them 2 fate points to give it up or look for another way in/a conflict with this troll. I feel like while it is kinda mean to not let them buy out of the compel I am not really railroading them into doing anything since they can always back away and try some other way in, or get in a fight or give it up, they have plenty of options.

Thanks for this discussion though. It has enlightened me a lot on good practices while Gm'ing in FATE and given me some good ideas for things to do as a player.

[Orladdin]

Thanks for this discussion though. It has enlightened me a lot on good practices while Gm'ing in FATE and given me some good ideas for things to do as a player.

Oh, you're most welcome.  I'm on here 'cause I love to talk about it.
And thank you, as well.  I love thought excercises, and those two scenarios had so many ways to dance around them.

[THE_ANGRY_GAMER]

Another way to nerf spellcasters is to throw another spellslinger at them, and have the enemy wizard focus on your wizard PC. An ongoing block-maneuver-attack-counterspell duel would be quite exciting for the Wizard and allow the player to show off, while allowing the other players the chance to shine while taking out the enemy wizard's flunkies. Depending on how successful the PC wizard is at dealing with the NPC wizard, your other PCs may even kill the other wizard. Bam, exciting magical duel for the wizard, exciting brawl for the others.

[amberpup]

The first rule of handicapping a wizard is not letting the player know that's what you're planning. So the troll should hit up most everyone in the group for at least something besides just the wizard's foci.

So if the compel is 'disarm', you could have alot of fate points being passed around.

So unless the group was low on FP, the best move would be someone to do a declaration before hand (We're on the List).

[Mr. Death]

The first rule of handicapping a wizard is not letting the player know that's what you're planning. So the troll should hit up most everyone in the group for at least something besides just the wizard's foci.

So if the compel is 'disarm', you could have alot of fate points being passed around.

So unless the group was low on FP, the best move would be someone to do a declaration before hand (We're on the List).

Suddenly I'm looking at this as the scene in The Two Towers where they're going in to see Theodin. The GM hands Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli's players fate points to have them disarm, and Gandalf's pays the compel and comes up with the 'old man with a walkingstick' excuse to keep the staff.

[Centarion]

Suddenly I'm looking at this as the scene in The Two Towers where they're going in to see Theodin. The GM hands Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli's players fate points to have them disarm, and Gandalf's pays the compel and comes up with the 'old man with a walkingstick' excuse to keep the staff.

I thought that too. That is an excellent excuse, especially with mortal thugs outside a clued in mobsters mansion. With a fae creature who can sense the magic rolling off your staff (see the section talking about enchanted item/foci size in YS) it may not work as well. But it is still an awesome scene .

Ya The troll would almost certainly also ban any iron weapon, so it may not look horribly suspicious. I also really like a magical duel concept, I may have to look into getting more spell-caster enemies into my games (and re-read the rules on counter spells).

[THE_ANGRY_GAMER]

As far as countespells go, you can only counterspell an ongoing effect-spell. So any ongoing block, sustained attack, or maneuver that relies on an ongoing evocation to work is fair game, but you can't reactively counterspell.

That said, one of the cooler options the book gives you is reactive blocks - allowing one to defend with Evocation. I really like this idea - countering a blast of flame with a curtain of water is a really cool image, and it would also serve the purpose of wearing the spellcaster down - they're only going, at maximum, have four mental stress boxes before they start taking consequences, and consequences should be a big deal. If parrying a strike with magic takes a mental stress hit, you have, at most, four exchanges, and if both parties are doing it, two exchanges of spells before they go into consequences.

Thus, you're effectively limiting the amount of spellcasting a PC can do, but the player thinks it's entirely their choice.

[Mr. Death]

As far as countespells go, you can only counterspell an ongoing effect-spell. So any ongoing block, sustained attack, or maneuver that relies on an ongoing evocation to work is fair game, but you can't reactively counterspell.

Personally, I would allow it if you were holding action and 'interrupting'

[amberpup]

Personally, I would allow it if you were holding action and 'interrupting'

Trouble with that, you got to know the person is a spell caster first and still be faster then them too. Which in some cases, would neuter the ability to counter-spell. Which would be a shame, since its a rule I like but its overlooked alot in the games I'm in.

[THE_ANGRY_GAMER]

Personally, I would allow it if you were holding action and 'interrupting'

I'd allow it then, too.

Trouble with that, you got to know the person is a spell caster first and still be faster then them too. Which in some cases, would neuter the ability to counter-spell. Which would be a shame, since its a rule I like but its overlooked alot in the games I'm in.

I agree, it's a very specialised circumstance, but it would be easy to tell the Wizard that 'you feel a stirring in your mystical senses. You can tell that one of these/this particular NPC(s) is preparing to cast a spell'.

[Mr. Death]

I agree, it's a very specialised circumstance, but it would be easy to tell the Wizard that 'you feel a stirring in your mystical senses. You can tell that one of these/this particular NPC(s) is preparing to cast a spell'.

Yeah, going by the books, calling up magical power takes a second or two before you actually let loose (when fighting the Skinwalker at Chateau Raith, Harry mentions that if he started calling up power for a spell, the Skinwalker would sense it and beat him to the punch), so it makes sense that if a wizard is waiting for it, they could see/sense it coming quick enough to counteract it.