The Dresden Files > DFRPG

Game Balance and the Laws

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traeki:
How important to game balance are setting specific structures like the Laws of Magic and, say, Vampires dependence on Feeding?  That is, it seems pretty clear that the latter would be a positive cost refresh "flaw", but the former -- going by Harry's character sheet, which is awesome -- seems more implicitly rolled into character design.  So I'm curious to what extent you think I might unbalance the System by dramatically altering the Setting (I'm excited about using the DFRPG rules for other settings such as Alpha Omega or Shadowrun, for example).

My guess is that it doesn't matter very much because those things are mechanically dealt with by compels or even out-and-out plot devices, but I'm curious if the power level of, say, Evocation is in part dependent on the fact that you're not allowed to kill people.

I'm new to Fate, but it's often asserted that it's hard to build an unbalanced character -- there's too much advantage to be gained by having interesting flaw aspects (and indeed this is one of the things that makes this system so profoundly enticing for me).  To take things to one extreme, if I just used the DFRPG rules for a supers campaign of some kind, and stripped away all the flaws from templates by default, would that significantly alter the baseline power of a 10-refresh character?

iago:
You can rip out the Laws of Magic if you aren't overly concerned about people turning into Victor Sells style "monsters" due to the corrupting influence of power.  Mechanically, when you break the Laws of Magic you end up gaining power -- specifically for breaking that law again (that's why they're negative refresh).  The more you kill with magic, the better you get at it, but the more it changes you and the closer it takes you to becoming a "monster" rather than a mortal.  If that's not important to you for your game, rip it on out -- though you'll find that without them magic has fewer limits on it to keep people from doing really horrific things to the "bad" guys. :)

I think you could do a decent supers game with the engine in the DFRPG, but I think it would require a fair amount of tuning all over to get the tone and feel of play more into the right pocket for supers. It's not just a case of "ditch the flaws".

traeki:

--- Quote from: iago on February 09, 2010, 04:58:12 PM ---Mechanically, when you break the Laws of Magic you end up gaining power -- specifically for breaking that law again (that's why they're negative refresh).

--- End quote ---

Ahh, I was wondering how that worked.  Very cool.


--- Quote from: iago on February 09, 2010, 04:58:12 PM ---I think it would require a fair amount of tuning all over to get the tone and feel of play more into the right pocket for supers. It's not just a case of "ditch the flaws".

--- End quote ---

Quite.  I was simply using that to illustrate my point.  That said...  I will also be waiting with breath firmly bated for the Fate 3.0 publication.  I mean Oh Man am I excited about that creature.

If you're willing to venture at all off topic, though, I'm curious what you think are the key areas for tuning such things?

My guess would be that by tuning refresh rate, stress boxes, and skill selections you could get pretty far.  What are the other things you find/anticipate have to bend or break when you're tuning a Fate 3.0 instantiation?

iago:

--- Quote from: traeki on February 09, 2010, 05:08:49 PM ---If you're willing to venture at all off topic, though, I'm curious what you think are the key areas for tuning such things?

My guess would be that by tuning refresh rate, stress boxes, and skill selections you could get pretty far.  What are the other things you find/anticipate have to bend or break when you're tuning a Fate 3.0 instantiation?

--- End quote ---
Yep, those are a big part of it. For starters, you'll also want to eyeball your philosophy of weapons and armor (in terms of stress bonuses), your notion of how fast consequences recover, how much you want to locate the implementation of superpowers in the skill bloc versus extensions like stunts and powers, what sort of forced movement options you want to fold into the combat system (e.g., knockback and other superheroic effects), how you want to represent ludicrous amounts of strength ("I'll hold up this falling skyscraper!") in ways that scale appropriately to your genre...

svb1972:
A drop of fresh blood
A doll
A pot of boiling water

Thaumaturgy to slowly boil someone's blood.  Strong link, should be fairly low power and it's WAY less flashy than ripping their heart out.

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