The Dresden Files > DFRPG

Lawbreaker Questions

(1/4) > >>

Deadmanwalking:
So, I have a question about Lawbreaker: Can it be used to enhance actions that should break the Law but don't, due to one technicality or another?

For example, could a reformed Necromancer use his Lawbreaker stunt to give a bonus to raising a once-frozen Wooly Mammoth as a zombie in an emergency situation? Clearly, he wouldn't gain an additional Lawbreaker stunt (Harry didn't), but would the bonus apply? Logically, it probably should, but that might cause certain mechanical issues.

The most obvious use of this is Lawbreaker (1st), and killing non-human things. I mean, if you're the kind of man who can extinguish a human life, shouldn't it be easier to kill a ghoul who's pissed you off? It's also potentially the most powerful and unbalancing. A +1 or 2 on killing things is likely to tempt a few powergamers out there.


In my game, I'd be inclined to say "Yes." And even to apply the bonus to predicting the actions of other Lawbreakers in the same area (after all, you understand how they think), just to give players whose PCs start with Lawbreaker (like Harry did) something actually useful for their Refresh, but I'd like to hear other's opinions and/or an official answer.



Another question: Do you gain Lawbreaker for doing something that you think breaks a Law but really doesn't? Like frying what you think is a human but was really a disguised Red Court Vampire with a fireball?

I'd say yes, since the intent was there, but again, I'm interested in hearing other's opinions and/or an official explanation.

iago:
In my game, I wouldn't give a Lawbreaker bonus unless someone was breaking the Law in question. Use the bonus, eat the consequences that follow on.  But really, the Lawbreaker stunt-set is an opportunity for a GM to establish his particular cosmology's spin on how the Laws inform play.  How you want to do it is fine, but it doesn't fit my own view of the Dresdenverse.

I like your thinking about intent on the second question. :)

Moriden:
My problem with intent is say you nuke a... oh say small house that as far as you know has nothing but red court in it. so you had no intention to kill a human but there happened to be one in there.

The question really comes down to either the laws are supernatural reactions to events just like action/reaction in physics or there all in your mind. but if there all in your mind then anyone who dose not know the laws couldn't violate them and that's clearly not the case.


Brian Blacknight

Deadmanwalking:
I actually see them as a combination of the two:

You must completely believe in anything you do with magic. You must feel it to be right, on some very deep level.

Therefore, whether you know the Laws or not, killing a man with magic makes you a killer in a way no gun or knife ever could, violating their mind makes you a manipulator and a monster of another kind. And so on and so forth with all the laws. You become the kind of person who can do the same sort of thing more easily.

They are the laws at least partly because intentionally using your magic to do those things changes you on a profound level.

Moriden:
Honestly i see zero reason why killing a monster with magic is different then killing a human monster with magic, but the setting is the setting. The important thing is to make sure things are consistent. Such as the gatekeeper should have lawbreaker -2 researched outsiders. if not also having broken the chronomancy law. theirs a different between social sanction[which hes exempt from] and metaphysical consequence.



Brian Blacknight

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page