The Dresden Files > DFRPG

Comments thread for "The Laws of Magic: Part 2 of 8"

(1/7) > >>

iago:
The First Law: Never take a life.

Read the article here: http://www.dresdenfilesrpg.com/news/archives/2007/06/the_laws_of_mag_1.php

finarvyn:
Good reading. I like the overall philosophy of writing articles first in theory and then in specific to the campaign. That style certainly combines the best of both worlds, as it gives a general Dresdenverse resource as well as campaign-specific thoughts and suggestions.

It's stuff like this that makes me certain that the DFRPG will be a big hit.

Khayyin:
Something I'm not 100% on: Do the Laws of Magic only apply to human wizards, or do they have an effect on anything at all that uses magic? Obviously the Wardens are primarily concerned with policing the wizards, and protecting lives, so you won't hear them accusing a monster of breaking a law. My question is, does the monster take a lawbreaker stunt, if it breaks one of the laws?

I ask because, in my campaign of ~7 players, only one is a wizard. The rest are a varied array of beasts and fae. I'm interested to know if the corrupting influence of using magic wrong is fairly universal, or if it is something that only happens to humans.

iago:

--- Quote from: Khayyin on June 15, 2007, 06:59:05 PM ---Something I'm not 100% on: Do the Laws of Magic only apply to human wizards, or do they have an effect on anything at all that uses magic? Obviously the Wardens are primarily concerned with policing the wizards, and protecting lives, so you won't hear them accusing a monster of breaking a law. My question is, does the monster take a lawbreaker stunt, if it breaks one of the laws?
--- End quote ---

Most times that won't really matter; most *true* monsters aren't PCs, and lawbreaker stunts are there more to make PC life interesting than they are otherwise.

But in terms of the *legality* of things, I would speculate that the Unseelie Accords protect most monsters from that sort of prosecution -- though honestly, since a lot of the actions covered by the laws are Bad Things Done to Humans, that doesn't mean a wizard won't come along and disintegrate a monster for doing a bad thing completely apart from the whole "is it a violation of the Laws or not".

*That* said, we're talking *monsters* here.  True, dyed-in-the-wool, full-damn monsters.  Not "supernatural humans".  Alpha-style werewolves don't count as monsters here, for example; neither do changelings who haven't made their Choice yet.


--- Quote ---I ask because, in my campaign of ~7 players, only one is a wizard. The rest are a varied array of beasts and fae. I'm interested to know if the corrupting influence of using magic wrong is fairly universal, or if it is something that only happens to humans.
--- End quote ---

(Fae are almost certainly protected by the Accords from prosecution of the Laws.)

Well, let's just say that to the extent that it matters for non-player creatures, it's almost always going to be "baked into" their natures.  The Laws game rules function as they function because they're about *changing* a player character from what he is now, into what he's becoming.  It's a consequence of free will when you use the power of that free will to make a dark choice.

I'm not sure what you mean by "beasts" here, though, so I'm not sure where to go with the specifics of your game.

Douglas:
How would you advise treating an attempt to make an opponent easier to kill using magic?

Example:
My friend's character, a witch named Sylvia Valois, and my character, a mortal named James Strand, are confronting a human villain named Phillip Burroughs.  Burroughs is powerful, influential, and in league with a group of vampires, but is still a free-willed human being.  He tries to call security when we burst into his office, but Sylvia pins him to the wall by projecting magical force.  He starts to scream threats at us and James buries a fire-axe in his skull.

Would this violate the First Law?  Sylvia was actively using magivc to pin our enemy in place, but she herself did not cause him any serious harm to him.  The harm was done by an axe-wielding mortal, a distinctly non-magical phenomena and not one under her direct control. 

Would it make a difference if Sylvia had acted alone and used an axe to kill Phillip after immobilizing him with magic?  I think it might, since you had the example of using magic to knock someone off a building as a no-no even though the cause of death was mundane.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page