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

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mikeryan:

--- Quote from: rayden54 on June 18, 2007, 07:58:22 PM ---
My question is: Is the first wizard still guilty of breaking the first law? If the second had killed the sorcerer with magic in order to prevent the first from doing so, did he succeed? Or will they both be executed? And what does this translate to in game terms?
--- End quote ---

This is a heat of battle scenario. I think that if they have friends on the council, they'd get off with a warning.

In game terms, I think the guy who "got the kill" would probably still get the Lawbreaker stunt. The other guy would probably get a pass from me. You can want to kill someone as much as you want. You just can't kill them. The player can still play up the emotional angle at coming that close to taking a life. The stunt isn't really needed for that.


--- Quote ---Second, what if a person kills someone with magic, and it's truly accidental? Say someone's trying to burn their garbage and they accidentally light someone on fire.
--- End quote ---

Personally, I think that without intent, it doesn't count. It's still a good motivation to be cautious with your mighty powers.

iago:
Mikeryan is speaking as the guy who'd be running the game, with answers of "this is how I'd play it".  This is exactly the way I want people to be looking at this material.

It's not my place to say "this is how you MUST interpret these situations".  In *your* games, it should be all in how *you* interpret it.  I'm just laying down fruitful material for thought!

Rel Fexive:
Any more fruitful and we'll be surrounded by trees or... somethin'...

seiscat:
You know these arguments are virtually the same ones that come up with the "thou shall not kill" Commandment in the Bible.  How many thousands of years has that discussion been going on?  It seems likely that the WC would have come to the same conclusions that society has in general - the grey areas are covered under things like negligent homicide and manslaughter with gradational punishments going on up to premeditated murder and the death penalty.  A vote of the WC or SC is substituted for a jury and/or judge.  The final decision will be based on human instinct and probably, some politics.

Douglas:

--- Quote from: iago on June 16, 2007, 05:53:26 PM ---Yep, you're on to something; someone could certainly take the Laws of Magic rules system presented here and apply it to non-supernatural activities too, if they cared to... I doubt we'll actually explicitly support that in the game, but I'd love to see a few local games "drift" things that way.

--- End quote ---

I definitely think that eventual aspect shift would be a good element to add to a character who had killed things that looked human.  However I don't think the loss of free will associated with the Refresh mechanic should be part of the equation.  Combat veterans can come home fairly screwed up, but they don't come home without free will.  I'm not quite sure how I'd approximate the short-term mental stress of killing for the first time, as a friend of mine in the Canadian military once told me everyone who kills for the first time either cries, vomits, or was majorly screwed up to begin with.  Given that the last of those categories is unlikely to make for good PCs some approximation of the short term pschological effects for individuals not used to violence might add something.  Aspect shift could reflect either a character becoming unhinged or a character coming to some kind of reconciliation with themself over what they have done.  Murphy doesn't show a lot of problems after shooting Denton in Fool Moon, or after shooting one Raith bodyguard and killing another while unarmed in Blood Rites.  Simplest explanation is she had already come to grips with this.

How a particualr GM and Player decide to handle the consequences of this kind of activity will be up to them.  Some groups may keep to strictly inhuman monsters to avoid even bringing up killing rules.  Others may prefer a game where this sort of thing comes up, and allow time for role-playing on how a character tries to come to grips with his own violent acts.

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