Author Topic: Comments thread for "The Laws of Magic: Part 5 of 8"  (Read 14408 times)

Offline Kristine

  • Posty McPostington
  • ***
  • Posts: 8075
  • You can have your own truth, not your own facts
    • View Profile
Re: Comments thread for "The Laws of Magic: Part 5 of 8"
« Reply #15 on: July 27, 2007, 08:58:15 PM »
Just to throw out some thoughts.

Enthralling, as I understand it means to bend someone to your will.  To force your will onto their mind like some kind of mental handcuffs, no matter how gentle or how much they think they want it, would cause mental damage - probably the kind of thing that would snowball into something that would come to some form of insanity.  Even if a person would want someone to take over, in no matter how small a way relieves them of responsibility for their actions.  Acknowledgement of responsibility for ones actions is part of the whole of free will. 

Rather than a brain surgeon the practitioner becomes the de-facto jailer in certain situations.  Even in willing participants it wouldn't work.  Some examples might be:

If I come to a wizard and say "I want to quit smoking but I just can't dredge up the will-power.  Please make me quit smoking.  It's killing me."  The practitioner reaches into my psych and carefully takes away my urge to smoke.  Sounds good right?  But what he/she didn't know is that when I started smoking I did it to be like my mom, who also smoked.  The smell reminds me of when I grew up and I find it subconsciously comforting.  Now I don't smoke anymore.  I also find myself feeling oddly uncomfortable talking about when I grew up as I can remember the comfort I got from my past but the smell that triggered the feeling is no longer something I enjoy.  I stop talking to my mom (who may have quit smoking by now) because the acquiescence of my free will on the subject is chafing and she is associated with it.  Can you see where this might go?

I come to a practitioner and say " I got bit by a dog one week ago and now I'm afraid of large dogs.  Please take away that fear.  I like dogs."  He/she reaches in and takes away the fear but because I didn't work through it myself and did really want to not be afraid, I "help" the practitioner along and now I'm not afraid of any animal biting me and I decide I want to jump over the enclosure fence and pet the lions at the zoo because they look so soft and what the heck, what is everyone so afraid of anyway...



The brain surgeon analogy only works if most minds, like most brains worked in the same way.  Medical science knows approximately where the speech and memory centers of the brain are - the basics of perception.  The mind is something completely different, although some physical imbalances can cause similar mental instabilities, everyone has there own insecurities and hang ups that will manifest in unique ways.  We won't even go into cultural differences, world paradigms, and ethical imperatives that could be bound up into something a practitioner might alter trying to help the person that would cause other domino effects.

Remember The Summer Lady was trying to stop an ongoing bloody war when she almost destabilized the world.  She offered Harry her help in healing some of his mental wounds but without his reactions and coping mechanisms caused by those past traumatic events he would not be the quirky passionate guy we have all come to know and love.

The Fae are able to take things away without doing peripheral harm (remember Susan at the vampire party) - Good for them - but I don't believe we humans with our filters and flaws could do something like that so 'cleanly'.  The practitioner reaches into my mind to help me stop smoking and finds out I don't like dogs because I was bit by one as a kid, which, as an animal lover, they see as a flaw so they fix that too...

As a soul gaze it might look like an infection in the soul - something small is poisoning the person slowly.

No I'm afraid that this particular law should not be bent and if a character does the GM could think of some bizarre reaction and the wardens should take notice.  Not to say that people don't act bizarrely on their own but I think this one should be a stain on the practitioner’s psych as well.


Kristine
"When I was 5 years old my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when i grew up. I wrote down “Happy”. They told me i didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life. "
-John Lennon-

Offline Slife

  • Conversationalist
  • **
  • Posts: 604
  • Fuego Maximilian‽
    • View Profile
    • VGF, Yo.  Home of the World's First Spritecomic
Re: Comments thread for "The Laws of Magic: Part 5 of 8"
« Reply #16 on: August 12, 2007, 11:00:08 PM »
Here's an even more bizarre scenario.

A wizard is worried that in the heat of battle he might go too far, and any slip-up will mean Bad ThingsTM for the world (maybe he's fighting Denarians or something), so he enthralls himself so he can't touch one of the coins, or kill a human with magic.

Is this lawful?
Rule one of magic:  Never, ever, under any circumstances, trust someone named "Morningstar".

Offline hollow49

  • Participant
  • *
  • Posts: 34
    • View Profile
Re: Comments thread for "The Laws of Magic: Part 5 of 8"
« Reply #17 on: August 15, 2007, 12:07:32 PM »
Here's an even more bizarre scenario.

A wizard is worried that in the heat of battle he might go too far, and any slip-up will mean Bad ThingsTM for the world (maybe he's fighting Denarians or something), so he enthralls himself so he can't touch one of the coins, or kill a human with magic.

Is this lawful?

Before you ask that, you have to ask another question first:
Is this possible?

I suspect that one cannot enthrall oneself, any more than one can perform brain surgery on oneself - you are trying to change that part of oneself that is trying to make the change. If you tried it, if anythng did happen I suspect that it would go horribly wrong...

ON the other hand, this may be a case for GM adjudication.

Offline cephis

  • Posty McPostington
  • ***
  • Posts: 2094
  • For the ZaLord!
    • View Profile
Re: Comments thread for "The Laws of Magic: Part 5 of 8"
« Reply #18 on: August 16, 2007, 04:32:51 PM »
I think since self hypnosys is possible that it should be possible form a compulsion in your own mind to not pick up a coin.  Although you could still override your own work.  Its your own house and you have keys, you know?
Still miss Bob DV Cephis V1.2YR4FR3BK++RP++JB+TH(+)WG+CLSWBC+MC SH[Elaine++Murphy+++Ivy+Molly++Marcone--- Bob---- Susan+(
(click to show/hide)
) Any male Ch-- Any female Ch+]FF+++MS+AND--

Offline Ophidimancer

  • Conversationalist
  • **
  • Posts: 956
    • View Profile
Re: Comments thread for "The Laws of Magic: Part 5 of 8"
« Reply #19 on: April 15, 2008, 05:12:36 AM »
I have a persistent question in my brain about this Law:  What about projective empathy?

Can I simply take my own emotions and shove them out at people or perhaps grab free floating emotional energy and manipulate it?  Would these count as enthrallment?  I'm talking about immediate emotion shifting, with nothing permanent to associate it with.  What about if it were enchanted into a focus of some sort, like wards that radiate a low level fear/unease to act as a deterrent?

The character I'm writing up was a sensitive like Molly, but came into her own under the "gentle" tutelage of a Skavis connoisseur who enjoyed the taste of her pain.  When her powers developed the first spells she taught herself were pretty nasty:  "Castigare!" is a lash of psychic pain and a whispered "Dolore" gave the vampire a taste of his own medicine.

That stuff would probably get her labeled a warlock right quick, but what about a "Tranquillo" spell that washes an area in calm, maybe to stop a fight?

Offline iago

  • The Merlin
  • Posty McPostington
  • *******
  • Posts: 3071
  • I'm the site administrator.
    • View Profile
    • Deadly Fredly
Re: Comments thread for "The Laws of Magic: Part 5 of 8"
« Reply #20 on: April 15, 2008, 12:33:07 PM »
Grey area, for me, the way I'd run it.  It's probably fine -- folks still have free will, they have the choice of what to do with what they feel -- but there are extremes of emotion where it could get pretty close to enthrallment, if not completely overcome it.
Fred Hicks
I own the board. If I start talking in my moderator voice, expect the Fist of God to be close on my heels. Red is my Fist of God voice.
www.evilhat.com * www.dresdenfilesrpg.com
Support this site: http://www.jim-butcher.com/store/

Offline Ophidimancer

  • Conversationalist
  • **
  • Posts: 956
    • View Profile
Re: Comments thread for "The Laws of Magic: Part 5 of 8"
« Reply #21 on: April 15, 2008, 04:32:54 PM »
Thanks for the quick reply!

So would the White Council see something inherently wrong with using a mental paralysis or sleep spell versus kinetically binding someone with bands of force or an enchanted rope or something?

Offline R00kie

  • Participant
  • *
  • Posts: 81
    • View Profile
    • Whirly Waffles
Re: Comments thread for "The Laws of Magic: Part 5 of 8"
« Reply #22 on: April 15, 2008, 06:04:18 PM »
So would the White Council see something inherently wrong with using a mental paralysis or sleep spell versus kinetically binding someone with bands of force or an enchanted rope or something?

Would you risk even steping close to the line, if you felt the standard Warden response to people whom they though crossed the line involved a sharp sword and your neck?

Offline Ophidimancer

  • Conversationalist
  • **
  • Posts: 956
    • View Profile
Re: Comments thread for "The Laws of Magic: Part 5 of 8"
« Reply #23 on: April 15, 2008, 06:20:06 PM »
Considering the character I have in mind is bad at enchantment and nowhere near Harry's strength with evocation, yeah.  Especially in combat situations where the choice is either switch off the other guy's brain for a moment or die.

But yeah, I realize the dangerous line this character approaches.  It's a deliberate point of tension on my part.  I just wanted to see if, in people's opinions, this character would be Kill On Sight, or just Doom Of Damocles.

Offline Kristine

  • Posty McPostington
  • ***
  • Posts: 8075
  • You can have your own truth, not your own facts
    • View Profile
Re: Comments thread for "The Laws of Magic: Part 5 of 8"
« Reply #24 on: April 15, 2008, 08:27:07 PM »
Considering the character I have in mind is bad at enchantment and nowhere near Harry's strength with evocation, yeah.  Especially in combat situations where the choice is either switch off the other guy's brain for a moment or die.

But yeah, I realize the dangerous line this character approaches.  It's a deliberate point of tension on my part.  I just wanted to see if, in people's opinions, this character would be Kill On Sight, or just Doom Of Damocles.

I would think it would depend also on wheather the subject is 'harmed' mentaly or spiritually and that would be up to the GM.  If The spirit is overcome to the point of the emotional field 'leaving a mark' then I would think this would throw up all kind of red flags but if it is something that turns the subject away without 'pushing' them too hard then no harm, no foul.

After all Harry used a potion on Susan (not on purpose albiet) that made her overcome with lust for an uncomfortable, dangerous 5 minutes without any lasting ill effects when it wore off, but when Molly pushed her friends to give up drugs (even when they wanted to) she acctually harmed their psychs.
"When I was 5 years old my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when i grew up. I wrote down “Happy”. They told me i didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life. "
-John Lennon-