The Dresden Files > DFRPG

Mortal infrastructure/networking power

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JayTee:
I mean, I never argued that there were some thaumaturgic means that mortal methods could replicate. It's not a huge deal to me if Thaumaturgy can do a few things that this hypothetical power can't.

My aim is to try and replicate the effect of having vast support network in the form of modern society to draw upon. Adding Contacts and Resources to your sheet with a few stunts is kinda boring and simplistic for what it's supposed to represent, whereas repurposing Thaumaturgy can represent the investments you've made in to different aspects of society.

Sanctaphrax:
Thinking about it a bit more, most of the differences between rituals and infrastructure could be managed with small edits. There are four sticking points that come to mind, though.

First, enchanted items. They should probably just not exist for the infrastructure power. Could go either way on foci.

Second, time. Rituals can take a long time to prepare, but the actual casting always takes less than a day (barring weird corner cases). Spell control is often measured in exchanges, with the idea that you'll sometimes be casting while something is trying to kill you. You'll probably want to revise that for the infrastructure power; managing a project is much slower than casting a spell, but it's also much easier to multitask.

Third, human sacrifice. Ritualists can inflict consequences on other people to build complexity. Don't think that makes much sense for infrastructure, although I can think of ways to boost a project with your own consequences.

Fourth, backlash and fallout. Rituals explode when they fail, often with catastrophic results. Projects can go terribly wrong, but I don't think flubbing one management roll should cause a catastrophe the way it does with a ritual. Also, anywhere where a ritual would hit the caster with mental or physical stress a project should probably hit the manager with social stress.

Taran:

--- Quote ---Third, human sacrifice. Ritualists can inflict consequences on other people to build complexity. Don't think that makes much sense for infrastructure, although I can think of ways to boost a project with your own consequences.
--- End quote ---

Sweat shops, forcing interns to work unreasonably/unhealthily long hours, unsafe working conditions, unreasonable goal-oriented jobs that risk getting fired if they aren't met like high pressure sales(represented by mental consequences) can all be represented by adding complexity through consequences.

Sanctaphrax:
I guess. The effect seems a lot less dramatic than what you see with magic, though. You can cast a pretty sizeable ritual with no prep, just by killing someone.

Arjan:
Their greatest power however is story telling.

Fear, worship, faith, knowledge about them. They all need it to manifest here and it dictates how they manifest here.

It took ages for the old "I demand human sacrifices" Odin to change into the Kringle we all know and some of those changes are fairly recent but these changes are all brought by human storytelling.

What would the erlking be without Goethe and Schubert?

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