The Dresden Files > DFRPG
Assorted questions
g33k:
--- Quote from: nadia.skylark on June 02, 2019, 06:56:48 PM ---Okay, I phrased my question really badly--as in, I asked one question and somehow expected people to intuit that I was asking something else.
The situation is this: In Phoenix And Ashes, a book by Mercedes Lackey, the main character learns how to use her magic partly by having an entity walk her through the major arcana in her dreams. To pass from one card to the next, she has to both learn something about the elements and how they relate to people (the magic system in the world is elemental-based) and accept/learn something about herself.
I thought this would be a cool concept to use as the basis for all or part of the trials someone would have to undergo to graduate from apprentice to full wizard. I also thought that each trial ought to give the character a small bonus in certain situations, such that 22 of them were worth a relatively small number of refresh. What I need help with is how small each bonus should be, what some of the bonuses should be, and how many refresh the set should cost. I don't know why I thought I would get the answers to any of those by asking about stunts.
Here are the ideas I have so far:
The Questioning Fool: once per scene, you can have the gm tell you what the most relevant question to ask in your situation is, which your character then asks out loud.
Rose of the Empress: once per scene, when attacking with rapport or deceit, you get a free tag on one of your aspects.
Lantern of the Hermit: once per scene, when defending in a mental conflict, you get a free tag on one of your aspects.
--- End quote ---
Not every work of fiction is equally well represented by every RPG. Lackey's Elemental Masters series isn't particularly well-suited to DFRPG (although a different tuning of the Fate rules seems likely to be a nice EM fit!).
We're really looking at 1 refresh being the "quanta," the unit of construction, of DFRPG powers. 1/22 of a quantum step is... largely outside the scale of the rules.
All that being said... I kind of think I see a way to do what you are asking. Rather than try to build these as incremental powers that add up to "X" amount of power, focus on them as "lessons learned." 22 of them...
You get one of these "teaching dreams" and you now have a couple of tags "pending" -- there is a +1 tag that you need to use in some meaningful-to-the-lesson way (in your waking life); if you squander it in some shallow or trivial fashion, you will have a variation of the same dream, and need to do it right the next time. There is also a -1 tag (or a +1 for a foe/rival) that will be used against you, or that you will have to overcome; again, this will be somehow relevant to the lesson. 2 of the Major Arcana per dream, one positive & one negative. Once you've successfully "learned" the lessons of both (expended both tags AND done whatever narrative fulfillment is "learning the lesson"), you get a new dream, with 2 different tags on the new lesson(s).
And THEN -- after wisely using/experiencing those 22 tags -- you get your power-up.
It isn't terribly DFRPG-ish in flavor, but it works within the rules AFAICS.
Mr. Death:
--- Quote from: nadia.skylark on June 02, 2019, 07:28:08 PM ---So I can't do something like have 4 individual bonuses that are so weak that they're collectively equal to 1 refresh, or something?
--- End quote ---
The smallest "bonus" available tends to be a +1 to something. A reliable +1 to a given type of rule is the basic description of a stunt, and a stunt is -1 refresh.
Ergo, I would posit that if it's making enough of a difference to be called a bonus, it's probably worth -1 refresh at least.
--- Quote ---It doesn't seem that different from the Exposition and Knowledge Dumping trapping of Scholarship, except that it happens when the player wants it to rather than when the gm wants it to, and it can get the character in trouble.
--- End quote ---
Honestly as a GM, I'd allow it stunt or not. My first couple groups were full of people who hadn't read the books, so having to nudge them here and there along the lines of, "BTW, what I just said sounds /super/ unusual to you," or "Nah, that's standard, what you should really be noting is ..." is pretty standard.
nadia.skylark:
--- Quote ---We're really looking at 1 refresh being the "quanta," the unit of construction, of DFRPG powers. 1/22 of a quantum step is... largely outside the scale of the rules.
All that being said... I kind of think I see a way to do what you are asking. Rather than try to build these as incremental powers that add up to "X" amount of power, focus on them as "lessons learned." 22 of them...
You get one of these "teaching dreams" and you now have a couple of tags "pending" -- there is a +1 tag that you need to use in some meaningful-to-the-lesson way (in your waking life); if you squander it in some shallow or trivial fashion, you will have a variation of the same dream, and need to do it right the next time. There is also a -1 tag (or a +1 for a foe/rival) that will be used against you, or that you will have to overcome; again, this will be somehow relevant to the lesson. 2 of the Major Arcana per dream, one positive & one negative. Once you've successfully "learned" the lessons of both (expended both tags AND done whatever narrative fulfillment is "learning the lesson"), you get a new dream, with 2 different tags on the new lesson(s).
And THEN -- after wisely using/experiencing those 22 tags -- you get your power-up.
--- End quote ---
That's a good idea. I hadn't thought of the positive/negative thing, and that would be a really good way to tie the dream lessons/tests to real life. I was thinking of a kind of "pay half the cost before-hand and half the cost after" thing for the price, similar to what we're told happens with Harry getting hellfire, where he pays one refresh for it at the end of Death Masks, but only has limited access to it until after Blood Rites, when he pays the other refresh. That way, the character could have access only to those powers for which she's passed the dream test/lesson for.
--- Quote ---The smallest "bonus" available tends to be a +1 to something. A reliable +1 to a given type of rule is the basic description of a stunt, and a stunt is -1 refresh.
Ergo, I would posit that if it's making enough of a difference to be called a bonus, it's probably worth -1 refresh at least.
--- End quote ---
What about the once per scene or once per session thing?
--- Quote ---Honestly as a GM, I'd allow it stunt or not. My first couple groups were full of people who hadn't read the books, so having to nudge them here and there along the lines of, "BTW, what I just said sounds /super/ unusual to you," or "Nah, that's standard, what you should really be noting is ..." is pretty standard.
--- End quote ---
Yeah, I suppose it's more of a narrative thing.
Mr. Death:
--- Quote from: nadia.skylark on June 02, 2019, 10:50:20 PM ---What about the once per scene or once per session thing?
--- End quote ---
A reliable +2 or a reroll is ... basically exactly what a fate point is for. So, yeah, roughly equivalent to a stunt.
--- Quote ---Yeah, I suppose it's more of a narrative thing.
--- End quote ---
The stunt is worded about asking the GM. What is the narrative reasoning behind it? Is she getting guidance from some deity or other sponsor?
nadia.skylark:
--- Quote ---A reliable +2 or a reroll is ... basically exactly what a fate point is for. So, yeah, roughly equivalent to a stunt.
--- End quote ---
Yeah, but most stunts provide a +1 or +2 every time a situation comes up, not just once. The "on my toes" stunt gives a +2 every time you're determining initiative. Likewise for every other stunt I've seen.
--- Quote ---The stunt is worded about asking the GM. What is the narrative reasoning behind it? Is she getting guidance from some deity or other sponsor?
--- End quote ---
It's based on the idea that the perfect fool asks the right questions, because they're coming at things without preconceptions or biases--they ask the questions it's never occurred to anyone else to ask. The best example that I can think of is in a Harry Potter fanfic (can't remember the name right now) where they're dealing with horcruxes. Harry, Hermione, and a bunch of other smart people are researching how to destroy horcruxes, which have been around since the time of ancient Egypt. Ron, not being very good at research, wanders in at some point and asks "so if horcruxes have been around since ancient Egypt, why aren't we hip-deep in ancient Egyptian wizards?" This question was so basic that it never occurred to any of the smart people to ask it, and it led to the discovery that horcruxes don't work.
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