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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Starjammer on August 09, 2014, 02:04:54 AM
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First thing, I'm not saying I want Soulfire without some form of debt-balancing; that would be sick and wrong. I'm just saying that the general Faustian bargain behind most sponsored magic seems inappropriate for Soulfire. A sponsor who's all about protecting Free WillTM shouldn't be subverting it through the dispensation of power.
Without getting into spoilers, I was thinking of the way things worked in "The Warrior" as a better alternative. Allow a Soulfire-endowed character to work off their debt or even build "credit" by taking self-compels to intervene in situations for the better. The table could adjudicate whether an intervention was properly motivated or simply a naked grab for sponsor debt. Of course, characters whose concept or aspects lean towards them being an Arm of the Lord could take their compels in the form of divine missions, like the Knights.
Or has anybody come up with other alternatives that work better for them?
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Sponsor debt doesn't have to mean a "I give you more power, now you owe me" type of sponsor. We've got a lot of "self sponsored magic" in the resource section, which basically serves as a way to mechanically represent a high degree of specialization. The way I always interpreted this was that you tap into your reserves when you take sponsored debt. When you are compelled through a debt, it means that you are forced into a way of thinking determined by your specialization. A ward specialization would force you to turtle up and wait, when action would be better. A crafting specialization would force you to build a solution, when improvising something would be better. And so forth.
I see it similar with Soulfire. Like when Harry does the hand spell for the first time. He takes sponsor debt to form the hand, and the GM immediately comes up with the idea of having Harry's hand go numb from the same spell, so they go for it.
Since a self compel nets you a Fate point, that's already an option. Spending a Fate point or taking sponsor debt is pretty much the same, but the Fate point can be spend more flexible. And you should have an aspect to spend the Fate point on Soulfire type stuff anyway.
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I would say that sponsored magic is the ultimate "Free Will" mechanic in the game. You make a conscious choice to lean on an outside source of power.
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I dislike the very idea of Soulfire as having an external sponsor, as presented in YS.
To me, Soulfire is the absolute epitome of 'Self-Sponsored' magic.
The fuel for Soulfire is the practitioner's own soul.
'Jake's' involvement in Harry's access to Soulfire was a one-time event. None of their further interactions actually facilitated his continued use of the power. This is not the relationship between Sponsor and Sponsored Practitioner.
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I dislike the very idea of Soulfire as having an external sponsor, as presented in YS.
To me, Soulfire is the absolute epitome of 'Self-Sponsored' magic.
The fuel for Soulfire is the practitioner's own soul.
'Jake's' involvement in Harry's access to Soulfire was a one-time event. None of their further interactions actually facilitated his continued use of the power. This is not the relationship between Sponsor and Sponsored Practitioner.
Sponsored debt could actually still work then. I mean, it literally makes you "more of what you are." /Use/ that. Harry took sponsor debt earlier to fuel a Soul Fuego? Oh lookie there, Harry, you and your eternal hero complex find a damsel in distress! And now you're feeling like you /have/ to go save her! A powerful creature of evil is trying to suppress your options! Oh look Harry, you're an EPIC WISEASS, and now you're mouthing off to them, refusing to bow to the vile creature of the night! Etc.
It should push you to be more of what you are. But I'd still give it a "good" slant. It's still angel fire after all. Most like a better more pure version of you.
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Sponsor Debt, yes.
More of what you are? Sure.
'Good slant'? I am unconvinced.
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I've always felt that 'regular old spellcasting' mimics Soul-fire better than sponsored debt.
The more you call on it, the more it 'taps/burns your soul'. Which is represented perfectly by mental stress/consequences, which represent 'who/what' you are.
As far as sponsored debt goes - bob says you need time for you soul to heal...and maybe that's just regular healing of consequences, or maybe it's more of 'filling the hole' you've created by burning away your soul in the first place. Where the 'act' of doing something that fulfills you works better than passively sitting while you mend. Doesn't he tell Harry to go get laid to help him heal the damage? (Bob was always telling Harry to get laid but, still, in one particular situation I think he implied it would help him)
You know, where an act of kindness or >>insert whatever compel<<< is healing in itself as opposed to just a catalyst for the healing process.
It's free will to act but having that hole compels you to do things to fill it.
But, you know, I'm just making stuff up out of my head...
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Seems to me the debt would be tied more to having less of your soul to work with, and whatever you think the consequences of that might be.
For Harry, this initially expressed as a numb hand when he did a hand-force-evothaum, and likely also in a desire to do more "soul regenerating" stuff, as in his relationship with Luccio.
In a lot of ways Soulfire in the books is skinned as a lesser form of the death curse. You could skin that as being more likely to be ruled by your aspects, but Harry seems to see it as something that risks his life in a way similar to how firing your memories of fire at people as a ghost is risky. After the first book he's more careful with it, so we don't tend to see him piling up "soulfire" debt. If I was playing a soulfire based character, I'd likely go down the road of debt being consequences of an incomplete or damaged soul, and think about what using certain kinds of magic would translate into.
Harry mostly uses soulfire with his fire spells, primarily to beat the catch on critters vulnerable to faith. This use seems mostly to make him more aggressive or inclined to gloat/victory dance (think about how he behaved in Changes when chasing the vampires in the first scene). This might be because he tends to throw fear/rage at enemies with fire, and with less of that in his system he behaves more like a fight is a game or contest. When he made a hand construct, his hand went numb, which is pretty obvious. When he's used it to reinforce defensive spells I've not noticed anything in particular, but maybe Jim's doing something subtle or I'm off base entirely :) Mostly though I think Harry got a lot more careful when he realized he's throwing his soul at people so he hasn't been getting into a lot of situations where he incurs debt to it as a solution.
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Sponsor Debt, yes.
More of what you are? Sure.
'Good slant'? I am unconvinced.
If it's fueled by your own soul, it may not technically inherently be good, but I think it only gets given to people for whom 'more of what they are' will make them better people.
(Also, given the WoJ about how being able to use Hellfire/Soulfire depends on who you are and what you're using it for, if you tried to do something really evil with it it might just not work or turn into Hellfire.)
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Do you have a link for that WoJ? I don't think I've seen it before.
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#259 “Does the same apply to hellfire/soulfire. What would happen if Harry were to take up Lasciel’s coin and then try to use soulfire and hellfire together? Would that result in Harry dying horribly?”
Those are different. They’re really two sides of the same coin–but they can’t really exist together like that. They aren’t explosively reactive, but they aren’t additive, either. Which one came into the person to be used would depend on the person who was using it, and what they were using it for.
Angelic types have access to both. Which one they use is partially what determines what /kind/ of angels they are. (Emphasis added)
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My interpretation of that would be:
IF a person has hypothetical access to both Hellfire and Soulfire (ie. if 'Jake' had 'bumped Harry's arm' while he still had Lash's coin), then in any single working where Harry attempted to use both sources, only one would respond, with the particular outcome being partially dependent on the nature of the practitioner (and mortals being what they are, the result might not be the same next month, or even in the next scene if events are sufficiently epically character-developing), and partly dependent on the action the practitioner is attempting.
I just don't think Harry had THAT much change to his fundamental nature going on in the time between intervening on behalf of Little Harry and attempting to rescue Ivy.
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In our games, we've generally concluded that Sponsor Debt is a mechanic to describe how using certain sorts of magic can change you. In the Hellfire example in the books, Harry used Hellfire and his temper began to destabilize. He wouldn't necessarily need to have an intelligent sponsor like Lasciel to make this happen; I imagine that plenty of demons are happy to grant Hellfire to unprepared practitioners on the assumption that just relying on that ability will start to turn them into a worse person.
In one of our games, we had someone who accidentally entered into a deal with Winter. They were given Unseelie Magic as a result. When that character had to act out debt, it wasn't because Mab herself decided to micromanage that person's actions; it was because channeling the essence of Winter too much made that character inherently more Winter-like. It left an impression on her personality. That debt could be compelled to say things like: you don't feel any empathy for this person; instead, you just feel cold disdain. Or: you want to hurt that person for insulting you. How DARE they? (This is VERY similar to what happens to Harry in Cold Days, if you think about it).
All that said: I agree with above posters that Soulfire debt isn't necessarily intelligent. It can be represented by using debt to say: you're too tired to pull that spell off properly this time, so it fizzles. Or: you just wiped out your reserves of emotional fortitude by using lots of Soulfire, so you can't handle this highly-emotional situation. You've got to concede the scene and find somewhere safe to cry.
Compels are serious business in my games, so people are always rightfully wary of taking on debt. That only makes it even better when they decide the stakes are worth it.
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I dislike the very idea of Soulfire as having an external sponsor, as presented in YS.
To me, Soulfire is the absolute epitome of 'Self-Sponsored' magic.
The fuel for Soulfire is the practitioner's own soul.
'Jake's' involvement in Harry's access to Soulfire was a one-time event. None of their further interactions actually facilitated his continued use of the power. This is not the relationship between Sponsor and Sponsored Practitioner.
someone gave harry access to it. I think as long as Harry uses it as a good person would(with little abuse) he can keep it, should he turn dark or reaquire a coin he would lose it. All the fallen lost their access to it, it was replaced with hellfire. harry would be no different. I dont think his actions are controlled by Jake, but jake has taken a very very keen interest in his life. And soul fire has meant the idfference in a lot of the stuff that has kept harry alive. It wouldnt be a tool i would want to lose.
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JB's quote is missing.
that quote kind goes against what he wrote when thorn got all pissy at him for using it. like it was beneath him. Unless he meant angel types can use both depending on they way they made their choice. fallen or not. that it is for angel types only but the one you get is dependent on the way you went. i dont think the fallen can use it anymore because of their choice. This kind if implies that soul fire is not sponsered by angels but he who created them. which means Harry's sponser is the almighty
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someone gave harry access to it. I think as long as Harry uses it as a good person would(with little abuse) he can keep it, should he turn dark or reaquire a coin he would lose it. All the fallen lost their access to it, it was replaced with hellfire. harry would be no different. I dont think his actions are controlled by Jake, but jake has taken a very very keen interest in his life. And soul fire has meant the idfference in a lot of the stuff that has kept harry alive. It wouldnt be a tool i would want to lose.
Someone gave Harry access to it, but I've seen no evidence that anyone is involved in ensuring Harry's continued access to it. Even the direct WoJ doesn't say anything to this effect.
Perhaps Jake (or someone in that realm) would be able to take direct action to remove Harry's access, but there's a difference between that and simply the withdrawing of sponsorship, or some inherent passive kill switch.
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I've decided not to run soulfire with sponsorship debt, but rather with a stress track determined by discipline. I chose discipline partly because conviction was already used for the mental stress track, but also because building your soul isn't done simply by how much/strongly you believe, but by the actions you put behind that belief. Bob didn't tell Harry to rebuild his soul by believing harder, but by doing nourishing things. Nourishing things aren't always easy to do or fun to do and that is much more the case when it comes to the higher level spiritual stuff, and in those cases it's about discipline.
1 soul stress to perform an evothaum spell if you allow evothaum with Soulfire, 1 stress per point of power or control. The stress track doesn't clear at the end of every fight though. You have to spend time and make rolls to clear stress. I figure 2 points of stress per declaration. Time frame for the declared action is negotiated between the player and the GM, but it should be fairly common sense. Extra declarations can be made for longer actions. For example, a whole day of meditating might clear your 1, 2, and 3 soul stress boxes, but dinner with a friend might only clear your 2 soul stress box.
Since soul stress boxes don't clear as quickly as other stress boxes, you only need to use those boxes when you perform evothaum, and when you're calling up power/control above what comes naturally to you. It works very similarly to debt, but reskinned. Debt to absorb stress, and debt to invoke aspects for free, but in this case, you're using a stress track you need to actively clear rather than debt and compels.
Feel free to critique.
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Sounds too powerful to me. Sponsor Debt is minor enough that you can hand out the ability to take it for free without breaking anything. This...isn't. It's a free +10 (1+2+3+4) that recharges every time you have a chance to relax.
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Like I mentioned above, the soul stress track doesn't clear like other stress tracks. You have to invest time into resetting it. If the story is fairly fast paced, you shouldn't really be getting the kind of time you'd need to reset it completely. You could possibly manage to clear 4 points in a tense story, but in Harry's stories, even sleep is hard to come by and I try to build my stories the same way. Resetting the whole stress track mid story should be uncommon.
The 10 points of stress equates to 5 sponsorship debt. That doesn't seem unreasonable as a credit limit for sponsored magic. Also, you can't take a few compels over a couple scenes to reduce that quickly before the big show down. With this set up, you have to be more careful of how you spend it during the early stages of the scenario since you may not get the time to invest in rebuilding your soul.
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Actually, you don't need to be careful at all. Nothing bad happens when you fill your soul stress. You get a bonus, and in exchange you don't get that bonus later.
Whereas with Sponsor Debt, something bad happens every time you use it. 5 Compels is brutal. Potentially enough to make you miserable for multiple sessions.
Also, it's not good to make mechanics that will randomly snap the game in half if someone paces the story unusually. Frenetic action is the most common way to play DFRPG, but the game actually works just as well with one scene a day.
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Well, I modeled it as closely as I could to the way Soulfire works in the books, and so far I haven't seen anything to suggest it works any differently than the way you just described. I catch your meaning though. The way it works in the books may not work for a game that relies on balance. I still like the idea of a stress track to mark the usage of your soul to feed your spells, but I'll give it some thought and see if I can find a way to give it some teeth.