Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - Lawgiver

Pages: 1 2 [3] 4 5 ... 10
31
DF Reference Collection / Re: Serack's Proven Guilty workup [Spoilers for the whole series]
« on: July 20, 2016, 04:49:15 PM »
Just reading through this and had to make note on this as I read it (sorry if it's already mentioned further on).

Quote from: KurtinStGeorge on June 13, 2016, 08:46:23 AM
My guess is Mab was paying off a debt, not completing a deal she was forced to make.
JB has said that Mab is in the process of balancing her ledger and that, as of SG, she had worked her way down to Nicodemus.  Truth to tell, though, the dialogue within SG clearly shows us that her debt was to Nic’s Fallen, Anduriel – with Nic as the actor/minion who did the deed just as Harry will be Mab's actor/minion to repay the debt.  That would seem to mean the payoff at AT would have to have been to a more Powerful entity than Anduriel, an Angel.  The time difference between PG and SG is about eight years so there’s no telling how Powerful an entity she’d be paying back that much earlier on.

32
DFRPG / Re: How hard is it to dm
« on: July 15, 2016, 06:31:11 PM »
Quote from: Haru on July 01, 2016, 01:46:24 PM
The other kind of improv is easier, but it requires a lot of prep work. Instead of planning a story or something along those lines, you plan an opposition. You map out who the bad guys are, what they can do, what they have at their disposal, what they need to do to reach their goal, what their goal is, and so on. Plan ahead to what would happen if nothing goes wrong, because the bad guy will most certainly have that plan.

Once you've done that, you can have the players happen upon the bad guys at some point. That will most likely hinder, at least inconvenience the bad guys. Maybe one of the player characters is even a target or plays a vital role in the plan, so getting them involved should be easy. Now comes the trick: because you know what the bad guys need and what they can do to get it, you can now adjust their plans to the players actions. If they foil one end of the plan, you can adjust easily and go forth with another part. Improvising this is far easier, since you don't really improvise, you just do what logically follows. That's a big burden off the whole improv pressure.
That is perhaps one of the best explanations of how to "story build" for a live-play, table-top game that I've seen in a long time.

I've been doing RPG's since the mid-70's and my approach has long been very similar to this. When I develop a story (single session or long-term campaign) I first come up with the Antagonist(s) and his/their goal(s) - what's going to happen if they're not stopped -- the "climax" of their story if it goes unhindered.

Then I determine what the characters will need to prevail over that. Including (in old D&D terms) what minimum level(s) they'll need to be.  That includes things that can come in number of forms (often mixes) from one or more items (magic sword, scroll with a particular "bane" spell on it, whatever), a specific piece of knowledge about the antagonist that constitutes a vulnerability, etc.  I then "backtrack through time" (so to speak) and deposit these necessary elements along the way in places that would be part of a reasonable path for the group to take (geographically or otherwise).  These are "checkpoints" of a sort (though I never call them that).  If the characters reach one of these checkpoints without something from a previous point and/or fail to acquire what's at that particular point, then it's time to start running them in circles until circumstance that takes them back to it - rinse and repeat as necessary until they have it.

I also determine approximately how long this should all take (in terms of game time) for the antagonist to accomplish the goal. Then I find a good, logical and consistent starting point for the party where I can introduce the exposition elements that kick it all off that takes that into account.  I try to assure they have enough time (even counting delays) to stop the bad guy before the clock runs out but not so much that they don't feel pressure.  Any needed adjustments are easy, just speed up or slow down the antagonists timetable on his end based on off-camera successes or failures in his own agenda.

Almost everything between the checkpoints is "improvisational" as you state it.  Nothing nailed down too permanently because - let's face it, any group worth their salt will veer from any pre-planned path at the drop of a hat (and they bring their own hats).  All I have to do is massage things enough to keep them aimed generally at the next checkpoint.

Anything improvisational (or extemporaneous?) that they come up that I find blends well with what I already have I generally allow and mix it in - hopefully seamlessly enough that they don't know they handed me the loaded gun.  That just make it more entertaining for all because they help make it a better story and I didn't have to do much a lot more work to make it so.

I've had some pretty darn memorable game play come out of that.

Well, done. Thank you.

33
DF Reference Collection / Re: Dresden Files: Series Timeline
« on: July 14, 2016, 09:51:18 PM »
Since we're talking dates... in TC, as Eb is escorting Harry out after the action is done, they're talking about who's getting the open position on the Senior Council.  Eb makes a comment regarding Langtry, saying,
Quote
"He's never been easy to read. And I've known him since I was sixteen years old.
TC, Ch. 49.

Eb could not have been born much if any later than 1738.  This comes from

a. His admission to Harry in TC that he first met Langtry when he was sixteen, (Ch. 49), combined with
b. JB's comments that the two of them were on opposite sides of the French and Indian War (1754-1763), and
c. JB's indication that Eb is roughly 250 years old.

If Eb were only sixteen at the beginning of that war then he was born no later than (1754 - 16)= 1738.  The older he was at the start of the war, the earlier his D.O.B.

The 1738 year would put him at 276 as of SG (2014) and thus 252 as of SF (2000), which seems pretty close to the bull's-eye to me.

Would an addendum in the Timeline between
Quote
1731 (269 BSF): Aleron LaFortier is born.

1754 to 1763: The French and Indian War. According to Jim, this was an eventful time in Ebenezer’s life!
posting 1738 the latest reasonable date of Eb's birth be reasonable?




34
DF Reference Collection / Re: Serack's Proven Guilty workup [Spoilers for the whole series]
« on: June 13, 2016, 09:50:05 PM »
Quote from: peregrine on June 13, 2016, 09:28:04 PM
But can you conclusively prove that she isn't?
What, prove a negative?  All but impossible....please spare me.

35
DF Reference Collection / Re: Serack's Proven Guilty workup [Spoilers for the whole series]
« on: June 13, 2016, 09:27:24 PM »
Quote from: raidem on June 13, 2016, 07:06:46 PM
I could see marling being fomor.
I went back and read the various bits of Marling on-screen in PG... nothing there says Fomor to me... She doesn't wear a turtleneck sweater in the heat (like Vito does in BR), etc.  None of the fomor descriptor tags are used there.  I can't buy it. Sorry.

36
DF Reference Collection / Re: Serack's Proven Guilty workup [Spoilers for the whole series]
« on: June 13, 2016, 05:19:50 PM »
Quote from: Second Aristh on June 13, 2016, 04:29:24 PM
Here it is:
The reference to direction strikes me... back towards the hotel's front desk...???

Isn't that where the convention sign-in tables are at... and Sandra Marling?  We've presumed somewhat that Darby Crane was the one working the magic but we've also noted that, with very few exceptions, White Court Vampires are not well versed in magic.

Marling has been tagged more than once as a suspect for "dark side" activities, this seems another likely bit of evidence.

Guesses, surmises, wags... /sigh

37
DF Reference Collection / Re: Current DR wardens
« on: April 14, 2016, 05:22:09 PM »
Quote from: Dashkull on April 14, 2016, 02:50:00 AM
Interesting thought I just had: If part of DR exists in the never never, would Harry's intellectus of the place carry over? Because that kind of knowledge about the never never, wherever it is, could be a really neat thing to experiment with.
Hmm... interesting... though I've had the impression (for no particular reason I can cite) that when Harry is "below the island" where the "cells" are located that he's more in a "pocket dimension" rather than some general "place" in the NN - sort like Agatha Hagglethorn's personal demesne.

It would make sense to have very limited access - if DR doesn't let you in you don't get there.  It prevents "breakout" attempts because there's no way to "tunnel" in from elsewhere, etc.

38
DF Reference Collection / Re: Current DR wardens
« on: April 13, 2016, 05:30:04 PM »
Quote from: madness on April 13, 2016, 12:37:43 AM
I always got the feeling that the White Council sort of gets the powerful and secret wizard positions (Gatekeeper, Blackstaff, Warden of the Well) chosen for them for multiple reasons.

1)  they require unique and uniquely powerful wizards.

2)  the White Council hides their existence from its own members so most prospects are those who either stumble upon the positions or seek them out against the will of the White Council.

3)  greater powers tend to get involved (the Fates, whoever maneuvered Harry to the island, etc.)

4)  the types of wizards crazy enough to willingly take on these roles are not likely to be yes men or strictly uphold White Council doctrine.

If I had to guess I would say that probably nearly as many people had strokes when Eb took up the Blackstaff as did when Harry took up the mantle of the Warden of the Well.
Good list.  I'm most interested in #2.  It's an axiom that power rests best in hands that do not want it.  Those that want it are far more likely to abuse it.  I'd not be surprised if Rashid and Eb got their positions "by accident", meaning they did not seek them out, rather had it thrust upon them, so to speak.  The same seems to hold for Harry and DR.

39
DF Reference Collection / Re: Current DR wardens
« on: April 12, 2016, 05:57:20 PM »
My only question about the whole thing is... why would the WC separate itself from DR? Going from a single Warden, with all the power/potential DR represents, to multiple wardens of far lesser potential (though greater range of influence/activity) seems like a very important step.  I can hardly image what exigencies prompted them to it.

40
DF Reference Collection / Re: Current DR wardens
« on: April 12, 2016, 03:24:58 PM »
Quote from: Serack on April 11, 2016, 06:55:27 PM
It seems evident that long ago, among the community of Wizards, there was a "Warden" singular who was responsible for Demonreach.  Since that day, the actual duty has apparently fallen into general obscurity, yet in the mean time, the community of Wizards has had a need for militant enforcers of the Laws of Magic, and that body collectively and individually bares the same name.  How the Demonreach "Warden" and the enforcer "warden" came to share the same name is lost to us the reader, but it seems Demonreach is aware of the connection, as he acknowledges it...
I find it interesting that such an important facet of WC history is "lost" or "fallen into general obscurity"...

Wizards live much longer than mortals, so their tendency to lose information over time should be commensurately reduced.

The "average" mortal life expectancy (even when factoring in regional fluctuations) is currently around 75-ish years, with high end outliers at a century or more.

Wizardly "top end outliers" seem to be about 400 years (Ancient Mai and any like her).  If the ratio above holds with Wizards of the "average" being at roughly 3/4ths of the top end... then Wizards should have an average life expectancy of about 300 years -- right about at 4x as long as mortals.

Merlin created DR (put the multi-temporal aspect aside for now).  Arthurian Lore - including Merlin - occurred somewhere in the 250A.D. to 500A.D. timeframe.  That's ~1500 years ago.  For mortals that would be more than 20 generations, but for Wizards it's only about 5 to 6.

5 - 6 mortal generations would be roughly the time of the American Revolution or shortly afterwards.

Why would Wizards, notorious information gathers and hoarders, "forget" something like DR - or anything about it.  We haven't forgotten big events from the Revolutionary period.

Seems to me that someone's hiding information about this - which, of course, Wizards are also known for.  Rashid and Eb both seemed shocked and a little disturbed when they found Harry had done a Sanctum Invocation there... I presume they were aware of DR - what it is for, etc. - and of what Harry had actually done...

Maybe it's only Senior Council who knows... "need to know only" and all that...

I'm more of the opinion that instead of "losing" knowledge re DR, they've deliberately separated themselves from it for some odd reason.  There hasn't been a singular Warden in a long time because they haven't wanted there to be.

I'm starting to ramble, so I'll stop... but I think the idea might have some merit... I just don't have any good data to base it on.
/sigh

41
DF Reference Collection / Re: Current DR wardens
« on: April 11, 2016, 05:47:44 PM »
Quote from: Serack on April 11, 2016, 03:10:04 PM
It is my opinion that when Harry descends down all those steps and enters the chamber down at the bottom, he has gone down the rabbit hole and in most respects *is* on the NN side of Demonreach. 

I say in most respects because Demonreach was created and exists on a dimensional level that Harry has a hard time experiencing, so when he's down there his experience is kinda skimming the surface of a pond of what is actually there NN wise without necessarily getting wet.

I haven't followed this conversation closely, but let me share a little more of my opinion of who and what a capital "W" Warden is and why it is significant.  As with most of my theorizing over the past few years, this is heavily influenced by my concepts of overall DF cosmology, and the mortal experience's position in and influence over that cosmology.

The entirety of the Demonreach construct was created on and exists on a level that spans more than just Harry's individual reality and timeline.  It is immense and powerful and enduring and ... Lithic.  What do I mean by "Lithic?"  It exists as is and is non-introspective and unchanging in its purpose, function, and resolve. 

But on the Demonreach level of the big picture, the fabric of Reality has a degree of malleability, and the driver and medium of this malleability is mortals and their free will.  For Demonreach to function on this malleable level of existence, it needs a malleability engine of its own.  A Warden capital W, with free will who can make decisions that encompass aspects of its purpose that require more malleability, dynamism and introspection than it possesses on its own as a Lithic construct. 

It is possible that Demonreach's existence is wide enough that it interfaces with more than one discrete "Capital W Warden" across multiple discrete realities and timelines on the level Harry experiences in such a way that from Harry's and thus our perspective, these interactions happen relatively "simultaneously" and individually.  However, I think it is more likely that from the Demonreach perspective, these malleability engines are less discrete and are more of a reality spanning singularity like itself.  Sort of.

Which is a really long and arduous way of saying that in my theories there is only one capital "W" DR Warden. 


Edit:  I'd like to add that I'm really proud of the two analogies of Harry experiences in the NN being like skimming a pond without getting wet (not getting the full depth of the experience, only an aspect of it), and Warden Harry's free will being an "malleability Engine" for the overall Demonreach construct.
Interesting concept.  Let me see if can simplify it a little?  This will probably be a bad analogy but.. what the heck.

DR is a tool; a rather sophisticated one, but a tool nonetheless.  It has no "free will" and therefore cannot take many actions independently.  It has a certain amount/number of "preprogrammed" functions it can perform, but operation of other possible functions beyond those is out of its control.

Let's say DR is like a chainsaw.  This tool cannot determine when to cut, how fast to cut, how deep to cut, etc.  It takes a Lumberjack to use it properly.  The capital L signifies a free willed individual, not the preprogrammed operations already set up.  Any monkey can pick up a chainsaw and cut wood... it takes a Lumberjack, someone knowledgeable and skilled in the use of that tool, to make carvings of horses or castles out of lumber.

Given DR's extremely sensitively dangerous nature, "There can be only one" when it comes to Wardens (as opposed to wardens).

42
DF Reference Collection / Re: Current DR wardens
« on: April 08, 2016, 06:09:11 PM »
Quote from: MoroccoMole on March 21, 2016, 07:07:22 PM
So I was reading GroinKick's thread on previous wardens ( http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,47345.0.html ) and remembered this from Cold Days:

“Hey, how come you called me Warden?” I asked. “I mean, I’ve been a Warden, but there are a lot of other guys who are better at it than me. I’m not exactly the poster child.” “WARDEN,” Demonreach said. “NOW THERE ARE MANY. FIRST THERE WAS ONE.”

Who are these people?!  Don't they care that there's a noob on the island? 

Why doesn't Harry ask who they are?  He's creating a sanctuary for himself, shouldn't he care about who has keys to it?  He doesn't mention anything about it in Skin Game in his, "After the year I've had here, I could stop that Outsider incursion of last year before my morning coffee" bit. 


If Eb, the GateKeeper, and Listens all know about this, and i think they do because they all kind of react the same way, then i think it's possible that they could be wardens and were letting the Noob do a trial by fire with the whole Outsiders' incursion.  Risky & frightening, but a true test of a warden.  Or, and this to me is even scarier, Eb, the GateKeeper and Listens aren't wardens and just know about the nature of the island.  Then if there are other wardens besides Harry, they either don't care about their responibilities, or have grown so much that they think that DR and the inherent risks are beneath their concern.

~M
Hmmm...
after re-reading the whole scene for full context... I'm not sure DR's reference to "many" vs "one" is definitively about Wardens or even wardens in general.  DR has an odd way idea/information association.  Its job is to imprison nasty stuff.  He is "beholden" to the Warden.  Perhaps its conceptual association was triggered by the term "warden" and it was then referring to its primary task - which would refer to thinks in the prison... first there was one, now there are many.

Basically he's telling the Warden, we've got a large prison population.  That could end up being a disturbing thought... any time a warden gets told "we got a lotta prisoners" its usually a prelude to "too many prisoners" and some sort of catastrophe, usually involving riots and attempts at mass breakouts, etc.

Maybe that was DR's way of trying to warn Harry that the whole thing is about to pop?

43
DFRPG / Re: Funny/Epic/Legendary moments
« on: March 08, 2016, 11:19:06 PM »
Quote from: Mr. Death on November 06, 2012, 04:45:32 PM
Added to that, a 10-shift success doesn't necessarily mean the character hits harder, or even hits at all--it means the character succeeded at whatever they're doing really, really well. In the case of magic, that tends to mean controlling the power really well--i.e., less chance of anything happening by accident.

A 10-shift success on a Weapon:5 attack could just as easily be the wizard blowing up the floor in front of the goon, having the goon surrender after seeing what the wizard is capable of. It doesn't have to mean that anyone was injured at all.
Isn't there an option in the "quality" talk about that that indicates that instead of improving quality of outcome, you can reduce the time it took to do it?  So with that many extra shifts, perhaps instead of taking the character's entire exchange to do that... the excess shifts shorten the task down to a supplemental action and he still gets his exchange turn?  Not sure, but seems reasonable.

44
DFRPG / Re: How often to actually give Significant Milestones
« on: February 24, 2016, 07:04:34 PM »
I agree with the rest, it's up to you and the group overall.  Consider -- how strong will they have to be to defeat the BigBad?  Not wipe him out, just beat him...  Try to pace their power ups as the story progresses so they can reach that threshold just in time for the showdown.  This will require plot progression and info reveals to be rationed or paced.  That's not an easy job for any GM, even one who knows his group really well.  But it's a must.

45
DFRPG / Re: Hexen"whatever"
« on: February 20, 2016, 02:43:10 AM »
Quote from: Haru on February 19, 2016, 07:41:40 PM
I feel like part of the Hexen-anything deal that makes them different from regular were-anythings is that the spirit inside is kind of bad news. As such, I would always go with a spirit that represents the bad side of the dimension you want to portrait. So it wouldn't be a spirit of protection, but a spirit of... whatever a good word for territorial possession and the like would be. Not a spirit of cunning but a spirit of treachery, of trickery, of greed. That would, at least in my eyes, fit the Hexen-anything theme far better.
I pretty much agree here.  The actual form taken from the belt (or whatever artifact is used, from a wristwatch to a pair of Prada shoes) is far less important than the negative aspects of the spirit embedded within.  As long as it's strongly negative I see no real issue, just make sure the item is concealable in some way (the belts were worn under a jacket/shirt, etc.) or innocuous enough in appearance that it isn't taken for what it is without some ability to detect/investigate it (say, an Assessment?)

Pages: 1 2 [3] 4 5 ... 10