...I also think you would be able to accomplish this under a ward rather than as an enchanted item.First, what works is going to be group dependent. That said, I can see three possible methods of handling this with wards as the least likely. :)
So what do you think oh reader?
As an added incentive if it works movie night at my house. Sixty inch screen with full room surround sound. Snacks and soda included bring your own beer ;).When's the party? ;D
Power Lines shouldn't break a circle. There's no meaningful intent to the electrons crossing it anymore than air molecules cross a circle from breathing would cause a break. There's an argument, perhaps, for data lines, though I'd lean against this since you can talk to people on the other side of a circle without breaking.Not worried about the electrons...you have a line of copper & plastic obscuring a portion of your circle. A physical break.
Not worried about the electrons...you have a line of copper & plastic obscuring a portion of your circle. A physical break.
I differentiated between analog and digital because induction only transfers alternating current. However it is an easy way to create a physical break in a power line. Match that physical break up with your circle's edge and you no longer have anything creating a line across it.
Now, input is tricky here, since you can't just use a regular mouse or keyboard. I'd suggest a mirror above the mouse, which is used on a finely dotted grid. A camera sees the reflection, and figures out the mouse movements from this -- it would need to be a fairly powerful camera. Mouse buttons would be mechanical in nature and just show a color or other visual cue for the camera to pick up. The keyboard would perhaps best be done as a mechanical device that when a key is pressed down a sign of what key was used is shown (perhaps a combination of colors). Another camera sees this and interprets keystrokes.Or you could check out all the things a Wii mote can do (http://johnnylee.net/projects/wii/)... :) A virtual mouse & keyboard setup with a projected screen would work great - assuming you've solved all the other issues. :)
And the ground isn't a physical break for the circle because?Any variety of reasons...probably starting with the ground being the medium the circle is drawn on. That does bring up another possibility...you might be able to design a circle where at least part of it is a conductor.
Also, note, a dust bunny blown by the wind over a circle doesn't break it. Pipes for water mains don't break it either. It has to be an object moved by an act of will while the circle is up to break it. In any case, a ward wouldn't make as big a deal about a break, so it is less of an issue if you go that route.Can't agree but, as I mentioned earlier, this is going to be group dependent.
My take is, the circle can be broken by anything (or anyone) it is trying to protect or prevent. Draw a circle around yourself to keep the bad guys out and you'd better not let a finger cross the line. Draw a circle to keep a demon in and you'd better not let anything it can use or become cross the line. Draw a circle to keep electronics safe and you'd better not let any electronics cross the line...
It's part of the setting and if you're playing in the Dresden universe, it should be there... Basically, the idea is, if you don't want to hex you have to temporarily give up your magic. - InFerrumVeritasI agree. What I'd go with of the approaches in this thread:
Wizard goes out for a day, and gets someone like Butters to set up a computer with sophisticated voice recognition software - both audio output and a large screen. Afterwards, the Butters-alike circles around the whole set, screen and all. The wizard never touches the computer, and never crosses the line holding out magical energies. They can however speak their input, because their voices are just sound. They can't use drives and things, but the computer itself is theoretically doable.If a wizard has enough money, no need to even do that Just pay a live-in clued-in mundane assistant whose to sit at a computer and control it and any media systems linked to it for the wizard. All the electronic equipment would inside a circle, so insulated from stray magical energies. As long as one has a big screen everything is golden. The only hassle would be lowering and raising the circle everytime the live-in tech goes to take a break or his shift is over.
Putting electrical devices into a magic circle seems to be a common strategy ... however, doing so would at the very least cut off power to those devices. Battery-powered devices might still work, but internet would not (including wireless).This assertion is directly contradicted by canon, in which Butters was able to use a GPS device inside a circle without Harry's magic interfering or the circle cutting off any signals.
Regardless, the bottom line to me is that a Wizard opens themselves to tech-based compels by being a Wizard and having a Wizard-related High Concept. Anything you do to circumvent that gives you a convenient excuse to buy off the compel with a Fate point, but no more. If you choose not to buy off the compel, then somehow your magic-proof tech scheme didn't work -- magical energy leaked through the circle, or perhaps the energy of the circle itself caused a problem, or the power cable broke the circle, or ... something.Now it seems you're just trying to make things harder on players than in the actual books. Even using circles as a mean to protect tech (a means which has been demonstrated to work in canon) being a Wizard still has its inconveniences related to tech. For one thing, you can't go around protecting all tech everywhere with circles. For one thing, I doubt people will just blithely accept you drawing chalk circles on their floors when out in public. For another thing, the actual methods mentioned on this thread require a bit of effort, resources, and/or inconvenience.
I seem to recall a sidebar somewhere about seemingly contradictory aspects, and the great fun that they are capable of generating. But it's almost 5am, here, and I haven't slept. So I can't find it.It is in Our World - near the write up for Murphy's ex husband.
This would seem like a great opportunity for using that principle. A 'tech-friendly' aspect seemingly at odds with the character's High Concept of 'something-or-other-Wizard'.
Wizards are super powerful, but they have a down side, allowing them to be tech savvy would be like saying sure you can play a red court vamp and live by eating rare steak, it goes against what the character is.Can you play a Red Court Vamp in the first place?
Can you play a Red Court Vamp in the first place?
Regardless, while the choices listed here are hardly the only ones available in the Dresdenverse, they represent what we think are the best options for the would-be heroes of your game world. Enjoy!
Can you play a Red Court Vamp in the first place?you would also either have to start as an infected play for a while then become a full fledge vamp, and have a GM allow you to stay a PC. Or start the game past the submerged level, as they are base 11 refresh if I remember right.
Note that playing a Red Court Vampires are one of only a few character concepts specifically not allowed by the RAW:
(YS80) "If at any point the character kills another human and drinks its blood, he must immediately “upgrade” to a full Red Court Vampire (OW87). This invariably results in turning the character into an NPC, and an evil one at that."
I added the bolding, but the word 'invariably' seems to be a clear hint as to the expectations of the game designers on this point. Note that is not to say you can't change this for your game; I'm only commenting on what the rules as written state.
First, this applies to the original poster's question about a room. Mac's pub has an odd, but very specific arrangement of pillars and other items scattered throughout his bar used to unravel errant magical energies. And Mac's is frequented by all manner of folks from the magical community with varying degrees of strength throughout the day, and it wasn't until the Dark Hallow that Mac's was without power - so unless your wizard is on par with Cowl, I don't think you'd have much to worry about if you were going to have a similar specific arrangement of 'lightning rods' in your wizard's house.
PS: I regard the statement about RCVs being invariably NPCs as a writer error.
Note that playing a Red Court Vampires are one of only a few character concepts specifically not allowed by the RAW:
PS: I regard the statement about RCVs being invariably NPCs as a writer error.
YS72: "Regardless, while the choices listed here are hardly the only ones available in the Dresdenverse, they represent what we think are the best options for the would-be heroes of your game world. Enjoy! "
Playing a Game in Canon with the books
Real Men: Respect the GM's wishes, but don't let it interfere with gameplay.
Real Roleplayers: THIS GAME MUST BE IN SEAMLESS CONTINUITY OF THE DRESDEN FILES AS PRESENTED BY THE ALL-FATHER, HIS HOLINESS JIM BUTCHER AND HIS PROPHETESS PRISCELLIE.
Real Loonies: Will take every opportunity to break the canon... whilst using cheese.
Real Munchkins: Will twist the GM's arm by keeping canon... only if they are the one that killed Simon Pietrovich.... or Kemmler.
Basically, there are setting components which are fairly cut and dry, no mater how much someone wants to circumvent it or create the special snowflake character who is the exception to the rule:Outsiders are supposed to be highly resistant to "mortal" magic.
Wizards hex tech and must thereby go without many modern conveniences.
Red Court Vampires are irredeemably evil and can't be "saved."
I don't mean it's a typo. I just mean that I think it would have been better if it had been written differently.
(If the above is based on a poor reading of your post, Shecky, I apologize. I had some trouble working out your meaning.)
So I take this statement as the "rule 0" answer:The first part of this statement is true, but I do not think the second part inevitably follows from the first as far as canon is concerned. We've seen at least two means in the books by which wizards can, while not eliminate hexing from their lives entirely, mitigate its impact at least temporarily. The first is seen in Death Masks, in which Harry uses a spell to suppress his hexing. It doesn't work as well as he hoped but there are mitigating circumstances in the situation, and Harry has admitted he's not as great at control as other wizards. The second means was seen in Dead Beat, in which we saw Butters use an advanced GPS device within close proximity of Harry, which was able to operate normally thanks to being insulated from any stray magic via a circle.
Basically, there are setting components which are fairly cut and dry, no mater how much someone wants to circumvent it or create the special snowflake character who is the exception to the rule:
Wizards hex tech and must thereby go without many modern conveniences.
The first part of this statement is true, but I do not think the second part inevitably follows from the first as far as canon is concerned. We've seen at least two means in the books by which wizards can, while not eliminate hexing from their lives entirely, mitigate its impact at least temporarily... Both of these examples show that while technology hexing is a problem wizards have to cope with, it is not necessarily a totally insurrmountable problem... here are methods available so that they might be able to utilize technology under some some circumstances if they are willing to expend the time, effort and resources to do so.
So what do you think oh reader?
Am I the only one parsing the title of this thread to the tune of the "Lumberjack" song?+1 Awesome Point to you for that song!
+1 Awesome Point to you for that song!
If you go the magic computer route, then I think that's a little Archive Magic plus some AI.You won't need AI at all. You just need to implement the way a computer works with the information it is given. That has nothing to do with intelligence, artificial or otherwise. And I would put an archive up only in the sense of a regular computer, so you can safe whatever you are doing, but it won't automatically collect information.
All said, to make a Bob we're probably talking about spell that requires 100-150 shifts.Nope, I have to disagree again. You have to bind a similar entity to an object (let's highball at 10 refresh resisted by discipline), and then add some shifts for duration, about 20 would do. And he might even be persuaded to forfeit the discipline roll if (as in Bobs case) they really do not want to return to the nevernever. In that case you would only need to create an aspect on the skull (3 shifts) plus duration.
There's really not that much powergaming that could potentially be done in the Dresdenverse with a computer.On the contrary. Remember FM. What would have been a quick google search cost Harry one of his true names, and who knows when that is going to bite him in the ass again.
Nope, I have to disagree again. You have to bind a similar entity to an object (let's highball at 10 refresh resisted by discipline), and then add some shifts for duration, about 20 would do. And he might even be persuaded to forfeit the discipline roll if (as in Bobs case) they really do not want to return to the nevernever. In that case you would only need to create an aspect on the skull (3 shifts) plus duration.
On the contrary. Remember FM. What would have been a quick google search cost Harry one of his true names, and who knows when that is going to bite him in the ass again.
I'd be interested to know how that enchanted item works.
Nice song.
You know, the thread title would make a good aspect.
Anyway, this RCV vampire thing should probably go to a new thread. But since I like getting the last word, I'll say that I honestly don't mind the idea that RCVs are unplayable. But dropping a statement that implies that strongly without actually saying it and then never explaining the subject fully is a mistake that causes trouble of the sort that you see here.