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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: ryanroyce on May 16, 2010, 07:39:03 PM
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Question: if a Wizard and a Pure Mortal are on the same team and the GM compels the wizard's high concept to accidentally hex the mortal's cell phone, does the wizard get the fate point or does the mortal? While it is the wizard's concept that got compelled, it was the mortal who got the complication.
Forgive me if this question has been asked before.
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The mortal, who wanted to use the cell phone. Both if the compel puts both in danger, i.e. the mortal was calling for help.
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The mortal, who wanted to use the cell phone. Both if the compel puts both in danger, i.e. the mortal was calling for help.
Actually you are partly wrong here. An accidental Hex is technically a Compel of the Wizards High Concept (YW 209).
If you like it better you can handle it your way though. Anyways ... if the mortal and the Wizard are friends he really should know better then trying to use his or her cell. I personally wouldn't award a point for the mortal here unless he has an aspect like "MY FRIEND THE WIZARD", and frequently ends up buying new toys after hanging out with his pal... that would be kind of a neat running gag =D
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Hexing is indeed usually a Compel on the Wizard's High Concept...but the motal was the one inconvenienced, which is miles more important in regards to who should get the Fate Point. I agree with Valarian.
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Actually you are partly wrong here. An accidental Hex is technically a Compel of the Wizards High Concept (YW 209).
If you like it better you can handle it your way though. Anyways ... if the mortal and the Wizard are friends he really should know better then trying to use his or her cell. I personally wouldn't award a point for the mortal here unless he has an aspect like "MY FRIEND THE WIZARD", and frequently ends up buying new toys after hanging out with his pal... that would be kind of a neat running gag =D
I'm with Valarian on this one, especially now that I've read the rules some more. Technology can and should be a viable resource for any Pure Mortal character, especially if they intend to make an active contribution; being denied access to that otherwise-available-resource complicates the mortal's life... and complications are the meat of strong compels.
From a technical standpoint, having a wizard nearby could be considered a "scene aspect" (YS107) and could therefore be a temporary aspect on the sheet of everyone close enough to him/her. Instead of compelling the wizard's high concept, the GM is compelling the "My Friend the Wizard" scene aspect.
All that aside, getting a fate point for making someone else's life more complicated is rather cheesy, IMO.
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I'm with Papa Gruff on this one, if it's the Wizard's aspect being compelled then he gets the fate point. One important thing to remember here is that whatever the Mortal teammate was calling for it was probably something the Wizard wanted to so they are both being inconvenienced. I have a character I'm playing now with the aspect "Dammit Juan!", Juan being one of the other PCs. The GM can use my compel to make Juan cause me difficulties, but I still get the Fate point because it's the problem I took.
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Personally, having to allocate an aspect to gain rewards for the troubles another character is inflicting seems pretty dumb. Not awarding the actual victims creates incentives to deliberately choose aspects that will cause problems for other characters.
Conversely, a team aspect already seems strong without requiring one to get fate points from troubles other PCs dish out.
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If you're players would be tempted to abuse the aspect system, then honestly they're playing the game wrong. Aspects are supposed to represent recuring themes for your character, and those these can easily have something to do with other people, including other characters. Just look at some of the aspects in Our World.
Molly Carpenter = Carpenter Kid (Can be invoked to represent her family getting into trouble), Harry Dresden's Apprentice (Can be invoked to drag her along on Harry's cases)
Susan = Former lover of Harry Dresden can be invoked to force her to interact with her past
Rawlings = Murphy's Partner (Probably invoked in every story to get him into some weirdness).
Now I understand from one perspective you can say that these are just compels to make characters go along with things already happening, but remember that these rules have to apply all the time. If it was a one on one games with Rawlings then there's no real difference between the compel making something happen or just making him go along with it.
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If you're players would be tempted to abuse the aspect system, then honestly they're playing the game wrong.
Unless you are the writer/writers, I do not think you can honestly say that someone else is playing the game wrong. Indeed, I think that unless it is a rule question where something is clearly stated and is unambigious, if you tell someone he is playing the game wrong because he is "abusing" something, especially on how something like Aspects should be played, then it is more likely that you are playing it wrong.
You cannot abuse the rules. You either use it, or not.
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If the Mortal has to make the call for some reason that's important to the plot and the Wizard doesn't move away to let them do it, then the Wizard is causing the problem and his HC gets compelled for the hex. What happens then depends on if the compel is accepted or not and what they decide happens. If it is accepted the Wizard's player gets the FP because he is causing the complication.
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Unless you are the writer/writers, I do not think you can honestly say that someone else is playing the game wrong. Indeed, I think that unless it is a rule question where something is clearly stated and is unambigious, if you tell someone he is playing the game wrong because he is "abusing" something, especially on how something like Aspects should be played, then it is more likely that you are playing it wrong.
You cannot abuse the rules. You either use it, or not.
That statement is in direct response to Victim's post, but still I stand by it. If you want to play a game where you can tweak and twist the rules to make a broken characters then there are MANY systems out there that allow and even encourage that. Fate is not one of those systems, in fact everything about the system is about working together with other players and the GM to create an interesting story and the rules are just a vague tool to facilitate that. Therefore, if you create a character trying to get the most power with the least disadvantage by seeking out aspects that hurt your allies and their players ability to enjoy the game then you are flat out doing it wrong.
Note here, I'm not a Fate system fanboy, Dresden is in fact the first time I've tried the system, I prefer more 'crunchy' rules sets like Shadowrun and Champions, but if you read the rules to this game you see that there is a clear intention to avoid the pitfalls of mechanics based RPGs.
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I think the Fate Point should go to the wizard. If it's their Aspect being compelled, then they get the Fate Point. Like Tallyrand said, this game is designed for a collaborative experience. If a group wants to play it in such a way that the players will take options that can be used against one another, that's their choice, but it's not in the spirit of the game.
Certainly, the game can handle conflict between characters, but that should really be in the "man, it'd be so cool if your character didn't trust mine and we had this great back and forth snark going on" sense, rather than the players being in conflict.
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If player X's wizard is being compelled, then the complication is supposed to be for him - but the only complication is "player Y's mortal got screwed by my presence." From my point of view, it sounds more like two compels, since the trouble with the phone is clearly player Y's. If the complication of the result is not Player X's, why would he earn the fate point?
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That statement is in direct response to Victim's post, but still I stand by it. If you want to play a game where you can tweak and twist the rules to make a broken characters then there are MANY systems out there that allow and even encourage that. Fate is not one of those systems, in fact everything about the system is about working together with other players and the GM to create an interesting story and the rules are just a vague tool to facilitate that. Therefore, if you create a character trying to get the most power with the least disadvantage by seeking out aspects that hurt your allies and their players ability to enjoy the game then you are flat out doing it wrong.
Note here, I'm not a Fate system fanboy, Dresden is in fact the first time I've tried the system, I prefer more 'crunchy' rules sets like Shadowrun and Champions, but if you read the rules to this game you see that there is a clear intention to avoid the pitfalls of mechanics based RPGs.
Your Story is like 400 pages. Several hundred pages of that are rules. This isn't exactly an ultra light game, even if some of the underlying mechanics are pretty simple.
If you don't want players to pick Aspects that can screw over other characters (which will often happen without any special design - wizard vs mortal tech, for instance), then why have the reward structure encourage it. When the wizard hexes his mortal friend's nightvision goggles, you're saying that the magical parts of the story are more important than the mortal preparation parts - essentially giving priority to the wizard's story. And then you're giving the wizard a bonus to further control the story. I'm not saying the wizard should get the fate point.
Similarly, in the examples, we can see that a sort of team Aspect is already really good since it can be invoked a lot. But it's reasonable not to have one. However, if the only way for the mortal to get any kind of compensation when a magical thingy ruins what he was trying to do is to have the team aspect, then you're pretty much forcing the character to take an aspect like that.
Note that on page 21, Biff getting kidnapped out of the blue is a Compel on his Dumb Luck. It's a not Compel on Maya's "Biff, you jerk..." aspect, even though she's getting stood up. Getting ambushed is bad, and the fate point is going to the person who suffers most.
Molly Carpenter = Carpenter Kid (Can be invoked to represent her family getting into trouble), Harry Dresden's Apprentice (Can be invoked to drag her along on Harry's cases)
Susan = Former lover of Harry Dresden can be invoked to force her to interact with her past
Rawlings = Murphy's Partner (Probably invoked in every story to get him into some weirdness).
Amazing. In a novel series with one main character and many recurring supporting cast, we can see that lots of secondary characters have strong relationships to the main character, and tertiary characters are often tied to secondary characters. Notice the lack of reciprocal aspects - Harry has no special aspect for Murphy or Susan. Murphy has no Aspect for being Rawling's partner (or rather it's within the top 15 most important things about her, versus within the top 6 important things about Rawlings). Harry is the main character. Susan and Murphy are tied into the story because of their relationship with him. Rawlings is in the story because of his relationship with Murph, who is Harry's friend.
Generally, this tells us NOTHING about gaming. There's usually not one main character, so that kind of structure isn't helpful.
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Your Story is like 400 pages. Several hundred pages of that are rules. This isn't exactly an ultra light game, even if some of the underlying mechanics are pretty simple.
I think that saying that Your Story is almost all rules is a gross exaggeration of the situation. Yes it is the core rules books but the vast majority of it is flavor and description, in fact I'd be willing to bet that I could fill literally every salient rule in Your Story on one double sided sheet of paper. This isn't a complaint simply a design choice by the creators.
If you don't want players to pick Aspects that can screw over other characters (which will often happen without any special design - wizard vs mortal tech, for instance), then why have the reward structure encourage it. When the wizard hexes his mortal friend's nightvision goggles, you're saying that the magical parts of the story are more important than the mortal preparation parts - essentially giving priority to the wizard's story. And then you're giving the wizard a bonus to further control the story. I'm not saying the wizard should get the fate point.
If I think my players are taking aspects to screw over other players then I won't allow them to play in my game, I don't need to incentivise anything. In the books, frequently, Harry's magic gets in Murphy's way, but the point is that anything the gets in Murph's way gets in Harry's too because they're a team. If a GM invokes a Wizard's hexing to break a mortal's nightvision goggles he's not saying that the Wizard is more important to the story he's saying that Drama/Comedy/Tension or whatever feeling the breaking of the goggles creates is more important, since it was the Wizard who game him the ability to improve the story its the Wizard who gets the fate chip.
Similarly, in the examples, we can see that a sort of team Aspect is already really good since it can be invoked a lot. But it's reasonable not to have one. However, if the only way for the mortal to get any kind of compensation when a magical thingy ruins what he was trying to do is to have the team aspect, then you're pretty much forcing the character to take an aspect like that.
Well for one, if the GM is invoking the Wizard's hexing all the time at the Mortal's detriment then it's the GM that's the problem not the players or the aspects. If that happens frequent (and you can't find a new GM) I'd recommend the mortal take an aspect like 'The Trouble with Working with Wizards' or 'F@#%ing Magic' or if you like 'Extensive Preparations' or 'Careful Planning' and that would certainly supersede. But with any GM who's doing their full job, part of which is making sure everyone has fun and feels a part of the story then it shouldn't be a problem
Note that on page 21, Biff getting kidnapped out of the blue is a Compel on his Dumb Luck. It's a not Compel on Maya's "Biff, you jerk..." aspect, even though she's getting stood up. Getting ambushed is bad, and the fate point is going to the person who suffers most.
Of course it's not a compel on 'Biff, you jerk...' because that wouldn't directly relate to what happened. On the other hand with a 'Biff you jerk...' aspect the GM could give Maya a fate chip to compel Biff to do jerky things.
Amazing. In a novel series with one main character and many recurring supporting cast, we can see that lots of secondary characters have strong relationships to the main character, and tertiary characters are often tied to secondary characters. Notice the lack of reciprocal aspects - Harry has no special aspect for Murphy or Susan. Murphy has no Aspect for being Rawling's partner (or rather it's within the top 15 most important things about her, versus within the top 6 important things about Rawlings). Harry is the main character. Susan and Murphy are tied into the story because of their relationship with him. Rawlings is in the story because of his relationship with Murph, who is Harry's friend.
Humorously this actually illustrates my point very well because the characters mentioned (Murph, Rawlings) are the ones who are always dragged into the other character's story. If Dresden had 'Friends w/Lt. Murphy' as an aspect then you'd see more situations where he was dragged into a story that she was the center of. Yes of course a series of novels is not the ideal framework for a campaign, however unless compels can influence the actions of others then NO aspects should reference other characters but clearly the designers felt they should.
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If hexing the buddy's cell phone is going to screw over the wizard and not the mortal (e.g. the mortal is calling for an ambulance for the badly-wounded wizard), that's a simple enough case of a direct compel of the Aspect.
If the hex is going to screw over the mortal as much as or more than the wizard (e.g. the mortal is calling for reinforcements as a scourge of Black Court vampires batter at the door), IMO the best solution would be to compel the wizard's high concept to create a scene Aspect along the lines of "Stray Magical Energy Flying All Around." You can then use that Aspect to compel the mortal with a shorted-out cell phone. That way both characters who are being affected by the compel have a chance to buy it off and/or get compensated.
If the hex is only going to screw over the mortal (e.g. he's trying to call his girlfriend to tell her he can't make their date), you can assume that the wizard's very presence puts a "Technology Fails Randomly" Aspect on the zone he's in and just use that to compel the mortal directly.
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I'm with Valarian on this one, especially now that I've read the rules some more. Technology can and should be a viable resource for any Pure Mortal character, especially if they intend to make an active contribution; being denied access to that otherwise-available-resource complicates the mortal's life... and complications are the meat of strong compels.
From a technical standpoint, having a wizard nearby could be considered a "scene aspect" (YS107) and could therefore be a temporary aspect on the sheet of everyone close enough to him/her. Instead of compelling the wizard's high concept, the GM is compelling the "My Friend the Wizard" scene aspect.
All that aside, getting a fate point for making someone else's life more complicated is rather cheesy, IMO.
I like this. It seems like it's against the spirit of aspects and compels to award the wizard anything unless he's being screwed somehow. Otherwise, the mortal gets the fate point - regardless of how you read the specific purpose of compels being to complicate the CHARACTER'S LIFE (check the book; whether or not he is the SOURCE of the complication is entirely irrelevant), giving it to the wizard or denying it to the mortal is just not FAIR.
EDIT: I think some of you are confusing compels and invocations. A COMPEL only influences the actions of others against you, if it influences them at all - something like THE MOB WANTS ME DEAD for instance. An INVOCATION can influence them for you (getting help from FBI agents tasked with dismantling the local mob, in the above case). A COMPEL on your nature shouldn't screw someone else unless it screws you as well, but an INVOCATION of your high concept could certainly enhance your hexing roll.
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If you want to play a game where you can tweak and twist the rules to make a broken characters then there are MANY systems out there that allow and even encourage that. Fate is not one of those systems, in fact everything about the system is about working together with other players and the GM to create an interesting story and the rules are just a vague tool to facilitate that. Therefore, if you create a character trying to get the most power with the least disadvantage by seeking out aspects that hurt your allies and their players ability to enjoy the game then you are flat out doing it wrong.
Note here, I'm not a Fate system fanboy, Dresden is in fact the first time I've tried the system, I prefer more 'crunchy' rules sets like Shadowrun and Champions, but if you read the rules to this game you see that there is a clear intention to avoid the pitfalls of mechanics based RPGs.
Every system makes some claim to working together with other players and the GM to create an interesting story and the rules are just a vague tool to facilitate that. Nearly every RPG I have seen or played genuflects in that direction at least once. The more you try to avoid the pitfalls of mechanics based RPGs, the more you find yourself in one.
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Let's say you're a pure mortal hiding in a warehouse next to an evil wizard. You use your cell phone, but the wizard shorts it out.
Did you just give the evil wizard a fate point?
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Let's say you're a pure mortal hiding in a warehouse next to an evil wizard. You use your cell phone, but the wizard shorts it out.
Did you just give the evil wizard a fate point?
I've stated several times here that the assumption is that the Hexing also inconveniences the Wizard, so no.
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I've stated several times here that the assumption is that the Hexing also inconveniences the Wizard, so no.
Right, but in the above circumstance (evil wizard, cellphone) shouldn't the guy with the cellphone get a Fate Point? He's just been screwed over by an Aspect, and that's what a Compel is.
As a more general sentiment, you seem to be operating under the assumption that Compels are all about improving the story, and reward the player with a Fate Point for doing so. The first is true to an extent, but the secobd is pure bullshit. Compels are something that screws you over or gets you in trouble, and the reward is, in large part, to make the players willing (even eager) for their character to get in trouble so they can get Fate Points. Yes, that improves the story (which is why it's encouraged) but it's a secondary function of the process. That kind of reward avoids bad feeling when the GM needs to screw over the players for the sake of story, and avoids feelings of unfairness when it happens to some and not others. This kind of reward for being messed with and/or screwed over is fundamental to the system, and means that not rewarding a particular kind of thing that screws over a PC (and particularly rewarding another PC for it) is both against the spirit of the system and will almost inevitably lead to bad feelings due to the percieved (and actual) unfairness.
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Another assumption that seems to be going around is that a wizard who is compelled to accidentally hex something is doing so intentionally, and that the character or player is therefore actively trying to screw over another player.
To be honest, if I had a player who wanted to hex something another player was using, I wouldn't allow it as a compel. It's a poor example, really, because a GM who makes that compel is causing problems for a particular character that shouldn't happen, narratively. Looking back at my last post, I don't agree with what I said anymore.
For me, the purpose of compelling an Aspect is to bring problems to a character that suit that character's narrative and personal plot. So unless a mortal has an Aspect that reflects his association with wizards (Like's Billy's "Harry Dresden Is My Friend" Trouble) then I wouldn't use a compel to cause problems specifically to them due to a wizard's presence.
So, say Harry and Billy are driving along in Billy's SUV, using a GPS to find a quick route while on a case. I might compel Billy's "Harry Dresden Is My Friend" Aspect to cause the GPS to get fried, since that Aspect reflects the difficulties Billy experiences due to hanging around with Harry.
The important thing here is that, if Harry was driving with, say, Kincaid, who also had a GPS, it's a different situation. None of Kincaid's Aspects are related to Harry or any wizard, so Kincaid's stories don't feature problems and delays due to Harry's presence, because those aren't thematically appropriate for Kincaid. The importance here is more on what narrative elements are specific to the characters involved, not what should "realistically" be a consistent effect.
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Another assumption that seems to be going around is that a wizard who is compelled to accidentally hex something is doing so intentionally, and that the character or player is therefore actively trying to screw over another player.
To be honest, if I had a player who wanted to hex something another player was using, I wouldn't allow it as a compel. It's a poor example, really, because a GM who makes that compel is causing problems for a particular character that shouldn't happen, narratively. Looking back at my last post, I don't agree with what I said anymore.
For me, the purpose of compelling an Aspect is to bring problems to a character that suit that character's narrative and personal plot. So unless a mortal has an Aspect that reflects his association with wizards (Like's Billy's "Harry Dresden Is My Friend" Trouble) then I wouldn't use a compel to cause problems specifically to them due to a wizard's presence.
So, say Harry and Billy are driving along in Billy's SUV, using a GPS to find a quick route while on a case. I might compel Billy's "Harry Dresden Is My Friend" Aspect to cause the GPS to get fried, since that Aspect reflects the difficulties Billy experiences due to hanging around with Harry.
The important thing here is that, if Harry was driving with, say, Kincaid, who also had a GPS, it's a different situation. None of Kincaid's Aspects are related to Harry or any wizard, so Kincaid's stories don't feature problems and delays due to Harry's presence, because those aren't thematically appropriate for Kincaid. The importance here is more on what narrative elements are specific to the characters involved, not what should "realistically" be a consistent effect.
I agree with this. Basically if you compelling an aspect then it should in some way be creating a complication for the person who has the aspect. In one of the examples from before, someone came up with an example where the mortal would be effected, but not the wizard (I believe it was calling her boyfriend). If the wizard has nothing at stake and the mortal doesn't have an aspect dealing with the wizard then there doesn't seem to be any reason to have a compel there.
There is an exception here if you were to, say, compel the wizard to create that complication so that you can then compel an aspect on the mortal (like Easily Frustrated) to create a limitation on them. That way the wizard would be inconvenienced even though it wouldn't be directly.
Again though if there is no way the person with the aspect will be inconvenienced then, from a story perspective, why should there be a compel?
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Again though if there is no way the person with the aspect will be inconvenienced then, from a story perspective, why should there be a compel?
Simply put, because wizards fry technology. It is simply a part of the setting.
As far as I'm concerned, the issue is settled. I realize now that my original question was based on an erroneous premise - that the GM was compelling the wizard's high concept. This would not, strictly speaking, be the case. Instead, having a wizard in a zone creates a scene aspect for that zone (My Friend the Wizard, Hexing Aura, Murphy's Law of Magic, etc). When the GM wants to make life difficult for tech users, s/he compels that scene aspect and gives the fate point to the targeted character's player.
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As a thought, perhaps it would be best to compel one of the Guest Star aspects. If they don't have one, put it on the scene.