I've had a bit of time to go through the big list of everything Jim's said about the Dresden series (found at http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,21772.0.html - note: spoilers for the series and setting) and I found this one on magic circles:
http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,1942.msg37964.html#msg37964

It looked interesting so I thought I'd share how vulnerable a circle is when it isn't active.

Richard

About a month ago I was at a con and played a pre-release copy of a game call Leverage and now I'm thinking of borrowing an element from it for Dresden.

The element? It's called the Flashback and it can save a lot of planning time.  Rather than sit around planning things to the Nth degree you make the rough outline of a plan and when something unplanned for happens you spend a chip and describe how you thought about that and have already done X to deal with it.  Basically fixing things on the fly rather than plan for every possible thing.

No, that doesn't happen all the time in Dresden, but in virtually every books there's a "I go off and do something" or "I tell him the plan and he says I'm crazy" or similar moment and when the big bad thing needs to be dealt with Dresden has the perfect solution ready to go.

So, does anyone have any thoughts on doing something like this?

Richard

There's a post in the RPG spoiler forum that has all the blacked out text from the game.  Everything from both books.

It's at http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,21625.0.html

If you want to read that text and don't have the PDF yet, head there and see what's hidden by Harry's black marker.

Richard

I've asked this question on another board (the main spoilers one) but thought I'd ask here as well - does anyone know if Jim Butcher has accept the setting material of the RPG as canon for the Dresdenverse?

If so, can they point to a Word of Jim moment where he says one way or the other?

Even little things from the game books - things like the relative listing of plot level beings - could be used to shed light on some of the points that people discuss, but only if the game books are canon for the Dresdenverse.

Richard

Just to make sure I know Thaumaturgy works, number wise, I thought I'd post an example here and see what others say.  Of course since every spell should have a story I've started the example with why the spell is being cast then listed several variants that the caster might have picked.

Example: Stan is a college basketball player - one of the stars of the team.  As such he's living the high life as local Romeo, loving and leaving girl after girl.  He's not always up front with "this is a temporary thing and I'll be looking for a new girl soon" and often says that four letter word beginning with L, the one that rhymes with dove, so he's leaving a string of broken hearts behind him.  One of those hearts belongs to Cathy, who happens to be Eric the Towel Boy's kid sister.  Needless to say Eric is not happy.

Eric also happens to be a sorcerer with thaumaturgy, coming at from a voodoo like tradition.  At first Eric wants to end Stan's life, but remembering the first law of magic (and wanting to make it hurt more) Eric decides to screw with Stan on the court.  He didn't want there to be a medical reason for Stan's poor performance so he decides on non-permanent means to do this.  After a practice he keeps track of which towel Stan used, collects some hairs from it, and he's in business.

The prep work for the spell happens over a couple of days, giving him more than enough time to use skills to generate aspects to tag, so we can skip over that.  Then, right after the Big Game starts, Eric locks himself in the towel room and starts to cast.  Since he's fine with the spell going off anytime in the first five to ten minutes of play there's no need for rolls - with his symbolic ties to Stan (the hair) Eric will eventually complete the spell.

Stan has Athletics at Great but only Fair Endurance (he gets swapped out when he starts to tire and swapped back in when he's rested) giving him a Physical track of 3.  The best he can roll on an Endurance roll is a 6.  Eric has had plenty of time to watch Stan play and knows this.

Eric had many options for his "get back at Stan" spell and decided which to use before the prep phase started.  Here are some possible spells.

1) an aspect
Eric decides to twist the doll's arm slightly, a maneuver that gives Stan aspect of "Aim's a bit off".  He needs
6 to overcome the best Endurance roll that Stan can make
2 for duration so it lasts roughly an hour as opposed to a 15 minute scene.
For a total of 8

2) a mild consequence
Eric decides to push in the doll's chest to give Stan the mild consequence "Winded".  He needs
6 to overcome the best Endurance roll that Stan can make
3 to fill Stan's stress track
2 for a mild consequence
For a total of 11

3) a moderate consequence
Let's make them both PCs as opposed to NPCs.  Eric's player decides that he doesn't want to screw around with scenes.  He thinks that Stan's player might convince the GM that being benched is "a recovery scene" and then heading to the locker room during the break could be another scene, so rather than risk that he goes for a moderate consequence that will last for at least for the rest of the session for that Stan's player can't weasel out.  Eric pushes the doll's chest harder to give the moderate consequence of "bruised ribs" - something that the team doctor can find but it will bench Stan for a while.
6 to overcome the best Endurance roll that Stan can make
3 to fill Stan's stress track
4 for a moderate consequence
For a total of 13

If Eric's player decided to risk the 1 in 81 odds of Stan's player getting a +4 he could drop the complexity by one.  Then, should Stan get lucky with the dice Eric's fails to work.  He would have to prepare the spell again before he could cast it, which means he would be rushing things to get it off during the game (maybe taking stress or consequences to prepare it again).

If Eric's player knows that Stan's player has a bunch of FATE chips he could set the difficulty higher before he starts preparing it.  He knows that one of Stan's aspects is "Always in the Game" which could be tagged for a +2 and Eric can spend a FATE chip for another +2 - adding for to all the difficulties, making them 12, 15, and 17 to ensure that the spell works.

If Eric somehow blows his first spell he could quickly refashion his doll (prepare the spell again) with a "maybe I'll get lucky" version of the "give aspect" spell - using 3 to overcome Stan's Endurance (hoping that Stan rolls a 0 or less) and skipping the duration.  With a total difficulty of 3 Eric can prepare and cast this spell time after time (until he runs out Stan's of body hair), giving Stan the aspect of "Aim's a bit off" as often as Eric needs to.

Or he could decide to punish Stan another way
4) Eric prepares his doll for the next time Stan is on a date, then pushes the doll's crotch to give Stan the mild consequence of "Can't Get It Up" and hopefully ruining Stan's rep as a great lover.
6 to overcome the best Endurance roll that Stan can make
3 to fill Stan's stress track
3 to account for a Good threshold
2 for a mild consequence
For a total of 14

Have I got all that right?

Now for the first question - does Eric have to assign the steps before the rolls? This is why that last example is there: say when that spell is cast Eric rolls a -1, making his Endurance roll a total of 1, while he happens to be behind a Great threshold (+4).  Eric would have still generated a total of 16 shifts when all he needs is a total of 12, but while he has 5 more than he needs to overcome Stan's Endurance he didn't assign enough for the Threshold.  It seems clear to me that since 16 > 12 the spell goes off - but I'd like to hear others opinions.

A second question:
Could Eric have a prepared a "a get back at Stan" at difficulty 8 (the difficulty of the aspect spell) and when Stan rolled that -1 decided to boost the harm to a mild consequence (1 for the defense, 3 to overcome his stress, 2 for the mild consequence = 7)? My gut says no, that a spell has to be designed for one thing and Eric prepared and cast a maneuver spell.

And a variant of the second question:
If Eric was casting a "inflect mild consequence spell", going for Winded, and got lucky when Stan rolled that -1, could he boost the consequence to moderate? Unlike the "aspect to a consequence" both are conflict spells - but again my gut tells me no, he designed the spell to do one thing and that's what it does.  Then again, I like the idea that he could take advantage of Stan's bad luck.

Again, just making sure that I've grasped how the numbers work here.  Any feedback is welcome.

Richard

In the books Veils seem to be "don't draw attention to yourself" type things.  In Fool Moon Harry severely degraded the duration of his 'veil in a bottle' when tried to get someone's attention.  In the game they are a block against being perceived.

That said, what are people's thoughts about attacking while veiled?

I'm torn on the subject.  On one hand there are few things that draw more attention to you than going hand to hand with someone, but on the other there bits in the books where it more or less happens.  Then there is the play balance aspect of the invisible attacker who you can't counteract.

So, what are people's thoughts? I'm thinking that a good midway point would be to give a bonus to breaking the block when someone interacts with you - say 2 - 4? Say a free aspect like "It just hit me" or "I felt it coming from that direction.

So, what do people think?

Richard

So someone has decided to make a "slapped in the face" spell.  Basically, a loud slapping noise that gives the tag "palm print on face" - something that can be tagged for social rather that physical situations (at least around people who don't know that the palm print isn't the result of a slap).  Which led to a discussion on how to do it.

An attack probably wouldn't work as it would result in a bit of stress - who would take a minor consequence over something like? Which of course means Thaumaturgy... But if it isn't an attack then is the palm print being shape shifted in place? Or can Thaumaturgy just slap a consequence on someone without landing an attack or shape shifting?

Richard