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Messages - Steed

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DFRPG / Re: Technomagic Help
« on: September 05, 2015, 12:35:18 PM »
Blackstaff, I think you're mistaking the City domain thing as being part of the Ghost in the Machine entry.  That's a Cleric thing, not part of the entry we're talking about.  Ghost in the Machine has nothing to do with city magic, except where it can mess with certain technological devices used by the city.

As for the Agenda, I see what you guys are saying about not being okay with killing tech, but that was a feature of the thing I was looking to preserve in the translation.  Not so much because of the killing tech, but because of the direct attack ability.  What if it didn't kill the tech?  In the "overloading the mook's smartphone" example, what if there was still a huge electrical surge, but instead of damaging the phone, the magic protected it and the phone acted as just a vehicle to deliver the shock to the mook?  That would preserve the direct attack feature I like about it without being quite as problematic from the Agenda standpoint.  Would that be feasible?

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DFRPG / Re: Technomagic Help
« on: September 03, 2015, 09:56:39 PM »
The overloads wouldn't necessarily kill the device, especially since the magic could also do Evothaum repairs.  The entity might not care, especially if it is, or started as, the ghost of a hacker and sees technology as its tools rather than its subjects or part of it.  A god of technology could possibly see it along the lines of handling a troublesome follower.  Ultimately, it's an idea I thought was neat about the original concept and something I'd like to keep intact in the translation if it's possible.

I have looked at some Shadowrun stuff.  I like it a lot, but some of it depends on the cyberpunk setting, and I'm trying to fit this into a modern-ish one.

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DFRPG / Re: Technomagic Help
« on: September 03, 2015, 08:11:22 PM »
Yeah, that's sort of how I was coming at it.  There's also no saying it couldn't be a mix.  Maybe a hacker died and his ghost somehow bonded with a nascent digital godling or something.  Or maybe it's just straight-up American Gods-style new god of technology.

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DFRPG / Re: Technomagic Help
« on: September 03, 2015, 07:44:19 PM »
That's part of my problem with the agenda.  The aspect I like about the Ghost in the Machine is the enigma of it.  Even when you've made a deal with it, you don't entirely know what you've made a deal with.

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DFRPG / Technomagic Help
« on: September 03, 2015, 06:18:42 PM »
So I was reading this article and thought it had some neat ideas that could be ported to DFRPG easily enough.  The City Domain Cleric could already be pretty easily constructed using the Urban Magic sponsored magic from the resources wiki, possibly with a couple of True Faith powers thrown in if you want more of a cleric-y feel.  The one that really intrigued me, though, was the new Warlock pact option, bargaining with a digital entity called the Ghost in the Machine for power over technology.  The idea of a gray hat hacker who discovers this new entity and bargains with it for power came to mind, but I'm having trouble constructing it mechanically.

One big stumbling block I'm running into is Agenda.  What would this thing's agenda be?  On the one hand I thought, hey, if this is a new power of some sort, maybe it's Agenda is just to expand its influence and recognition.  This feels a little like a cop-out, though, since in practice anyone that just doing anything with the powers is in line with it.  Perhaps that's okay, since it is more limited in some ways than the more versatile magics, but it still feels like there should be something meatier there.

Application-wise, the abilities and new spells listed in the document give me some neat ideas for evocation and thaumaturgic applications.  Using a smartphone, tablet, or a laptop as a focus item, and apps as potions, seems like a really neat idea to me.  Evocation with it would likely utilize electricity, either directly for something really flashy, or overloading electrical devices that the victim has to cause them damage (ever seen any of those viral videos of overcharged smartphone batteries exploding?) or directly controlling them as a sort of psychomancy-for-computerized systems.  As far as the thaumaturgy end of the spectrum goes, one idea that immediately leaps to mind is a scrying ritual that uses security cameras or traffic cameras, or a locator spell that uses facial recognition software and traffic camera footage or satellite imagery.  Evothaum could be bypassing electronic locks, infecting computerized systems with various malware, etc.  If anyone has any suggestions for other applications, I'd love to hear them.

So, what say you, assembled masses?

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DFRPG / Re: Viability of Vanilla Mortals in a Multiple Wizard Game
« on: June 13, 2015, 05:51:44 PM »
My understanding of how things usually go (with limited actual play experience to back it up, so I could be off-base here) is that the biggest advantage a pure mortal has is being a font of Fate Points.  They get the most each time FPs refresh and can afford to spend them a lot more freely.  Think of it like how Batman operates in the big super-fights the JLA has.  By rights, he really shouldn't even be able to survive those things, let alone be useful in them.  And yet he is.  Why?  In the Dresden/FATE system, the answer would be copious quantities, and prolific use, of Fate Points.  Superman gets mind-controlled and Batman just happens to have some kryptonite in his utility belt?  Fate Point.  Traps Bizarro in a previously unnoticed environmental hazard that takes him out of the fight?  A Fate Point put that hazard there.  Crazy action sequence that looks like it was pulled right out of the Expendables?  Make it rain Fate Points.  You mention Van Helsing, and while it's been awhile since I've watched that movie, if I'm remembering right half the stuff he pulls are good examples of things you can do with Fate Points.  You just have to get used to throwing them around like candy, because if you don't you probably will end up outdone pretty quick.

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DFRPG / Re: DFRPG MIB Theorcrafting
« on: June 11, 2015, 09:09:54 PM »
And they named it the SCP Foundation.

Trouble:  Just Got Assigned 682 Duty.

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DFRPG / Re: DFRPG MIB Theorcrafting
« on: June 08, 2015, 11:17:58 PM »
Well, if you dont want to go with the Library of Congress Special Collections (which is cannon per a WOJ if nothign else) then Id say the best place for a super-secret government organization would be in the basement of the IRS

No no, that's where you put the hellmouth.

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DFRPG / Re: DFRPG MIB Theorcrafting
« on: June 07, 2015, 12:36:31 PM »
Motivation is going to depend a lot on whether you want them to be the good guys, the bad guys, or both.  In story reality, there's (usually) very different motivations for a good guy org and a bad guy org, even if they do more or less the same thing.  If they're the good guys, they have to do some unpleasant things sometimes, but their motivations are probably pretty pure, protect the world from the monsters, keep order, etc. etc.  If they're the bad guys?  They want to use the supernatural to dominate the natural.  If you want a more nuanced approach with both good and bad?  The "boots on the ground", so to speak, are good folks that want to protect the unaware and keep order, but the bosses are often unrepentant assholes who don't like agents that ask too many questions and sometimes the field agents wonder what the real aims of the agency are...

As far as department, determine what you want their motivation to be and slot them in where appropriate.  If their main goal is observation and analysis, I'd say stick them in the CIA or NSA.  If they're going the "protect the unawares" route, I'd say either DHS or a branch of the USAF would work best.  Or you could make them part of the FBI in a way similar to what they did with Mulder in X-Files.  I think my personal favorite way of doing it, though, is the way they did it in a Cthulhu supplement called Delta Green.  It's a secret organization that has no official branch itself.  Its agents are officially agents of other branches (ATF, DHS, CIA, FBI, Secret Service, sometimes even IRS) and spend most of their lives doing the normal stuff agents from those departments do.  However, when something supernatural comes up in their area, or if they're specific skillset is needed, they get activated by DG by receiving a (usually barebones and vague) briefing.  Doing it this way means that they're so secret that most of the government doesn't even know about them.

For operations, it'll depend a bit on where you put them in the government.  If they're a branch of an existing agency (CIA, NSA, FBI, whatever) they'll likely operate similarly to that agency, with adjustments where appropriate for dealing with and covering up the supernatural.  If you make them their own thing, you'll want to look at how other agencies operate and determine which policy structures fit your idea of the MIB the best.  If you Delta Green it, operations are basically "handle this problem, don't fuck up, and lie like the devil on your after action reports".

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DFRPG / Re: Conspiracy Theories?
« on: June 05, 2015, 02:29:05 AM »
Lovecraft's racism makes it hard for me to imagine a non-white person being him, to be honest.

Well, yeah.  LO asked for red herring theories, and as crazy red herring theories go...

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DFRPG / Re: Conspiracy Theories?
« on: June 04, 2015, 10:58:36 AM »
And now I hear this in my head:

Jay: Did you ever flashy-thing me?
Kay: No.
Jay: I ain't playing with you, K. Did you ever flashy-thing me?
Kay: No.

:P

Precisely what I was thinking of. ;D  Though obviously these guys would be a bit scarier, what with repeatedly doing things that twist their soul.  I suspect that'd be a high turnover job.

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DFRPG / Re: Conspiracy Theories?
« on: June 04, 2015, 03:20:44 AM »
Heh, if you want a purely homegrown one that I'll be using in my own game, feel free to use Forethought Technologies, Inc.

I leave you to tweak this however you will for your own game, but here's the nutshell version for my own game. Forethought is the meaning of the name Prometheus. Rather than the Greek titan, it refers to Mary Shelley's book, Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. Forethought Technologies, Inc. is owned entirely by the insane biomancer, Victor Von Frankenstein, under another name.

Why is this even in my game? Because one of my players wanted to play a "magical construct that became self-aware". He's Frankenstein's original creation, now known by the name "Deucalion"... the mythical son of Prometheus.  :)

Dude, is your player Dean Koontz?  ;D

Another one:  The US government employs warlocks, specifically psychomancers, to cover up any supernatural crises that become too public.  One minute a bunch of guys in black suits walk in, the next you have no idea what happened to the last day of your life but strangely, it doesn't bother you...

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DFRPG / Re: Conspiracy Theories?
« on: May 30, 2015, 02:32:02 AM »
Did you know that the White Court, the despair ones, have a deal going with the Zeta Reticulans to feed off the despair abduction victims feel as they struggle futilely to make the world believe what they've been through?

The president's a Changeling.  I shit you not man, I've seen the real birth certificate.

They tell you the Illuminati doesn't exist.  I tell you, look at the wizards, look at all they can do, and then wonder what might happen if a few of them got fed up with the no-politics rule.  Food for thought, dear viewers, food for thought.

Now, I'm not saying George Romero's a Black Court plant, but...

The Gatekeeper is Lovecraft.  You ever see the two of them in the same room?  Didn't think so.

This Harry Dresden guy is White Council propaganda.  Don't believe me?  Look at that guy's reputation.  Nobody could really be that crazy.

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DFRPG / Re: What do your wizards do for a living?
« on: March 12, 2015, 06:30:43 AM »
I've got an unfinished wizard who I intended to be primarily a wardsmith, with a little spellslinging-for-hire on the side.

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DFRPG / Re: Red Court Infected Drinking from a Nonhuman
« on: February 12, 2015, 06:58:58 AM »
I remember reading once, back in the days of oWoD, that a vampire that Capri Sun'd a changeling would have a trip worthy of any 60s LSDathon.  That really tickled me, so I generally carry that concept over into other games that don't have a clear answer to what happens when vampires (or other phages) feed on nonhumans.  So maybe the RCI gets all hot and bothered after feeding on a lust whamp, or roid ragey after feeding on a wrath one.

As for what happens to the whamp, I'd defer to canon.  If they're human enough for Black Court turning, which Blood Rites seem to indicate, then I'd say they're probably human enough for RCI.  However, I generally dislike mashing together monster types, so I'd probably have the player choose whether to become an RCI or have a SHOCKING IMMUNITY! (gasp) to the RCI infection.  Which could be fodder for quite the interesting story in and of itself, assuming the Red Court is still around to be deeply concerned about this strange immunity...

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