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Messages - babel2uk

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166
DFRPG / Re: Need help... Grappling seems OP?
« on: September 10, 2010, 02:03:49 PM »
Quote from: arsieiuni on September 09, 2010, 11:02:42 PM
My next plot involves a local actual festival event called "The Magic City Zombie Walk". On October 2, people from all over town dress as zombies and get together and run through the town pretending to be zombies to kick off the costume and fear season. So what if someone used that as a great event under which to do actual zombies? That's where my mind is headed...

There's a Legend of the 5 Rings scenario called Night of a Thousand Screams which has exactly that kind of set-up during the local festival for the dead where everyone dresses up like the dead and march through town. Somewhere in the city a necromancer is raising zombies to shamble along in the parade and attack the temple of the Sun Goddess. And throughout the course of the night the PCs have to track down and kill a demon that is trying to get itself a Name (in L5R demons gain a huge amount of power by getting a name - to the extent that there are only a very few named demons in the history of the setting, and they are all army killers of the highest order). I always did like that scenario, not only because it was interesting to play and run, but also because it kept the pressure on because it took place over one single night, so spells didn't refresh, healing was very limited and there wasn't time to send for back-up. In short, go for it, just make sure you really pile on the pressure besides the Zombies.

167
DFRPG / Re: CCTV surveillance - effects on non-mortal PCs
« on: September 08, 2010, 06:00:04 PM »
Quote from: Arcteryx on September 08, 2010, 05:51:44 PM
It made me remember a story by Charles Strauss about a special unit called The Laundry, which was able to use the surveillance cameras in Milton Keynes to transmit the paralytic gaze of a basilisk. Pretty awesome stuff.

It's Charles Stross, and there are 3 books in the series - "The Attrocity Archive" (which contains the story you're thinking of - "The Concrete Jungle"), "The Jennifer Morgue" and "The Fuller Memorandum" - plus a couple of short stories available online. They are great books and well worth a read.

Anyway, if the cameras are all crystal clear then you're back to either the supernatural not showing up very well (which would cause suspicion in and of itself); the supernatural community being very careful and discreet; or someone removing the footage before it can be made public - a secret government department would probably not be out of place for this purpose.

168
DFRPG / Re: Just how strong are wizard genes?
« on: September 08, 2010, 08:13:14 AM »
You're right Wizards Constitution doesn't help with healing Extreme Consequences. The way I read that, in conjunction with the section on Extreme Consequences, was that you can recover from one (any character can in theory using milesones) but it's always a difficult and a long process. You never just use the excuse of simply sitting and waiting as a reason to heal an extreme consequence, there have to be other justifications - you do after all need to change an aspect as well as wait for the consequence slot to free up. Any lesser consequence a wizard can just sit and wait for them to heal, they don't need to go to a doctors, have any form of first aid, or magical healing in order for a wound to heal of its own accord.

169
DFRPG / Re: CCTV surveillance - effects on non-mortal PCs
« on: September 08, 2010, 07:55:18 AM »
Actually, thinking about it, given the quality of the CCTV footage that is trotted out whenever they are trying to track down criminals, I suspect that supernatural creatures could do a song and dance routine in front of a camera and still be interpreted as just a student prank...

And now I have a mental image of a Loup Garou in a straw boater and a walking cane singing "Hello my baby, hello my darling, hello my rag-time gal!"

170
DFRPG / Re: What do supernaturals do during World War [Fill The Blank]? [SPOILERS?]
« on: September 07, 2010, 08:03:41 PM »
Quote from: Richard_Chilton on September 07, 2010, 07:01:56 PM
The spear of destiny isn't the Hofburg spear.  The Hofburg spear is a different one, and one that the Nazis did get.

And yet that same wikipedia entry identifies the Hofberg Spear as one of 3 or 4 relics that are claimed to be the Holy Lance (aka the Spear of Deastiny) or part of it. In fact none of the relics that appear in that article actually are the spear of destiny. Just because the actual history doesn't tally with the claims doesn't prevent it from being a decent hook for a roleplaying game using the idea that they all do contain parts of the spear that require reassembly...

171
DFRPG / Re: Erlking Magic
« on: September 07, 2010, 06:25:25 PM »
Quote from: MijRai on September 07, 2010, 05:11:11 PM
Well, if a human kills with magic, any magic, then that human has broken a Law of Magic. Now, whether or not the White Council can do anything is up for debate, but the Law was still broken.

That situation is explicitly covered in the rule book (the notes on page 236) which seem to indicate that with sponsored magic such as that used by the Sidhe Knights it would be the Accords which take precedence over the Laws of Magic. That's not to say they couldn't be inflicted with a Lawbreaker stunt, but personally I think sponsored magic is restrictive enough without bringing Lawbreaker into it. Arguably the taking on of sponsored magic has already changed a person fundamentally. OK, they don't get the penalties of the Lawbreaker Stunts, but they wouldn't get the benefits either. And the sponsor can act to prevent any breaches of the laws that the GM doesn't want to allow.

172
DFRPG / Re: Running tonight and freaked out!
« on: September 07, 2010, 04:35:17 PM »
Quote from: ashern on September 07, 2010, 03:40:43 PM
Also, some of them (the children) are suffering from psychic trauma of the not-breaking but definitely bad variety... and so my sorcerer wants to put together a working to make them all forget about what happens until they're older and can deal with it better... Said sorcerer is also Russel Carson's girlfriend.  So while I'm sure she can pull it off... there might be some consequences down the road *grin*

Not least of which would be the potential breaking of the Third Law on each child, and the Lawbreaker stunts that would go with it....

173
DFRPG / Re: Erlking Magic
« on: September 07, 2010, 09:01:15 AM »
Quote from: Drachasor on July 08, 2010, 06:27:22 AM
My recollection is that this was how the Fey views things, not how the accords were written.

Given that they Accords were written by Mab, I'd be inclined to think that the Fey view of them is entirely accurate.

The Laws of Magic are a separate entity. As far as I recall the Laws of Magic only apply to mortal magic. Sponsored Magic is generally not mortal magic, and in the case of Faerie magic it's definitely not. The users of sponsored magic already have restrictions on it's use without bringing the Laws in. The long and short of it is that if a user of sponsored magic breaks one of the laws, the White Council has no authority to do anything at all about it, unless the result is harmful to one of their members, and even then they have only limited power of redress under the Unseelie Accords. Of course if the sponsor isn't an Accords signatory, then the Council can do whatever they please to them, under whatever justification they like.

174
DFRPG / Re: What do supernaturals do during World War [Fill The Blank]? [SPOILERS?]
« on: September 06, 2010, 01:44:55 PM »
Quote from: Bubba Amon Hotep on September 06, 2010, 01:06:15 PM
Speaking of the spear of destiny.  It is suppose to have a nail from the cross on it.  Which can't be so in the dresdenverse.  However the original metal head of the spearhead could still be around.  Whereas it wouldn't have been Soaked in Blood as long as the nails, it would still I think garnish power.  Besides the fact that so many people believe in it.  Of course aren't their like 3 spears in various museums around the world claiming to the be "the one"? (Maybe they all are a single piece of a 3 piece whole)

It could be argued to have the Aspect 'Godslayer'. There are indeed at least 3 that make the claim, and it's not unreasonable to think that a powerful artefact may have been split up to prevent its use. There's a whole load of nasty powers you could associate with it if you wanted to take the angle of it being forged specifically to kill a god. And that also raises the question who was it forged by?

175
DFRPG / Re: What do supernaturals do during World War [Fill The Blank]? [SPOILERS?]
« on: September 06, 2010, 12:30:15 PM »
There's a theory that the annexation of Poland was purely so that Hitler could get his hands on the Spear of Destiny. It may be that there was a whole level of supernatural involvement on the quiet. It wouldn't be entirely out of line with the spirit of the Dresden Files for the 3rd Reich to be attempting to elevate Hitler to godhood via ritual, artefacts and human sacrifice.

176
DFRPG / Re: Bag of Holding
« on: September 06, 2010, 11:07:13 AM »
Sounds like the bag in Mary Poppins.

There's an idea that I seem to remember from a book (not one of Jim Butchers, and I couldn't tell you the title or author), where the main character had a bag or a pocket that he kept pulling things out of that should never have fitted in there in the first place. The way this was accomplished was that they were actually reaching through a wormhole that opened into a crate in a warehouse (or something similar). It limited the amount of stuff that could be stored by virtue of the items still having to be stored in a warehouse, and limited what he could pull out by what was close to the opening of the wormhole. This is largely from a rather hazy memory of the book in question, but maybe that's a possible way of working it without overly tipping game balance. The size of the item is also limited by the size of the bag or pocket it's attached to - i.e you can put a car in the warehouse next to the 'hole', but there's no way you could pull the car through.

177
DFRPG / Re: Sidhe Knight of Santa
« on: September 06, 2010, 10:16:47 AM »
I have someone in my game playing a Changeling who claims allegience to the Court of Santa, as a method of avoiding recruitment by the other courts. I've made him fully aware that there's a chance that if he makes too big a thing of it the real 'Santa' may come calling on him to enforce that allegience.

While I haven't in all honesty decided on specifics, there are a few things I'm toying with....

The character of Santa can actually be heavilly linked to the character of Puck the Trickster (Puck even has the characteristic 'Ho, Ho, Ho' laugh).

I'm leaning towards the view that the actual Santa is portrayed as being kindly, generous and generally good natured, because you really don't want to annoy him. In fact, it may be that the truth is so horrible that he's effectively been bound deep in the Never Never to prevent him from rampaging across the world. (Think along the lines of the image of him portrayed by Jack in 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' when he's trying to sell Christmas to the inhabitants of Halloween).

As arsieiuni says, the Odin/Erl King connection is a valid interpretation -
(click to show/hide)
. It's not unlikely that the rumour of a fourth powerful unaligned Faerie powerbase holds some degree of truth. Maybe he's the fabled Faerie King, and the Mothers keep him bound away while the Faerie Courts tried to diminish him by virtue of spreading a false portrayal. Which also gives a potential plot line for the weakening of the containment with the destruction of the Spring and Autumn Courts (assuming of course they ever existed). In this case the Knight may well be a sort of Black Ops type who is intent on destabilising the remaining courts.

178
DFRPG / Re: CCTV surveillance - effects on non-mortal PCs
« on: September 05, 2010, 05:27:12 PM »
Quote from: Arcteryx on September 04, 2010, 03:33:09 AM
Running a game in London where things are under surveillance and I wondered what kind of effect that would have!

Maybe they all show up normally, and there are people paid to get rid of such footage. The questions then arise as to what exactly they are paid, and who by....

179
DFRPG / Re: Magically Giving Oneself Powers
« on: September 03, 2010, 07:25:28 PM »
Actually I must admit that I don't think that generally Biomancy should be able to give a spellcaster the equivalent of full blown Supernatural Powers. I'm far happier with the idea of it allowing boosting as per the examples in the rulebook where it's just adding a temporary aspect that can be invoked.

But (assuming that you wanted to allow such transformations in a game) to answer the point about a sponsor that offers the same knowledge of anatomy and biomancy at the speed of evocation - everyone wouldn't use it for the same reason that everyone doesn't sign up for any other type of sponsored magic, the strings that go with that sponsorship.

180
DFRPG / Re: Magically Giving Oneself Powers
« on: September 03, 2010, 03:54:56 PM »
Quote from: wolff96 on September 03, 2010, 03:39:02 PM
If you can supercharge your character any time you feel like it, however temporarily, why doesn't everyone with access to any kind of Biomancy do this all the time?  What's the point of paying for the powers of the Summer Knight if any half-decent wizard can make a deal with the Seelie and stomp all over Fix in an arm-wrestling match whenever he feels like it with no real cost?

I think it's probably impractical to use biomancy to boost yourself as part of a normal Thaumaturgy ritual, it would take too long for a benefit that could run out before you get to use it - that's assuming that you manage to pull off the transformation correctly in the first place (and that would arguably require an exceptional knowlege of how the human body works. If you're using biomancy as part of summer sponsored Seelie magic you can bypass the knowledge requirement, but it's very likely that the moment you tried to move against the Summer Knight you'd find your magical enhancements disappearing, and yourself being sternly talked to by your sponsor in the Seelie Court.

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