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Messages - Viatos

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31
DFRPG / Re: Powers = Tools ?
« on: May 05, 2012, 06:29:47 PM »
Quote from: Richard_Chilton on May 05, 2012, 05:19:50 PM
I'm not sure if you've been following the discussion.  To reiterate: The RAW say that the Swords work as focus items - focusing the faith of those who believe in the crucifixion.

And the Nail is the focus and power source of the blade.

In my example, the sword is still the focus - focusing the extreme love and devotion and desire to protect his family possessed by our unknown Sikh; his heartsblood invigorates and empowers the blade. Why would that not be good enough? IoPs can be made at the whim of random gods or sidhe or your player character if you really work for it.

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No, not everyone can use them.  If you can't hit this mental state: "may only be swung with true selfless purpose in mind and heart; if this is not the case, the bond between the Knight and the Sword is broken and may only be restored by undergoing some sort of trial of faith."
then you can't use one.  Personally, I think that the vast majority of the world's population couldn't swing a sword without hatred (or at least revenge) in their hearts - meaning that they couldn't use it.

We're in a fantasy gaming environment, and you're allowed to have aspects like PURE AND SELFLESS HEART. So every single PC and NPC could use one, yes. I doubt that such games are run very often (although it could be interesting: DnD's Blood War with Evil switched to Good meets Stepford Wives kind of thing?) but they're possible. I grant not likely.

But I'm illustrating the extreme of the range because it's important to understand its full scope. To use a more reasonable example, the PCs form a seven-man Blessed Scooby Gang each wielding a Sword-equivalent attuned to one of the seven holy virtues, and their antagonists include a demonic Knight Templar who dual-wields Sword-equivalents which require the same devotion to evil that regular Swords require to good.

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Do we? Personally, until/unless we see the breakout I'm of the opinion that there are prerequisites to use the blade and that the ACaEBG "power" exists only in the Swords of the Cross.  That's what makes them so special.

Richard

I mean, you can hold that opinion, but it's unsubstantiated. We can't definitively say it's X Refresh, but we know what range it's in, and we know the effect is allowable and has no Musts, which provides a strong basis for argument. It wouldn't be RAW, but we'd have RAW's support. Do I think it's a good idea? Not really, but at the same time, I wouldn't be too upset if a PC asked for it. It's hardly the only questionable thing in the game; it just means I structure BBEGs differently and keep it in mind. It's a balance issue, but not a game-crippling one unless abused, at which point it becomes an OOC communication issue instead.

32
DFRPG / Re: Powers = Tools ?
« on: May 05, 2012, 08:26:01 AM »
Quote from: Richard_Chilton on May 05, 2012, 05:25:04 AM
What other faiths have Billion+ believers AND a link to something like the crucifixion (with the nails) to focus their belief?

Why would you need any of that? Items of Power need impressive stories, sure, but the devotion of a lone Sikh who tempered a blade to save his family in his own heartsblood sounds sufficient. Part of the reason the Swords have so much behind them, in my opinion, is because they're cop-outs. They don't HAVE stories. They're just normal swords with a nail forged in, and the story of the nail doesn't relate to their purpose at all. The combined mass of Abrahamic faith is necessary to compensate for how mundane they are.

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Three saintly heroes in the world can use that power - which is why they are on the heavy hitter chart.  They don't have to be Christian - agnostic will do as long as they are men (or women) of Faith.

Well, an infinite number of people can use them, actually. Every PC and NPC can have an IoP which is, mechanically, a Sword - even if ACaEBG isn't costed, the entire package is. Heck, you can make an eight-armed Scion of Durga who octowields Sword-equivalent items in the shape of different weapons.

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A narrative that says: "There are up to three people in the world who can use this power, only in the cause of good, and only if they've first invested 5 refresh in the Champion of God template before buying that IoP." is a sever limit on the power.

So, there's no limit on the power beyond its attachment to the Swords, and even that is negotiable given that we know the effect can exist for somewhere between 0 and 4 Refresh.

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Which is why some of us embrace templates so closely.  Without them you have "My HC is a Guy with Claws and ACaEBG" type characters running around.

So doing this doesn't help, because every template can pick up an IoP, including those with access to Mythic Strength or Evocation.

33
DFRPG / Re: Template Balance
« on: May 04, 2012, 10:45:09 PM »
Quote from: Tedronai on May 04, 2012, 09:54:04 PM
I direct you to the stunt stacking guidelines in the stunt creation rules of YS.
Basically, the above doesn't work. (or at least not nearly so well as intended)

Hmm. So I guess it's not possible for a mortal to keep up with an evocator even if the mortal sacrifices everything to an exceptionally narrow area of focus.

Carry on.

34
DFRPG / Re: Template Balance
« on: May 04, 2012, 09:49:58 PM »
Quote from: Mr. Death on May 04, 2012, 02:58:14 PM
Even at the same refresh level, wizards are, one on one, more powerful and dangerous than a pure mortal when optimized for combat. The wizard is going to be tossing out Weapon:5 spells at rolls of 5--without taking into account specializations and focus items--and will more likely than not have enchanted armor of significant strength. The Pure Mortal, unless he's carrying a bazooka, isn't going to be doing more than Weapon:3 damage, and his armor, if he has any, is going to be limited in scope of what it can block. Kevlar isn't going to stop a fireball.

Now this I do contest. The Wizard can I-Win with Thaumaturgy, but let's put that aside because that's really a bigger issue. An evocator against a combat-focused Pure Mortal of equivalent refresh in a white room brawl has only even odds.

At 8 Refresh, I take nine stunts: two to improve my defense, two for toughness, three for +1s to attack, two for +2 stress per hit. Now my assault rifle functions as Weapon:7 and I roll +8 with it. My defense is +9 and I can soak several hits even if they get through. All of these bonuses are situational, but not terribly so, and I can overlap situations between stunts that do different things. For instance, "when wielding an assault rifle" and a little relevant flavor could apply to all four categories. I'm good at firing it, I aim for maximum damage, I know how to dissuade attacks by blind-firing, and just holding it lends me resolve and tenacity.

The problem is that's all I can do, butcher people with an assault rifle. I can't fly or summon demons or solve any problems, really, that an assault rifle is not designed to solve. The elements of earth (stone, dirt, metal, lightning) spirit (telekinesis, light, illusion) and fire (flame, ice, purification) are much better at creative problem solving, and if you optimize that to the point where you can hit like a runaway freight train full of pressure-sensitive nuclear warheads, you get way more then just the combat package.

35
DFRPG / Re: Does the DresdenVerse default to Ultimate Good or Ultimate Evil?
« on: May 04, 2012, 09:34:47 PM »
Quote from: UmbraLux on May 04, 2012, 09:31:42 PM
As for the other, sex != feeding - even if there is often a correlation.  (True love comes to mind as an obvious exception - thought not necessarily the only one.)

Notably, Thomas and his sensual haircare.

36
DFRPG / Re: Does the DresdenVerse default to Ultimate Good or Ultimate Evil?
« on: May 04, 2012, 09:24:55 PM »
Quote from: Richard_Chilton on May 04, 2012, 08:01:38 PM
Just because the RAW allows you to make custom <x> does not mean that custom X is part of the RAW.  It means that you can add to the RAW in your way and I can add to the RAW in my way.

Exactly! So it's RAW to develop a custom template in general. That's my point!

On templates: We know when Changelings develop, but not when a Scion's abilities manifest, which could differ dramatically depending on nature. A half-Foo Dog might be very different from a middle-aged mailman named Prince of Djinni by a dying fire elemental, or a young woman who accidentally ingested a Blackened Denarius as an infant, and some unique void in her soul devoured the Fallen and absorbed its powers. You could spend seventy years as a weredragon, and then unexpectedly manifest your heritage as the foretold Sword-of-Typhon, resulting in the growth of tentacles and Thaumaturgy specialized in Monsteromancy or something.

By-the-by, I think "child of Mouse and Terra West" would be pretty awesome for a Next Generation-style DFRPG game.

37
DFRPG / Re: Does the DresdenVerse default to Ultimate Good or Ultimate Evil?
« on: May 04, 2012, 05:53:29 PM »
Quote from: Richard_Chilton on May 04, 2012, 06:59:01 AM
But a custom template isn't part of the RAW.  By creating a custom template you are changing the rules.

It's part of the RAW. By creating a custom template, you remain within the rules and change nothing.

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How do you go from the Were-Form template to "oh, I was always only half human"? Looking at the game I don't see adding Changeling, Scion, WCV, or WC Virgin onto a character's existing template.  Those are things that you are born and struggle with that heritage, not acquire mid play.

Yup, I was born a WCV Changeling Werewolf Emissary of Power. My childhood was complicated, but now it's awesome. Assuming I have the Refresh to pay for it, what's the problem? My mom was a WCV, and my dad was a Changeling who recently became a sidhe. Later, I figured out the spell to turn into a wolf, and signed on to be a servant of the prehistoric god Urrah, Hunting-Beast-King. My partner is a nephilim (Scion) possessed by seven angry voodoo ghosts who grant him Evocation for the elements of Darkness, Wildness, and Metal (music). We fight crime!

Perfectly RAW, and perfectly in the spirit of the Dresdenverse. It  looks funny from the outside, but then again so does Thomas (a sex vampire who pretends to be a gay hairdresser) or Murphy (a tiny kung-fu cheerleader cop hardass) or Harry (a wizard private investigator who can't make any money and is a slave to fairies).

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So yes, magical animals are an exception.  You could create a custom template that allows weredragons etc but again, we would be departing from the RAW.

Nope, they're specifically allowed by RAW. There's a note about it and everything. You are absolutely allowed to make a weredragon. 100% RAW, and it's literally like three lines under the text you quote. What I find helpful is, when I reference a rule, I read the section the rule is in just to be sure of the context. Doesn't take long, and avoids misunderstandings.

38
DFRPG / Re: Template Balance
« on: May 03, 2012, 04:42:56 PM »
Quote from: Mr. Death on May 03, 2012, 03:45:55 PM
This, this, a thousand times, this. The game isn't made to have everything perfectly balanced so that every template stands an equal chance to be viable in every situation. It's made to reflect the setting of The Dresden Files, where Pure Mortals can get by against your average supernatural (but get stomped by things with significant power), where White Court and Werewolves can hold their own if they're good or lucky, and where the Wizards who sling around the power of the elements with a wave of their staffs can stomp the shit out of things that would eat (literally) the mortals and the werewolves.

Which is bad game design, and creates false dichotomies during character creation. One character type should not be able to edge out the rest. It's fine to have specialties, but wizards don't have specialties - they're amazing at everything between thaumaturgy and evocation.

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As for keeping Wizards from being all powerful, there's a lot you can do a lot to keep them in line. Compel them to say that spells above a certain weapon rating will kill for that scene. Throw things at them that they'll need to use magic just to defend against. Give them enemies that know how to neutralize magic in some fashion.

There's very little that can be done to keep them in line. For example, you can't compel a wizard with 1 refresh to use magic to kill if he doesn't already have Lawbreaker - you'd be violating the social contract governing compels, it's exactly the same as if you tried to compel him to have an instantly-fatal aneurysm. You're being a bad GM and they have every right to call you out on it.

Powers which can threaten a wizard's persistent defense rotes can roflstomp the rest of the party, so that's also a bad option. You're creating a new tier of play to challenge one character that other characters can't get in on.

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They're extremely powerful, especially if you give them time to prepare, but a Wizard is as squishy as the pure mortal standing next to them--they've got plenty of weaknesses too.

A wizard is far tankier then the pure mortal standing next to them, because they can do things like create a 9-shift block that lasts four rounds.

39
DFRPG / Re: Powers = Tools ?
« on: May 03, 2012, 08:28:09 AM »
Quote from: Richard_Chilton on May 03, 2012, 06:34:09 AM

One last try:
Name all the settings out there with Knights of the Cross whose swords work the way the ones in the DV do.  That is, they channel the belief christian around the world to Make All Creatures Equal... Wait, I forgot that you completely disregard anything that isn't in the rules section.

DnD Paladins do this. They Smite Evil, channeling the power of Good to smash Evil's face in. The mechanic can be used rarely (almost as if they were spending Fate Points) and deal lots more damage.

In Exalted, Solars do this. They have access to Holy effects, which deal aggravated damage to Creatures of Darkness and can pierce some of their defenses.

In (new) World of Darkness, blessed objects are one of the few weapons effective against ghosts. Blessed objects and ghosts are the only supernatural elements statted out in the core book.

Knights of the Cross are just about as generic as you can get, actually. They're just guys with holy swords, one of the oldest tropes in the book from which ideas like the paladin first gestated. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HolyHandGrenade Here's an article on people who use that kind of mechanic from various forms of media.

40
DFRPG / Re: Template Balance
« on: May 03, 2012, 02:19:25 AM »
Quote from: Becq on May 03, 2012, 01:01:32 AM
To get an accuracy into the low teens, you basically turn your character into a glass cannon with a narrow focus.  So I would imagine that the best way to deal with this (without house rules) is to emphasize the "glass" and "narrow" parts of that.  Find ways to highlight the weak spots of the single element chosen, whereas other elements might have provided better results.  Demonstrate how few attacks it takes to down a character with no meaningful defenses.

What?! No. You are neither a glass cannon, nor are you narrowly focused. You're a three-element caster and just one of your elements has the same breadth of utility and potential as many other character concepts entire. And the problem with finding ways to highlight weak spots is clever players will highlight ways to work around that. Elements are insanely broad.

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Also, keep in mind that a guy with physical powers and a sword can keep swinging that sword at foes no matter how long the fight lasts.  A wizard only has so many mental stress boxes (and possibly a few consequences) to use as "ammo" for spells.  This can be highlighted by having long fights, or by stringing several smaller fights together without down time in between.  Having opponents that inflict mental stress can interfere with spellcasting by "destroying" the wizard's "ammo" before it can be used.

The guy swinging his sword can't two-shot an entity with Mythic Toughness. Attacks that deal mental stress go up against Discipline, which casters max.

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Obviously, you don't want to do any of the above to excess, lest you make the wizard's player feel hounded on.  But doing so once in a while might let other non-wizards have a chance in the spotlight.

The problem with this is the same problem it has in other systems: beating up on the epic character to make the lame characters feel better just keeps the whole party feel better. The wizard is too strong; either other party members need to be stronger, or casting itself needs to be rebuilt.

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That said, I think that the rules beg for some very simple house rules that address this issue.  A couple that might help this issue are:
1) Focus items improve the control roll only for purposes of establishing control over the shifts of power, not for determining the attack's results.
2) The wizard's focus items have to be fit into a pyramid of their own, just like skills and specializations.

This is a good start.

41
DFRPG / Re: Posters: The how's and why's of our gaming.
« on: May 02, 2012, 07:36:58 PM »
1. How did you start gaming?

I was 11 and into Neopets. They had a freeform roleplaying thing (which, years later, got its own forum) that I fell into.

2. What system did you start with?

Freeform in the truest sense, wherein anyone may show up with anything and the only rule is don't annoy people so much that they don't want to play with you.

3. What systems have you played?

DnD 3.5 and 4, nWoD (all lines and most minor splats, as well as Leviathan, Princess, and Genius), Exalted, SIFRPG, SotC, DFRPG, Buffy, Scion, Houses of the Blooded, All Flesh Must Be Eaten, Nobilis, Unknown Armies, maybe a dozen homebrew systems.

4. What system/s are your favorite?

The nWoD, even though it's only a moderate improvement on the oWoD and has like a hundred terrible problems compared to the thousand of its predecessor. Changeling is my favorite. Mage would be my favorite but I have to weight the likelihood of someone running it really well, which isn't great, because you need to have read a couple thousand pages of material to even have the whole picture. I'm excited for Mummy.

5. What caused you to try DFRPG?

Dresden Files is pretty good, and FATE rocks.

6. What is your preference in gaming group size?

Four players and one ST.

7. How open are you to gaming with people you don't know or hardly know?

Open, although it does complicate things. If I can't be friends with people I tabletop with, I stop tabletopping with them because it defeats the purpose for me. Online it's the opposite, I have 0 interest in any OOC connection with other players. I stay IC, I don't talk about my life, I don't want to hear about yours.

8. What is you best quality as a GM?

I'm awesome. I don't know, I never get (critical) complaints and only very general praise to that tune ("Wow, that rocked!" "Great! Which part?" "The whole thing!") so I can't really pin this down. Whatever it is it works for my groups.

9. What is your worst quality as a GM?

I procrastinate a lot of the stuff I know I shouldn't try to improvise.

10. Importance of game balance 1 - 10 (1 being lowest 10 besing highest)

8. I'm willing to let players get ahead of the system if they really want, but parity between players is paramount, and a system that can challenge them tends to be more exciting then one that can't.

11. Importance of setting/canon of universe 1 - 10 (1 being lowest 10 besing highest)

1. I would never voluntarily play with something that makes the group OOC-unhappy just because a book said so. It always blows my mind that there are people who care so much they'll try to "fix" someone else's game to align more with another writer's ideas. The ST is the writer that matters.

12. Custom setting or established setting?

A good established setting is fine, although I tend to start rewriting anything dumb that bothers me. Custom settings are great as long as you know your players and remember to write what they care about; no point in detailing the cultural variances of a nomadic desert civilization, for instance, if you don't expect the troupe to have any interest in going over to check them out.

13. During character creation are freedom of powers more important or the chracter concept and the powers and skills fitting that concept?

False dichotomy. During character creation, concept and powers will pretty much always fit together if the player knows what she's doing. I find that this goes much smoother and creates far more cohesive characters if I have a sheet built before I have more then two lines down about the character, and then build a narrative to fit what I want to play. Starting from the concept can be a problem because mechanics are typically less flexible and you might end up stretching too far to try and put together a sheet that fits what you've written.

14. Roll play or roleplay?

People say "oh, it's a logical fallacy" but I'm not a fan of that. What it is is a way to legitimatize sour grapes, developed by people bitter about their own inadequacies and desperate for a weapon they could use to bludgeon others who are smarter then them. In a hobby composed of intelligent and creative folk, it is a form of intelligence-and-creativity shaming that devalues everything except how wordy your magical superhero fanfic is.

15. Other: anything notable to volunteer that could explain your view of gaming or your posts on here (obviously mood, upbringing and personality has an affect here, but lets not get too personal eh?)

I have awesome friends who I run games for; when I write in general, it's with people I like in mind as my audience. I also have an interest in game design and mechanics, and what I've come to realize is the people who write games are not really doing rocket science. The most important thing is that everyone at the table has fun, and I no longer have any qualms about running roughshod over a setting or rulebook to achieve that. I tend to take a players-first view based on troupe happiness and, when I can rewrite something to work better, I do so.

42
DFRPG / Re: Does the DresdenVerse default to Ultimate Good or Ultimate Evil?
« on: May 01, 2012, 12:39:37 AM »
Quote from: ways and means on May 01, 2012, 12:16:37 AM
I have not ever come a cross a maximizer who didn't come up with a perfectly decent in game reason why their character has the abilities they have, actually they usually have much better (or at least more interesting) reasons than the average player because they had to think about it more.

This. I have written, upon request, more then five pages of background to explain how a character got from point A to point B. It made so much sense that I ended up expanding it into an entire organized movement to which a considerable percentage of NPCs starting from A would subscribe to. The DM promptly adopted it and got a lot of mileage out of its use. But that doesn't matter.

I had almost no interest in what I'd developed. It was nifty, sure, but I was way more interested in my character's philosophical struggles with the nature of a reality he could partially redesign at the time. Given the choice, I wouldn't have written an explanation at all. All I cared about was being at point B and the cool things it provided me...but as a person of at least average intelligence, creativity, and motivation, I was able to summon from nothing a coherent, externally and internally consistent narrative justifying me getting what I want.

I'm the guy who wants my Knight of the Cross to sprout wings. "I wanted to" is my only reason, but if you need a better one, I can provide it. That's the thing. Just because it looks ridiculous in flat mechanics doesn't mean you can't build a narrative to support it. I mean, Evocation is ridiculous in flat mechanics. "How can normal people do magic? People don't do magic. That's not even possible." The Dresdenverse setting exists to create a structure in which they can.

43
DFRPG / Re: Powers = Tools ?
« on: May 01, 2012, 12:30:29 AM »
Quote from: Silverblaze on May 01, 2012, 12:14:28 AM
I guess what I'm saying, is that in my opinion.  Games with fewer limits do indeed fit more settings and genres. Certain systems fit certain settings/genres better than others.  I think DFRPG fits the Dresdenverse better than many things people try to apply it to.

The reason this is hard to gauge, and why DFRPG is such a great generic system, is that Dresdenverse itself is almost as generic an urban fantasy as, well, Urban Fantasy.

You have three known varieties of vampire to fit traditionalists, the neogothic energy vampire, and the B-movie bat monster vampire. You have an additional unknown variety poised to take advantage of any number of Asian vampire myths. You have even MORE varieties confirmed but undescribed in case Butcher wants to bring in anything new he hasn't covered.

Undead of every variety. Four different plays on the werewolf myth, and countless variations of shapechanger including Skinwalkers and demonic One-Winged Angel types. Magic that explicitly fits every known magical paradigm, every elemental system, everything from the quiet ritualist Wicca to the DnD blaster sorcerer throwing fireballs and rays of disintegration. An alternate layer of reality included with a semi-known topography that contains all mythological takes on the faeries, and infinite realms beyond that to house whatever weird random entity comes in handy. The epic punk street wizard has a sidekick in the form of a mystical Asian guardian animal. There's a generic White God and the forces of Hell against it. There's Outsiders for your Lovecraft needs. There's a valkyrie with rune-magic. There are Dragons.

And on and on and on. It's a total kitchen sink, and since the DFRPG reflects this, it has to be incredibly generic to accommodate the entire range of urban fantasy - that's what Butcher draws from. And if you take the guns out of urban fantasy, you pretty much just have fantasy. Which can stretch, as we know, to cover pretty much everything else. So yeah, DFRPG goes great for any setting.

44
DFRPG / Re: Does the DresdenVerse default to Ultimate Good or Ultimate Evil?
« on: April 28, 2012, 11:49:22 PM »
Quote from: Richard_Chilton on April 28, 2012, 08:14:53 PM
Anything that allows and promotes freewill is good.  Interfering with freewill is bad.  Reducing freewill is evil.  Oh, and the point of freewill is that you live with the results of your actions.

I disagree strongly with this sentiment and the concepts that flow from it. Free will does not enforce consequence, nor ensure happiness - freedom, to me, is a neutral quality, so the White God is a neutral entity, rather then a force for good or evil. I am also not sure that the White God is the be-all and end-all of power in DFRPG. I suspect that the Outsiders could take him out, and that the combined efforts of both Faerie Mothers would be a match for his own. Depending on how cosmic, exactly, dragons are, Ferrovax might have a shot. If not, then maybe the race of dragons entire.

45
DFRPG / Re: Does the DresdenVerse default to Ultimate Good or Ultimate Evil?
« on: April 28, 2012, 11:45:17 PM »
Quote from: Richard_Chilton on April 28, 2012, 07:43:34 PM
A template is a character type.  As in
"While you and your GM can work together to devise new and strange character types for your own campaign if you wish,"

No, a template is a "pre-packaged" character type. A new and strange character type is not a template, which is a term reserved for the "pre-packaged" ones. As has been pointed out, it's a useless argument anyway: "you don't need a template" and "you can make a custom template" are for this purpose statements of identical consequence. Since we know one to be factually true...

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If the rule was "templates are optional" then it would be started at all the places where RAW says that they are not optional.  Or the wording would be something like "While you and your GM can disregard character types for your own campaign if you wish".

I dunno, I'd put a rule like that in the Templates chapter, which is where it is. Clearly there's a contradiction in the Character Creation section as well, which means that any decision on templates being required or not is a houserule.

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Which still leaves us with a power you cannot take without expanding on the RAW with a custom template.  A power that therefore must be intended in the RAW as NPC only.

 No expansion of the RAW is necessary. Regardless of whether or not you need a template, you can still make a custom one.

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