Typically I'd say no. Changing a person is described as being so total you might as well call it murder. The mind is gone, the soul is distorted, they ARE a dog, not a transformed person.

As has been brought up, you could certainly make more elaborate scenarios where the mind/soul was in tact, but if you start doing that your just defeating the point of the discussion.

No, not really. If you do somehow pull it off, and the transformed human still has their minds, then it does matter a whole lot. I think the whole scenario would also be taken as a case by case bases.

The question with Lawbreakers is "is it human" its why you can transform or resurrect animals without getting a Lawbreaker. Giving it for killing even something comparatively intelligent like a dolphin or a whale makes no sense, atleast if your sticking to the setting.

Yea I guess so. It still makes my head hurt.

Only if he actually killed people at the party.

Look, my theory is just that, a theory, and under my theory Harry would not have been able to kill those people.  

However, I do not find the idea that the laws just exist arbitrarily and randomly likely at all.  Jim has put a lot of thought into the series, and from what I understand of the way that Evil Hat came up with the books Jim had a lot of input.  I doubt that the implementation of the Laws is particularly divergent from the way he envisions them working.

Alternatively, harm caused by magic is "fed back" to the caster via the sympathetic link between caster and target, so even if the caster is unaware of the effects of his or her actions the metaphysical repercussions still find their way back.  If the victim of the action is too alien (non-human) there is no real resonance, and no lasting effect to the caster.
The "choose" might refer to the player.  I'd have to read the section to be sure.  I'll check WoJ over the weekend, but I'm pretty sure he was clear that causing a death with magic makes one a Lawbreaker, intent doesn't enter into it.

I don't think my view of this is random or all that arbitrary. It is my interpretation of the series as well as the RPG that you have to choose to blacken your soul. Karma can still come back and bite you in the butt. I know that "the road to hell is paved in good intentions" but I think that karma can come back at you more ways than dooming you to burning for all eternity. That's why I'm saying it's a huge gray area, that has to be taken case by case, and can't be blanket statemented.

I think we might have to agree to disagree on this point.

Remember the central conceit of the game is that it's being designed by Billy the Werewolf to be run by Kirby the Werewolf, with Bob and Harry as consultants.

It's going to reflect Harry's views of magic, with some attempts by Bob and Billy to attain some sort of objectivity.

That's just the perspective that was used to make the book more interesting. It wasn't actually written by them in real life.

But if that's the case Harry would have at least law break two or higher. He would have LB 1 for killing Justin then +1 for every person he killed when he blew up Bianca's mansion. On a number of occasions Jim Butcher writes in several of his books that Harry does not know if he killed anyone when he blasted the mansion But they found remains of a number of human bodies. And yes there where human remains, besides the RCV remains. Harry doesn't know if he killed them or if they where already dead. If someone wants to play with the laws of magic as completely black or white, with nothing in between feel free, but I'm not because it doesn't appear to be. Just look at the countless arguments on this board.

If I came into a situation where I had no idea it was "Do this one option or die" and the GM knew about it and didn't forewarn me, or they didn't know it would happen and they didn't bother with another potential outcome, I wouldn't be all that happy about it.

Wait, you mean if a GM were to simply impose that outcome on a player without offering the player a choice, or even a warning with the option to let the spell fizzle?  That would be just absurdly high-handed.  The appropriate response would be for the entire group to quit on the spot.

I would quit. But yet again if that's how someone else wants to play that's fine. Just talk with your group before you start playing to warn them that this possibility could arise. If everyone around the table knows this can happen and is okay with it, I'd say run with it. But not all player (including me) might like this.

An unhappy player does not make good narration. just make sure all the players are on the same page. And that should be standard for all campaigns. Unfortunately it isn't. I can't tell you haw many game I've played that just fell apart because people had different expectations, or just simply didn't know what was going on.

One thought might be that your aspects might be compel-able, but are they compel-able for the campaign? The party's aspects just might  not fit for the adventures. Either that or try to self compel more. IMO it should not fall entirely on the gm to give you fate points. there is a lot of this game that says that narration and the story falls on both sides of the GM screen. So if you're aspects fit the campaign and you want more fate points, you might have to work on getting them yourself if the GM is unwilling to give them to you. And if the entire party is having the same problem then maybe if they see you do it they will hopefully follow suit. I know this is always the easiest thing to do but will hopefully get better with time.

It would be hilarious if you made a magical item like this but it turned them into a muppet like on the series Angel.

All very good points. And after thinking about it, I think the DFRPG is just too much work for my players. And in a way, I can see it.  Fate points fuel everything and to get more fuel, they have to be clever storytellers ALL THE TIME. So I see them looking over their sheets trying to figure out what to do in a given scene, how to move the story forward, but also incorporate their aspects. This can get tiresome very quickly. If aspects were more of a guide line and flavor than an actual mechanic, I think they would have used it when they thought it appropriate.

It's not the players really. We've played prime time adventures and Dogs in the Vineyard and these guys shine. They're really good at character development. But when a game makes you do it to survive a combat, it seems... annoying.

Am I making sense?

Maybe you can tweek it a little to suite your group. What it sounds like is that your character can and are willing to roleplay, but the self compelling gets in the way. Maybe you could just have them roleplay with the aspects as a guide, and you hand out fate points when you feel it appropriate. that would IMO reduce the amount of characters pouring over their character sheets and put more of the weight on your shoulders. But hey, it might also come down to this isn't the system for you. I am excited about because my group is kind of the opposite. They are used to be dnd players, and this is their first introduction to an indie game. So the aspect system for them will hopefully help them take more narrative control. So good luck, and I hope everything goes well. And even if you decide not to run dfrpg, isn't a great reference guide anyway?

I mean that players will naturally do things to avoid giving the enemy an advantage.  Making tagged Invokes give a Fate Point like Tagged Compels will mean players will avoid doing tagged invokes.  You've made those tagged invokes more expensive to do...it's simple economics.  So I think the net result is it will be that it makes the game LESS fun, because there will be a lot fewer aspects placed on enemies.  It's not about abuse..placing Aspects on allies isn't abuse.  This just makes aspects on allies a lot cheaper, hence encouraging their placement over aspects on enemies (which is already discouraged by the more significant resistance an enemy can potentially give).

I don't see how you are getting here. Are you talking about tagging IFB (Invoke for bonus) or IFE (Invoke for effect)? If you tag a IFB then the tagged shouldn't get a fate point. I feel that a IFE, being narrative control, should have a fate point given to the tagged, but that's just me personally, even though I know that the RAW might disagree with me. I see it as IFE giving narrative control. If someone is taking NC over someone then that person should get something in return. But most likely I would just use a tagged IFE to lead to a compel to give a fate point, which seems to be okay.

Compels that come from an Invoke for Effect are different, of course, since a Compel immediately puts the opponent at a non-trivial disadvantage.  That certainly is deserving of a Fate Point as per normal compel rules.

As for this conversation overall regarding how to word things about tagging, I am coming from a purely pedantic standpoint.  I am just trying to figure out the clearest way to word all of this (because the book certainly doesn't do it).  Is it best to have Invoke For Effect have a nested Compel as an option, or just to explicitly state that one can Compel with a tag?  Generally I think avoided nested stuff is less complicated, and mathematically speaking this is certainly so if you would just have 3 options (long story).

Beyond that, I don't see how the player doing the compel without needing a Fate Point is different from the GM here.  What can be compelled in either case is very dependent on the Aspect in question.  I don't see how an Invoke For Effect limits the nature of possible compels at all...anything that can be compelled is arguably something that can be Invoked For Effect (which would cause the compel), as best I see it.  Is there something I am missing here?

I agree with ScottMcG about that ruling. The RAW is does have some funny circuitous wording. The difference I can tell is that according to RAW you can not tag a compel, a tagged IFE would not give a fate point, but a tagged IFE that leads to a GM compel would get the fate point. I know it is a very round about way of doing things, and if you want to limit this and come up with a simpler way of doing things, I think you might even get encouraged to do so seeing that Fate in general is all about Moding for your own purposes. What ever makes it easier for you.

The difference I see is that a player is more likely to try to go overboard with a compel, or at least try to get the most out of it. Where as the GM might want to try to fit it in the story better. I see it as a GM having more control over their npcs. That's one thought anyways. It really comes down to how you campaign and your group runs. You might want to leave these things, like IFE leading to a compel during battle, up to your players.