Playing "Free Will-less" Characters

[Dracorex]

It's in a monster's nature to kill, but it's up the monster when and how they do it.

A Black Court vampire might work with a group of more heroic characters for its own ends, perhaps revenge or to protect its own territory. It's still an evil monster that eats people, but it can choose who to eat and to keep the other characters around so long as they remain useful, resisting compels to feed on them when they're injured, etc.

Once those characters have served their purpose, or someone comes along who is more useful, that's when the vampire's nature should kick in and lead them to turn on the rest of the group.

And I would consider the being spending their limited fate points to resist compels to be it making those choices on when and how they want their urges to manifest. Even animals get to make such choices - decide human is not a threat and ignore it, attack human, flee.

[Wordmaker]

Absolutely. They can choose how to obey their nature, but they still have to obey it. Eventually, they'll run out of Fate Points.

It all ties back to High Concept. I wouldn't compel a wizard or a Pure Mortal's High Concept to urge them to kill a random person who's just bled all over the floor. But a Black Court vampire? You bet I would. Especially if they were out of Fate Points. Because you're not just dealing with "is this a threat?" You're also dealing with a drive to kill that is unlike anything in the natural world.

[Taran]

Let's also remember that BCV doesn't want to be found out.  They still have a survival instinct and want to live...(un)-live.  Sure it wants to kill the person bleeding on the ground, but if killing that person allows the local warden will find out where its lair is and come to hunt it down, It'll turns down the compel and decide to find another target instead.

In any case, any creature that has FP's can turn down compels.  That's just how the game works.

Regarding the fallen Angel.  An angel who falls, changes its high concept From Angel to Fallen Angel.  Actually falling has more involved than turning down compels...I think there's a concious decision to fall.  But that's my PoV.

Another thing is a Take-Out situation where the condition of the Take out is a change a creatures High Concept.  Like a Denarian convincing an Angel to join it through a battle of wills.

[Wordmaker]

Definitely, I would never suggest that an angel falling was caused by something as simple as buying off a compel.

And that's another good point to raise. Survival. Just because a creature must follow its nature, doesn't mean it must do so in such a way as to destroy itself.

I think what it comes down to is how well your GM knows their players, how well they can justify compels and how well the player can justify buying them off. A lot of it is just flavour.

For example: A Red Court Infected buys off a compel to feed. That can be described as fighting off the hunger and holding on to their humanity.

A full Red Court vampire buying off a compel to feed, on the other hand, is more appropriately described as knowing that feeding at this point is going to make them vulnerable to attack, or sour the deal they're desperately trying to make with the gang of vampire hunters. The full vampire doesn't care about whether it's wrong or right to feed on a human, but they do understand that it might not be prudent to do at a particular time.

[cold_breaker]

I think that's why Fate forbids Will-less charactors (e.g. characters with negative refresh) - these are characters that can rarely buy off compels and therefore might as well be run by the GM. They're more of a storytelling tool than a PC.

That said, I would allow my players to play a BCV or RCV in a high enough refresh game - provided they could provide a narrative excuse as to why they have some shred of Will left. Otherwise you're talking about playing what's essentially a smart wolf - yeah, it might be clever and might even talk, but it's controlled by its base instincts and not much good as a PC.

[Taran]

Like Spike from Buffy the Vampire slayer...when he gets his soul back...

[Vairelome]

Interesting. I can't seem to find the WoJ on angels not lacking free will. Can you link?

It takes a bit of synthesis, but here (emphasis added):

Mortals are the ones who have free will, the ability to choose what they're doing, to choose between right and wrong.  Without getting too thickly into the underlying philosophy, that's the thing that separates, for example, mankind from the angels--the angels didn't get the same kind of choice about their existance, and what they would do with it.  Mortals get the chance to make all kinds of decisions, and can change their minds, well, at will.  Other creatures, though they may look like people, don't get the same range of choices about who and what they will be.

Mab, for example, is Mab.  She /can't/ show up and suddenly be merciful, generous, patient and kind.  It would never so much as occur to her to do so, because it isn't a fundamental part of her nature, and she /can't/ choose to change it.  She simply isn't capable.  She doesn't have free will in the same way that people do.  It's related to the difference between having a soul and not having a soul, as well.  Without a soul, you aren't free to choose how you will shape that soul.  You just stay what you are.

On a casual read, it looks like JB is saying that angels lack free will, but that's not the case; he's saying that angels have a very constrained form of free will.  Mab is presented as a alternate example by contrast to both angels and humans.

2010 Bitten by Books Q&A:
#180 “Could Uriel have chosen to help Harry if he had wanted to, or is there actually some universal limit that prevents him from directly influencing the world in such overt fashion?”
A little of both. Technically, it was /possible/ for Uriel to act directly, but the consequences would have been extreme, both for him and for the mortal world–to the point where you’d have to be moderately insane to do it. Or else, really, really committed to some kind of personal moral compass that was 90 degrees off true.
The last angel to do that is a little notorious.

In other words, helping Harry in this instance would have been against God's will, and therefore against Uriel's nature as an angel.  Uriel could have chosen to do so regardless, but he would have Fallen as a result; the "notorious angel" was Lucifer/Satan.

[toturi]

On a casual read, it looks like JB is saying that angels lack free will, but that's not the case; he's saying that angels have a very constrained form of free will.  Mab is presented as a alternate example by contrast to both angels and humans.

In other words, helping Harry in this instance would have been against God's will, and therefore against Uriel's nature as an angel.  Uriel could have chosen to do so regardless, but he would have Fallen as a result; the "notorious angel" was Lucifer/Satan.

I actually read your comments first before the quotes. So I tried to read it more as a case of very constrained free will. I failed. I keep coming back to the point that the "constrained free will" is simply part of their Nature and is not really free will.

The part about helping Harry, falling and the Devil I have already read. But I had read it as acting against God's Will is not necessarily acting against their Nature but an external someone else (God) will make it so that they take the extreme Consequence (social/mental) of Falling.

[cold_breaker]

Keep in mind JBs idea of free will =/= Fate's version of free will. they're a little bit different.

JBs version of free will is the difference of having a choice or not. Angels have a choice, albeit a limited one compared to humans. Angels can choose to fall - and sometimes do, although it's not much of a choice as far as angels are concerned. Mab on the other hand literally doesn't have a comparable choice - she and other Fae cannot simply choose to fall, or to lie, or to cheat, or to stop being. It's not that they wont, they simply cant, even though I think in some cases they might like to.

FATEs version of free will on the other hand is the ability to act outside of your nature, which is similar, but not the same thing. The idea is that your power slowly pushes you to make certain decisions and, if you don't have enough will to overcome your power, you become a slave to that power. It's both a balancing factor and narrative. Theoretically, a character with negative refresh could occasionally override their nature, but it gets more and more rare as they go along.

So, to answer your original ops question: JBs version of Will-less? Playable. Fates version is unplayable both for balance reasons and because in the long run not being able to control your own character would be boring.

[Wordmaker]

Not to mention that, depending on your campaign's Power Level, becoming a Wizard or a Knight of the Cross could leave you with zero or negative Refresh. Those character types certainly have free will, but as far as the system is concerned, are bound by their nature if they're not in a high enough Power Level.

[cold_breaker]

Not to mention that, depending on your campaign's Power Level, becoming a Wizard or a Knight of the Cross could leave you with zero or negative Refresh. Those character types certainly have free will, but as far as the system is concerned, are bound by their nature if they're not in a high enough Power Level.

To be fair, even early in the series Dresden talks about not taking on too much power because he's afraid it'll take him over, so wizard power might not be a good example. But yeah, JBs idea of free will and FATE free will are not mutually exclusive, they're just not 100% the same thing.