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Oh, can I see them sometime? And, as soon as I finish running this game, I'll open up a convo, if that'll work for it?
White Wolf's World of Darkness
Oh, can I see them sometime? And, as soon as I finish running this game, I'll open up a convo, if that'll work for it?
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Sadly I fear they were lost along with the old White Wolf boards. And yeah, sure.
Snow
Doka
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Hmm... I'm not sure how exactly the game is going to work, but the players are controlling an entire Freehold rather than an individual person, right? In that case, perhaps you can use the Bronze Rule from FATE Core and stat the Freeholds and equivalent Dresdenverse organizations as characters?
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Bronze Rule? Also, it's sorta going to be a combination...they control Freeholds, but also individuals, because Freeholds aren't unitary. I mean, they are under one (shifting) authority, but each person is very much their own individual, so there will be points where you control a single character, or etc, etc.
'Be X' segments, where suddenly you're playing as this scout in the Wasteland, or as the Summer Monarch in the full might of his fury battling the Goblins, or the shady Changeling businessman making a deal with the White Court vampires for help against a mutual foe...
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Snow
Doka
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Here. It's a newer edition of FATE than Dresden Files though.
Ah, yeah, that'd be more complicated. Well, Fate (the Core edition, at least) is abstract enough that you could problably do Changelings with them if you're willing to just use Aspects and Stunts and narration instead of having proper mechanical representations for all their powers. It'd probably lose a lot of the CtL feel though, so that might not be what you're looking for.
AshenFox
Copy Control, we are a go.
- Location
- Sector 13
Easy peasy lemon squeezey.
You want a Major Template(s), Minor Template(s), or Purified Level Template(s)?
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Oh, it's really easy? Then I'll invite you along for the ride. What's a Purified Level Template, anyways?
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The Purified are a splat introduced in WoD: Immortals. They're halfway between a major and minor template; they have a power stat and their own dedicated power set, but no X-, Y- or Z-splat and limited scope.
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Well, I suppose by default that Wizards wouldn't really have the splats. I mean, a Wizard is a Wizard, as different as one is from another as can be imagined, at least in theory. I mean, sure, there are political divisions, but there aren't really permanent factions that I can think of?
But either way, the main thing would be designing the magic system, since Wizards are meant to, otherwise, be pretty much human-ish-y.
AshenFox
Copy Control, we are a go.
- Location
- Sector 13
^ That.
It's basically what happens in nWoD when you want your template to have 'energy' of some kind other then straight up Willpower. Also you don't want to modify anything about the sheet or how characters function in general.
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Hmm, well, we'll see. I have a convo set up, but some things to consider--well, how much do you know about the Dresden Files, actually?
Dresden Files Wizards seem to have some sort of control stat, some sort of 'mana' stat (often unrelated, but modifying each other) and then, both in that and other things, a definite focus on Willpower or its two attributes.
Like, it's by the caster's will and mind and self-control that spells are formed and etc, and a Wizard like Harry often does the 'I use the last, small, fleeting bit of my willpower to just barely cast this spell even though I'm running on fumes' sorta thing.
AshenFox
Copy Control, we are a go.
- Location
- Sector 13
I own everything that is Dresden Files that isn't comics and read the entire book series every year...
Ok, I also might not own everything related to the RPG they came out with. I know I own the first 2 books, and I heard they were doing some more, but I've been busy and haven't had anyone to play with, so they simply are not / haven't been a priority.
Shortest path seems a Mage hack, though it tends to scale more easily for biggatons and much harder for more esoteric effects(but that could just be Harry)
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Well, maybe, but Mage has a lot of things that don't fit together. For one, everything in the Dresden Files takes mana, basically.
Obvious and/or weird thoughts.
Have *two* Power Stats.
One is pure power, and determines the fuel tank. It is capped by the max that is one's Willpower, or maybe less, not sure.
The other is like finesse/control and is needed to do complicated things, and can also be used to reduce the cost of simpler things. Like, if something is a Magical Skill 1 task, and you have Magical Skill 2, you can do it for slightly cheaper, or something, or you can do it slightly more complicated. That might be capped/related to one's Composure or...something? Not sure.
Somewhat similar to casting with Rotes then?
Though if players aren't going to be in control of a Wizard, you could simply run a Wizard like a human with a Spirit overlaid.
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Spirit overlaid? I know little to nothing about how that would work.
And, Wizards actually have Rotes too. Not nearly as many as Mages though, and they rely on Focuses, or something like that. Like Harry with his Blasting Rod.
I mean, treat each Wizard as if their magic was a Spirit doing all those things for them. Relatively handwavy approach, but using play doh is less painful than trying to cram a square peg in a round hole.
notthepenguins
Neither Spherical Nor Frictionless
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Honestly, I think you don't need a second fuel tank stat. Just let Willpower be expendable on all the magic rolls to decrease difficulty or add successes, but give penalties to magic effects when wp is low.
The whole "fuel tank" thing really mattered less and less as the books went on, and only really kicks in when he pushes himself these days; I think it's a valid enough model that he was just pushing himself more (using more willpower) in the early days.
The whole "fuel tank" thing really mattered less and less as the books went on, and only really kicks in when he pushes himself these days; I think it's a valid enough model that he was just pushing himself more (using more willpower) in the early days.
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Maybe, but it's less a matter of portraying Dresden, who was a monster with protagonist powers who only looked like a plucky underdog because he was fighting god-level beings. Even from the first book, he's not a typical Wizard, and by halfway through he's a Warden-ish level battle-mage.
Which is one of the limits of first-person perspective, because Harry thinks he's NORMAL.
Still, your idea would definitely be simpler/more efficient.
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That sounds about right. Harry has always been really bad at controlling his output outside of ritual work. He just rams a huge load of power as inefficient artillery and it works anyway.
Wizards aren't very good at improvising outside of very practiced spells or ritual effects, and Harry Dresden just keeps doing that sort of stuff and overcoming the difficulty with More Power.
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That's certainly something to keep in mind, though they are pretty darn flexible in terms of power. What I definitely don't want to do is underpower Wizards, and they will be a definite/possible antagonist to go up against if I run that Quest.
Now, I could of course as you suggest just have them use powers as the plot needs, but then I'd have to decide what powers they have, and how power-ful they were, and stuff like that, so I'd still wind up doing half the work, just without any understanding/numbers.
I'm thinking Mages, but without any favored arcana(so pretty much everything they do they need to learn a Rote unless they use willpower to cast an improvised effect), or Mana(using Willpower instead). Willpower below critical thresholds weaken their magic, and they can convert their own Pattern into willpower for casting if they hit rock bottom or literally intend to suicide via Death Curse.
Swap out Paradox for Thresholds, Running Water and Magic Circles.
Swap out Wisdom for the Laws of Magic
Opening Ways needs to be built in rather than Arcana linked, since pretty much every full wizard we'd seen could make them, though at substantial willpower cost.
Spec them for having a wider range of low arcanas and make the higher ratings very rare.
Swap out Paradox for Thresholds, Running Water and Magic Circles.
Swap out Wisdom for the Laws of Magic
Opening Ways needs to be built in rather than Arcana linked, since pretty much every full wizard we'd seen could make them, though at substantial willpower cost.
Spec them for having a wider range of low arcanas and make the higher ratings very rare.
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Among other things, we've never seen Mages enhance their body like you can do with Life, and fireballs are somewhat more common than with Mages, where it's a high-level thing and why are you bothering. So I'm not so sure...
We have actually seen it. Harry does it in Fool Moon, Billy and the Werewolves technically use wizard magic to shapeshift(they're single spell masters) and Injun Joe does it as a career, including turning into a grizzly.
Harry and Elaine are just terrible at Life and crazy good at Forces/Prime. Comes of having the same teacher. Ebenezar is kind of a Forces Master.
Molly is mostly Mind, but she's crap enough at Forces that throwing a fireball is beyond her.
And of course, Wardens naturally select for Forces/Prime builds(since that's what you tend to look for in battlemages), though we see that one Warden who uses trees to attack.
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I meant, alter their bodies in the sense of 'I suddenly have Strength 5.'
One of the basic rules of Wizards is that unless they transform, they're as squishy as a human in a world where tons of things have 6-7 Physical Attribute baseline.