Dresden Files magic

[Mr_Sandman]

I've been thinking about how I would run Dresden Files in GURPS. The big issue of course is getting the magic system right. I don't think a free-form, improvised system fits exactly. Wizards in the Dresden Files know specific spells and rituals that have specific effects.

Harry spends a lot of time researching and developing new spells, and often it turns out that he can't find a way to do what he wants with magic. On top of that, Harry is portrayed as somewhat more inventive and less hidebound than many other wizards, and he has access to Bob, who is a vast storehouse of magical knowledge that most other wizards don't have. With that in mind, I think coming up with a new spell really is better modeled by the invention rules in GURPS, not improvisational magic. In that case, Harry might have Gadgeteer or even Quick Gadgeteer limited to inventing spells, and Bob would count as boosting Harry's lab to a facility capable of Complex (or maybe even Amazing) spell invention.

I'm leaning towards energy accumulating Path magic. The other possibility would be to use modified RPM, with predefined rituals, nothing improvised. Either of those could work really well for Dresden-style thaumaturgy.

Evocation would just be simple rituals that the wizard knows well enough to eat the penalties for casting in 1d6 seconds with no prepared ritual space. Perhaps letting those penalties be bought off per ritual, as PK suggests in this post.

I particularly like that idea of Personal Lesser and Greater Effects from Ghostdancer's blog. That really fits my impression of the different strengths and weaknesses that Harry and Molly have, for instance.

One of the things that I haven't figured out how to model is strong emotions providing energy for spells, but at the same time making them harder to control, so there is greater possibility of collateral damage or backlash. Anyone have suggestions for how to do that? It could work as ER with Only in Emergencies, or somehow related to Higher Purpose, but using it increases the chances for a critical failure.

The other thing I'm leaning towards is having a FP cost for rituals that have large energy requirements. Even when Harry pulls ambient energy to power his spells, just directing that amount of energy fatigues him. Off the top of my head, it might cost 1 FP for every full 10 points of energy gathered.

Any comments or suggestions? Anyone else run a Dresden-inspired game? How did you handle the magic?

[CeeDub]

Dresden Files fanboy here. I think the Evocation magic is best modeled as powers, seeing as how Harry has a rather limited repertoire of spells he throws around regularly and reliably. Perhaps with Magery as a mitigator for fatigue costs.

Beyond that, ritual magic seems appropriate.

I read a system for improvised magic somewhere, can't remember if it was a Forum post or a Pyramid article. Something about Magery giving you points for a sort of Modular Ability that can be used to create spells-as-powers on the fly?

Those are just shots from the hip. I'll try to think some more about this tomorrow.

[Mr_Sandman]

Powers might be the simple way to do it, but I'm not sure that how I want to go. I'd rather have a coherent system, than to let every wizard just pick some powers that they want to represent their evocation.

Evocation seems to be mostly about the application of forces, but that could be just because the books are told from Harry's point of view and forces are his strength. It could be that other wizards can evoke effects that aren't based on moving large amounts of energy around.

Are veils evocation or thaumaturgy? Both Molly and Harry seem to be able to do them on the fly, although Molly does them better. But they aren't necessarily about bending light around. Elaine performs a veil that is more about not being noticed.

When Harry does geomancy to mess with gravity, it takes him about a minute, but he isn't making magic circles. I think this is a case of evocation, but it's more complicated and takes longer because Harry isn't specialized in it.

I like the idea of characters being able to be somewhat flexible in their evocation, specializing in one or two forms, but not tied to them. I think some kind of magic path system might model that better than powers.

[The Colonel]

We've done some arguing about this topic in this thread:

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=135880

but what you propose seems appropriate. Given that Harry's emotion powered spells are usually evocations, simply make those particular spells-as-powers powered by FP - strong emotions is just flavour text for burning extra effort and/or HP to power the attacks.

It occurs to me that we'll also need assisting spirits rules form Thaumatology to deal with those "cosmic vending machine" rituals. And non-mortal magic could consist of just about anything.

[Christopher R. Rice]

I noodled about Dresden Files stuff before in this thread. As for emotional states affecting magic, what I'd do is give a bonus to spells instead of additional energy. Something along the lines of how passionate you are about the subject of the emotion or its intensity. Let's say something like:

• Normal: Everyday feelings toward a subject offer no bonus. (Example: Sally took your sandwich so you're sad.)
• Intense: +1 toward the subject. (Example: Sally took your sandwich three days in a row and you're getting upset.)
• Strong: +2 toward the subject. (Example: Sally has taken your sandwich for months now and no one is doing anything about it)
• Very Strong: +3 toward subject. (Example: Sally has been taking your sandwich for years and you really don't like her.)
• Consuming: +4 toward subject. (Example: As you lay dying Sally calmly takes the sandwich from your hospital food tray and eats in in front of you as you gasp out your last breathe.)

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Mr_Sandman

The other thing I'm leaning towards is having a FP cost for rituals that have large energy requirements. Even when Harry pulls ambient energy to power his spells, just directing that amount of energy fatigues him. Off the top of my head, it might cost 1 FP for every full 10 points of energy gathered.

Every bit of my experimentation, in-play results, and theoretical knowledge says that 5 energy is about 1 FP. This is what every system in my "Alternate Ritual Path Magic" article is based on. (It's more like 4.4 or so, but I rounded it up.) Now, if I were you, I'd do this: those without Ritual Adept use 1 FP = 5 energy, and those with it can use 1 FP = 10 energy. So each level of Magery gives 3 FP, which multiplied by 10 for Ritual Adept lets you easily perform a 30 energy spell (not including your own FP). This explains why Harry is a "magical thug" and probably has a high Magery (at least 8), but really low skill levels - he dumped his points into Magery (power) not skills (fine control).

I'd also just ditch the normal sacrifice rules completely and instead allow each 2 HP or 3 FP give a cumulative +1 bonus (up to +4 total).

[Mr_Sandman]

Ghostdancer - thanks for the input. It gives me something to think about.

The other big theme from the books that I want to capture related to the idea of power vs. skill is that Harry is rarely has a spell fail to manifest an effect completely. When he fails, he loses control of his magic and it causes collateral damage to things and people around him, and potential to himself.

[A Ladder]

Honestly, I think that RPM would be best to fit Dresden Files Magic with personal greater/lesser effects.

However, if you want a different approach that is Powers based, Sorcery (Pyramid 3/63) is great! Essentially using Modular Abilities to make spells on the fly and then make all of the PC's regular use spells as Advantages that are alternate abilities of the main Modular Abilities pool.

This has the flavor approach of Harry putting all his points into "blasty" spells, while Molly would have put her points into "glamour" spells. They can each improvise their "untalented" type of spell, but it won't be as good as the other's signature spells.


For failing terribly for Harry, that could be a limitation on his Magery (Spell failures are treated as critical failures -X%)

[PK]

I'm not an expert on Dresden -- I've only read the first four books -- but there seems to be a dichotomy of "a few powerful spells that he can cast immediately" and "a vast number of slow rituals with wide-ranging effects." I think I might actually handle this via a combination of sorcery* and RPM. Specifically, rather than basing sorcery on Sorcerous Empowerment (as the "core trait" from which all other spells are AAs), I'd make Ritual Adept + Magery (treated here as a single ability) the "core trait." That way, Harry has access to his quick, powerful sorcery spells, but can also "improvise" by using RPM.

* A system from Pyramid #3/63: Infinite Worlds II -- though since then, I've been listening to feedback and using it to upgrade, revise, and overhaul it (with some help from my fellow authors). I've been wanting to share the revised version, but it was stuck on some internal snags; fortunately, that's a past tense issue now...

[Mr_Sandman]

Originally Posted by PK

I'm not an expert on Dresden -- I've only read the first four books -- but there seems to be a dichotomy of "a few powerful spells that he can cast immediately" and "a vast number of slow rituals with wide-ranging effects." I think I might actually handle this via a combination of sorcery* and RPM. Specifically, rather than basing sorcery on Sorcerous Empowerment (as the "core trait" from which all other spells are AAs), I'd make Ritual Adept + Magery (treated here as a single ability) the "core trait." That way, Harry has access to his quick, powerful sorcery spells, but can also "improvise" by using RPM.

I'm not exactly an expert either, but I've recently run through a big part of the series, and have been trying to nitpick all the details I've gleaned from the books to make a GURPS magic system that fits them all.

I agree, providing a system that covers both Dresden-style evocation (quick and dirty magic with limited effects) and thaumaturgy (slow, but broad range of effects) is the one of the first issues to take on for modeling Dresden Files magic. Pyramid #3/63 is one that I don't have yet, I may have to pick it up to see about sorcery.

Originally Posted by PK

* A system from Pyramid #3/63: Infinite Worlds II -- though since then, I've been listening to feedback and using it to upgrade, revise, and overhaul it (with some help from my fellow authors). I've been wanting to share the revised version, but it was stuck on some internal snags; fortunately, that's a past tense issue now...

Is this a hint about an upcoming release? :)