A number of weeks ago, I came up with an idea for a Dogs variant, and went to work on it. Basically, it concerns powerful wizards who have been given lordship over Mediterranean cities in the ancient world. The first post has all the background material, what the game is all about, and how you create your Wizard.

The second post has some stuff about Sin and its progression that I am wavering on and very uncertain about, as well as a bit on the nature of Mages (fallen Wizards and bad magic-users).

The third bit is about Alchemy and Ceremony, the latter of which I have questions about it matching the way Ceremony works or is supposed to work in regular Dogs (having read through the Banthas thread and seen the comments about ceremony there).

I have stopped working on it both due lack of feedback where I had posted it, concurrent with my inability to work out some of the stuff on my own. Hence my posting it here and hoping it stirs up some interest.

My current question concerns town creation. I'm wondering if the typical town creation rules in the book would suffice for building a city in Wizards, or rather the "problem of the day" for Wizards?

I think they might, with changes to the Color of some of the levels, but at the same time, I'm not so certain given the different circumstances: if this were Dogs, you'd be playing the Steward(s) of a town rather than the wandering gun-fighters.

I'm also trying to figure out some more spiffy neat-o magical effects for the Wizards: brilliant neon lights, swirling black runes, eldritch green fires, invisible psychic forces, and so forth.

Sounds cool.
I'm thinking the mechanics of Afriad might help.
ie, Neon lights, runes, etc.. = Bonds. (Equal to dice you can roll as long as they are true, iow: As long as I maintian my Increase Intellect Spell, I get a 1d10 bond dice each and every conflict, right at the start.)

Rather than convert towns to cities, think of how you could convert Monsters to your setting?

The aggresive Scene framing requirements would focus play..

Afraid is the DitV-inspired game Vincent is working on, or am I mistaken?
(I'm afraid I haven't read much about it except for a mention somewhere else.)

Afraid lives here.

-Vincent

lumpley wrote: Afraid lives here.

You've said, "its not really about the magic per se."
I would feel frustrated as a player if I played a Wizard, and just magic'd away the problems.  (ie, I cast my mind control spell, and Joe stops sinning).  Note that in Dogs it isn't necessarily the sinner who becomes a Sorcerer.  Though,  I could see how those who have "black magic" as you say, could counter our Wizard Dogs' magic.

Now, a Wizard going against a Monster with the dice and bonds, and the power to victimize the cities (not individuals?? hrm.. that's an idea)--- now that is going to be a battle, particularly when you as GM have those powerful Scene framing tools.  Now my imagination as a player can go crazy with the color of magic.  And as a GM I don't feel as though I need to hold back. 

From reading your stuff, I sense you want to focus on a Sin progression of the people.  I suppose it would work fine. As I imagine it , it just doesn't have the gripping emotion you feel when you envision a young man or woman, with a book and a gun going into town to do justice.  Yeah, a book and a gun, but it is basically an even playing field. 

I'm in a rush, I'll think about it some more.

The solution here, I think, is to make most if not all of the main NPCs wizards or supernaturally-blessed/ cursed things too. Still with more or less human motivations, but with the capability to enforce and defend their will magically.

Add to that a ceremony that creates a setting-suggested magical defense (akin to Vince's Sign-of-the-Tree), and you've got an impass. Like, the kind only badass Wizards like the PCs can solve through their efforts.

'Demonic influence', then, would be a dark magical practice that would give the wizards (PCs and NPCs) access to dark energy (I suggest draining energy akin to psychic vampirism, the harmful effects of which drain the populous, causing blights to crops and medical problems). 'Sorcerers' become Wizards that have resorted to the use of this unholy energy and have thus become more powerful. They can thus tap the 'what's the worse thing that's happened' dice to augment their magic and take the quick and easy way. And if they do something that escalates the evil-the-players-have-noticed, that available pool increases for them (just like in Dogs).

I'm really excited about the idea that the PCs can access this energy, too, if they find themselves tempted. I think this is how the Star Wars and vampire mods should work as well.

Anyway, yeah. I think using Afraid, for this, would be a mistake. Mostly because it seems to me the PCs in Afraid are always on the lamb, and when you play a wizard, it's a little because you want to blow stuff up, no? Even narratively? ;)

'How shall I handle my power' is a better fit for mages than 'will I survive this night with my body and soul intact'. IMHO.

Rustin wrote: I would feel frustrated as a player if I played a Wizard, and just magic'd away the problems.  (ie, I cast my mind control spell, and Joe stops sinning).

Now, a Wizard going against a Monster with the dice and bonds, and the power to victimize the cities (not individuals?? hrm.. that's an idea)--- now that is going to be a battle, particularly when you as GM have those powerful Scene framing tools.  Now my imagination as a player can go crazy with the color of magic.  And as a GM I don't feel as though I need to hold back.

From reading your stuff, I sense you want to focus on a Sin progression of the people.  I suppose it would work fine. As I imagine it , it just doesn't have the gripping emotion you feel when you envision a young man or woman, with a book and a gun going into town to do justice. Yeah, a book and a gun, but it is basically an even playing field.

Half-way through pushing the "preview" button, I realized I was pushing the "post" button. Ah well.

Apologies if the previous post was defensive-sounding. I really do appreciate the input, guys, it is really helping me to have to explain and describe what I'm looking for out of play, and how I am envisioning the way things are supposed to look and feel more clearly and concisely as I get feedback from what others are seeing. Plus you never know what will actually make it into my final version, no matter how strenuously I argue against it here. So thank you!

And Paul, yes, I agree. Afraid is just wrong for the kind of game I'm looking to have with Wizards: "Will/Can I survive this and how" isn't really what I want to explore. It is very much "How will I handle power and responsibility."

One difference I can see between Wizards and Dogs:

In Dogs, you don't usually see the same town again. The Dogs themselves are not tied in to Two Kitten Pass unless they choose to be, they're setting the town right as they see it and riding off into the sunset towards their next town. (Of course, the GM is perfectly allowed to recast the same dilemma from Two Kitten Pass in Three Kitten Pass, with slightly different language and a harsher tone, but that's not what I'm getting at). They are not a part of the community that they heal or wreck except for the few days it takes them to heal or wreck it.

In Wizards, this is the Wizards' city that they're building; they see the results of their judgement and they live with them daily. Fallout has a lot more ripples. If you cut funding to that Journeyman's Ph.D thesis, he knows exactly who did it six years later when he's a full-fledged Wizard in his own right. Kill a merchant for dabbling in Magery, and his brother will make sure not to sell you any of that special black wine you like. And while roasting a powerless peasant alive for not selling you his daughter might not irritate anyone with any power, if it happens often enough there'll be a lot of peasants with pitchforks charging the Tower door.

This adds a political dimension which is generally absent from vanilla Dogs. The Dogs walking into a town are above the local politics. They want to throw the Steward's favorite out and force his daughter to marry a Mountain Person, the Steward has no way to take revenge upon them once they leave town. As a result, they have little or no need to make decisions based on their own political position. They are unaccountable.

Wizards, meanwhile, are a part of the Utopian Magical Venice. Their decisions impact people they will have to deal with, possibly on a regular basis, and who are very capable of sabotaging their later actions. Forcing the merchant to lower his prices in a famine may be the correct thing to do, but he's also a lot more capable of making the Wizards' lives miserable than the peasants he's screwing over. Because of this, a Wizard is forced to take into account "who am I going to offend," and may make judgements based on "who is the least likely to cause grief later if I dump the shit on him now."

This sort of political judgement, on the one hand, leads to yet another level of "how do I handle Power and Responsibility," namely "Do I do what I feel is wrong to maintain my power?" On the other hand, Dogs' judgements are based on their own naked character, their training, and their beliefs, and this impartiality is (as I see it) a key reason why they can show their true selves in the blood spatter as they perform drastic invasive surgery on the town. Wizards have a different dynamic and regular amputations aren't a part of that as I see it.

Greyorm, is this something you were looking at?