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Making any kind of warrior type a lawyer is a bad idea, because the warrior ideal, without getting into setting specifics, is about fair, honorable, just behavior. Lawyers, in an adversarial system, do not behave justly. Their goal is to achieve victory regardless of the justness of their cause. The standards of the court are supposed to transform this unjust behavior into justice. This is not a moral commentary on lawyering, BTW. So an Arrow, in order to be a symbolic warrior, would want to be the sort of lawyer that picks their clients and would still have some major conflicts. Being a public prosecutor would be incompatible with just behavior altogether.
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Jul 10, 2015 02:25
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Wait, lawyers - who choose to be a part of a system of rules about honourable conduct, virtue, defense of the innocent, etc. - are inherently incapable of acting justly, whereas people who use weaponry to fight and destroy other human lives are somehow more capable of virtue? Seems a bit of an... Odd judgement to me?
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Jul 10, 2015 02:51
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Axelgear posted:Wait, lawyers - who choose to be a part of a system of rules about honourable conduct, virtue, defense of the innocent, etc. - are inherently incapable of acting justly, whereas people who use weaponry to fight and destroy other human lives are somehow more capable of virtue? Seems a bit of an... Odd judgement to me? Worst thing you can do to somebody with a gun is kill them once, worst thing you can do to someone as a prosecutor is kill them every day for the rest of their life.
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Jul 10, 2015 02:56
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Axelgear posted:Wait, lawyers - who choose to be a part of a system of rules about honourable conduct, virtue, defense of the innocent, etc. - are inherently incapable of acting justly, whereas people who use weaponry to fight and destroy other human lives are somehow more capable of virtue? Seems a bit of an... Odd judgement to me? In an adversarial system, at least one lawyer must act unjustly, by advocating for a party that is in the wrong to the very best of their ability. Meanwhile, warrior societies are all about what is honorable and what is just, because those are the means to maintain and gain power in such societies. The definition of honor and justice shifts, but in terms of adhering to the abstract notion of justice without any particulars, a samurai who cuts down a defiant peasant acts more justly than a lawyer who defends a guilty party, because the first acts according to his or her personal code of justice and the second does not. A martial-inspired prosecutor would be a member of the Praetorian Ministry, or an Apostate, or a really lovely Arrow, or a Scelestus. But not a member of the Arrow in good standing. Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:On the other hand, the American criminal justice system is actually about institutional racism, reinforcing existing power structures, and punitive, retributive destruction of anyone either guilty or incapable of paying for a sufficient defense of their innocence. Yeah, I'm leaving aside the fact that only Seers could realistically support the American criminal justice system without putting on four or five pairs of rose-colored glasses, but if we don't, it becomes ridiculous rather than a misstep.
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Jul 10, 2015 03:21
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Swagger Dagger posted:I have to use TeX to submit math homework, and formatting is often harder than doing the work itself. I can't imagine laying out a whole document in it, so I'm pretty impressed that you managed. They key is to just let TeX do the formatting for you and don't try to cajole it into doing anything fancy. 
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Jul 10, 2015 03:24
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Effectronica posted:Making any kind of warrior type a lawyer is a bad idea, because the warrior ideal, without getting into setting specifics, is about fair, honorable, just behavior. Lawyers, in an adversarial system, do not behave justly. Their goal is to achieve victory regardless of the justness of their cause. The standards of the court are supposed to transform this unjust behavior into justice. This is not a moral commentary on lawyering, BTW. So an Arrow, in order to be a symbolic warrior, would want to be the sort of lawyer that picks their clients and would still have some major conflicts. Being a public prosecutor would be incompatible with just behavior altogether. I would actually take the exact opposite position here. Arrows regard systems of chivalry and honor as interesting subjects of study (and do actually hold themselves to a code of conduct) but they don't have any compunction against winning, etc. On the other hand, lawyers are subject to extensive rules regarding their conduct - and state prosecutors even moreso! Ferrinus posted:The problem is that a courtroom isn't an actual battleground by the Order's own standards. It's a symbolic battleground in some ways, so it might serve as good practice or a handy rote laboratory or something, but if the cliffs notes version of the character begins and ends with how good he is at throwing people into prison something has gone wrong. This, however, remains the problem. An Arrow, who is a lawyer, and who is fortunate enough to have their Supernal and Sleeper vocations coincide in the practice of law, is going to have a very difficult time because the law - even the criminal law - is not the final argument a warrior makes. The Adamantine Arrow is all about conflict - and those conflicts are inevitably violent - because all power grows from the barrel of a gun, dead men tell no tales, etc. An Arrow lawyer is fundamentally different, though, from something like an Arrow psy-ops specialist, or an Arrow artillery officer (these are Arrows who might conceivably specialize in social or mental skills, respectively), because the conflict ends at the courtroom doors. That's not at all how the Arrow operates. I don't understand how any threat worthy of the attention of the Adamantine Arrow is going to be meaningfully (a) subject to Sleeper justice (b) vulnerable to Sleeper justice. This is why, fundamentally, it does not make sense that any Adamtine Arrow would "fight [their] battles in the courtroom". Arrow lawyers make tons of sense, but only if the practice of law is an avocation - a distraction or a means to an end. Legal solutions are susceptible to too many risks (appeal, jailbreak, etc.) compared to kinetic solutions.
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Jul 10, 2015 03:53
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DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:I would actually take the exact opposite position here. Arrows regard systems of chivalry and honor as interesting subjects of study (and do actually hold themselves to a code of conduct) but they don't have any compunction against winning, etc. On the other hand, lawyers are subject to extensive rules regarding their conduct - and state prosecutors even moreso! Sure, but the central thing that divides the Arrow from the Praetorians is that they're warriors, not soldiers. And the key difference between the two is that warriors conduct themselves according to a moral code in order to be justified, whereas soldiers are justified by following a system of rules. So someone that operates as a public attorney is a lovely Arrow but a good Praetorian, potentially.
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Jul 10, 2015 03:58
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The Arrow lawyer concept is rad, and I would love to have a player suggest something that just on the fluff. Can you imagine the witty-layer repartee both in and outside of the classroom!? This scene from Dark Knight Rises is amazing example. Just imagine the mob boss is backed by a seer and Harvey Dent is late because he just whooped a sleeper hit squad on the courtroom steps. He even uses Fate magic to make the coinflip! And even if the vanilla Arrow members might think he's a dork for spending so much time in the courtroom, so what? Every player group needs room for a renegade straight-shooter who doesn't take nothing from nobody. 
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Jul 10, 2015 03:59
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Verr posted:The Arrow lawyer concept is rad, and I would love to have a player suggest something that just on the fluff. Can you imagine the witty-layer repartee both in and outside of the classroom!? This scene from Dark Knight Rises is amazing example. Just imagine the mob boss is backed by a seer and Harvey Dent is late because he just whooped a sleeper hit squad on the courtroom steps. He even uses Fate magic to make the coinflip! There's nothing that stops you from making a Guardian of the Veil, Libertine, or Mystagogue that can kick butt and also be a lawyer. You can even use AA rotes with the consent of your ST!
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Jul 10, 2015 04:04
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Ferrinus posted:a) There's a power "just bruised" which reflexively and costlessly allows a demon to reduce any amount of damage they take to one. The dicepool shrinks if you fail repeated rolls but it's not hard to get a good dicepool on it. Uh, it shrinks every time you use it, whether you were successful or not. It's still a stupidly good defensive trick, but it inevitably runs out. That being said, you can make obnoxiously resilient demons. For example, consider what happens if you stack the Armor Plating, Electrical Current, and Aegis Protocol Demon Form powers (the electricity one is a bit iffy, but the Aegis Protocol explicitly stacks from what I recall)? You get an absolutely absurd amount of armor. Combine with the embed that can remove the lethality from any weapon you're attacked with and suddenly you're nigh untouchable. You can add insult to injury by also being capable of flight and being one of the few things that's actually immune to fire. The flip side to all that of course is that in Demon, your enemy actually does have the resources to dogpile you with a ton of dudes sporting anti-material rifles.
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Jul 10, 2015 04:04
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Look, I just want my World of Darkness games to resemble all of my favorite Joss Whedon dramedies in tone and wit. Is that too much to ask, Onyx Path Publishing?
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Jul 10, 2015 04:06
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Verr posted:Harvey Dent is late because he just whooped a sleeper hit squad on the courtroom steps This is the part that's missing from the actual text we've seen. Obligatum VII posted:Uh, it shrinks every time you use it, whether you were successful or not. It's still a stupidly good defensive trick, but it inevitably runs out. Oh, yeah, it shrinks regardless. The thing is, people (me included) seriously overestimate how long fights run in the World of Darkness. Even under 1E rules a fight making it past round three or something is an anomaly. And, as you say, there's a ton of other sources of armor littered around the various game lines, many of which are explicitly rather than arguably stackable.
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Jul 10, 2015 04:07
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Effectronica posted:In an adversarial system, at least one lawyer must act unjustly, by advocating for a party that is in the wrong to the very best of their ability. Ostensibly the goal is such that the prosecution, if the defendant is in the right, ultimately strengthens the argument of the defense by giving it a context to exist in outside of a vacuum and demonstrating that there are no notable holes in the reasoning. Increasing definition through opposition. Of course, in practice that isn't generally how it works out, by mages seem pretty big on ideals, so...
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Jul 10, 2015 04:13
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Obligatum VII posted:Ostensibly the goal is such that the prosecution, if the defendant is in the right, ultimately strengthens the argument of the defense by giving it a context to exist in outside of a vacuum and demonstrating that there are no notable holes in the reasoning. Increasing definition through opposition. That's the intellectual equivalent of a backronym, though. The origins of adversarial justice systems indicate that the goal was to find the truth through a competition between the two sides.
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Jul 10, 2015 04:18
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Wizards in suits aside, the actual problem with the AA write-up is that it tells you almost nothing about what they do . It's all philosophy, with a bit of history and fiction. It's touched on in a couple of sentences here and there, but it's a topic that deserves way, way more discussion. How they apply their philosophy is just as or more important than the philosophy itself, because that's mostly what you're going to be using when you're trying to run a game.Obligatum VII posted:*snip* What up Elder Evils buddy.
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Jul 10, 2015 04:23
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Yawgmoth posted:I also like this. Right now we used it to see the front door of the fancy apartment complex the prince lives in so we could Carrefour through it. ...the French WalMart thing? Huh?
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Jul 10, 2015 04:28
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Xiahou Dun posted:...the French WalMart thing? Carrefour is a bloodline Discipline whose apex power, "Shift Threshold," connects two doors -- go through one, come out the other.
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Jul 10, 2015 06:26
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For when you absolutely positively need to recreate the hit Matt Damon vehicle Adjustment Bureau
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Jul 10, 2015 07:16
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"Courthouse as a battleground" angle doesn't really work, because there is no risk involved. An Arrow participating in a street fight can get wounded, maimed or even dead. That's what makes their sacrifice worthwhile - their lifestyle is very dangerous and they chose it anyway to serve others. It's not the case when being a prosecutor - when a defendant doesn't get his sentence, the worst thing that can happen is your reputation suffer a bit.
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Jul 10, 2015 10:25
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A rapist / some other terrible person going free sounds like a real consequence if you are invested in making the world a better place?
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Jul 10, 2015 10:49
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Grim posted:A rapist / some other terrible person going free sounds like a real consequence if you are invested in making the world a better place? If I was an Arrow I'd just kill them honestly.
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Jul 10, 2015 11:12
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Grim posted:A rapist / some other terrible person going free sounds like a real consequence if you are invested in making the world a better place? The Arrow doesn't give a poo poo about making the world a better place except according to criteria that are unfathomable to the average person. Individual AA members act according to their conscience and groups probably have various projects going, but yeah, they're not paladins or anything. As an organization they do not especially care about you or "society."
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Jul 10, 2015 13:18
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MalcolmSheppard posted:Individual AA members act according to their conscience and groups probably have various projects going, but yeah, they're not paladins or anything. As an organization they do not especially care about you or "society." Exactly; talking about people and their motivations / consequences for their actions seems like a good way of coming at things - it's why I think a sample character not being a 100% stereotype of their faction is fine (and why I think specifically that the Arrow lawyer is pretty rad) Down With People posted:If I was an Arrow I'd just kill them honestly. People go to prison so they can be rehabilitated / to pay their debt to society
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Jul 10, 2015 13:32
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MalcolmSheppard posted:The Arrow doesn't give a poo poo about making the world a better place except according to criteria that are unfathomable to the average person. But wouldn't he be more usable as a pro-bono defense lawyer? Make him take health insurance cases and you fight two Seer birds with one stone!
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Jul 10, 2015 13:33
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MalcolmSheppard posted:As an organization they do not especially care about you or "society."
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Jul 10, 2015 13:42
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Grim posted:People go to prison so they can be rehabilitated / to pay their debt to society Seems like something that'll take a long time and not be as fun/satisfying as punching off their head with a magic hadouken.
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Jul 10, 2015 13:52
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Grim posted:People go to prison so they can be rehabilitated / to pay their debt to society
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Jul 10, 2015 14:09
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Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:It'd be cool if the World of Darkness was entirely set in a Scandinavian country, yes. Shadows of Narvik.
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Jul 10, 2015 14:26
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Stockholm Avslöjade
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Jul 10, 2015 14:34
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Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:It'd be cool if the World of Darkness was entirely set in a Scandinavian country, yes. The only canonical Norwegian vampire community that made it into V20 was set in "Vesterøy", and is described as a tiny community of insular vampires and their servants on a remote island, living in the cold and dark. The actual Vesterøy is a large island in the mouth of Norway's busiest fjord, and looks like this.
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Jul 10, 2015 14:39
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LatwPIAT posted:The only canonical Norwegian vampire community that made it into V20 was set in "Vesterøy", and is described as a tiny community of insular vampires and their servants on a remote island, living in the cold and dark. The actual Vesterøy is a large island in the mouth of Norway's busiest fjord, and looks like this. i would definitely like to play Vampire in that cheerful storybook norwegian town though
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Jul 10, 2015 14:41
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Hunter game where you take on a mob of angry tomte
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Jul 10, 2015 14:43
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zeal posted:i would definitely like to play Vampire in that cheerful storybook norwegian town though A fjord macabre.
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Jul 10, 2015 14:43
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MalcolmSheppard posted:The Arrow doesn't give a poo poo about making the world a better place except according to criteria that are unfathomable to the average person. They totally care about "society", because "society" is a machine constructed by the Exarchs. Properly speaking, "evil" Arrows might look like a remorseless mercenary who's 100% in it for the challenge and doesn't even bother to find out who it is he's killing, but a character that actually acknowledges/is in good standing with the Order and the Pentacle would be like, Neo machine gunning down the lobby guards or the "murderhobo" that stalks the nightmares of every rpg.net poster. Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:In that case, an always-winning prosecutor would be a perfect ideological fit. Only in the same sense as an always-winning Counterstrike player, though. Two facts about the Arrow have always been particularly dispositive, to me: 1. they exile and shun pacifists, and 2. they think the Duel Arcane is a childish waste of time. Put those two together and you do not get a guy who's just, or even mainly, a lawyer.
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Jul 10, 2015 16:16
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You guys do realize that prosecutors in the US don't have to destroy literally everybody they see, right? They can choose not to charge people who are innocent and make plea bargains as needed (although that isn't very Arrowy). A prosecutor pursues cases against those that the district attorney's office believes to be guilty. This isn't necessarily a defense of the whole concept, but as hosed up as the US justice system is, prosecutors are not inherently mustache twirling villains who pursue the maximum sentence against every offender they see.
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Jul 10, 2015 16:41
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Gilok posted:You guys do realize that prosecutors in the US don't have to destroy literally everybody they see, right? They can choose not to charge people who are innocent and make plea bargains as needed (although that isn't very Arrowy). A prosecutor pursues cases against those that the district attorney's office believes to be guilty. Nobody said any of those things.
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Jul 10, 2015 16:49
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Ferrinus posted:They totally care about "society", because "society" is a machine constructed by the Exarchs. Properly speaking, "evil" Arrows might look like a remorseless mercenary who's 100% in it for the challenge and doesn't even bother to find out who it is he's killing, but a character that actually acknowledges/is in good standing with the Order and the Pentacle would be like, Neo machine gunning down the lobby guards or the "murderhobo" that stalks the nightmares of every rpg.net poster. The Lie allegedly creates the conditions that organize society in a certain way, but the AA doesn't believe, as an Order, that changing those conditions are necessarily its job. Some of them might believe it is, but some might believe in an entirely pragmatic relationship with society, or as an object against which to test oneself, but not to change, really. If a certain element has an unambiguous proximate cause handed down from the Throne, sure, go fix that. Otherwise? You have to understand that most of these people aren't ready to be unplugged. That said, the average AA member, or mage of any stripe, is only slightly more ruthless than an ordinary person, and isn't indifferent, but this is a personal approach or one set by caucus, not Order policy. MalcolmSheppard fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Jul 10, 2015 |
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Jul 10, 2015 17:11
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The Arrow is still part of a structure called the Pentacle in 2E, isn't it? It's not like, a world-spanning health club - it's devoted to defense against the enemies of unenslaved magic use. As you say, the extent to which an individual member is going to be willing to connect their supernatural enemies to real-world institutions is going to vary, and it's probably much more likely that a Thearch or Libertine excoriates Sleeper police officers or politicians or w/e as servants of the Exarchs, but it's not like the Pentacle is unaware of what the four or five biggest ministries are, right? Like, an rear end in a top hat prosecutor is borderline, but an apolitical arms dealer is just doing the Praetorian Ministry's job for it.
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Jul 10, 2015 17:41
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Christ almighty this thread gets up its own rear end about Mage every time. Let's bitch about merely symbolic actions in the gameline about the tangible superreality of symbols.Ferrinus posted:They totally care about "society", because "society" is a machine constructed by the Exarchs. Properly speaking, "evil" Arrows might look like a remorseless mercenary who's 100% in it for the challenge and doesn't even bother to find out who it is he's killing, but a character that actually acknowledges/is in good standing with the Order and the Pentacle would be like, Neo machine gunning down the lobby guards or the "murderhobo" that stalks the nightmares of every rpg.net poster. Murderhoboes and Neo in the scene where he's mowing down non-agents who don't know what they're guarding, seriously? You're complaining about a shallow writeup draft and you'd rather see something more like that? I mean, gently caress, I'm perfectly fine with violent Arrows, I'm not especially emotionally attached to the writeup. But Arrows aren't robots following their ideology like Asimov's Laws, and a good writeup acknowledges that, too. The tension between fighting the Lie and losing touch with the world around you is pretty core to Mage.
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Jul 10, 2015 18:32
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I Am Just a Box posted:
drat straight I would. Fanatical terrorists with action hero plot armor and tent-sulking Hellenic heroes are cooler, scarier, and generally more awesome than garden-variety scuzzballs who happen to be slightly better at avoiding negative consequences than equivalently-positioned Sleepers would be.
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Jul 10, 2015 18:43
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