unFamiliar lab assistants

That sentence isn't the clearest since "may not" is not quite as definitive as "can not" and is often used in the same way as "might not".

So the sentence can be read as, "You can not have The Gift, but..." or it might reads as "You might not have the Gift, but..." Since some people might assume the character would have to be Gifted.
I believe by a strict parsing of the sentence the former is the more correct interpretation but I've never been 100% sure thats what the authors meant. I personally prefer the latter interpretation. It's what I always read from the sentence before I thought about it to hard.

Actually I am using modus tollens:

  • If it is a cat it is an animal.
  • if it is NOT an animal then it is NOT a cat.

Basic classical logic here.

Or in our example:

  • Assistant then (Gift+MT)
  • No (Gift+MT) then No assistant

Familiars and failed apprentices have a specific sentence(s) that turn them into exceptions. Others do not. I read again page 103, and still fail to see how can it be read as saying that a plant or my shoe can be my lab assistant....

Xavi

As has been pointed out above, you're confusing the statement in RAW with its converse. The exact statement, "Anyone who has The Gift and a score of at least one in Magic Theory may help you to perform any activity that uses your Magic Theory", is saying (Gift+MT) then Assistant. This is not at all the same statement as Assistant then (Gift+MT), which could be expressed for example with "Only someone who has The Gift and a score of at least one in Magic Theory may help you to perform any activity that uses your Magic Theory".

Almost all but you read these as explicit exceptions rather than explicit examples - since there is no preceeding text to indcate which it is in connecton with either, both readings are formally correct.
(Well, techncally both are formally wrong, since neither is formally explicit at least according to how I was taught.)

Forge Companions and the various helpers from Covenants do not add their Intelligence + Magic Theory to the lab total, instead adding ther own, seperately identified and defined boni to the lab total. They are not "Help in the Lab" as per ArM5 p. 103.
In general, they provide either Safety (admittedly often based on intelligence score), a fixed bonus to a specialisation or a farly general bonus based off a craft skill. Not Intelligence + Magic Theory. Thus they are not "Help in the Lab" as per ArM5 p. 103, and so are irrelevant as counter examples for that particular rule.

Now, if we'd arguing based on the converse of a statement, we read the following:

We are now reaching a point where instead of said sentence having a meaning it is empty of value, since it only permits assistance in the lab, which is repetitive given the rest af the content under said heading.

Okay...

Maybe I'm wrong, or saying something stupid, but I understand all this as such:

  1. Help in the lab isn't possible, as a general rule
  2. Exception #1: If you have Gift + MT, you may help. Thus that phrase in the book.
  3. Exception #2: If you're a familiar, you may help. Thus the note about it.
  4. Exception #3: If you're a Failed apprentice, you may help. Same thing: Everytime something can help, it is mentionned.

=> While the list of possible exceptions is potentially infinite, unless stated, the answer should, IMO, be "you may not"

I fail to see how a social status would have any affect on a "in game" mechanism of reality.

If someone (with no "failed apprentice" status) is taken in lab and opened arts by a magus, and it fails for any reason, they are "failed apprentice"; if after, they are custos, what distinguish between the one with custos status and the one with failed apprentice status? Both are failed apprentice.

Thus if I do agree with the fixer, I only see #4 as an explicitation of a potentiel case of #2 and not an exception by itself.

looks good to me.

Yes, the phrase can be parsed both ways. However, there are three important keys to parsing it. First and most importantly, it is used in a list of commands "you may" and "you may not." When used in such a way it is the former. Second, the second half of the sentence is written correctly if the former and incorrectly if the latter, so to accept the sentence is should be the former. Third, "may" and "may not" are specifically used in contrast to "should" and "should not" in the whole thing about what virtues and flaws characters can take (the box at the beginning).

Chris

You have mixed up the latter pair. The book does not say

  • Assistant then (Gift+MT)

The book actually says

  • (Gift+MT) then assistant

What does follow logically is

  • If you can't be an assistant, then you don't have both The Gift and Magic Theory.

This logic is sound

Chris

Yes, that's how I see it. There is no list of who cannot be an assistant, but I don't think anyone of us would just let anyone be an assistant. There was an initial list of three types of individuals who could assist. Then they started adding to that list. The nice thing about this method is that you don't have to write exceptions everywhere so much as just give a sound reason why the new one being added is acceptable.

Chris

Perhaps you want to look at it the other way around: an in-game reality can be represented by a "social status." So a broken or lost Gift if you were trained in the Order can be represented by Failed Apprentice. This is not the only case. Let's say you're from Saharan Africa. You have the Outsider social status. Is it your social status of Outsider that makes your skin much darker than European skin, or is your skin one of the traits that, when you come to Europe, identifies you as an Outsider? There are other examples, too.

Chris

(back to the topic...)

Actually, not "above" but (apparently) in a diff thread. And you intentionally edited my quote and so misquoted me - I included an asterisk pointing to a list of exceptions, an important distinction.

However, that aside I tend to agree with you - technically there is nothing that says "must", and possibly, arguably the opposite. But the only concrete examples we do have are "Gifted" and very specific exceptions to "(clearly) Gifted".

Actually, nothing says that they must still be Gifted - there are stories of apprentices who "lost" their Gift in some terrible lab accident, and so were "failed" in that manner. Would they then be legit to help in a lab, simply because they bear that title, regardless of the presence of The Gift? It's perfectly unclear*.

(* By the rules, at least. In my mind, in many of your minds, the answer is less murky, and that's fine.)

Your logic is solid, yet borders on sophism - which is where linguistic logic and practical application so often part ways. :wink:

While, true, nothing in the Rules mandates "Gifted", nor is there anything that specifically invites "non-Gifted" despite some clear exceptions to "Gifted". While "logically" this means almost nothing (spec it means "neither Gifted is mandatory nor not-Gifted is necessarily invalid"), in practical terms of game rules it certainly does not give express permission to assume "other non-Gifted are valid". It does open the door to the possibility that "Other non-Gifted may be valid", that other exceptions may exist - but that would be on the shoulders of the SG to houserule in as they please.

And that makes perfect sense in the known context of AM rules, which time and again are, clearly and intentionally, loosely defined. Not "poorly" defined - the Authors don't want to tell you what must be unless they feel they absolutely have to, and take pains to phrase rules so they are both clear enough and yet not uninterpretably restrictive. So there is no "right" answer except for your saga, even if that doesn't fit perfectly with any consensus found here on these boards.

Go forth, be creative, have fun. It seems it would be hard to actually "break" this particular rules section, one way or the other (and even then, we won't tell).

No, I'm reading them as explicit examples of who is allowed to assist in the lab. What is more explicit a statement of who can assist in the lab than "X can assist in the lab"? You think I'm seeing them as exceptions because you were stuck in the viewpoint of the converse I'm trying to clear up. I see three examples of a general rule that hasn't been written for us and that I don't know. I try to use inductive reasoning to come up with that rule, but I know inductive reasoning is faulty. But I haven't been basing my statements on that inductive reasoning at all.

I'm not sure what your point is. In the one place I mentioned Forge Companions and the like (don't remember if it was here or the parallel thread) I said they aren't assistants in that sense, and I have never used them for my case. The only case outside of ArM5 itself I can think of is a magus who has become a faerie via Becoming. You're still allowed to work in the lab in that case. So now I have a fourth example of the rule I don't know.

You seem to be of the mind that if the book doesn't disallow twinkling your nose or nodding your head (old American TV references for those who don't know) to make whatever you want to happen happen, then you are allowed to do it. I don't think most of us play that way. Most of us only allow something the rules say are allowed or are real world actions. So to most of us the sentence has a lot of value.

Here's the gist. There are at least four examples of who can assist in the lab:

  1. The Gift + MT
  2. Familiars
  3. Failed Apprentice
  4. Becoming-made faerie

Lot's of persons are reasoning that to be on this list you must have The Gift. I have pointed out that reasoning is faulty since multiple entries on the list do not have The Gift. I think a better attempt would be that you either must have The Gift or must be tied to The Gift in some way (formerly had it, familiar to one who does have it, etc.). But, as I said, this is inductive reasoning. Still, it fits all four examples, which is far, far better than the statement that you must have The Gift.

Chris

I have the same doubt, and it started reading "The Broken Covenant of Calebais" pg 68.

The character Althea is described as "a laboratory assistant, not an apprentice, and had no magic."

Is that a valid example of unFamilar (and unGifted) lab assistant?

4 not 5. His own familiar doesnt count. 4 others-> leadership 4 needed.

No, Callen is right about it. Rereading it, what RAW says is that anyone who falls into the category of having both can be an assistant, it does not say that the absence of either means that someone cant be an assistant nor does it say that either is an actual requirement for being one, just that if you have both you are ALWAYS legal to be an assistant.

Whoa. Hold on there. Your post was edited one time. Look at the time stamps. I quoted you before you changed it. (I was sharing a 3G connection at the time, so it took about a minute even from pressing the quote button to being able to type, not that knowing that is a requirement to see what happened.) I did not delete that "(usually*)." Please don't blame that on me. I hope you just didn't see that I'd quoted you before your revision was posted. Otherwise you're just being incredibly deceitful and rude. I am going to assume the former and ask you to be a little more careful when you edit things.

Yes, above. Familiars were mentioned. (Remember, your edit to correct my objection showed up after I quoted you.) They don't need The Gift.

My problem is a statement being made this way. I would be just as correct to say the only concrete examples we do have are "Failed Apprentices" and very specific exceptions to "Failed Apprentices." That statement is just as valid. Not only that, but Failed Apprentice shows up earlier in the book than do the other two.

Would you tell a mathematician that the rule when you add is that you get a positive real number and that there are exceptions to this? It is the most common case, after all. That's what is being done here, and it's not even as common as my addition statement when compared to the other possibilities. (Familiars are fairly common, after all.)

My objection is taking but one of four (or more?) examples to be the rule and stating that to answer others' questions.

Chris

Oooh! I hadn't seen that, probably because I don't own the book and had gone through it as a player and so had not wanted to read it. I'll have to go read that section. Thanks!

Chris

That is a confusing group of sentences. I haven't bothered with since we house-ruled Leadership in the lab to tone it down. Ours is Leadership = N*(N+1)/2 (pyramid progression) - F, where N is the number of assistants (including familiars) and F is 1 with a familiar or 0 without. I would tend to think a familiar doesn't count, but I don't see why they just wouldn't say that instead of writing such a convoluted thing.

Yup. On those lines, something I could definitely see a Tytalus doing upon finding Gifted Hedge Wizards is to enslave them to him (probably via an item), train them in Magic Theory, and lock them away in his lab as eternal assistants. Join or die? Yes, the Tytalus will kill them eventually... :smiling_imp:

Chris

Maybe I should steal this idea :smiling_imp:

Yeah, "you must have had the Gift" covers all but the familiars which may take their share of your Gift.