The Dresden Files RPG

The Third Law

Never Invade the Thoughts of Another.

The Third Law, though it might seem to be about a relatively harmless act, recognizes a single, simple principle: a violation of the mind is as much a crime as violation of the body—by some lights, it may even be worse.

To read someone else’s thoughts, you have to cross one of the most fundamental borders in all of creation—the line that divides one person from another. When you break into someone else’s mind to listen to their thoughts, you’re disrupting the natural order of things. Think of the mind as a locked house and you as someone without a key. Sure, you might need to get in there for the best of reasons, but at the end of the day once you’ve done it there’s a broken window or hinge somewhere. In short, the act is always violent no matter how “gentle” you are with it.

But even beyond breaking the sanctity of another’s thoughts, there are problems with what you find when you invade someone’s mind. Knowledge is power, after all, and when you get inside someone’s head you take a position of profound power over them. And in this case, we’re definitely talking the kind of power that corrupts. Not to mention it’s sort of the cognitive equivalent of seeing how sausage gets made—best left as something you don’t see and don’t think about too much.

Furthermore, there are plenty of secrets in the world that are meant to be kept. If there’s an “institutional” reason behind the White Council’s establishment of the Third Law, it’s all about the secrets. Plenty of wizards keep secrets they don’t want others hearing about, and discovered secrets have a way of getting out. Destroy enough secrets, and you end up destroying a lot of what keeps the world a civilized place—and civilization is one of those little innovations that helps keep most of mankind safe from the darkness lurking around the edges.

Finally, reading someone’s thoughts means you’ve got to open your mind up to “receive” the signal. The problem here is that you can’t always be sure what else you’ll pick up when you do that. Who knows what sort of nastiness could be “broadcasting”, hoping you’ll pick them up? And what will happen to you when you do? (In game terms, reading someone’s thoughts always makes you a viable target for mental attacks from both your victim and whatever supernatural nastiness might be in the area.)

Do Soulgazes Break the Third Law?

On the surface of it, a soulgaze might look a lot like a violation of the Third Law. You’ve locked eyes with someone, and suddenly you’re seeing all of their darkest, deepest thoughts—right?

Well, no. A soulgaze shouldn’t ever work that way. Remember first that the eyes are the windows to the soul, not to the mind. There’s a very distinct difference—someone’s soul is more about who they are and who they could be and less about what they’re thinking. But even beyond this, you can’t really control what you find out when you soulgaze someone, and what you do get is distorted by metaphor and strange imagery, and all of it comes at a price—they get to see you, however dark or uncomfortably revealing that may be. When it comes down to it, reading someone’s mind and looking at his soul are vastly different experiences, each with their own perils and risks, certainly, but with only one of them bringing the weight of the Laws down upon your head.

Dead Brains

A few spells exist out there to relive the last few experiences of the recently dead (we get to see one in action early on in White Night, by way of Harry’s apprentice). It’s pretty nasty stuff to live through—while you don’t (usually) die from shock or anything by doing it, it’s an experience that no one enters into lightly (even if they have a shot at living through the last few moments of a White Court vampire’s recent victim).

Is this a case of violating the Third Law? Not really: the dead person doesn’t have any active, present thoughts for you to invade, here. You’re essentially reading data from a dead drive. Not to mention, last experience is at least a little different from current thoughts.

In your game

While it’s hard to break the Third Law accidentally, it’s very easy to want to break it. A “justified” violation of the Third Law can short cut plenty of mysteries simply by rummaging around in the minds of the suspects and finding out what they know.

If a player is particularly committed to that kind of a course of action, and they understand what it means to break the Third Law, they should by all means be allowed to do so. But if that happens, every effort should be made to throw the book at them—in as entertaining a way as possible. The moment a player decides to “break” a mystery by peeking inside the heads of those involved, the story stops being about that mystery, and starts being instead about that choice and its consequences. Go nuts with it! With the secrets now out, others’ reactions to it may be worse than if they had come out naturally; everything starts proceeding towards greater chaos, right on the Lawbreaker’s doorstep (and as that hits a high point, the Wardens can show up).

Of course, all of this assumes that the character chose the right folks to go thought-peeking with. It’s a sad, sad day to discover that you’ve broken the Third Law to get what you thought would be the final, incriminating piece of evidence from a suspected killer—only to discover that his worst crime is thinking you’re being a jerk.

Inhuman Thoughts

So, if the Laws of Magic are only supposed to apply to humans, why not run around and peer into the minds of all the nonhuman problems you’re facing? Well, aside from a Warden troubled by your “grey area” activities, there’s not much stopping you—just give us a chance to call the pleasant brawny men with the white vans and straitjackets before you give it a try.

The real problem is this: as a human spellcaster, you only really have the faculties for understanding human thoughts. Try to tap into the mind of a faerie and you could find yourself a few minutes later rocking in the corner and laughing at how everything is made of rainbows. It only gets worse the nastier or more powerful your target is. Try to read the thoughts of a Red Court vampire and it’s even odds that you’ll shatter your psyche before you learn anything useful—assuming you can even understand whatever strange language their internal monologue is using. Try to read the thoughts of something ancient and you’ll probably find yourself a mind-wiped puppet in short order.

It’s kind of a disappointment, in the end, for the would-be mind-reader. All the minds he might be allowed to read, he can’t, because he doesn’t speak the language, and all the minds he isn’t allowed to read, he could—at the peril of breaking the Third Law.

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General laws of magic, setting