Experience in Dresden Files

[watcher]

Hello all,

I have played Spirit of the Century, so I know the basics of Fate, and I have a question as to how experience works in Dresden Files. In SotC, there really aren't any experience rules, you start with your full potential realized, and can only swap skill places on the ladder. But in Dresden, we see Harry getting better and better as the series continues. How is this handled in the RPG?

[Bosh]

I think you can advance your character in a few different ways:
-Sideways: SotC-style swapping.
-Up the refresh: Increase the number of Fate points your get at a start of a session (which will tend to be a good bit lower by default in DF than in SotC since a lot of stunts (especially the supernatural ones) lower your refresh rate, which is how people like Dresden and Murphy can be in the same party, Dresden has more raw power but Murphy has a higher fate point refresh rate).
-More stuff: increasing skills/stunts, which tend to start at a significantly lower level than new SotC characters (there's three different character creation options depending on how powerful you want your starting characters to be).

I THINK that's right, but don't know any details beyond that.

[iago]

Bosh has a good rough summary of it, which will work for now. Suffice it to say we have a richly supported advancement scheme in the game. It has its own chapter, and it handles all kinds of character growth as well as applying similar growth patterns to the setting itself as things move along.  And in Harry's entry in Our World, we talk about how his advancement looks over the course of ten books.

[watcher]

Oh, so the refresh rate can increase, like in Starblazers? I'm guessing then it can be spent on a stunt/power or bump the refresh rate by one, or perhaps buy a new skill.

[iago]

Oh, so the refresh rate can increase, like in Starblazers? I'm guessing then it can be spent on a stunt/power or bump the refresh rate by one, or perhaps buy a new skill.

Refresh doesn't translate into skills -- there are skill points for that.  Advancement supports multiple kinds of change: evolution, power-up, deepening experience.

[Rechan]

A thought occurred to me.

The difference between PCs and NPCs in the DFRPG (as far as we've been lead to believe) is their Refresh rate. If you have 0 or lower refresh rate on your Fate Points, you're an NPC.

But, with advancement, your Refresh Rate can increase.

So it's possible to, as the game progresses, play even more of a "monstrous" PC than when you started out. If the whole group has advanced to say, equivalent of gaining +3 refresh, then you could play a creature that WOULD have a refresh of -2 (hence, having a Refresh of +1 and be equal with everyone else).

Or if nothing else, your White Court vampire or Ghoul or whatnot that DID have a 1 Refresh now could have a 4 refresh, and be even MORE close to the human side, even MORE in control, as opposed to getting weaker as it advances. Granted, you can't do anything new, but you can likely have more "room to work".

[iago]

Yep. The story implications of increased refresh are fairly rich, I think. It's not, as you note, just about gaining in power.