Where does the system break down in terms of power level

[sinker]

See "The Dark Powers Are Always Willing To Help" on page 289

That only effects shifts of power for spells. For all other uses Ren is right.

[Tedronai]

it does rather contravene the 'only once per turn, only one debt per instance, and only to tag an aspect' statement that was, well, essentially the whole of the claim

a strict reading of the two sections combined would allow up to +8 shifts of power in addition to an aspect tag for +2 on the roll (or a re-roll) for a total of 5 debt on a single roll once per scene (with an optional further limitation to once per session)

[Ren]

See "The Dark Powers Are Always Willing To Help" on page 289

Ah I see thank you. And natch the description doesn't actually limit you to Dark Powers allowing it, though I would. Light Powers would rather you help yourself! Though in this case it's sort of a grayish power...well maybe reddish...would that count?
And thus more rules confusion is added.

[Tedronai]

Ah I see thank you. And natch the description doesn't actually limit you to Dark Powers allowing it, though I would. Light Powers would rather you help yourself! Though in this case it's sort of a grayish power...well maybe reddish...would that count?
And thus more rules confusion is added.

The only real ''light' power' described in that section, Soulfire, does include a suggestion of a lower credit limit, but there's not really a reason that they'd refuse to help in the same ways

[UmbraLux]

Any Power will help as long as helping furthers its goals.  For dark powers, those goals often include corrupting the user...so power may well be lent even if the immediate use is against some minor goal.  After all, the individual is likely to keep using the power and can eventually be drawn across the line.  The end justifies the method.

Light powers are probably just as willing to extend credit, however they include some code of ethics as part of their goals.  So they're far less likely to hand out power for things against their 'code'.  The method matters as much as the end result.

[BumblingBear]

I think its kind of funny discussing Power level in a role-playing game. Sure, any wizard could crank out 25+ on a Spell-casting Roll on a regular basis, but should you do it every time? No. Why? Well because then the GM will have to start creating challenges so bad-add and in such numbers that all the other non-caster characters are getting turned to pudding when the bad guys sneeze.

As I stated in another thread, mortal enemies or numerous lesser supernatural enemies keep a wizard from blowing everything in one shot.

A character with a high weapons skill and supernatural strength can put out 10-30 stress attacks by picking things up and throwing them all day long.

A character who is an artificer can take out buildings all day and not even take mental stress.

It's just that kind of game.  

Granted, I used some extreme examples.  But a sniper in the DFRPG can stack aspects lying in wait, and then hit something at 0 (mediocre) defense.

Sure, the GM COULD use a bunch of lesser-powered bad guys but while the caster is taking out the baddest of them again his non-caster allies are getting their butts handed to them again.

Depending on the PC, he may be roleplayed as not not really giving a damn.  Also, wouldn't taking out one (very dangerous) creature in one shot help the group?

Methinks it would.

A smart caster would conserve his energies and make sure his allies will make it through the fight in as close to one piece as possible. Or find alternative uses for magic other than Blasting everything in sight....which after the first 10 or so times of doing that it gets boring, not just for the GM or the player in question but for the rest of the players as well.

See above for motivations.

Second, in the game I was in and did this attack in, I had been bored for something like 35 hours.  Whether the rest of the group was bored when I saved their asses honestly really didn't cross my mind.

Additionally, in the game whenever I tried to use magic for anything, there was always conveniently something blocking me.  For instance, there was one time where I kept trying to figure out a way to listen in at a conversation at a bar.  However, conveniently, whenever I tried to find an avenue to approach it, there were guards posted in my way.

I stopped trying because it became obvious that my GM was going to stick to his vampire-LARP-esque story at every turn.  As a player I had absolutely no say in which way the story was going.  I had no power to add anything to the story.

Every aspect of the story was just, "you go here - you interview this guy."  I was extremely bored and frustrated that the FATE rules were not being followed, but I felt like my hands were bound.  I could not approach the GM and ask him to change anything because I felt that he was not socially adjusted or secure enough to not take offense to any suggestions I made.

"Oh crap a dragon!"
"No worries Fred will get it, we'll just stand over here and watch."
*yawn*
"Is it over yet?"

Unfortunately, for me 95% of the game I was in felt like that to me with my character.  After playing for 40 hours I'd garnered a sum total of 1 skill point and a whole bunch of clues - not real solid facts.  It didn't help that every encounter was pretty much a "monster in the closet" attack where crap jumped out of nowhere at the party.  ::yawn::

Point being that its a GAME and its meant to be fun for everyone playing, including the GM who has spent hours crafting a fun scenario and challenging opponents only to see them melt away in an eye-blink because someone who could overdo things but didn't really need to decided to go ahead anyway.

I hadn't been having fun in my game for at least 16 hours.  I also did everything in my power-  including spending at least 10 hours on breaking the rules down and putting all the compel-able aspects in an easy to read document .... which were subsequently ignored by my gm.

Honestly, my GM's fun really was not very high on my priority list after I'd been ignored so often and basically brushed off when I brought anything up.

After I heard that he was going to be a PC in another campaign (when he didn't even know the rules of the campaign he was running) and I'd gotten the brush off before about stepping in for a session or two and GMing a game, I knew that I would never be able to demonstrate how a Fate game /should/ be run.

ANY system breaks when someone sees a way to exploit a system and goes for broke. The systems don't break if they aren't abused and having played or run probably a few hundred game sin my nearly 30 years of gaming

30 years of gaming doesn't mean anything.  Someone can do something badly for 30 years.  I personally didn't see anything that particularly wowed me from my gm other than a serious lack of social skills.  

One would think that in 30 years of gaming, a GM would learn not to call first times gamers names at the table.

But then again, perhaps that is why this GM has so few friends that he had to ask a group he'd been gaming with for a month to help him move.  Perhaps that's why after he accused the whole groups of being liars and flakes for not helping him move after saying they would, only to find out that he (like a dumbass) only sent the email with directions to one person, he only said, "That makes me feel better," instead of apologizing to the group.

Great guy.

I think I can say that with some authority. Though there ARE systems that are built to be broken and playing with that kind of power is fun because everyone is doing it. In a game like the Dresden Files the emphasis is on Role-Play, heroic role-play to be sure, but Role-play.

And yet my roleplay with my character was never rewarded.  Every time I did something to hurt my character, I wouldn't get a fate point, or a compel.  I usually got eye rolls.  Mainly because I feel like my GM was more interested in running a super polite vampire larp murder-mystery - anyone who didn't fit into that genre or didn't want to passively go from scenario to scenario was not really welcome.

In fact, during one fight when I wanted to described what happened to a monster after I'd "taken it out", this GM got all huffy and pouty because he'd written down what happened to it.

As a player, I was not even allowed to describe monster deaths.

To Quote Ben Parker; "With great power comes great responsibility"

Yup - kind of like when someone is leading a group they should not chastise one member in front of the group - especially when this GM never bothered to talk about power levels or that sort of thing beforehand.

In fact, the GM of this particular campaign never looked for feedback of any kind, really.  There was no dialogue between GM and players.  I know this for a fact because I only talked to the other players about the campaign after he'd left.

A game is not fun when the atmosphere is not open, and frustrations cannot be aired due the GM having a fragile ego and aversion to constructive criticism.

Playing a game should not be like going to work and dealing with a bad boss.

But hey, for folks that want to play in high-powered, building leveling games and have a group that wants to do that more power to you and have fun! That's what the game is all about!

Exactly.  Likewise to boring vampire larps with the occasional wizard.

As a Note (this was talked about in the Sponsored magic thread as well); YS288 Bottom paragraph of the right-hand Column essentially states that you can only incur One Sponsor debt per Roll and that Debt can only be used to Tag an Aspect, not give an automatic +2 on the roll. So no more grabbing 4 points of Sponsor Debt for +8 to the roll! Of course a truly forgiving (and possibly very
drunk) GM may allow it anyway, tailor your game as you like. (Don't be shocked, I DO read rules).

Not thoroughly.  As someone stated above me, this is not true.

I wrote a long, in depth sponsored magic writeup that was okayed by the GM.  I can only assume that like with everything else I wrote for him, it was only briefly glanced over or ignored.

Additionally, I had only used two points of sponsor debt in the epic attack I did in my game.  Two.  That's hardly game breaking.

DFRPG has a steep learning curve so getting everyone up to speed is not going to be fast or easy especially for folks who have been used to entirely different sets of mechanics that aren't nearly so flexible.

Agreed.  However, if I were GMing a game, I would damn sure know the rules after a month and a half of running it.

I definitely would not lean on someone whom I mutually didn't like to spoon feed me rules and then get shocked and angry when he did what his character was /supposed/ to do in a given situation.

[sinker]

Ouch bear, that seems like a harsh response. It seems to me that 1. Ren was responding to the OP, and not necessarily your specific post. And 2. That you had a terrible GM. I'm sorry.

[BumblingBear]

Ouch bear, that seems like a harsh response. It seems to me that 1. Ren was responding to the OP, and not necessarily your specific post. And 2. That you had a terrible GM. I'm sorry.

Thanks. 

Yeah I don't hold any real ill will towards anyone, but it was a terrible experience- especially for my first time gaming.

I brought my gf with me and she felt the same way I did but she was too shy to say anything.  I started feeling bad for dragging her to sessions with me when she was so bored.

It is unfortunate that I liked the group of people I played with so much but disliked the GM.  Both his personality and the way I felt I was treated.

In the future, I will either GM myself, or have a good relationship with my GM.  Otherwise I will not play.

[bibliophile20]

*wince*  My sympathies, BumblingBear.  I'm amazed you stuck with the hobby after that experience.

[zenten]

In the future, I will either GM myself, or have a good relationship with my GM.  Otherwise I will not play.

That's generally a good rule for anyone.




And by the way, I've found this topic rather helpful.  Although it's a bit annoying that it seems like where Dresden is getting in the novels means that having a group of PCs all be at "the equivalent power level" of Dresden isn't going to work much anymore.

[devonapple]

Yeah I don't hold any real ill will towards anyone, but it was a terrible experience- especially for my first time gaming.

Was this the game in which you play the Warrior of Pele?

[Steppenwolf]

@BumblingBear

I can well understand how you feel.

It's just a bad habit of some GMs who thinks they are Storytellers which is, in DFRPG, absolutely not true.
Storytelling is a good way to entertain each other around a campfire, not at a game table.
It's a very common problem.

GMs should surely have fun like the other players.
But they should not use their right to have  their own fun as an excuse to impose their very personal way to the game, without listening to the players.

Also, it's wrong if they spent hours to make a predefined plotline to be precisely followed.
Scenarios must be general situations that can be approached in many ways and usually it's up to the players choosing them.

Scenarios are: "there's this problem. What are you going to do to solve it?"
And not: "this is the problem, you must solve it doing this, that and this again".

[Tangent Free]

I have to agree completely with that. While I'm not currently playing in a DV game (I'm up next as GM in rotations of who runs the game in my group, so hopefully soon),  I'm in two other games a week. And my least favorite is my Saturday game. We have 4-5 PCs there every week, and while I generally like all the characters and the setting is interesting, the GM always gives us leads and then nothing happens. We don't really progress the story or figure things out. Things just resolve as a matter of fact. The only reason I continue is that I like spending the time with my friends whom I wouldn't get to see otherwise due to IRL constraints.

A GM isn't a writer, trying to get people to read his story. Well, not just a writer. He has to be able to engage his players and work with them in a way that lets everyone have a good time. Otherwise, what's the point?

[UmbraLux]

A GM isn't a writer, trying to get people to read his story.

Agreed.  I tend to think of GM as instigator...and not always a nice one!     Drop 'em in the pot and stir...see what happens. 

[devonapple]

Agreed.  I tend to think of GM as instigator...and not always a nice one!     Drop 'em in the pot and stir...see what happens. 

"Instigator" is an eloquent way to put it. Kudos.