Good ideas for a one-shot to introduce players to FATE/Dresden?

[JesterPoet]

So  my group is doing City Creation in two sessions this month, but due to an unfortunate circumstance, one player had to bow out of one night causing us to reschedule.  I was thinking that since all the other players still have that night scheduled, I could try to run a sample session for them to get the accustomed to the system.  Has anyone done anything like this?  Could you offer suggestions as to what I might do?  I'm a newbie Dresden/FATE GM myself, so I'm learning the system, too.

Any suggestions, references, etc that you all can offer would be VERY helpful.  I need to get this set up by the 9th (and would like to work with pre-genned characters, just to simplify things).

Thanks!

[Taran]

I can't tell you if this is the best way to do things, but since I'm running a 1-off tonight for a bunch of new players, I'll tell you what I'm doing:

I, like you, am using pre-gen characters - 5 players have 6 characters to chose from. 
I'm keeping the refresh low(waste deep) and capping skills at +4.
I've filled out the first 4 Aspects and am letting them fill in the remaining 3 themselves.  They can do so before or during the session as they see fit

I'll have a very short background for each PC

I'm using a pre-existing city - so obviously you'll use the city you just created

I've made all the PC's work for the same organization and am just throwing them into an adventure, so they don't waste time "getting to know each other".  Although, come to think of it, you should start the adventure with them in the middle of a fight.  It's a good way to get the action going and to play-test combat.  It's also specifically mentionned in YS as a good way to start a scenario.

To encourage use of Aspects and declarations, I'm giving them a free Fate Point that can only be used for a declaration...I might give them 2 depending on how much refresh I use with the Pre-gen characters.

That's all I can think of right now.

[Richard_Chilton]

There are a couple of scenarios (called Case Files) - available from Evil Hat.  One of them, Night Fears, is nice one shot.

Richard

[Sanctaphrax]

I have no further advice. I'm just here to say that I can make characters for you if you like.

[sinker]

I would second Night Fears. It's very setting light and full of opportunities for the players to help each other learn the system. You can pick it up for free right here:
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=90998

The other case file, Neutral Grounds:
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=87671

At the very least pick them up and look through them as they are both free and decent resources for any FATE/Dresden GM.

[JesterPoet]

Awesome!  Going to check out Night Fears tonight!

Thanks!

[jeditigger]

Awesome!  Going to check out Night Fears tonight!

Thanks!

The new one-shot casefile, Evil Acts, is pretty keeno beano.

[sinker]

Sweet! New Casefile? How did I not know this? I'm on it!

[Rubycon]

Evil Acts is  great!
Besides, we had our character sessions a week ago and it went that way that we played some of the aspect creation steps. So, we didn't just described some scenes (especially those where the characters started to interact) but played them out in a short scene (about 15 to 30 minutes). This way, we could try a small part of  the rules and it was a great deal of fun...!

[mstorer3772]

Fred Hicks (Inigo) just posted a new 1-shot... lemme look it up.

Ah!  "Evil Acts"

The play’s the thing… or is it? Something fishy is going on at the local playhouse. A production of the Tempest has a bigger budget than makes sense — and some surprising special effects. Could it be that there’s something more to this than the grand final retirement performance of a talented actor? Lord, what fools these mortals be!