I got a character and I don't know what to do with his primary feature Schtick.

The character is a Warden Pup, i.e. a 17 year old or so Warden. His age will fluxuate. When he became a Warden, he really wanted a sword, but with Luccio....yeah. So he went out and got one.

That is, the intrepid young lad did some research and embarked on a quest across the nevenever(What shaped him or His First Adventure) to recover a lost White Council artifact, Sir Alighieri's Blade.

In my interpretation, Luccio based her Warden Sword design off of the swords of one of her predecessors, Sir Antonio Alighieri. Alighieri was also a member of The Knights Templar, and those guys had really good swords. Historians have described the Templars as "Tank Battalions" and "The Delta Force of Their Day". I am taking this to 13 since Alighieri is a Templar AND the commander of the Wardens. A Mage in Shining Armor....Scary Thought. HE made swords like these because back in the Day, your sword was your only weapon of choice and for a Templar or a Warden you'd want nothing but the best. Luccio changed the paradigm because hers are cheaper.

The Nature of his Sword is to uphold The Laws of Magic. It can only be wielded by a Warden of The White Council and it cannot be used without just cause. It might be intelligent to be able to tell the difference (And it would make for witty banter). To unmake the Sword, you have to use it to break one of the Laws of Magic.

The Pup read somewhere that Sir Alighieri went off into the Nevernever to slay some great beast and was never seen again. Turns out the Beast was the Jabberwocky and his story was the basis for said poem, but it never said there was more than one...
The pup found out otherwise and almost died....obviously he won.

The problem I have is...Building Sir Antonio's Blade. It's obviously an Item of Power, but what should it have?  I have some ideas that make sense, but I could use some feedback.

I was thinking Worldwalker + 1 level of refinement for item slots to simulate the Warden's Sword base of it + 1 or 2 of the abilities the Swords of the Cross have.

Any other ideas?

I'm looking to run a DFRPG one-shot with my normal gaming group. I have one problem though: Most of my group hasn't read TDF or seen the show and don't have the time, energy or incentive to do so.

Rather than be a jerk and rag on them to read the books or watch the show, I want to make some pre-gens based on what they've already been exposed to.

So, let's make a list. A list of TV shows, books, movies, comics etc that are "in the Ballpark" of the Dresdenverse. They don't necessarily need to be urban fantasy, they can just be a stepping stone.

This list can serve not only as inspiration for the uninitiated but also as a way for everyone to get new ideas.

I'll start. Starred* entries mean, "With Magic" or "with more magic"


30 Days of Night
Angel
Blue Seed
Brimstone
Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Charmed
CSI*
Devil Hunter Yohko
Devil May Cry
El Cazador de La Bruja
Full Metal Alchemist
Fushigi Yugi
Get Backers*
God of War
Howl's Moving Castle
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
NCIS*
Princess Mononoke
Ranma 1/2
Read Or Die
Saiyuki
Sanctuary
Sin City*
Sleepy Hollow
Spirited Away
Supernatural
Those Who Hunt Elves
The X-Files
Vampire Hunter D
Yu Yu Hakusho

To sum up: I'm working on a story that involves a young man who discovers he is a magic user. Like so many of these stories, he is forced to go to a magic school of sorts. This story is older than dirt and has a dozen variations that are all ignored because of The Other Harry. It also doesn't help that this story actually started as a premise (Which it has since gone wayyyy beyond) for NaNoWriMonth, "What if Dresden went to Hogwarts?" So, because of that, there is no way I'm going to be able to write this without being compared to or referencing The Other Harry.

Rather than try to out do these centuries of stories and try to be original, marvelous and stupendous(Only to be compared to The Other Harry), I'd much rather take all the expectations and tropes of the genre, put them in a Wizard Boy in dark glasses and beat the crap out of them with a good old-fashioned American Baseball Bat, which my MC actually happens to use as a Wizard's Staff.

Or if you wish for a more technical, Pedagogical definition: I'm trying to deconstruct the Genre of the Blingsroman, the Education coming of age story. They are normally written for children and set in a world that has inherent morality handed to the protagonist on a silver platter that although is dark, especially towards the end, it is at the end of the day cutesy and unsatisfying in many regards because it lacks important issues that need to be addressed. Every lost opportunity, pet peeve and psychotic hatred about these Magical School dramas are to be satisfied in this story. Blingsromans are normally about a boy/girl that finds his place in the world and the answers to all life's problems in the confines of a school beyond every other. My story is about a fish out of water, a foreigner in a strange land with only The Hitchhiker's Guides to Europe and the Galaxy to guide him.

After mentally examining all the school dramas I watched/read in books, comics, live-action film and anime, I realized they were all connected when I came to the conclusion that The Goblet of Fire is a Tournament Arc..... So, I have more than just the Harrys and Buffy to draw on.

I wrote a number of pages of notes on how to take the classic tropes, formulae and cliches shared by these stories and how I wanted to stand them on their head. Now those notes are lost to time when my apartment ate one of my notebooks. It could take me...20 minutes to rewrite the notes I lost, but I thought instead the information lost could use a few extra sets of brains.

That being said, I'm not looking for plot lines, I've got those including one big one. My notes were a collection of 3 things:

1. The Classic scenes stood on ear

My proof-of-concept scene for what I was thinking of in this story for the deconstruction was a classic from  HP and The Philosopher's Stone: Harry is eating his House-Elf provided dinner in the dining hall when suddenly a ghost pops out of the table. Everyone in the hall reacts playfully and even Harry reacts playfully when Nicholas shows how he's Nearly-Headless.
In my story if that happened to my MC, several things would be different. Getting food served to you is very British, where is the Cafeteria? Assuming the school is even partially British,(and food is served in some cases) MC's a fish out of water so he will eat with his hands while every Briton at his table uses a Knife and Fork. When the Ghost does appear, he would stop eating and turn white for a moment til someone jostled him back to reality at which point he would exclaim, "AHHHHH! What the F&*$ is that and What F&*$ happened to that guy's Head!?"

Also, in normal School Dramas Nerds and bookworms are at the bottom of the social heap. However, in a magic school people heavy into books would be at odds against with heavy natural talent. I'm not sure how to handle this yet though.

2. Pet Peeves/Psychotic Hatreds:

Every person has things they don't like, even about books they love. I am no different. There are things that rub me the wrong way and consequently lead to classic moments stood on ear. Here are a few examples:

Harrys Dresden and Potter are both portrayed as being "normal" people in over their heads, but neither of them is truly "Normal". Come to think of it, Normal is a bad term. Mundane is better, as in blending into the masses easily. You can argue about how mundane both them are, but the fact of the matter is that because Black Magic impacted both of their lives, both Harrys grew up as orphans. My MC lived in the Stereotypical Mom, Dad, Brother, Sister, little white picket fence up until the day his magic came at age 17. The orphaned MC is a strong character trait and very common, but not here. HP also never has to worry about a very common problem: Tuition, Room and Board. My MC only has what he himself owns, no money...

Also, I never liked the idea of the Houses + Sorting Hat. Not only are they color coded for convenience, the Houses are decided on by osmosis. I don't believe in that, I'd refuse to be sorted(Which would make a good plotline). But, I do believe in Greeks(Which I think is better). If the dormitories were instead Fraternities, Sororities and whatever the co-ed version is, you have different issues.

3. Where no one else can go:

My story isn't meant for children, but whomever will read it. Because of that, I don't want to deal with sanitizing school. I want a story that deals with stuff that other Blingsroman never would. You know, minor issues like Drugs, Alcohol, Teen Sex, Pregnancy, Stalking, Cheating rings, Gangs and School Shootings. All of that stuff is ripe for magical twists.

As point of reference, the first suggestion to me on this topic by a friend was "Date Rape Charm!". Think about that and that magic would make contraception stupidly easy for a minute....

But all three of these categories are incomplete because there are countless things I've missed since everyone's school experience is different. I'd like to hear other people's take on this.

I may be just over thinking this, but I think I have a problem with my WIP's Main Character, MC.

I'm no good with creating/remembering names so I'll just call him MC for the time being.

To put into perspective, the Story itself is about a Young Man (My MC), who is around 17 by the way who finds out he is a Magic User of all things(There's of course more to it than that) but the twist is that he is Genre Savvy as TV Tropes calls it. Harry Dresden is Genre Savvy, he makes mention of other works of fantasy throughout his adventures as a Wizard, but he's already like that after he has become a Wizard.
My story shows my MC was Genre Savvy before he became a Magic User. I am not trying to clone HD or HP, my MC is his own man with more to him than I have mentioned here.

My angle is this: Most Main Characters who find out they are Wizards or whatever are swept off their feet by the magic stuff. HP for example is just in awe of everything around him.
My MC on the other hand is a kid with a sweet tooth in a candy store.


My 2 problems in particular are thus:


1. Every time I try to design my Main Character, he seems to become more and more like me. To be more specific, the character I want is a Bookworm who has read a lot of Fantasy before he became a magic user. A way to word it would be, "If I became a Wizard, I would..." But, I don't want an MC who is an embellished Author surrogate/clone of myself because that in my opinion is unbelievably lame.
See Anita Blake for reference on this matter in my opinion (For those AB fans reading this, you may ignore this sentence ).


2. It seems like my MC is either too badass, powerful, ...infallible for his own good. I want him to be fallible. I want him to have the Sherlock Holmes moment at one point and be wrong (getting beat up for it as a result). But, if I beat him up too much, he ceases to be believable or likable since no one likes an MC who just gets beat up all the time and is always wrong.
On the other end of the spectrum, I don't want him to be too powerful and become "The Most Powerful Wizard in a thousand years who speaks a hundred supernatural languages in a short amount of time with little effort from a prophesy set in time centuries before..."(Complete with own Harem) because that sounds awfully like a certain 15 year Starfleet Captain a lot of us know and hate.

But, I also want his schtick to be that because he's something of a Pragmatist that he's a Generalist of sorts. The other thing is that part of his arc is that although he's geek of Sci-Fi/Fantasy, he wasn't a good student before the magic came. The magic and the consequences of it light a fire under my MC's butt. Edward Elric is kinda like this for his State Alchemy exam, hitting the books and turning into a learning machine. Ed was trying to get his brother's body back and my MC has a similarly strong motivation. But, I don't want MC to be a master of everything in a short time.


I am not setting out to write a wish fulfillment book that seeks to give my High School/College Career meaning and make me look like a genius. I have a story to tell and I determined this to be the best character for the job, but the character design parts of my brain are not cooperating.

I have tried to remedy these problems by distancing the main character from myself (Different interests, aptitudes, age, etc.) and to "Beat the crap out of him" so to speak. But, it hasn't been working on paper.
He keeps becoming more and more like me and I can't nail down a power level and learning arc.

So, I need help. How can I remedy these 2 issues without scrapping my MC and starting all over again?

Following Douglas and Rechan's example, I felt inspired and compelled to post a character I'd love to play as soon as I can get my hands on the DFRPG. I know a little bit about the SOTC system, but I've never actually played in it and the more I read about it the more I want it.
This character sketch feels very cathartic, since a bit of myself is in it I admit, but this is not just me making a character based on myself. Lynch is a glorified version of every 17 year old geek on the planet. When the RPG comes out, I will probably run this character in Magical Spokane, WA. Until then, here's what I think he'll be.

Name: Holden Tyrell Lynch (Alias)

Age: 19

Address: Ponderosa Drive, Spokane, WA

High Concept: Fanboy turned Magical Vigilante

Personal Struggle: His own sense of justice vs. what The Powers That Be believe is right.

Where Did You Come From?
Stereotypical white American family: Mom, Dad, Brother, sister and a little white picket fence in the middle of no where. He was a lazy, overweight B-/C+ Student with a lot of potential and an unhealthy obsession with pop culture, TV fandoms and online forums. Had nothing happened to him, he would have probably lived out his life forgotten by the world.

What Shapes You?
One day, Lynch had to walk through an unfamiliar part of downtown. As he was admiring the old architecture, his Sight decided to start working for the first time. He saw a lot of weird things, including a portal to the Nevernever as it opened in front of him. He looked through the portal in time to see the end of a battle between a Wizard of the White Council, a Faerie horde and local Vampire mobsters. He watched as what was left of the White Council Wizard landed at his feet. The Wizard made eye contact with Lynch as he died, which gave Lynch his first Soulgaze. The Soulgaze told him what he saw was real.
The Vamps decided to finish their fervor by eating a nearby homeless guy before they turned on Lynch, but he was able to stake them with improvised weapons and raw magic. He was lucky they were Black Court…
Lynch checked the Wizard’s ID and followed it to the Wizard’s apartment and magical library. This orgy of knowledge and the events of the night lit a fire under Lynch’s lazy ass. Lynch literally absorbed all the Magical Knowledge he could get his hands on and went from mediocre to honor student overnight.

He studied magic on his own for over two years, never running into the White Council or anyone else until he was ready to reveal himself. He found out about the magical Casablanca through the old Wizard’s journals. He chose the name Lynch because he thought that if someone knew what he was, he would probably be Lynched. That, and his favorite director is David Lynch. So, he takes up the handle of Lynch and decides to take to the things that go bumb in his town.

What’s Your First Novel?
Can’t do it yet, I don’t have any players…

Aspects:
·   “I got a Gorram plan!!!”
·   “There’s always time to stop and think…”
·   “You think that makes you special or something?”
·   Still a Geek…
·   A little in over his head
·   “I’ve always wanted to say/do that!”
·   “We can’t let them get away with that!”

Skills
·   Lore (Superb +5)
·   Conviction (Superb +5)
·   Discipline (Great +4)
·   Scholarship (Great +4)
·   Resources (Good +3)
·   Investigation (Good +3)
·   Alertness (Fair +2)
·   Craftsmanship (Fair +2)
·   Weapons (Fair +2)
·   Rapport (Average +1)
·   Burglary (Average +1)
·   Drive (Average +1)
·   Stealth (Average +1)
·   Guns (Average +1)

Stunts
·   Permission: Wizard (-1)
·   The Sight (-1)
·   Soulgaze (-1)
·   Wizard’s Constitution (0)
·   Evocation (spirit, power) (-2)
·   Thaumaturgy (alchemy) (-2)
·   Supreme Concentration - Lynch’s Discipline is considered to be Fantastic whenever Discipline would restrict, complement, or otherwise modify another skill. This has no effect on his actual Discipline rating when the skill itself is being rolled.

Refresh Rate: 2

Fate Points: 2

Explanation of aspects:

“I got a Gorram plan!!!”: They aren't always good though. Compelling this Aspect would be fun.

“There’s always time to stop and think…”: My favorite Leadership quote. However, Lynch does need to think every now and then.

"You think that makes you special or something?”: Lynch has read tons of lore, but he still has a real problem with authority aor people who think their special.

Still a Geek…: Self Explanatory. Not very good for his rapport.

A little in over his head: Lynch thinks he knows a lot, he does, but he doesn't know everything. This can come back to bite him or it can allow him to rush into certain doom because he doesn't know any better.

“I’ve always wanted to say/do that!”: Not the same as Still a Geek. Lynch is a teenager who just became Wizard. He is full of repressed wants and desires.

“We can’t let them get away with that!”: Lynch has a strong sense of justice. He won't let people get away with things he thinks are wrong.

I'm pretty sure I did the math right.