You'll have to forgive me if this has been brought up and discussed before (and I'd appreciate a link to the thread), but does anyone have any idea if it's possible to play a character that has the loup-garou curse?

According to the books, the loup-garou has a -21 refresh cost. Totally understandable as the creature is sickeningly powerful. However, the loup-garou is a demon and when the demon's out to play, the cursed human can't do anything (much less remember anything). It has its own skills, talents, powers, and whatnot, but it's not that particular human in possession of all those things.

I can understand werewolf characters of the Alpha variety having - in human form - the skills they have as a wolf. They had to learn those things and they retain their minds from one form to the other. But that doesn't apply to the loup-garou.

The little stat blurb for Harley MacFinn just tells the reader to see the loup-garou entry even though, for all intents and purposes, he's a completely separate character. A loup - being a monster/npc - falls under the GM's domain. But someone like Harley could easily be a playable character, albeit a supremely unfortunately cursed PC.

Thinking about a Dresden game of my own and seeing the house rules thread last night got me thinking about what my house rules will be for a Dresden game (because I'll have to be the one to run it; no playing for poor ol' me).

The house rules I've got in mind so far are pretty barebones right now:

A) Only one full fledged White Council wizard in the group.
B) Anyone else that wants to play a spellcaster has to be the wizard's apprentice.
C) Anyone craving to be a White Court vamp (there is one person in my group that wants to play one) has to give me a darn good backstory explaining why he/she is associating with the other PCs.
D) Anybody wanting to play Knight has to give me a great backstory explaining how they got the sword. (And even then, they wouldn't start the campaign with it.)

It seems a bit strict, sure, but it promotes diversity and - in my mind - communication in the group prior to playing so everyone can figure out how they'll interact.

There's one person in my group that will end up playing a human, primarily because it would be effort for the rest of us to get him read even one book in the series. This way, he learns about the world like a normal human in the Dresdenverse.

What about the rest of you?