Just a couple other points.  In a "Non conflict" situation a "block" is merely a "contest" if it's set up by active opposition or a "simple action to overcome" if it is already there in the scene.

In a "Extended Contest" a "block" is just part of the opposed rolls, with flavor being to impede you instead of to advance the cause of the NPC.  It just adds shifts to the enemy overall total for success.   This can be a consequential conflict, which raises the stakes a bit (eg, bypassing the crowd contest difficulty set by the opposition with intimidation, athletics or might could cause a minor social consequence, where dealing with it via a "softer" social skill might not)

Blocks as actual blocks defined are only in "Conflicts" (YS 199, bolding is mine)

Block (YS199): Roll to set up a preemptive defense
against a specified future action; anyone
committing that named action will have to roll
against the block to succeed (page 210).

YS210
To perform a block, declare what specific type
of action the block is intended to prevent and
roll an appropriate skill. The total of that roll is
called the block strength.

Action:  Shapeshift out of human form
Appropriate Skill:  Presence (keep somebody important focused on interacting with the shapeshifter),  Rapport (make the person prefer human form because an attractive person is making you feel good about your appearance),  Intimidate (threaten to hurt them or somebody they care about if they change),  Discipline+evocation (use mind magic to lock down their ability to shapeshift), lore(complexity)+thaumaturgy (skill-like ability to block shapeshift, requires connection to the target + ritual)

During the exchange,
any time a character wants to perform the action
that’s covered by the block, he must roll against
the block and meet or exceed the block strength
to be able to perform that action.

Examples of what to roll against the block in above examples:  Deceit (distract the individual watching you), Discipline (ignore your hormones and shift), various social defenses (discipline to work through the fear, or in case of threat to others, you might counter-intimidate or invoke contacts or something to defuse the threat), Discipline (mental defense against evocation), Discipline (mental defense) or maybe Lore (to break the connection or find a loophole in the thaumaturgy)

When you create
a block, the block has to be specific and clear in
two ways: who it’s intended to affect, and what
types of action (attack, block, maneuver, move)
it’s trying to prevent. Generally speaking, if the
block can affect more than one person, it can
only prevent one type of action. If the block only
affects one person, it can prevent several types of
action—up to all of them—as context permits.
You can’t use a block to prevent someone from
making a defense roll.

Given that you can clearly block other supplemental or free actions (you can prevent people from speaking, drawing a weapon, etc), shapeshift shouldn't be any different.  It certainly is specific enough.

An area block against shapeshift is unlikely to work, but isn't impossible (indeed Dresden did exactly that when he dispelled the magic of the lycanthropes when they were trying to gather it in one scene of the 2nd book).   Certainly intimidate might get it done.

Keep in mind that there are some blocks that
just won’t work in some situations. (Trying the
“keep them pinned down with gunfire” trick on
a loup-garou isn’t going to really help you much,
given that they’re immune to bullets.)

This covers the "fly over walls, shapeshift into mist, Molly leaves an image while sneaking off, you aren't actually a vampire so brandishing a cross doesn't matter" situations.  No rolling, the block just won't work against the technique used to ignore it.

You'll note there is nothing that says anything about a block against a "roll".  It is against an action.  Likewise it says nothing about what skill is used to defeat a block.  It depends on the nature of the block and yes, a block against shapeshift (or anything else) the player trying to overcome the block gets total freedom on how to get out of it...but his solution must make sense to the table, preferably improving the story.

Just think about how many skills and powers can be used to bypass a wall, and how different a set of skills and powers might bypass a crowd on a dance floor.  The consequences of some approaches might be permanent (destroying the wall or using an explosion to clear the dance floor) and might cause aspect-compels or long term consequences.

What he's saying is this:

A block will impede a roll.

Shapeshifting doesn't require a roll, therefore, it can't be blocked.

And I'm saying he's completely misunderstanding Block.  Block impedes an ACTION not a ROLL.

There is no "roll" in moving between zones that lack terrain features between them that your character sheet can't automatically overcome (things with legs can walk across a parking lot, things with wings can fly over fences, aquatic creatures can cross a river).  There is no "roll" in shapeshift either.  Both, however are actions and thus can be blocked.

The blocking mechanism requires a skill roll of some kind, and it has to make sense given the situation (who are you blocking, how are you blocking them).  You don't need powers to block.  All evocation does is vastly increase the ease of having it "make sense" to block actions, because it is so flexible.  (A rapport/crowd block on movement requires a crowd handy.  a conviction/cross block on movement requires the target to have faith-based catch.  A wall of thorns block on movement requires the target not have supernatural toughness or be a swarm or have flight)

>The only actions which cannot overcome a block are the actions that are not impeded by the block.

True, bypassing a block instead of overcoming it doesn't destroy the block.  It can make it irrelevant though.  I also think you are vastly underestimating the ways a block can be overcome.  The action is "to move" if the block is "against movement".  The skill used "to move" depends on the nature of the block.

So in my example above (Rapport block against movement) you could destroy the block with something like Intimidate (make the bystanders back off), Rapport (explain you're in a hurry without offending them), Presence (have the crowd move with you in an organized way, or somehow get them to cooperate based on who you are) or Deceit (create a distraction that is more interesting to the crowd than you).  Even Perform might get it done under some circumstances (moving through a dance floor, weaving the crowd into your performance and disrupting the block).  Resources too under some circumstances (toss money into a crowd of beggars, briefly dispersing them).  Contacts might allow someone in the crowd to rescue you with their own social skills.

Or if you were Molly you could leave an image of yourself to engage with the crowd while sneaking off under a veil.  The block's still there (crowd of people interested in image-Molly) but Molly bypassed it without destroying it, because she rendered it irrelevant to "invisible Molly".


All of the above assumes some kind of aspect where you care what the crowd thinks, and your reputation.  That kind of block on a Ghoul might be a discipline check to avoid feeding on the crowd instead of moving, for example, because of its Insatiable Hunger aspect instead of, say, Murphy's police lieutenant aspect vs a crowd of reporters.   A lot of blocks seem to tie into either scene aspects or personal aspects, and I'm not clear on whether they must be tagged/invoked to set up the block.  I think the way it works is a true compel gives the individual a fate point for automatically failing to move, where setting up a block doesn't use the fate economy but instead allows a chance to succeed, against an obstacle set by the block.

A more mundane example....critters bypass the zonewide version if Harry's shield spell all the time by going around or over it.  The shield spell is still there, blocking anyone else from moving through it, but it doesn't stop a critter that can fly over it from menacing those behind it.  If Harry explicitly makes it a bubble to prevent such tricks, then his own people are also affected by the block, or not protected by the block.

More typically Harry's shield is only a block against attacks, and doesn't impede movement of the enemy at all.  Either way though, the method to bring down the block is generally to attack it with sufficient force (might, or a physical attack of some kind) even though in one case it is blocking movement and in the other it is blocking attacks.   It's still a wall of magical force.  The means of defeating it are usually the same regardless of what you're blocking with it.   Harry's hand got burned when Mavra bypassed it with pure heat...the block was not overcome, it was irrelevant to Harry because his hand had to be close to the wall, but everybody else was safe, because the napalm that contained the heat was blocked successfully.  When Harry redefined the shield to include heat energy (he is, after all, a master of Fire as well as Spirit), it still had some gaps in the coverage to other exotic attacks because it is defined as a shield of force (eg, it won't help if the ground reaches up to grab him, or somebody sucks all the air out of the area of he has not explicitly set it up as a bubble).

Mental or social blocks seem like they'd be more likely to work than physical ones.  That helps with the die roll issue...to overcome the block you need to use the right skills.

"Your muggle boss is looking right at you.  You probably don't want to Ghoul Out right now...."
(deception to create a distraction could overcome this block - as no supplemental action is needed to activate the SU powers no -1, but and hopefully your boss won't recognize the tie the slavering monster now present is wearing your tie).  This is a block.  The ghoul is free to do anything except turn into a ghoul, and it takes some kind of social skill to keep the muggle's attention on the ghoul to sustain the block.

Or you know...you want to remain in human form because you're all overcome by lust for that white court vampire that just ran his finger down your cheek...(this would normally be discipline, and if you want to shift into a potted plant that would be unlikely to be affected by lust powers in the same round, you'd need to take a -1).    This is more likely a maneuver given how the incite emotion powers work (they don't normally allow blocks) to put something like "humanity feels SO good" and use the free tag to compel against shifting.

The lawbreaking feats leave a mark that can be detected via Sight and Soulgaze, which shows who can be decapitated and who can not.  The use of magic to break the laws actually turns on the person doing it, reducing their free will until eventually they're raving lunatics that are unable to do anything but behave that way.  The aspects they create are double-edged, as are all aspects.  Getting lawbreaker 1 makes you better at killing, and worse at any other option. 

In the case of Killing, physical and mental transformation, and outsiders, it's pretty obvious who would provide the "you're better at it" part and who would provide the "and you become incapable of keeping it subtle, so you get caught/executed/self-destruct" part.  The time travel and invading minds part is more problematic, but both are impossible to prove without leaving some traces and for all we know there are adversaries trying to spin off alternate realities and I'd say the Oblivion wars provide enough on both sides to result in the mind-reading lawbreaking.   The unknowns are why I find it interesting as a plot point.  If you assume, say, Denarians are working to encourage more killing with magic and Knights of the Cross & their boss are trying to reduce killing with magic, and the extension works pretty well with known groups for several laws, then you get interested in the remaining laws and discovering the truth behind it is a whole campaign worth of story.

Yeah.  Although it's unusual not to have something in the aspects related to your highest skills.

Eg, my Master Contractor who's about 60 and actually can do damn near anything related to maintaining or building a house might have a 4-5 craft and no aspects other than his high concept.   He'd have more trouble repairing a car than hanging drywall or installing plumbing, but he could actually probably figure it out, it'd just take longer and maybe require tools and information (eg, repair manual for that model) that he wouldn't have normally.

If the GM compelled his Master Contractor to make him unable to craft something not-house-related he'd spend a fate point and buy it off if he really wanted to repair a car, or take the fate point if he was willing to essentially say "I could, but I don't have the tools or the manual".

While as a rule I'm kind of down with the Fate Core idea that 5 aspects is plenty to keep track of what with consequences, scene stuff, declarations etc etc, I do like how you can influence the entire campaign by reskinning the aspects, and the extra aspects in Dresden Files makes that easier to do.

The Dresden Files guest star stuff is intended to give the characters solid reasons to work together in the opening of the campaign (and some of them will likely shift around after milestones and play give new emphasis to the character).    If your players are already tied together pretty well, or for smaller groups, using the extra guest star to set the campaign tone seems kind of awesome.

One thing I noticed in the sample adventures Neutral Grounds and Night fears was every stock character shared an aspect (Neutral Grounds Regular or Not a Kid Anymore....I especially liked the last one for a haunted house mystery with 14 year olds...) which gave them a reason to be involved and a stake in the adventure.  I did something like that in my own Codex Alera-Fate variant playtest had all of the players with various Academ Cursor Trainee type aspects, with flavor tied to "what kind of a spy are you....eg, Sexy Spy, Sneaky Spy, Genius Spy etc"

In any campaign where the characters have a common theme of some kind it's a pretty powerful technique - this was always something we struggled with in our Champions campaigns, because the genre has a lot of solo heroes but tabletop RPG is always a "Team Up" kind of "comic".

An aspect indicates a member, but you have a life, high concept means it really is your life (eg, Hawkeye has an "Actually an Avenger but they Hate to Admit It" aspect in his current run, where  Professor X has "Telepathic X-Men Mentor" in his high concept).

Kinda nice actually, and makes it really clear when an outsider gets involved.  Team aspects can be invoked, compelled all kinds of ways.

The secret hope for each character as a complement to the Trouble aspect is pretty unique though.  Very creative.  I will steal shamelessly if I run Fate again and my campaign world needs a little extra zing.