You would say "my action is to attack with my Fists skill"? Really? How does that add to the narrative that is being constructed here? Richard

I would definately go for a narrative description of the attack. As long as it just causes stress, it does not really matter. If the target chooses to take a consequence, then it is up to him to decide what that consequence is, more or less regardless of the description of the attack (as long as it is relatively appropriate and approved by the GM).

Anything I missed or screwed up on?

You are correct - the triangle created between the "nodes" shall be used to kick-start ideas - that's all.

I have found a really cool aid for getting inspiration when creating scenarios - the "Plot Maps" from the game Technoir (a really interesting read, more info can be found here: http://www.technoirrpg.com/) and I would like to use it for the Dresden Files RPG.

The basic idea is that the GM randomly rolls up three things (called "nodes") from a table that is representing the city where the story is taking place. The game Technoir comes with a number of pre-set tables called Transmissions (one example can be found as a download here: http://www.technoirrpg.com/download.php?file=28). The tables contains "nodes", six of them: Connections (persons the player character knows), Events (big, important stuff), Factions (major groups or organizations, like the White Council, the Red Court etc), Locations (important places, relevant for the ongoing campaign), Objects (important things, could be physical or stuff like information) and Threats (individual persons or groups that a Faction can use to fulfil a goal, like hitmen or Ghouls). Technoir have six of each, creating a matrix of 6x6 cells for a total of 36 cells. After the initial three are created, place them in a triangle with lines connecting each other and come the reason A is connected to B, B to C etc (thus kickstarting the imagination). The game also have rules (very interesting ones) how to use the Plot Map and expand it during play, but that is outside the scope of this post.

Connections are rather simple - use some of the Faces from City Creation.
Factions are also simple, as some of these most likely have come up during City Creation.
Locations are very simple - use some of the Locations from City Creation.
Threats can be created from the general ideas that have come up during City Creation (either general, or city-specific).
These four are more or less city-specific.

This leaves Event and Objects - what kind of Dresden Files-specific Events and Objects could one have? Example of Events could be A powerful storm or A Ritualistic Murder. Example of Objects could be The Mantle of the Winter Knight or The Word of Kemmler. For instance, the starting point for the Case File Storm Front could be a triangle with A powerful storm, A Ritualistic murder and Marcones Thugs (the last could have been specific to the city of Chicago, most likely Threats).   

The idea is to fill a table with stuff that is both from your own City Creation as well as things that are very much Dresden Files (and things that you as a GM would like to see in the game). What else could we have in terms of Events and Objects?

Thanks for all replies so far. I have more or less decided to go for Manhattan, divided into south-, midtown, upper west-, upper east- and Harlem (as regions, generating more of it's own Theme). Within these, we'll put Locations as per the book. Central Park will be it's own region/Location. I think that we will have to put Locations outside Manhattan as well, but the main action will be on Manhattan.

What did strike me is that Manhattan is an island = surrounded by water (that will be used).

I also found this site, after hours of surfing the web: http://www.weirdus.com/states/new_york/index.php (other states are also available). This gave me a few very interesting things in the state of New York: Bannerman Island (Beacon, upstate), The Abandoned Monastery (Staten Island), The Montauk Project (Staten Island, they did some seriously weird research there!), The Mole People (underground society!), and the weird "Lincoln Tunnel Vortex".

I also got one idea from one of the DFRPG AP podcasts, that the indians that sold Manhattan to the Dutch actually did it as a kind of revenge as a very nasty creature was kept at bay there (Skinwalker?). This nicely ties to the fact that Manhattan is surrounded by water.

If you have any other ideas, please post them. We have our City Creation session today, so I will report what we have come up with later on.

A little more to go on would be nice.

Absolutely - When Harry tries to redirect the...

Thanks! I intend to use Index cards (or slightly bigger Post-its).

Isn't there some sort of resistance roll for death curses though?

Yes, you are normally allowed a defense roll, but that is normally taken care of during the creation of the spell. Reading the examples on the book, it states that, for instance, that the spell has a starting complexity of 10, to take into account a defense value of Great plus a roll of +4.

I have done some thinking around the four powers Evocation (-3) vs Channeling (-2), Thaumaturgy (-3) vs Ritual (-2).

My conclusion is that it feels like Channeling is not as limited compared to Evocation, whereas Ritual is very much more limited compared to Thaumaturgy. What I mean is that a person using Channeling can do all types of actions (Attack, Block, Counterspell, Maneuver) that a person with Evocation can do (except that the person with Channeling only have one element to work with, which is more or less color). But if you compare Ritual and Thaumaturgy, a person using Ritual is limited to only one kind of Thaumaturgy (which I see as a much bigger limitation than only having one element to work with) and both “lesser versions” cost on less Refresh than the equivalent “full version”.

I don’t see it as a real problem and the two “lesser versions” of the powers do not necessarily have to be equal, but I thought it would be a good topic for some discussions.

Anyone else that have noticed the same thing?