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Messages - JDK002

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1
DFRPG / Re: Most Interesting Reasons for Powers
« on: August 09, 2013, 06:06:01 PM »
In my old campaign I had a few interesting characters.  One was a scion, a bastard child of a human and a Denarian.  She was raised by the Denarians as a kind of infiltration/black ops agent and was planted into the mortal mafia.  She also had an IoP dubbed a Hellfire Sword, which was made by the Denarians as a means to allow important non-Denarians the ability to fight against the Knights of the Cross and other supernatural opposition.

I had made a PC that ended up (unwillingly) bound to a sort of trickster demon named Whisper that only he can see and hear.  The binding granted him powers, but the demon was always following him around and generally making his life as miserable (and dangerous) as possible.

We also had a pure mortal who was essentially a supernatural black market arms dealer, which made him considerably wealthy.  He had a custom made magnum revolver and custom made ammo for dealing with various supernatural threats.  Like iron/steel bullets for the Sidhe, "ghost" bullets (bullets made with the same type of ghost dust Harry used in GP), bullets anointed in holy water and blessed by a priest, rubber bullets for non-lethal means, ect.  He also had a cache of powerful supernatural artifacts which was an easy justification for temporary powers.  It was also a convenient all-purpose story hook for me haha.

2
DFRPG / Re: Newbies ask the darnest things
« on: August 09, 2013, 05:37:06 PM »
They do, every exchange.  So I don't really see how a grapple is that much different.  The only difference is that the advantages and disadvantages of a grapple are maintained (such as not being able to sprint or move zones and the grappler being able to add aspects or do damage every exchange) each round unless the victim can break the block in a way that justifies breaking the grapple.

The person putting up the block still has to re-roll every exchange just like a regular block.

I haven't read Fate Core...so I can't really compare.

My biggest complaint about grapple rules is they are too simlistic.  I like the idea of both people in the grapple being able to hurt the other.  The way the rules are are a bit one sided.
You could use the rules as is to make that possible I believe.  Instead of trying to break the grapple, the you could instead set up your own maneuver to initiate a grapple AGAINST the person holding you.  Thus kind of causing both characters to be in a grapple with each other.  This could cause an interesting tug of war of the characters dragging each other around, doing damage, or trying to break the others grapple before their own gets broken.  It would also mean neither could just release the grapple without being stuck in the others grapple.

3
DFRPG / Re: Handing out Enchanted Items
« on: August 08, 2013, 04:38:47 AM »
From a mechanical standpoint, this is why potions can be so effective.  Anyone can use them, not just the wizard who made them, the trade off being that they are one time use (barring frequency upgrades to potions).

How someone gets an enchanted item is really just narrative fluff, the player that's using it still needs a appropriate slot.  Though isn't their a rule where you can spend extra slots on enchanted items to allow them to be useable by other players?

You could also use the temporary powers rule, using the wizard crafting enchanted items for the player/s as narrative reasoning.

4
DFRPG / Re: A Good Introduction to New DFRPG Players?
« on: July 28, 2013, 08:24:40 PM »
That's a really good suggestion.  It covers the basic concepts of the world, shows the line between the supernatural and the vanilla world, humorous banter between a down-on-his-luck Wizard and a talking skull, ect.  It's only about 5 minutes long to boot, which means I don't have to expect my players to sit in silence for 15-20 minutes to listen to a single chapter.

5
DFRPG / A Good Introduction to New DFRPG Players?
« on: July 28, 2013, 07:22:58 PM »
Okay so I need some creative feedback.  Within the next week or two I'll be introducing a group of seasoned role players to DFRPG.  Most of them are vaguely familiar with either the book series or the Fate system, but not to the point where I won't have to go through some kind of introduction into the Dresdenverse and go over the Fate mechanics.

How would (or has) anyone here gone about introducing the Dresdenverse to newcomers?  I have almost all the books on audio, I was considering trying to find a single chapter from one of the books that I feel portrays the overall tone and setting as an introduction.  Though I'm not sold on the idea, and I have no idea what chapter of what book I would use.

Any comments, help, or suggestions regarding introducing players to the setting and Fate mechanics in general would be most welcome!

6
I would strongly advise against inter-player conflict in the mechanical sense of the word.  Keep that as role-playing fluff and declairation skill checks, and combine that with compels to represent any conflict between players.  It means your players aren't filling up each others stress and consequence slots, and the losing player possibly getting a fate point can take the sting out of losing.

As for the NPC question: If It's a single NPC helping out, then It's probably best to write them up just like you would a PC, except you as the GM would be controlling them.  As Mr.D already mentioned, anything npc related that couldn't reasonably be written as an NPC would be an aspect.  Which leads in to the tear gas question....

I would make the tear gas a scene aspect that doesn't go away for that entire scene.  The players would get a free tag on it, then would have to spend fate points to take advantage of it after that.  It would basically be a catch all aspect they would almost always have justification to tag for attacks, maneuvers, and defense.  I would also remind you that scene aspects are double-edged and can also be used against the PC's.  If all the PC's are wearing gas masks for example, and an npc manages to rip the mask off a player via a maneuver.  Now the PC has almost no way to invoke the scene aspect, and is now prime compel material to throw a wrench into the entire groups plans.

As for overuse of intimidation, you could bait your players into intimidating the wrong person.  Off the top of my head someone who has armed lackeys.  Give him high Intimidation and an aspect or two like "A Mind like Cold Steel" and "Scariest Businessman on the East Side".  Give him a few stunts, one that allows him to defend against social attacks with intimidation, and one that gives him say a +1 bonus to Intimidate rolls when he's in a position of power against his target.  Calling in his goons as a maneuver/declairation not only gives him a free aspect tag of "Armed Entourage" (potentially giving him a whopping +6 social attack with aspect invokes), but also makes the chance of a physical conflict breaking out if the players aren't careful.

Forcing physical conflicts the players didn't expect or want to get into is the easiest way to discourage abusing Intimidation.

7
DFRPG / Re: Mundane and the supernatural
« on: May 28, 2013, 05:49:26 AM »
Someone makes a certain video from Fool Moon disappear.  ;)  As for direct involvement, Murphy's squad is directly involved - they get the "weird" cases and are used when superiors need something deniable.  If Chicago needs deniable investigators, so will other government entities...
Oh their are absolutely government entities in the Dresdenverse that deal with the supernatural.  What I was getting at was that based on the books and what JB has said about it, they have a very "us vs them" mentality.  That they are VERY covert and don't make themselves known to anyone of the supernatural community.  The closest thing we see is Denton and the other feds in Fool Moon, and even that seemed to be a special circumstance.

I know I can't be the only person who noticed that through the entire series, Harry never once says he knows or has ever met a government agent that is clued-in.  No one else he knows seems to either.

8
DFRPG / Re: Mundane and the supernatural
« on: May 28, 2013, 12:04:57 AM »
The general public by and large is totally in the dark.  It's been suggested that there are government types that keep incidents under wraps, but that they don't typically get involved with the supernatural world at large, at least not directly.

The supernatural community isn't quite so big on the conspiracy angle.  They take some precautions to not draw attention to themselves, but they more so just bank on the general public's inability to accept the truth, and that they will just make things up to cope.  "That wasn't a zombie I saw, it was just some homeless guy on drugs.", "That couldn't of been a bunch of werewolves, it must of been a pack of wild dogs or wolves that wandered into the city limits."

It's also worth noting that It's an unspoken rule of the supernatural world that you NEVER intentionally get the mortal authorities involved on any large scale.  That It's considered to tantamount to launching a nuke at an opposing nation.

In short, the PC's (and GM) should be mindful of the vanilla population, but they shouldn't let it hobble them either.

9
DFRPG / Re: Mental Evocations solutions?
« on: May 25, 2013, 06:08:43 PM »
In regards to fighting Sue, couldn't she just Invoke her High Aspect for Effect to render herself immune, she's technically a zombie and they aren't exactly known for falling for mental stuff, right?  Then again I guess that takes FP she doesn't have, but it seems like something some opponents should be able to do.
I would personally treat this as a compel on the player using Sue's high concept.  Sure the player could use that as a Fate Point dispenser, but they would have to basically give up their action every round.  You could also probably justify doing this with demons, angels, outsiders, and any monsters that are generally considered mindless.

10
DFRPG / Re: Purview of Evocation
« on: May 11, 2013, 05:22:05 PM »
Ah, excellent. Thank you so much.

Here's a question: The spell example Entanglement (YS293)... how is that supposed to work. You cast it and if your roll exceed the Target's Athletics roll, then the Aspect BOUND IN PLACE is placed on the target? Does that actually bind them in place? Or does it just put an Aspect on them that can be tagged if they try to run away or something? And how long does it last? Is it one exchange?
It's generally a good idea to ignore all the example spells listed in both books.  A lot of them are horribly worded at best, or downright break the stated rules at worst.

In this case Entanglement is probably a maneuver, as it does specifically state it's an aspect.  Which means it would not physically bind them until you tagged the aspect.  The issue there is you pretty much have to tag for effect instantly, because if he moves you lose your narrative justification.

Then the target of the spell would be unable to move until they (or someone else) takes an action to remove the "Entangled" aspect, probably with another maneuver action.  The difficulty to do so would likely be bases on how much power was put into the spell, 3 is typically the default number for an evocation maneuver.

11
DFRPG / Re: Fate Points and NPCs
« on: May 10, 2013, 05:11:24 PM »
My method is adding up all unspent refresh from all players, that total is the GM pool.  FP gets added to it the same way any PC would get one.  So via compels, concessions, and times when the PC's get theirs restored to full.

I give important and recurring npc's and antagonists get their own pool of fate points.  But if you wanted to streamline it even more you could have them draw from the general pool also.

12
DFRPG / Re: Stoicism Catches
« on: April 17, 2013, 08:46:51 PM »
My question is how would you make apply to him differently than every other character?  Most characters could be affected in some way?

It's a good concept for sure.  I'm just curious as to how you would utilize it to warrant such a huge rebate.  I can see it coming up often if you like making "Joker" style villains.  The kind that rarely fight, but their schemes would kill hundreds (or thousands) of innocent people.

13
DFRPG / Re: Advancement question.
« on: April 17, 2013, 04:44:01 PM »
Ok so I looked through YS and found a couple of instances where they talk about rearanging your character (trading stunts for powers too).

This one:
I bolded the section I am talking about. This is kind of iffy though. It could be seen as a special instance since the Pure Mortal is losing two refresh.

This one though:
This one seems to be more what we are looking for. I bolded the part I think is most important, but it does seem like you should be able to recreate your characters refresh spent durring a milestone, but it does say a major milestone so yea.
The former to me is just a clarification that if a pure mortal ever takes a supernatural power they lose the +2 bonus.  It's not indicative of the ability to upgrade a stunt to a power.

The latter seems to cover the question pretty well.  That given proper narrative justification, a character rewrite is perfectly acceptable.  In my experience most characters have this built-in.  All the characters my players made have the potential to become somethng entirely different.  A focused practitioner becoming a full blown wizard, a pure mortal taking up a denarian coin, a changeling choosing to become a pure mortal, ect.  So it makes sense.

14
DFRPG / Re: Custom Power for Wereform Komodo Dragon
« on: April 14, 2013, 04:57:35 PM »
Seems a bit weak even for 1 Refresh. I doubt the bonuses will matter often.

You get the normal Aspect tag when you use this, right? I would assume so, but I could see someone reading the "special Aspect" rules of this Power as an invoke-for-effect. Some people read Venomous Claws that way, after all.

And you should probably specify that it applies to physical consequences. As written it seems to apply to mental and social consequences.

All that aside, should I add this to the list?
I was speaking under the assumption that you would get the standard free tag and could invoke it with fate points like normal.  Otherwise, I agree it needs more teeth to be worth a -1 cost.

15
DFRPG / Re: Custom Power for Wereform Komodo Dragon
« on: April 13, 2013, 10:00:02 PM »
Definitely much more concise and focused.  I would say this is a -1 cost, the sticky aspect has a lot of utility, the tracking bonus has it's uses, the healing difficulty is probably not something that will come up too often and is basically icing.

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