ParanetOnline
The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: matiez on January 25, 2012, 06:50:17 PM
-
Just starting up a Dresden game and have several issues milling about my head.
Firstly, what is the best way to incorporate supernatural and still have that immersive, believable feel? Kinda immersion breaking to have a troll running down the streets smashing buildings and cars. I'm having issues with selecting good supernatural fights that will work. As said in City Creation, if there's a bunch of supernatural stuff going on why don't the mortal populace know about it?
The caveat of this is fighting mortals, or just fighting in general. Since this is modern day, issues with the police will be rampant. Leaving bodies, casings and witnesses can be a real game killer. Also, what types of mortals or supernaturals are best to be used as drop in fights? The few ideas I have are muggings, vampire feedings, ghouls and the occasional street gang. Basically, what would a Random Encounter Table look like in the Dresdenverse?
-
Just starting up a Dresden game and have several issues milling about my head.
Firstly, what is the best way to incorporate supernatural and still have that immersive, believable feel? Kinda immersion breaking to have a troll running down the streets smashing buildings and cars. I'm having issues with selecting good supernatural fights that will work. As said in City Creation, if there's a bunch of supernatural stuff going on why don't the mortal populace know about it?
The caveat of this is fighting mortals, or just fighting in general. Since this is modern day, issues with the police will be rampant. Leaving bodies, casings and witnesses can be a real game killer. Also, what types of mortals or supernaturals are best to be used as drop in fights? The few ideas I have are muggings, vampire feedings, ghouls and the occasional street gang. Basically, what would a Random Encounter Table look like in the Dresdenverse?
With a mischievous grin, my answer to "why don't the mortal populace know about it?" is "Make your players answer that."
A little more serious consideration, however, shows a few options:
1. Don't have trolls running down the road like the Hulk. If you need to have the veil/masquerade/whatever maintained, then trolls need to not go on rampages in public.
2. The troll DOES go on a rampage but isn't caught on tape and lots of people swear up and down that they saw a troll smash their engine block. So what? People swear up and down that they were abducted by aliens / their house is haunted / octopeds from Lemuria built the pyramids. Who's going to report "troll attack" on their insurance claim, anyway? They're going to have to eat the cost of repairs if they do that.
3. The troll goes on a rampage and multiple sources get cellphone / other video evidence of it smashing its way through stuff. At this point, you can say "OK, there's video evidence of a troll." And guess what? You still have to get to work on time and pay your electric bill and pick your kids up from school. Unless troll attacks start messing with your lunch hour or ruining soccer games, there will be a media blowout, after which nobody will care. The BP oil spill, Rwandan genocide, and chimpanzees tearing womens' faces off all actually happened, and the majority of the general public don't give a shit anymore.
Trust in an uncaring, cynical, selfish population and you have carte blanche to throw whatever you want at your PCs.
-
Since this is modern day, issues with the police will be rampant. Leaving bodies, casings and witnesses can be a real game killer.
This is a different bag of beans from the "trolls get caught on youtube" problem mentioned above. You have to make a choice here about the tone of the game you want to run, and talk that over with your players. Tell them that being a violent murderhobo gets you unwanted police attention, and that you plan on sending more than the token "you hear police sirens, better run for it!" police presence after a rampage. Smart PCs don't go to jail because smart PCs either 1) don't act like violent murderhobos or 2) smart PCs take the appropriate ranks in Contacts, Resources, Burglary and other skills to know how to clean up after a crime scene, navigate the legal system, and bribe corrupt cops to let them off the hook.
Another option is to give the PCs license to battle the creatures of the night. Make them federal agents or cops or set the game somewhere where the justice system is so corrupt, small, and/or inept that it doesn't matter.
-
Also remember that many of the supernatural creatures have higher authorities that don't like too much Mortal attention (Fae Courts tend to impose penalties, even on Wylde fae, The Heirarchy of the Red Court, Papa Raith and the White Court Daddies, for some examples) and who should be taken into account when your baddies are planning their actions. No Troll would rampage through the streets hitting cars if there was a chance the players would tattle to a Knight, Lady or Queen, for example. Also, No troll would want to rampage through the streets too often, anyway, with all those big rolling chunks of Steel all over.
As for players, most should have ties to their heirarchies, as well, except for a couple of the Templates, and those could still be curttailed by other Creatures' leaders having some claim to the area. (I had a Summer Guardian threaten my players after they used the Nevernever as a bomb depository once)
Also, if your players end up in debt to someone, having them act as the "keepers of the peace" can seriously curtail their own transgressions, as well as force them to come up with ways to stop or cover up other characters' actions.
-
I would suggest that the answer to this can be found in the "Science Fails" section, YS11-12. The implication is that while full-on hexing is the perview of magic, technology doesn't always work particularly well against other supernatural creatures, either. So while cameras won't spontaneously combust around a troll like they might around a wizard, they will generally have enough graininess or bursts of static to cast serious doubts on what is truly in the picture. And Dresden has mentioned a number of times that people have a strong tendency to dismiss or rationalize even clear evidence of the supernatural, even including what they see with their own eyes. And there are plenty of people who are 'in the know' (or who are supernatural themselves) and sufficently connected that they can taint any evidence that might not be sufficiently easy to rationalize. So even images that were clear might disappear or turn out to be significantly less clear on review.
-
Thanks to everyone for the awesome ideas. Definitely clears the air a bit.
-
I like to think of this in terms of evolution.
In our universe, there aren't any trolls or vampires. So if things went sideways and suddenly there was a troll smashing cars, we'd freak out. The result would be YouTube videos galore, and some group of people would come and at least try to kill the troll. Things would escalate quite a lot, and it'd be a mess. In the end, humans work together to kill large threats as a matter of species survival, so one pesky troll would end up dead with hundreds of rounds of ammunition in it, and quite probably with it missing big chunks due to explosives of various sorts.
That's not the Dresden-verse.
There, humans have lived alongside the supernatural since forever. When we discovered fire, we hoped that it would keep away the things in the night. When we made swords, we hoped that they could kill the things in the night. But our best method of survival, on an evolutionary scale, has been to stay well away from where the monsters are, and stick our fingers in our ears, close our eyes, and shout, "LALALA! I don't seeeeeeeee yooooooooooooou!" whenever the monsters wander into our midsts.
This is a species survival trait. It's like how you don't need to learn to be afraid when a dog barks and rushes at you; our distant ancestors were eaten by large four legged things with big teeth, so we're naturally intimidated by them.
A troll is the same thing. It's an instinct for the folks in the Dresdenverse to pretend the troll isn't there as much as possible, because that's how you avoid it.
Of course, not everyone has the same instinctual reactions. Some people aren't afraid of dogs the first time one leaps toward them barking and furious. Some people are born wanting to do mad things like base jump. And some people are born without the instinct to run and hide from the troll.
In conclusion, most people have a primal urge to hide from that which goes bump and then pretend it hadn't happened. There might be some people who don't have that urge, but we call them, "Player characters."
I also tend to figure that intelligent supernatural beings with a motivation to not bring humanity down on their heads would fall back to behaviour previously considered antiquated. Ritual type behaviour, far from mortal eyes. So instead of fighting it out in public, they might call for some sort of duel in a ritual spot, a spot chosen for being out of the way.
-
A lot of people dislike the earlier books and thus tend to forget about them. Remember that in Fool Moon Susan gets video of the werewolf. The general reaction was that it was interesting and may or may not have been faked and then it drops off the face of the earth (likely due to one of the major supernatural factions, remember they don't like people knowing about them or even the possibility of them) and everyone forgets about it.
-
A lot of people dislike the earlier books and thus tend to forget about them. Remember that in Fool Moon Susan gets video of the werewolf. The general reaction was that it was interesting and may or may not have been faked and then it drops off the face of the earth (likely due to one of the major supernatural factions, remember they don't like people knowing about them or even the possibility of them) and everyone forgets about it.
The series makes fairly clear that there is a subtle but powerful effect that seems to me to be very similar to the Delirium in Werewolf: The Apocolypse. Most of the time, humanity will forget/rationalize/brush off/ignore/whatever even fairly blatant evidence of the supernatural. But only most of the time. Sometimes you get a human who remembers and believes what he saw ... examples including Susan, or the entirety of the Venatori Umbrorum. Perhaps this is due to repeated exposure. A good example of this might be Butters. If I recall correctly, he seemed to backslide into disbelief a few times, and had to me nudged by Dresden back into acceptance of the supernatural.
-
Random encounters are a lot easier in the Nevernever. If you'd like to have a lot of them, I suggest making the Nevernever important.
Failing that, summoned monster attacks are easy to justify and have few consequences once over.
I don't really think that a special explanation is needed for the secrecy of magic. I wouldn't be convinced by a werewolf on Youtube. And if I believed in magic, as many people do, there would be no reason to assume that I knew the first thing about it.
-
Not just magic, either. Consider the Chlorofied who (if memory serves) attacked Dresden in the middle of a crowded department store. I don't have the books handy, but I think they explained it partly away with some sort of mind-altering attack that affected the mundanes, but even so ... surely there were security cameras? Without some sort of metaphysical mojo playing into the situation, it's hard to explain how that scene wouldn't at the very least start up some MAJOR conspiracy theories, even if most people just laughed it off as "obviously fake".
I'm thinking that perhaps the occasional problems that crop up (ie, someone like Susan catching a photo and trying to make a big deal of it) might represent a situation that counts as an exception to the rule, and probably constitutes a compel for affected characters.
-
All the magic Dresden threw around i doubt that any cameras survited that encounter
-
All the magic Dresden threw around i doubt that any cameras survited that encounter
Let alone the Mind Fog that filled nearly the entire space.
-
Or you could invert the theme that the mortals don't want to know or do not know.
You could set the game in a place where it is the opposite. The mortals know and the mortals have actual (abeit secret) laws to deal with such things. Perhaps the mortals there do not use "magic" but "scientifically unexplained phenomenon" or some such.
-
Also an option.
If you want a combat heavy game. Gloss over facts about law enforcement and CSI teams. It could help the game run smoother.
Also, smaller towns don't even have budgets to have a good CSi team (technologically advanced or trained experts).
-
Also an option.
If you want a combat heavy game. Gloss over facts about law enforcement and CSI teams. It could help the game run smoother.
Also, smaller towns don't even have budgets to have a good CSi team (technologically advanced or trained experts).
And big cities have overworked and backlogged forensics teams.
FWIW, I use the "gloss over law enforcement" option for my campaign and it works just fine, but then my campaign actually isn't grounded in one city. My PCs are nomadic by nature and necessity.
-
Another thing that makes sense. I would find it hard to believe that the world's security services (CIA, MVD, Mossad ect.) didn't know that all of this was going on. They may have their reasons for wanting to keep it quiet, so they make sure that anything of that nature isn't properly investigated, and isn't treated seriously by the media. That could open up some interasting scenarios as well as explain why the cops never run down whoever was throwing those fireballs around.
-
My last game (albeit was a d20 Modern Campaign in the Dresden Verse. DFRPG wasn't out yet), for which my upcoming Dresden Game is based on used a Secret Government Agency called The Agency (based on The Agency from Sci-Fi's The Invisible Man, the NYC branch was the Supernatural Branch and where all the REAL funding went). They would show up form time to time like the proverbial Men In Black. When my players finally found out who they were, they were shocked. Why didn;t anyone know about this group? Then they got recruited, and it went form there. Was great fun, provided a means to cover up alot of things, and led to one hell of a story.
-
It does make sense that various security agencys, and terrorist groups and such would have some practitioners on the payroll. I don't know about a special black agency, but you would think that CIA, MI-6, ect. would want those kinds of assets if they could get them. Plus, a lot of the things Dresden has run into just might be considered national security threats. I was thinking of playing it so that the White Council has kind of a secret treaty with the intellegence services. It would state that the wardens don't mess with lawbreakers who are acting for an agency. They get a pass on killing, messing with people's minds and things like that. The Council probably would not want to tick off that particular bunch of mortals, as they are much bigger and could likely wipe the council out even without any kind of majic.
-
That assumes that people react sufficiently rationally to evidence of magic that they are capable of believing it exists. And it appears as though there is a metaphysical resistance present in the Dresdenverse that actively inhibits this for most people (but not quite all). It seems so reasonable to us (gamers) that people would see someone fling a fireball and suddenly snap to the conclusion that magic exists, but there are many examples of this not happening. People see monsters in action and assume it's someone in a mask, all evidence to the contrary.
The reaction is almost ... magical.
-
I've never worried about videos of supernatural on youtube. There are videos of ghosts and other creatures on youtube now. If someone posted a real video of real trolls, the first comment would be 'Obviously fake, there are texture issues, and the troll design is obviously copied from <fill in the name of obscure movie>'. There is so much fake stuff out there, it would be hard to filter out the real.
-
In my game, we've got something like the BPRD in our game, but it's extremely low profile. Basically, they recruit low level practitioners to help on missions, often highly covertly so that they don't even know that they're working for someone. They also handle any cover up that's actually necessary (although the mortal population has that active denial thing going for them). There are agreements in place with the White Council, primarily the Gatekeeper and Blackstaff which are quite secret to most of its members.
My player's don't know about it and I've only dropped two hints so far. One is our group's reporter's blog having their servers wiped rather often, the other is that every cop they've dealt with being replaced the next time they interact with the cops (I've got it set that any law enforcement without a "Special Investigations" has some BPRD plants in IA).
-
I recently saw Underworld: Awakening.
One of the main premises of that movie was that the Big Secret got out and Humanity went nuts. The first few minutes of that film describe a Purge that make the witch hunts look mild - teams going house to house, testing everyone for signs of "infection" with any resistance being met with enough firepower to put down a supernatural. Informant lines set up so you can report anyone you suspect of being supernatural, specials guns and ammo being developed, squads armed with flamethrowers - and everyone on a team in constant communication so any contact brings backup in minutes. Add in the helicopter gunships, tanks, rocket launchers - combine with overwhelming numbers - and the supernatural types didn't stand a chance.
That's the sort of thing that the Supernatural types in the DV worry about. They have power, but humanity has numbers, tech, and ingenuity.
When it comes to "the government knows" type things, I think it's a bit like the old Word of Darkness where there were small groups that know - and since they don't want to cause a panic they keep things to themselves. "Project Twilight" was a small FBI division that handled all of the X Files type cases and knew a bit about Vampires, werewolves, etc - enough to show up and toast anything that made itself a bit too public. I can see a small unit like that existing in the DV - sending teams to deal with things that get out of hand. Maybe even tying in a bit to the Paranet as infiltrators.
The RPG suggests that most towns have a SI branch of their police department or someone/something that does the same thing - keeping the lid on the supernatural and dealing with things that get out of hand. Maybe it's not a cop, maybe it's the local supernatural boss who doesn't want anyone to make waves, but someone does the job.
And that's the only way supernatural beings can work in a small town. If someone is killed there's a big outcry to find the killer. If someone's house gets torn up, people go missing, telephone polls get tossed around, or anything else that would be noticed, then it doesn't matter that no one on three man police force can even spell forensics - they have the phone number for the state police, FBI, homeland security, and every other law enforcement agency out there. Leave too many clues and the investigation will get closer and closer to revealing the supernatural world - which encourages supernatural types to find scapegoats.
If battles start becoming too public, I can see virtually anyone in a position of authority sending the PCs a message to "keep it down". The local Red Court Noble, a Winter Court Fae, any White Council Wizard - if there's an NPC with standing then I can see him sending the PCs a reminder saying "if this goes too public we all lose". And if any of the PCs belong to Accord nations I can see someone from another nation calling their nation and saying "looks like you have to do some housecleaning here".
Then again, that's the default setting. If your group likes playing in a world where the chief of police has the local heads the Red Court, Winter Court, etc on speed dial, all the reporters know why some articles never make the paper, and its only the great unwash that are in the dark then that's close enough that most of the DFRPG can work in that setting.
Richard