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DFRPG / rules question: milestones/advancement
« on: April 06, 2025, 11:26:06 AM »
Simple question: can you drop an Average skill to Poor to pay for increasing another skill? Reading the rules on p88YS, can be read either way.

Thanks.

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DFRPG / sacraments as Stunts
« on: March 09, 2025, 05:11:03 AM »
Given the game has True Faith, we really should have Stunts for the sacraments of the Church.
(Here, I'm using 'church' in the universal sense. Although different denominations argue over whether something is a sacrament or not, everything on this list is considered holy by everybody).

Baptism Washed clean of sin, the character is considered Holy until they do something that they believe to be sinful. (Ignorance is bliss: infants can keep this for years).  The character will burn White Court vampires (as True Love/Hope/etc) during this time. Because this washes away the past, supernatural abilities cannot tag actions from before the Baptism. The Stunt is effectively 'inactive' (no longer having effect or costing Refresh) after a sin has been committed. However:
Confirmation A trapping of Baptism; the character is again considered Holy, and if Holiness lost due to sin, can be regained with repentance and penance.
Holy Orders This Stunt replaces Baptism; the character is still Holy while in a state of sin, but this state can be Tagged. Organisations whose members have Holy Orders can elect leaders who can grant Holy Orders. If the character is a priest, he can grant access to these Stunts, with two qualifiers - any Baptised Christian can if necessary Baptise someone into the church, and Holy Orders typically requires a higher position within an organisation (this higher position does not require a Stunt - the referee is justified in requiring an Aspect though).
Anointing the Sick This Trapping of Holy Orders allows the character to take Wizard's Constitution for an adventure if the playerwishes it Note that this will drop a Pure Mortal's refresh by 2 during that time: and if this turns the character into an NPC they will remain one after this Stunt
Marriage "One Flesh" If both spouses have this Stunt, then either can use the Recovery abilities of the other (the limit on how much damage can be healed does not change though: thus 'once per combat' abilities may only be used by one spouse per combat, and reductions in levels of severity must be divided between the pair).
Eucharist a Trapping of Holy Orders, allows those partaking to refresh Fate if they have an appropriate Aspect.
Penance A Trapping of Holy Orders, allows the restoration of grace.

Thoughts?

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DFRPG / Precision Hexing
« on: February 18, 2023, 01:05:33 PM »
Simply trashing a technological item is straightforward, but how would you go about more detailed interference?
Possible examples:
causing a mechanical watch to run slow or a mobile phone to burst into flames.
While making a car cease functioning is straightfoward, how about ensuring that the brakes fail?

A character who only has Mana  Static is going to want to play with the implications of his power, while a more powerful character could create spells to focus or refine what can be done.

Suggestion?

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DF Spoilers / King Arthur's Scabbard
« on: June 03, 2022, 01:51:44 PM »
From Morte d' Arthur:
Then Sir Arthur looked on the sword, and liked it passing well. Whether liketh you better, said Merlin, the sword or the scabbard? Me liketh better the sword, said Arthur. Ye are more unwise, said Merlin, for the scabbard is worth ten of the swords, for whiles ye have the scabbard upon you, ye shall never lose no blood, be ye never so sore wounded; therefore keep well the scabbard always with you.

Given that in Dresdenverse:
1) Excalibur is a Sword of the Cross, and
2) Nicodemus has a Noose with the powers of the Scabbard above, and
3) the Swords can change form -

maybe the Noose used to be the Scabbard? Certainly Nicodemus would enjoy persuading the Knights that one of their holy relics was an evil artifact. It is Arthurian canon that the scabbard is stolen by a witch.

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DFRPG / King Arthur's Scabbard
« on: April 29, 2022, 12:41:02 PM »
From Morte d' Arthur:
Then Sir Arthur looked on the sword, and liked it passing well. Whether liketh you better, said Merlin, the sword or the scabbard? Me liketh better the sword, said Arthur. Ye are more unwise, said Merlin, for the scabbard is worth ten of the swords, for whiles ye have the scabbard upon you, ye shall never lose no blood, be ye never so sore wounded; therefore keep well the scabbard always with you.

Given that in Dresdenverse:
1) Excalibur is a Sword of the Cross, and
2) Nicodemus has a Noose with the powers of the Scabbard above, and
3) the Swords can change form -

maybe the Noose used to be the Scabbard? Certainly Nicodemus would enjoy persuading the Knights that one of their holy relics was an evil artifact. It is Arthurian canon that the scabbard is stolen by a witch.

6
DFRPG / Cats and barriers...
« on: January 23, 2022, 03:53:43 AM »
given cats can cross thresholds and wards without difficulty, has anyone played with using a cat as a launch mechanism for spells?

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DFRPG / 7 Aspects, 7 Laws...
« on: September 03, 2021, 06:12:17 AM »
Given each time Law Breaker is taken, an Aspect changes, a wizard who has broken all 7 Laws will *only* have aspects related to his crimes. But what about the other way? Has anyone taken the inverse of the Laws into account when creating a character? Or decided which Aspects would be destroyed by each Law?

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DFRPG / supporting villain for your amusement
« on: August 29, 2021, 12:22:28 PM »
Alfred Dawkins
Supernatural advertising Executive

That'll kill you...

Patronising health adverts that make teetotallers turn to drink; inspire teenagers to smoke, or do drugs; drivers to speed. Dieting ads that send you on an eating binge. Alfred makes them all. He sees the future, a future of death, and has long since stopped trying to prevent it - instead, he sees to it that he is well paid to ensure it. The tobacco lobby loves him, and ensures that he is employed where he can do the most harm.
His actions have changed time by killing people, or on a couple of occasions having them turned into undead monstrosities - although he is only the bearer of bad news, the results have been sufficient to warp his soul beyond recognition.
Alfred knows which of the local goons are going to get killed by the PCs, so will ensure that those goons are on stand by to act as bullet shields. He should never be encountered alone.
His Lawbreaker Powers increase his inability to persuade others of the truth of their fates; Alfred deliberately tells the truth to ensure that people will not avoid their fate. He particularly enjoys it when people would have avoided the future but for his 'attempt to persuade' them to take precautions results in them refusing to do what they originally intended. (This is also necessary for him to increase his Lawbreaker Powers. Specifically, Lawbreaker 1 requires that they die because they change their action to refuse his advice; Lawbreaker 5 requires them becoming undead; Lawbreaker 6 requires a change to the city).
Important skills: Great Resources, Fair Intimidate.
Stunts: Infuriate, Teflon Persona
Powers: Cassandra's Tears, Lawbreaker 1, 5 and 6.
Against other NPCs, the -2 from Tears stacks with +3 from Lawbreaker as a -5 penalty on Discipline rolls etc to avoid temptations and continue on their normal, non-self-destructive lives.
Against PCs, Alfred should be throwing multiple compels based on their Troubles and how they will kill the PCs.

9
Peace Talks has a flaming ward circle, with we are told (i) massively increases the power of the spells cast in it, (ii) is highly erratic, and (iii) is considered close to Law Breaking by the Wardens.

My thought on how to rule this:
- while using the circle, the Wizard has Sponsored Magic[Fire]. If this drops his refresh below zero: tough, he's an NPC* until the circle is destroyed. However, the magic is correspondingly more powerful.
To reflect the erratic nature, I'd also say that each Circle is slightly different, granting a slightly different 'flavour' of Fire Magic. So initially the wizard isn't going to know what the circle is going to do. Of course, he could just maintain the Circle permanently - in which case he has Sponsored Magic[Fire] all the time, and there is no deed for the magic to be erratic.

*"Fire pretty, Tree Bad" as a new personality type would explain why the Wardens stomp on this.

10
DFRPG / The effects of Age [rules addition for Gold Coast]
« on: July 04, 2019, 02:59:04 AM »
I've been mulling over how to represent aging in Dresdenverse for a little while, and it is particularly relevant to the Gold Coast, so I'll provide my current thoughts:

Aging is a set of consequences; each either reduces your refresh by 1 or renders a physical Stunt unusable (you still know the stunt though, and can teach it - allowing the possibility of the Aging Master who can train you in things they can no longer do).

Middle Age is a Moderate consequence. This reflects the unpleasant reality that bumps and scrapes you can shrug off as a teenager have an annoying habit of hanging around for weeks or months. On the upside, the character gains an additional 5 skill points, that can be placed in mental or social skills. The character likely has a 'spare tyre' or other indication of flabbiness caused by the stresses of the last decade or so.
 Middle Age does not heal, but can be bought off; simply pay for the granted skills points. Any character can buy off Middle Age, including those who are Old or Dying - this reflects the elderly who are still in hale health.

Old is a Severe consequence, and provides 10 skill points. Mundanes cannot buy off Old; the character requires at least Wizard's Constitution to do so. It is otherwise the same as Middle Aged. Characters can possess both Old and Middle Aged but need not do so.

Dying is Extreme, and provides 15 skill points. The character must have spent Refresh on regeneration to be able to buy off Dying. Note that as an Extreme condition Dying also changes one of your Aspects. Otherwise the same as Middle Aged and Dying.

11
DFRPG / New Setting: Gold Coast Australia
« on: July 01, 2019, 02:09:39 AM »
I've recently moved, and have decided to combine learning about my new home with roleplaying, and to write the place up as a Dresdenverse setting. This should evolve over time as my knowledge increases. Will be written in dribs and drabs. Anything in italic is the equivalent of the notes/sticky notes in the book write ups

The Gold Coast - power at rest

The state of Queensland grew rapidly when Australia abolished death duties in 1979 - vast numbers of wealthy seniors, especially Britons, swiftly migrated here to enjoy the climate and avoid taxes on their estates. Supernaturals found this even more appealing as the move simplified hiding immortality.
The resources available to the 'average' resident are considerable. The city was created for millionaires; and other forms of power flock to money. While few NPCs in the city will be directly combat capable, due to age, injury and so forth, the majority will be able to call on long decades of skill, resources and contacts.

Names and elements

Names here have largely been recycled; the Gold Coast itself refers to a section of the African coast; there is a 'Miami'; multiple names are generic("Southport", "Harbourtown"), others reference other Australian locations ("Anzac Parade"), or British locations ("The Tweed"). This is an excellent place for misleading summoned creatures as to your true location - an important consideration if you fear them stalking you later.
Given the popularity of time shares, there'd likely be summoners who move through a dozen plus homes every year, with each home having a clear view of the next, to let them know if someone if watching their next residence.

All elements are here, openly, but fairly well balanced. Obviously land and water mesh; less obviously, the city sits on the biggest erosion caldera in the southern hemisphere, providing a strong fire element. Cyclones and hybrid cyclones are also threaten the coast.

The shifting sands
Everything is new, as the coast has constantly changed over the past century. "Southport" does not have a port, "Harbourtown" does not have a harbour. The river mouth has constantly travelled north, creating a long sandbar on which the beaches, tourist resorts and skyrise apartments sit. Which in the past was a nightmare for shipping; multiple wrecks are buried under the sands, and some areas are named for the ships that perished there. Behind them the river is filled with a line of islands, each covered with luxury homes and ringed with personal docks; the far shore is the same; the Gold Coast has more canals than Venice does. Yes, there are gondolas for romantic evenings.

....of course, the changes can uncover ancient secrets!
Living off the land is very profitable. Fish, crabs and shellfish are all available in abundance. Inland there are rich gold fields. The only local resource to be avoided are the coconuts, as the weather is too mild to mature them properly - doing so should be a simple use of Summer/Nature magic

Thresholds are everywhere

The Gold Coast is on the border with New South Wales, and crosses the border - the airport is *on* the border, and a plane will cross the border multiple times while landing or taking off. Tracking magics in particular will be frustrated by the constant shift from land to sea, the countless rivers and local borders. Locals get very annoyed with daylight savings time, which applies in NSW but not Queensland. Interestingly, although the borders don't cause the police any problems, the border is a crime hotspot - the belief that the state border will make life harder for the police encourages crime there.

Tourists are sacrosanct
All industries here are service industries, so any threat to tourism will draw the wrath of the rich and powerful. Counter-intuitively, a predator who 'brings their own food' may fall foul of this; the locals will hate the loss of a potential customer far more than the death of a rival.
This is a bit unfair, the local businesses look out for each other, and happily refer customers to each other; they know that everyone has to work together to build the city up.

enthusiastic desperation

While understandably proud of surviving the financial crashes of the past, a city dependent on tourism cannot thrive when the entire world is in downturn. The entire city turns on being ready for 'the next big thing' and constantly adapting to new situations. It is an excellent city for finding anything you need, for buying or hiring anything or one you could possibly want; Resources are powerful here, and everything is cheap. However...

it's a long way to fall

The only way to make money in this city is to be easy on the eye; numerous attractive, well presented candidates battle for every job. But only the incredibly snappy can succeed, and how to look incredibly snappy without a job?
I've seen more homeless people in this city than anywhere else in Australia! Also more smokers - and those statements are linked. Australia tries to take good care of our unfortunate citizens, but the resources that are meant to buy the poor food and shelter instead literally go up in smoke: 93% of homeless Australians smoke a pack or more of cigarettes. Knowing that their taxes are merely giving the homeless emphysema is a major reason that this city is one of the most right wing in Australia. As the presence of the homeless harms tourism, in Dresdenverse any predators who prey on the homeless will not be discouraged...they may find this a way to win favour with the locals!

There is no overkill

The Gold Coast will undertake vast projects without batting an eye. Drain an entire lake to catch a single dangerous creature? Did that in 2017. Smash a rail line straight down the middle of the city? Got the idea from Canberra, and had the light rail operating years before Canberra did. Dredge a harbour over the border and pump the sand from the bottom onto denuded beaches? Took the involvement of both State governments, but has been happening since 2001. Anyone raising hell in the Gold Coast should realise that the locals will resort to the big guns *first*, and only rely on subtlety if overwhelming might fails.


oh, a useful list of local legends and rumours provided by a local roleplayer!
https://www.theurbanlist.com/goldcoast/a-list/gold-coasts-creepiest-rumours?fbclid=IwAR2C-XmHa6ju3CUSZy5UYwEUZRT-kqXMeVBTNE9tVXZpLAZW8R7WXUkfUaI

More later, as I learn more.

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DFRPG / thoughts on winning the war with the Outsiders
« on: January 16, 2019, 06:23:54 AM »
In the latest collection of short stories, Mab calmly lets Molly know that if Molly wants the tithe/tiend stopped, she has to work out how to end the war with the Outsiders.

Brutal, but fair - and raising the question: can the war be won?

The Unseelie protect us from the Outsiders, the Seelie from the Unseelie, so there is the depressing possibility that there is something even worse being held back by the Outsiders, making a true victory impossible.

But assuming that is not the case, or allowing for the possibility of becoming strong enough to take on the new threat:

- Mab doesn't understand technology. Introducing her to 'ferromancy' and the force multipliers thus available could be interesting. Trolls armed with machine guns would be a game changer.

- domains can be created within the Never Never, with their own powers. Could micro-domains bec created at the borders of reality, using those rules to create weapons? Say, a domains that the piles of bones could fall into, keep falling until their speed is many multiples of the speed of sound, and then leave the domain, directed at the advancing armies of Outsiders.

- Mab's armies are probably constantly being driven insane by the Laws: they'll be racking up large amounts of knowledge of the Outside, for one thing. Granted that few of the troops will live long enough for that to be a problem, but (hopefully) some do, and if not improveed weapons and armour will change that.
A useful IoP would be one that the Outsider could put their Lawbreaker levels into, loaning them to newbie troops to help the youngsters survive, and allowing the veterans to keep their sanity a bit longer.

Anything I've missed?

13
DFRPG / Welcome to the future
« on: June 11, 2018, 06:07:01 AM »
Crossing Thresholds without an invitation is very bad for enchantments; and for mortal enchantments, dawn is the start of a new day, and thus a threshold - ditto midday for Winter Sidhe and midnight for Summer Sidhe. And these thresholds would be insanely powerful: *every* mortal with Bless This House in a hemisphere is backing it, so for North America, all of Europe and Africa, plus a slab of Asia.

But - suppose you're invited?

It's not that hard. A character in Chicago could just before dawn ring a friend in New York and get invited into the new day. Dawn is still a threshold, but you've been invited across it, so your spells are fine.

Or better yet, set it up with an AM radio station to have the intro "welcome to the new day!" or something equally banal as their breakfast program catch phrase. A radio is old tech, you could be woken up by the effect that protects your spells!

Don't want to do something like this every day? Well, the Russians will just put their new centre in Murmansk, and have 3 months between needing to do anything for both Summer and Winter.

One thing though - don't invite your friend in New York back into your day in Chicago! Don't know what would happen, but pretty certain it would violate the Law on Time.

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DFRPG / Running a High Resources game
« on: June 11, 2018, 03:58:07 AM »
While 'murder hobo' is the default PC, a workable character in Dresdenverse who relies on wealth and contacts to solve their problems. A starting PC can blow through the roof of the Buying Things chart on p322; it stops with a Legendary Resources roll (+8), granting a large corporation or a small personal island; but with Resources 4, High Concept of Rich Investor, Trouble of an Obligation to build up the family wealth, plus 5 money related Aspects, the PC is looking at +18 before rolling the dice!

The PC is easily able to create a Major Milestone every session, simply buying problem locations out from under the bad guys and gentrifying them. (Of course, the bulk of the session will then be surviving the wrath of the critters you've chased out).  While the rules suggest downgrading the rewards for doing so in a single session, that is punishing skilled play, a massive no-no: far better for the GM to say that the PC's reward is a free Resources Stunt of their choice. That is realistic, fair, balanced, and has the ethical dilemma of whether to buy Filthy Lucre – a temptation that will grow stronger each time, as the pool of available Stunts shrinks.

Anyway, the PC has far more successes than they need. Some of those successes may be needed for overcoming seller resistance of course; but if a location has been ruined by monsters, they'll probably be eager to sell. The simplest thing to do with those extra successes is to buy quality, giving the corporation extra stress boxes: the example above could have a quality of +10, giving it an additional +5 stress boxes (p320+p130). That's fairly inefficient though; the corporation is getting one stress box for every two successes – they are less well defended than an ordinary quality organisation of legendary size.

A better option is to have subsidiary organisations that provide the organisation with 'Armor'. An established contract could be bought for one success, providing Armor:1 in the desired realm; or the subsidiary could be bought outright, and provide temporary Aspects when attacking/defending in Corporate warfare.
My suggested subsidiaries are:

Physical: Security, Maintenance, Insurance, Cleaning

Mental: Legal, Accounting,  Political, Personnel

Social Armor: Public Relations, Real Estate, Murals(the giant wall ads that companies have painted that get around restrictions on billboards), Plant hire.

This has the advantage from a GM perspective that you can assign these to a company to make it harder to gain control of – but since they come with the company, increase the reward for succeeding.

Police contacts, I would simply halve the benefit of using Filthy Lucre.

Some supernatural defences can be put in quite easily by having access to an employment agency! How many mortals would have access to Bless This House – one in a hundred? Unlikely, unless a particularly devout community. One in a thousand?  Possible. One in ten thousand? Definitely. Your city will have hundreds of thousands of people in employment, providing a pool of defenders, who are easily identified by having a supernatural entering and leaving a building while job applicants are arriving.
Similarly, 'allowing' workers to hold their weddings etc for free at the business allows the possibility of rending the place to toxic to Raith Vampires. Those turgid inspirational posters are probably an unsuccessful attempt to protect the place from Skavis Vampires.

A couple of examples:
The PC is going to buy a housing estate being preyed on by ghouls. They tag the Aspect of 'invested by Ghouls' to allow an easy sale, and focus on physical security; the tenants are moved out into temporary accommodation elsewhere (easily justified by claiming the building isn't safe – which it isn't) and a week later when the ghouls have had to go hunting elsewhere, the building is repaired, repainted, and fortified, with alarms and security. Supernaturally, a 'leaking' pipes are slowly dripping holy water into the entrances from undercity.  That's a success for handling the move, plus 5 for redoing the building, plus needing a church contact to provide the holy water tag. The PC can do this easily, allowing them to keep a few Fate points for when the Ghouls attempt to follow their prey to the temporary accommodation, and/or attack the repair crews.

The PC wants to acquire a very fashionable White Court Nightclub. Although 'only' requiring a Fantastic (+) result, the Quality is sufficient to give it 3 additional stress boxes, and is Armored to the max; further, they don't want to sell. The PCs start their campaign by getting some noise violations thrown at the place: but Social Armor will protect here. They investigate buying the entire building and simply ejecting/replacing the night club (a common real world tactic, lets the buyer acquire the good will of the site for free) but the White Court either has the building or is relying on the Armor: Real Estate; either way blocked. The PCs investigate the possibilities of violence (because they are the PCs) but are then surprised to learn that the White Court is now offering the place for sale. An Investigation roll is made, and the PCs learn that the White Court is buying another location nearby and planning to move: the existing night club will be 'sold' but the bulk of the clientele will be moving with them, so they are selling a turkey. The PCs chose not to buy, and instead begin working on the new site: but a newbie Black Court Vampire buys the old site off the White Court! The old night club will fail, but the PCs have to decide whether they want to tolerate the deaths that will take place before that happens – do they focus on eliminating the Black Court Vampire, or continue the war against the White Court (who are more vulnerable due to the move).

15
DFRPG / fun declarations
« on: April 18, 2018, 02:38:48 PM »
Spending a Fate chip to declare something about the game world seems to have huge potential. I admit I'd mostly be boring, making sure that there were useful shops etc near my PCs home - what are some of the more impressive uses you've made/seen?

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