Wow those are all pretty awesome. My table pretty much requires minatures for any kind of combat, I would love to put those out.

Hey!
I'm gonna be at the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) this September. Just wondering if EvilHat was gonna have anyone at PAX (whether officially or not). Great opportunity for a little DFRPG Beta testing 
If not, any other Dresden Fans gonna be at PAX this year?

That format sounds very similar to how I hope the Dresdenverse Simm will progress. I'm not sure if solo threads will break out, or if other threads will start up for other locations/cities, but I'm open to a lot of things.

I figure B,C and other archs will develop naturally through a lot of the free form play. Especially since some players might not find a role for their character in the current A story line. I also anticipate that some players will be running secondary characters if they have an interest in it. These wouldn't be NPCs exactly since the secondaries would be dedicated to the player that created them, just like another PC. NPCs would be up for grabs for anyone to use in their posts. I'm working on the cast of starting NPCs at the moment, and more will appear as the storylines require.

I also anticipate that there will be a core GM group that will help develop the mysteries of the A storylines. They'll have most or all of the pieces, and clues will be dished out to the appropriate characters if they already have the appropriate information, or as they follow the investigation to find other clues.

The block of bookkeeping is a hold over at the top is a hold over from my Star Trek sim. Just how I'm used to keeping track of posts. I've had a couple of people who weren't thrilled with the format. So I've decided to knock it down to Post title, and Timeframe only. The bare essentials basically.

Hope that helps some of you that would otherwise be interested.

I think the thing to keep in mind is that part of the reason that they're using FATE to design the game is that it will allow for more balance in characters, like between a vanilla Police Officer and a Wizard of the White Council. If they had gone with a modified d20 system then there absolutely would be a power difference between characters, there'd be almost no incentive to play a vanilla human being. Not only that, but the use of Aspects in character building helps to build the character's backstory as the character is designed. The fact that a vanilla human being doesn't have a whole magical arsenal at his disposal isn't necessarily a disadvantage. That person can get medical treatment a lot easier, can rely on modern technology, can enter a home uninvited, and is a lot more likely to have contacts with the rest of the vanilla people then your Wizard. A party comprised entirely of Wizards might actually have a real hard time getting around and dealing with the modern world.

Also, don't forget that a player can play a "knight" character without being a Knight of the Cross. Michael and the other knights are just one example of a knighthood in Harry's world. The most important thing is spiritual strength (just like playing any Paladin). You're knight characters don't even have to use swords, or have magical weapons to begin with.

As for the Wizard and apprentice scenario. You really have to have two players really willing to roleplay that situation fairly. I'm always hesitant to put my players in a situation where one person is in charge of another, or the whole group. I usually find that a leader type character naturally evolves in the party, but you can't always predict who that leader will be. I've found that when I've assigned a leadership role to one person they either aren't interested in playing the leader or try to take advantage of the position.

Also with a game that uses aspects the apprentice and Wizard could even be of equal "level" when it comes to the number of aspects they have. The apprentice will just have more non-magical aspects and skills then the Wizard. Not necessarily a drawback if the aspects are useful in the game.

As it just so happens I've started up a new board in the hopes of getting a game started. Figured if there wasn't one out there then one needed to exist!

So far I've got the basics up, but no players and no story started (kinda need players to get it rolling). It's about 48 hours old from the time of this posting, so don't expect too much at the moment.

Here's the link

http://z4.invisionfree.com/Dresdenverse_Simm/index.php

You make some good points. Mary Sue is a bit of a broad term. And it makes sense that it should depend on the skills of the writer instead of a "laundry list" of don'ts as you say.

But let me say this. The scenario you came up with for a Starbuck-like character in a Harry Potter universe doesn't fit. A Starbuck character wouldn't fit in the Harry Potter universe under those specific circomstances. It also only speaks of the cosmetic parts of Starbuck's character.

But what about a darker story. About an auror with authority issues, but who's also a fantastic soldier. She drinks, she smokes in an attempt to numb her perpetual depression. She lacks most social graces when it comes to romance and only really holds casual friendships. She has all these problems, but when push comes to shove she'll do the right thing or die trying. Even if that means facing down five Death Eaters by herself. And lets just say she's with the Order of the Pheonix, and Dumbledore tolerates her because of her better qualities. She could very easily be a hero in the Harry Potter universe as well.

~She-Wolf

Usually a Mary Sue isn't much more then cosmetic and what goes deeper then skin is very cliche. An author (or RPG player) that goes beyond that with a character is usually expanding them to something beyond a Mary Sue. You can get in to archetypeal regions of the character that have similarities with other well known characters and avoid being a Mary Sue, because in my experience a Mary Sue isn't much more then a skin deep character anyways.