Powers like "All Are Equal Before God" can imply that the DresdenVerse defaults to what I would call an "Ultimate Good," meaning that whatever else happens, that God is kinda there as the ultimate power, subject of course to His provisions regarding faith and direct intervention. The inviolability of Thresholds - fortified as they are by the occupancy of happy, loving families - could indicate that something about the way the world works might be intended to protect good people. Also, Angels.

Not that God is going to step in and directly intervene if Outsiders start spilling into the world (or maybe He will?), but that in this universe, there is a Good, following it is Good, working against it is Bad, and there is an Afterlife.

Others have suggested a few powers which I feel challenge this default Ultimate Good, and it makes me wonder if this *is* just an assumption, or if I'm not alone. I am not sure exactly what the Powers were called, and in any case, I'm not intending to call out the contributors as wrong, but I will mention the Powers here.

One was a Power called something like "You Are Alone," which allows a possessor to ignore the "All Are Equal Before God" Power from the Sword of the Cross. Another was the opposite of "Bless This House," which allows the possessor to break down a Threshold from the inside. I find powers like this problematic because I feel, based on my understanding of the setting, that they subvert what should be inviolable tenets of the DresdenVerse: that once you have God on your side, He is going to trump the lesser powers of evil; that once you are in your comfy and well-loved family home, you are relatively safe.

When these things are subverted, I wonder where the line will be drawn - a question of escalation, a supernatural arms race. Does the DresdenVerse default to Ultimate Good or Ultimate Evil (or Ultimate Chaos)? Is God, Himself, eventually to be trumped by Those from Outside? Will someone eventually design a power modifier for "All Are Equal Before God" called "No, Really, God is With Me" which trumps "You Are Alone"? Or are the rare subversions like this an entertaining way to break up the status quo?

Dryads sound like they would logically be Wyldfae.

I'm wondering if their allegiance would shift not by choice, but by season. Moreover, if a given locale was experiencing a longer-than-normal season, would the dryads in the area remain loyal to the prominent Court, or shift according to the actual calendar season?

The players made a Containment circle to trap some Malks that had been terrorizing a local park, and were later joined by some Winter-aligned Redcaps. We came to a bit of a disagreement over whether or not the Redcaps (outside the Containment circle) could break the circle and let the Malks out if they had wanted.

Disputes seemed to center around two questions:
Does it merely take free will to pop a containment circle?
Is a Containment circle, intended as it is to keep something in, vulnerable to attack/disruption from outside tampering?

My perception is that many of the questions that come up in DFRPG (or FATE in general) can be possibly solved by approaching Aspects as having different values.

I'm also thinking about the FATE Fractal, and how a game can zoom in or out, and apply Aspects/Skills/etc. to micro-systems (a Poison being given its own FATE character stats to represent how it hurts a victim and how easy it is to be defeated) or macro-systems (a Country or Organization being run as a FATE character against other, similar-scale entities).

I am imagining a Maneuver/Declaration/etc. resulting in an Aspect which has not only a Meaning/Identity but also a Quality rating. At the moment, the "Quality" of an Aspect is inherent in what you ask for. At the moment, the Quality of an Aspect is inherent in how it is named: the Aspect itself implies the Quality, and the GM determines the target Quality on the fly and lets the player know how hard it is to establish that Aspect. Tell a GM you want to create the Aspect "Building on Fire" and you'll get a particular difficulty rating. Tell a GM you want to establish the Aspect "Entire Mercenary Emplacement Ablaze" and you'll get a higher difficulty rating.

But what if we gave Aspects an *explicit* Quality rating, which not only made it clear how difficult it was to undo or fight, but could also be broken down and "spent" on various applications. Instead of just the Aspect "Fire" - which has its own implied effects and scope - we could establish A Mediocre Fire, a Legendary Fire, or a Superb Fire.

And then we could break down that Quality and spend it on various things. A Fire or Poison could attack and defend based on its Quality. You could spend some of that Quality to "buy" other "powers" or Aspects.

So maybe you get 12 shifts on the Maneuver to create the Aspect "Neighborhood Ablaze". You could trade that for a simple 12 Quality Fire, or you could say you made a 6 Strength, 6 Speed Fire.

Get 8 shifts on your attempt to make a Poison, and you could get a 6 Quality, 2 Sneaky Poison, or a 3 Quality, 5 Sneaky Poison.

Sometimes in this system, you want a character or creature to be able to do a wide variety of things - analogous to Evocation and Thaumaturgy - but not exactly.

Some ideas that have come up on the boards:

Pseudo-science
http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,28519.0.html

Music Magic
http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,25956.msg1105617.html#msg1105617

In each of these situations, one could take Evocation and Thaumaturgy (or the lesser options Channeling or Rituals) and re-skin them. One necessary component most people want to do is to change which skills are used to govern them: what substitutes for Conviction, Discipline and Lore? Craftsmanship, Resources and Knowledge make sense for a scientist; Presence and Performance seem right for a Bardic type.

What I'm curious about is whether or not the community would prefer to:
A) re-skin the Evocation/Thaumaturgy/Rituals/Channeling with new skills and trappings, but make it cost the same
(so 6 points for a completely re-skinned version of Evocation and Thaumaturgy)

B) re-skin the Evocation/Thaumaturgy/Rituals/Channeling with new skills and trappings, but charge 1 Stunt for each Skill/Trapping substitution
(so, 7, 8 or possibly 9 points for Evocation, Thaumaturgy and stunts to switch out 1-3 of the original spellcasting Skills)

C) treat their niche ability like Rituals and/or Channeling, but charge +1 Refresh for the option to switch out the Skills and Trappings which govern it use
(so 6 points for a completely re-skinned version of Rituals and Channeling that uses whatever spellcasting skills make sense)

D) Something else

I have a shadowmancer who has attracted the wrong attention (Black Court) and is finding his wards (veils, really) no longer adequate to the task.

What sort of Ward effects would the community propose I install?
Or would you recommend I stick to Veils, since Rituals (shadow) is only a fair-to-middling damage option?

OS 84: "If a Vampire does magic in the Nevernever, it's stronger than it would be in the mortal world."

How would you model this in a game?

A. Perpetual Scene Aspect?
B. Low-difficulty Declaration?
C. Straight bonus to Conviction and/or Discipline?

Do you think this brief mention merits more than a +2 situational bonus once per scene?

Player: "How tall is that fence?"
GM: "The razor-wired-lined fence is about ten feet high."
Player: "As a [insert werecreature here] I should be able to jump it"
[GM determined the border difficulty of crossing it is 4]
GM: "Excellent: roll Athletics to see if you can jump it."
[rolls dice]
GM: "What's the final result?"
Player: "3 shifts. SO do I make it over the fence? As an [insert werecreature here] it should be pretty easy."
GM: "Well..."

What do *you* do when this happens?