How would you run an excorcism in the game (like a person being possessed by a ghost or evil spirit)? I suppose it could be handled as a Thaumaturgical transformation on the ghost/spirit, and aiming for a "taken out" result to force it out of the physical body of the victim.

Any other ideas or thoughts?

I can't see any reason why a counterspell can't be cast using Thaumaturgy. What are your comments?

If that is allowed, how would you target, for instance, a generation-long curse? What I mean is that the ritual needs a symbolic link for it to find its way - here it is the actual curse that is the target (not necessarily the person being affected by the curse). Would something from the targeted person work? What about if the curse is cast like a bloodline curse?

In our game, that is starting next week, one of the factions (ancient warlocks) is going to aim to become a Freeholding Lord as its main goal - what does they have to do to get this status?

We are finally making characters next week, and one of the players will play a WCV. So I took a deeper look at the signature abilities of that Template - Emotional Vampire and Incite Emotion, and found them to be really powerful. So I wanted your take on how they would work in the game.

The Emotion-Touch (from Incite Emotion) and Feeding Touch (from Emotional Vampire) require touch - does the character first have to succeed with a Fists roll in order to be allowed to use the abilities or is it enough to be in the same zone? If not, the example below becomes even more powerful. If a suitable roll (not a regular Attack, though) to touch is necessary (like a Declaration of Fists against Athletics to declare that you have touched the target), I suppose that the Emotional Vampire and Incite Emotion rolls are done without any penalties.

The two powers seems very powerful. By giving an example of an attack using Emotional Vampire and Incite Emotion, I would like to see if I have understood it correctly.

Emotion-Touch (from Incite Emotion) lets the character make a Maneuver with +2 to place a suitable Aspect on the target that is in line with the emotions that the attacker can feed from. Feeding Touch (from Emotional Vampire) lets the player make a Mental attack using the same roll that was used to incite the emotion (without the +2, I hope). If the emotion is still there during the next round, the attacker gets +1 on the Feeding Touch (I suppose this is not cumulative).

Exchange 1
Let's say that the attacker gets a 2 on his Deceit roll and the defender gets a 3 on his Discipline roll during the first exchange. The Emotion-Touch allows a +2 to the Maneuver to incite the emotion (resulting in a total of 4), so the Aspect, for instance, Lustful is placed on the target. The Emotional Vampire lets the attacker do a Mental attack using the same roll (I suppose without the +2 for the Maneuver), but the attack misses as the Deceit roll was only a 2 (and the Discipline roll was a 3). I suppose that the vampire can not tag the Aspect, as it is for the same roll as the Maneuver.   

Exchange 2
The vampire attacks again, this time rolling a 4 on his Deceit. The defender rolls a 3 on his Discipline. As the emotion is still in place, the vampire gets +1 on his attack (as stated under Feeding Touch), raising the attack to a 5. Then the player tags the Lustful Aspect for another +2 for a total of 7. On top of that, Feeding Touch says that Emotion-Touch can be used to incite an emotion using the same roll (another Maneuver), so the player chooses to add another Aspect. The target now gets 4 Mental stress.

Is this a correct interpretation - that the vampire can create a new Aspect every Exchange and tag the one from the previous round (if he so wishes)? All of this for a cost of 2 Refresh (without Lasting Emotion and doing all this at range)...

Please give me your thoughts on using Emotional Vampire and Incite Emotion combo.

I have found a really cool aid for getting inspiration when creating scenarios - the "Plot Maps" from the game Technoir (a really interesting read, more info can be found here: http://www.technoirrpg.com/) and I would like to use it for the Dresden Files RPG.

The basic idea is that the GM randomly rolls up three things (called "nodes") from a table that is representing the city where the story is taking place. The game Technoir comes with a number of pre-set tables called Transmissions (one example can be found as a download here: http://www.technoirrpg.com/download.php?file=28). The tables contains "nodes", six of them: Connections (persons the player character knows), Events (big, important stuff), Factions (major groups or organizations, like the White Council, the Red Court etc), Locations (important places, relevant for the ongoing campaign), Objects (important things, could be physical or stuff like information) and Threats (individual persons or groups that a Faction can use to fulfil a goal, like hitmen or Ghouls). Technoir have six of each, creating a matrix of 6x6 cells for a total of 36 cells. After the initial three are created, place them in a triangle with lines connecting each other and come the reason A is connected to B, B to C etc (thus kickstarting the imagination). The game also have rules (very interesting ones) how to use the Plot Map and expand it during play, but that is outside the scope of this post.

Connections are rather simple - use some of the Faces from City Creation.
Factions are also simple, as some of these most likely have come up during City Creation.
Locations are very simple - use some of the Locations from City Creation.
Threats can be created from the general ideas that have come up during City Creation (either general, or city-specific).
These four are more or less city-specific.

This leaves Event and Objects - what kind of Dresden Files-specific Events and Objects could one have? Example of Events could be A powerful storm or A Ritualistic Murder. Example of Objects could be The Mantle of the Winter Knight or The Word of Kemmler. For instance, the starting point for the Case File Storm Front could be a triangle with A powerful storm, A Ritualistic murder and Marcones Thugs (the last could have been specific to the city of Chicago, most likely Threats).   

The idea is to fill a table with stuff that is both from your own City Creation as well as things that are very much Dresden Files (and things that you as a GM would like to see in the game). What else could we have in terms of Events and Objects?

How would you model the redirection spell that Harry tried out (the one that was prevented by a certain female character)?

PS. Is there any thread where more spells from the books are modelled in the game (like the examples in the rule book)? If not, it would be a perfect thing to do - might even be perfect as a Resource. DS.

I have done some thinking around the four powers Evocation (-3) vs Channeling (-2), Thaumaturgy (-3) vs Ritual (-2).

My conclusion is that it feels like Channeling is not as limited compared to Evocation, whereas Ritual is very much more limited compared to Thaumaturgy. What I mean is that a person using Channeling can do all types of actions (Attack, Block, Counterspell, Maneuver) that a person with Evocation can do (except that the person with Channeling only have one element to work with, which is more or less color). But if you compare Ritual and Thaumaturgy, a person using Ritual is limited to only one kind of Thaumaturgy (which I see as a much bigger limitation than only having one element to work with) and both “lesser versions” cost on less Refresh than the equivalent “full version”.

I don’t see it as a real problem and the two “lesser versions” of the powers do not necessarily have to be equal, but I thought it would be a good topic for some discussions.

Anyone else that have noticed the same thing?