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Topics - tetrasodium

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DFRPG / dfrpg elements in standard fantasy rpg format

« on: November 04, 2012, 06:12:54 PM »

I like the element system, admittedly, some of the thaumaturgy options feel a bit out of place as anything other than specializations. Some of my players have had trouble grasping the conceptual nature of the elements goes beyond refluffed magic missile/scorching ray/fireball/etc & I decided to put together something explaining the elements in a way that fits standard fantasy rpg tropes a little better (i.e. d&d). In the process, Spirit gets refluffed into divine casting with most of the laws of magic being more strict towards it to simulate the fact that divine casters need to behave themselves more than arcane ones to appease their god. I figured others might like it, find it useful, or be interested in shooting holes/support at it

. on those last two, please do as it's intended for newbies who need help acclimating to non-vancian casting. =)

Keeping with the traditional fantasy trope of arcane magic being different from divine magic with both overlapping & different capabilities, there will be some immediately obvious changes like “force” from both Spirit, fire, and possibly others at times. The arcane elements of fire, earth, water, and air definitely expand quite a bit once expanded into their conceptual nature beyond the pure element itself to the point where there is quite a bit of overlap & is now no longer a reason to have out of place thaumaturgy trappings like necromancy & summoning as something other than specializations . Each of the arcane elements has the ability to draw on aspects of necromancy & mind magic through various means with various degrees of law violation risks. Spirit by comparison has access to all of them (with guaranteed violations) in addition to a proper method of resurrection. Because of the consequence nono involved with mind magic (see the third law below) it’s always a dangerous road to tread more than simply stepping up to the very edge with “ally of X” temp aspect type charm & weak minor “detect thoughts” type spells I feel that Spirit’s tight fusing with the laws of magic and the extra leeway it gets in other areas like healing, raise dead, the creation of fire/water, etc things fit well with the typical schism between arcane & divine casters where they heavily overlap, but divine casters can do a few extra things denied to arcane casters with the string of needing to appease their god.

Just about (if not every) element has some way of doing some healing of certain types of consequences (or at least starting that process), but Spirit has the typical divine caster-like ability to directly heal mental/physical injuries. The “healing” does as good job of further differentiating Spirit/divineoff in its own little niche while avoiding “aww crap, I didn’t wanna have to play the cleric/healer” even though there are plenty of other ways to start the healing process in FATE making it a silly thing already. Players who want to play a healer still have something special over arcane casters able to start healing sometimes.
With regards to scrying , I’ve made a few minor assumptions regarding the planar cosmology of the fantasy setting in general since it would be I,possible to do otherwise given all the possibilities. Those assumptions are that each arcane element has a plane of existence of its own & spirit is able to reach any plane inhabited by beings with spirits of their own (even if that spirit is their form like many outsiders frequently in fantasy settings.) Nasty things can be out there if you dig too deeply with extraplanar sources, but minor scrying through them is relatively safe. This again gives everyone a little something to everyone that fits with their element. Elementals embody both the element and the conceptual aspects of an element to varying degrees & are mostly rather “neutral” in nature. In exchange for spirit’s ability to reach any plane, it has the side effect of making the caster directly reachable by more things while digging. The combination of narrow & broad contact with the planes gives arcane casters an edge in their specific types of scrying & makes divine casters hesitant to abuse their options.

Laws of Magic: While the Laws of magic are great for balancing magic to an extent, the permanence that goes with them outright destroys many traditional spells like polymorph & the like. I’ve chosen to reshuffle the laws of magic into traditional fantasy style in a way that includes both the “undead are abominations” as well as the “Divine casters can fall out of favor with their god & must take care with their spell casting.” themes. This is done by saying most arcane spells are temporary unless the element & method used would be permanent due to properties of the element. For example,using earth’s control over stability & grounding to break down & reshape a mind with earth’s stability keeping it that way permanently is bad; but using water’s control over change to accomplish the same thing is fine because water is loath to take on a stable form & will revert to normal soon after the caster quits applying shifts to persistence.
• First Law: Never take a life… Let’s face it, killing people & things is pretty common in fantasy settings. This is very important for Divine casters of “spirit” spells because they risk tainting their soul & angering their god. For the other arcane elements?... not so much unless it’s being done in an “Evil” way or just for cruelty/fun. I think keeping this vague & semi-ambiguous results in both divine casters being nervous about keeping their god happy with their actions & wanting to act as a moral compass to the group rather than risk it. That ambiguity also neatly divides arcane & divine casting while allowing for grey areas that divide “magic is a tool” & “that mage has gone dark!”
• Second Law: This is usually the purview of arcane casters. Water governs change & is anything but stable. Use water to change another & it goes away on its own, no harm done. Use earth to break down the stable form & mold a new one…, or fire to burn the current one away & encourage new growth in a different form like some kind of supernatural cancerous uber stem cell treatment though… bad arcane caster! Now Spirit deals with the soul itself & quite easily stomps all over this law. The desire to keep spirit/divine casters concerned about being “good” makes this even more important for them

.
•   Third Law: Never invade the thoughts of another. Spirit is pretty boned here as well, but Arcane casting is usually going to be safe as long as they do not need to inflict mental consequences on an unwilling victims part of the activity. Reading thoughts actively skimming across someone’s mind is fine, as would something like using earth to permanently destabilize traumatic memories & form them into something stable in a patient wanting help from the caster is just peachy. Using Air to give you the freedom needed to carefully climb inside the thoughts of a sick refugee in order to figure out what they are fleeing from & offer help (likewise with spirit on those last two). The ambiguity & ability for the gm to just say “he tries to fight you & takes a minor consequence” even if it was just a 1 shift spell makes mind magic something that arcane casters will be wary of using with gamebreaking consequences lest they go capital E “Evil” & be forced to take lawbreaker stunts.
•   Fourth Law: Never Enthrall Another. This is another one where Divine casters get bones when using Spirit & arcane casters get a mere warning. Arcane spells like the traditional staple “Charm Person” that makes someone think you are an ally are fine if it’s just doing things like adding a temporary aspect kept active with shifts of persistence along the lines of “allies with X” & leaves them to muddle through the confusion of why their allies are suddenly fighting each other to the death. Arcane spells like “Dominate” where you force an opponent to obey your will however are a nono if they require a consequence, which it probably will… using dominate on the waitress to place your order when she would doso anyways seems kindda silly, I’m sure there would be a circumstance where it’s ok with the GM though.
•   Fifth Law: Never reach beyond the borders of life. Finally we reach a law where arcane folks get bones outright & divine spirit casters get a pass! Raise/resurrect dead type spells are pretty normal for divine casters in fantasy settings, the arcane equivalent typically involves things like creating undead & arcane raise dead type spells are bad because the undead abominations draw life from others or come back pet cemetery type wrong depending on your GM. Animate dead type spells where you use a temporarily animated zombie or somethingis probably fine provided the spell is structured in a way that it only lasts about as long as shifts are pumped into persistence.
•   Sixth Law: Never swim against the currents of time. This one is a nobrainer as it has horrible universe breaking consequences. Spells like haste where you perceive/experience time faster are fine. Much more however is almost certain to result in an angry GM & a player with a lawbreaker stunt

• Seventh Law: Never seek knowledge from beyond the Outer Gates. Summoning up/questioning things from the plane of insanity/chaos is probably a bad idea for anyone. Casters should be extra careful with this kinda thing, the planar cosmology in your game is important to this one being relevant or not.

DFRPG / Made some newbie GM mistakes & need some "HALP!" on a timeline fork world fix

« on: July 05, 2012, 08:18:29 PM »

Newbieish GM needs some “halp!!” Please

Not really a spoiler… But it’s a longish explaination of where things went wrong in my game that I think might answer some questions folks migtht have about how things got to this point

(click to show/hide)

I’m planning to wipe the slate using the sixth law & would like some extra eyes to critique things for me or give suggestions on a possible alternate timestream:

Warlock living in an area of the world that effectivelly has no white council/redcourt or.... anything presence that might serve as a check decides to violate the sixth lsaw & go back in time (or send someone) to assassinate hitler & make the world a better place… without considering the butterly effect it would kick off. This happens to be the present broken timestream.
The world is drastically different as a result of that action, instead of Hitler, there was (& maybe still is) a Kemmler! WW2 played out pretty similar to how it did originally except for the white council throwing in with the US after the perl harbor massacre when hundreds/thousands of formerly dead folks burried in hawaii rose up & attacked the battleships like had been rumored to have been happening in europe during the war..
as a result I get to tell everyone their old godlike & unattached broken sheet of numbers was never born, or had a wildly different upbringing that put them elsewhere & hand out less godlike pregenerated characters for folks to pick from until the group is ready to make their own characters properly instead of starting out replacements to the group in a game that’s effectively broken . Since most of them are effectively sheets of numbers, I can’t see any of them caring much
I’m thinking that maybe the white council & magic should be openly ccepted as part of society/governance. Maybe even having wardens employed by the state in many places. The open acceptance of magic would probably lead to things like were-wolf anti narcotics teams& other such things to help players not familiar with the dresden books to get settled more easily. Instead of lonewolf were’s with no ties, they can just be a former/current dea agent/cop or something & it makes it much harder to be talented with powers in some way without being tied to the world like some of the original players tried to do.
Maybe Kemmler is still around over in europe where he has a nice little germany & france sized nation carved out of doctor doom styleentrenched power far too massive to even consider taking on any time soon. Of course that presence would lead to quite a few more necromancers & wqarlocks springing up elsewhere in places the characters see
The “I hex their guns/the security systems” easy button gets far less simple to hit as there is likely to be more hex resistant/proof weapons & people are less likely to be surprised by it wondering why their stuff sudden;lt quit working. Places with security are likely to rely on both technoligy and magic for security where applicable to avoid that easybutton from letting folks in unhindered

The part that I really need/want feedback on is this though… am I missing anything that should/could result from that sort of a timeline fork or setting myself up for problems I’m not thinking of? Are there any good ideas for inclusion you guys can think to add?

DFRPG / PEACH Assessments, navelgazing & declarations, & maneuvers...

« on: March 21, 2012, 11:08:18 PM »

I'm probably not the only person who has had players scratch their heads & go "HUH?!" and wildly crazy maneuvers/declarations amounting to "GOTO:END" after explaining some of the concepts behind fate to players with a strong background in RPG's... So I figured this would be good both for getting some critique & potentially helping others. PEACH gets used a lot on some other RPG forums and stands for Please Examine And Critique Honestly, it seemed apt to include in the title

. So what do you guys think?

First: the source video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OvaSrikG6Q I've started loosening the training- wheels on my players over the last few weeks, social combat has been going decently well, but they were still having trouble with assessments & declarations in general. I made this to hopefully give them a bit of of grounding on the concepts behind them hoping it would help. I'm still being pretty permissive with them since it's still a bit too early for most of them to be going without the training wheels. This seemed to help them & hopefully it can help others, or help even more with feedback

For those who don’t watch the competence porn show Leverage, The characters:
* Eliott Spencer: Pure mortal beatemup man
** Crazy good at physicaly neutralizing threats with an aversion to guns due to some past trauma that’s unimportant for this. Usually neutralization is nonfatal & involves minimal disturbance or collateral damage. Also great with assessing threats, probably due to a stunt that allows him to use weapons or fiststo assess any type of weapon guns & such.
* Nathan Hall: Criminal mastermind with a robinhood complex
** Tired of spending too many years as an insurance investigator he eventually broke down after the death of his son & decided that he could turn his whitehat inside out and gather a crew cponsisting of the best of the best in their own criminal fields to pull the bag over those who deserve it and help those who were screwed. (troubles & other details unimportant for this example)
* Sophie Devereaux: Social engineering specialist (grifter)
** excels at pickpocketing, NLP, & stunt driving among other things thanks to some stunts. She’s a badass, but not in this situation just like Elliott would be out of his element where she can shine.

*0:00-0:03
**Group broke into & are trying to escape from bigbad’s warehouseafter collecting the macguffin (unimportant for example what). The warejhouse is “loaded with boxes & machinery, dimly lit, & has a concrete floor.
** Group had decided that it would be best to move quickly & that the safest way would be to have badass eliott in front to do what he does best, Nathan behind him just in case he can help a little bit since he’s not great at a fight, but can do more than slap someone. & have sophie in the rear to give her an aspect of “hopefully they don’t see my face” in case she needs to break off & do some social engineering.
*** Since this point is stated why the aspect is setup, the GM is aware of that possible intent in case they didn’t make the connection & can plkan for the possibility in a way that might allow it to be tagged whenever reasonableinstead of just relegating sophie to Hey social mcsocial, go make drinks while we deal with the sweaty dirty stuff” for the same reason her plans often involve the other groupmembers. Everyone is there to have fun.
** The group has stated they will continue this way until they notice something unexpected , are forced to make a choice of some sort, or are otherwise stopped
*** The game is not a tactical simulation & shouldn’t be treated as such. They state their goals, setup how they are going about them, what they expect will make them change from their current path instead of just saying “ok misterGM, what happens next?” since the expect something is likely to happen given that they just broke into the bigbad’s warehouse
* 00:06-00:08
** GM announces that one of the bigbad’s security guys guy in a suit charges around the corner & does a quick initiative check. At this point it doesn’t really need to break down into full out turnbased combat b/c eliott is probably going to neutralize him or he’s going to fire his gun & alert the others
*** Eliott wins the roll & tries to setup a fists based block to disarm him while working towards neutralizing him
*** Nate & Sophie back off and try to setup aspects of giving Elliott room to play.
*** Security guy struggles to escape from the block so he can fire his gun in offense/defense
*** Eliott tags the room to play aspect Nate & Sophie setup & combined with his own fists roll handily wtfpwns securityguy declaring that he knocks him out as the takeout.
* 00:08-00:24
** Eliott states that he’s going to perform a maneuver of kinda pressing himself up against the wall of stuff to setup a “sneakysneaky & covered” aspect before he inches out to listens for sound around the corner & ake a relevant skillcheck
** GM takes an alertness roll & announces that Elliot can hear more people around the corner running around with purpose, but not towards him
** Nate & Sophie admit that Eliott is best for this & let him assess the threat
** Eliott quickly peeks around the corner to scope out what’s there & announces he wants to do it only enough to get a quick glance to avoid being seen.
** GM takes an alertness roll modified by stealth & Eliott tags his sneakysneaky aspect to be sure he gets a nice result.
** GM announces that he sees almost a room of boxes & such with suited thugs hiding behind stuff they can use as cover while some of them are readying their guns & taking defensive stances (stetting yup their own aspects)
* 00:25-00:39
** Nate offers to spend a fate point to tag his criminal mastermind high concept & declare that the group just needs to get through that door on the other side of that room.
** GM accepts the declaration.
** Eliott makes a weapons check modified by weapons & announces that the room is a killbox with too much space to easily get through alive
* 00:39-00:45
** Nate & sophie confirm they are sure that the macguffin is enough to takedown the bigbad
** 00:46-00:52
** Eliott take’s the unconscious mook’s gun & offers to spend a point of refresh trying to work out with the GM to amend his existing stunt to include the usage of guns with the weapons skill under extreme situations if he takes a mental consequence after the adrenaline rush is past.
*** GM agrees & provisionally allows it for this once without spending the refresh just yet, but states he can even tag his trouble while using them in exchange for raising the consequence severity & detriment to the character that the GM will assign after the adrenaline rush.
**** Eliott’s player kinda likes the way he doesn’t use guns and internally cheers while being happy to have an excuse to keep that trouble, so agrees that it’s a great compromise
*   00:53-00:57
**   Nate tries to put an “I got your back with this” aspect on Elliot to let him know that he knows what kind of line he’s about to cross & will be there to support him with pulling himself back together.
** Eliot is meanwhile setting up navel gazing aspects of “clips tucked into in the right spot”, “clothes won’t bind or catch” using appropriate skillchecks (weapons &/or maybe athletics/fists)
* 00:59-1:00
*** Eliot charges out shooting to cover himself while moving towards the nearest cover
* He continues his block until 1:09 while,making an assessment for an “I know where everyone is” aspect when some close calls not shown nearly inflict a point of stress if it wasn’t for the cover & he ducks down behind his cover announcing to the Gm that he hopes that if he stays down a little bit they will realize that he’s not going to just pop up & he might have a better chance of doing more than just putting up a block with his gun. (GM knows why & knows the intent now)
* Clip of something that didn’t quite get fully cut in the videosnippet
* 1:33
** Eliot does some navel gazing maneuvers reading & loading his gun to setup “fully loaded” & “cocked & ready” aspects while making sure they are clear o anything that might causer a jam to setup a “my guns are clear” aspect.
* 1:35-1:40
** Eliot pops out tagging aspects like mad to shoot at folks while on his way to the next bit of cover. Because of the aspects & cover he manages to avoid taking any stress while taking out a few of them along the way.
* 1:40-1:51 Eliot spends a fate point to declare that one of the security guys went down near enough to his cover spot to have his gun within reach
** Elliot now has two guns
* 1:46- 1:58ish
** GM announces that the mooks are starting to creep up on him & starting to hit pretty close with their shots.
** Eliot burns a fate point to tag the “I know where everyone is a second time & tries to pop the nearest guys who has the best shot on”
** GM gets a few rolls & explains the competence porn while admitting that there are still a lot of smarter guys left to deal with & gunning for him.
* 1:58-2:04
** Elliot makes an weapons roll modified by athletics as discussed with the GM so he can head for better cover & setup a new aspect of “everyone is in my path” while shooting at them hoping for the best & to keep them from charging.
* 2:04-2:14
** Eliott spends a fate point to declare that one of the mooks is using big barrels of aviation grade lubricant with the intent of using it for conveyance for himself
*** GM likes the idea & goes with it letting Eliot have a quick weapons roll to shoot some holes in it from behind his cover with the last of his clip
* 1:16-2:25
** Eliot makes some quick assessments to search a nearby dead goon for his gun & any clips he might have while dodging & ducking from falling debris thanks to the mook’s gunfire.
* 2:30
** GM announces that the aspect “lubricated floor” has been added to the scene & the mooks have quit shooting pointlessly at his cover
* 2:35-3:08
** Eliot walks out with guns down in nonthreatening position setting up a new “I know where everyone is” aspect, “guns are clear & cocked”, & “the room is in my head” before taking a deep breath & using discipline to setup a “calm & focused” aspect
* 3:12-3:40
** Competence porn as Eliot runs & slides across the floor on his knees taking out mook after mook & tagging his aspects like mad to get through it safely while taking out as many as possible
*   3:40 Eliot spends a fate point to declare that there are some 55gallon drum barrels stamped “danger explosive material that might be close enough to the remaining mooks to do some real damage if given cause to explode GM knows why & what the goal behind the declaration is instead of a possible “and it explodes, but nobody was near it.. oh wait can I do something else instead?” retcon problem since the GM would probably mention that none of the ex-special forces guards are near them & the character recognizes that if it were the case. If you’re making a seemingly harmless declaration & the GM has no idea why or for what goal, he can’t warn you of the flaw in your cunning plan. Exploding some barrels to find out that he just wasted an attack to discover that he’s up against ex-special forces types is probably not high on Eliot’s list of priorities now that his slide came to an end & he’s out in the open.
* 3:46 on. Eliott scopes out the scene & tucks his guns in where they will be “quickly reachable” (aspect) while standing up on a box to get away from the fire & scope out the scene
** Bigbad’s top muscle comes out from some pocket dimension & taunts Eliot at gunpoint before he shoots him dead by tagging the “quickly reachable” aspect to get the jump on him & ditches the guns in disgust while walking off into the metaphorical sunset
* GM announces that the tags to his trouble would have resulted in an extreme consequence of “haunted by past wrongs“, but Nate’s peptalk chipped that down to only a major consequence of “a bit unfocused”
** Everyone had fun watching the carnage play out across the table & Eliot/Nate might be a little closer. It wasn't a one sided snooze fest for everyone but Eliot, just the other bits were chopped out by whoever posted the video & the rest of the 40 minute episode is also hacked out

* This http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMx5FIINH6Y&feature=related is another good example of using a social skill (rapport/deceit, maybe both) to setup aspects for an impending physical combat. Just because something is a social skill or combat skill. doesn’t mean that it can’t be used in place of starting (or during) a fight of the other sort to setup one or more aspects in your favor
* As is this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRve_JBoIro&feature=related a perfect example of a more social person working to flip a situation in favor of a more physical one’s favor by setting up some aspects (" They know I’m fake" & a free tag on his relevant aspect due to the coffee spill)! Just because your not the most social of butterflies/physical of bees doesn’t mean that you can’t sometimes contribute to those situations that you don’t excel at. Your aspect counts the same as the king’s aspect does to a fight/scene, it goes one further by doing it without the king having to do anything to set the aspect up

DFRPG / The nevernever & a maximum security prison... what's on the other side?

« on: March 16, 2012, 05:08:27 AM »

So my players, specifically a fae PC, owe someone a favor. The someone in question happens to be in a low security prison ;)and the poor guy is possibly about to get screwed by a different PC's trouble aspect

. The nevernever is sure to be quadruple plus ungood on the other side. my first thought while planning was "there's no way they would try to escape him through the nevernever if he winds up in maximum security, who cares what's there" and then I thought about my players & realized how wrong that I probably was on that note. so far the nevernever has been very safe for them, and adding the fear of thenevernever opening to actually unpleasant places beyond just explosive gas, scorching pillars of light, etc appeals to me.

So what would you say is on the neverever side of a maximum security prision? , feel free to let out your inner evil-MWahahaha demon

DFRPG / What you put in a GM screen?

« on: March 04, 2012, 07:20:35 AM »

I got a spiffy 4 panel GM screen that lets me slide printouts into both front & back of each of the 4 panels (4 player facing, 4 GM facing). I have some ideas about 2 of the 4 GM facing panels, bt not sure about the player facing ones

DFRPG / mwahaha players & fae...

« on: November 28, 2011, 07:57:06 PM »

I'd been warning my players about what they say to powerful fae being as potentially dangerous as trying to sneak a bad wish past a gm in D&D since the start of our game.. then the other day they went to see the summer lady....

they started at the front gates once they got there by the cop in the party showing his badge & saying hi I'm agent [name] with the [department]... these are my associates, we'd like to speak with the summer lady about a missing persons investigation.

It was unexpected given their past & the way they had been trying to decide how/if they were even going to approach the guard But they were polite, stated who they represented & that they wished to speak with the lady.

During the eventual conversation with the summer lady, one of the players said something to the effect of the missing persons being citizens they were responsible for. I had warned them as the GMto be careful during the conversation multiple times by that point... when the summer lady excitedy clapped in glee while turning to the cop, "is this true?.. are you responsible for all mortals under the accords?".. they wisely explained that it was not all mortals, just a specific subset of them, mostly just US citizens and a few others. They gave her a business card to contact him if there is ever a question that might need their involvement...

To make a long story short, she was so happy with that, that she solved the minor missing persons problem they were working on in exchange they remained polite the entire time as they had learned the importance of politeness with less powerful supernatural types through past run ins with them...

mwahaha... what would you do? I don't think they realized why she was so excited

DFRPG / something cool I've noticed about the fate core, campaign startup post-mortem

« on: November 12, 2011, 04:05:07 AM »

When I first started my dfrpg campaign after convincing some folks that it *had* to be better than the pathfinder game the GM had been admitting he no longer had time to run we were playing... I was worried about folks looking at the cool example templates & getting turned off by not being able to afford most of them, so I started at 7 refresh/30 skill points (I gave extra skill-points because I didn't want them to be afraid of allocating them) I set the skillcap at 5.

Even though people have long since allocated their skillpoints, I think everyone has done 4 as the top of their skill allocation or has the 5 in an almost never used skill.

even though we are playing with fairly high power/level characters, I've had people join and play without even having a character sheet with any skills/powers allocated for a bit & they fit in just fine with the more powerful group members in ways a level 0/1 character in most other systems could never hope to do with much higher level characters around
I think going forward in new games, I'll probably start out with much lower refresh levels. Maybe not even defined ones, just "what kinda character do you want"... oh a were-cougar?... and a half-troll thugthat's really strong? ok beast form/echoes" are yours & inhuman strength plus this here stunt we work out together yours"... "and you wanna be a wizard?... ok how about a wizard in training or a self taught wizard who doesn't know how much they don't know to it? lets whittle it down a bit together some"... "mister wizard you get 1 unspent refresh, troll/were- get [more], you all get x skillpoints(but maybe not the same amount, but not a glut) skillcap at 2"

the low skillcap lets me give that skillcap bump out once everyone kinda starts to gel together as a group.

The low & uneven refresh values means I can give it out more often without worrying about people with too much refresh while still letting everyone start out with what they think is cool & growing it slowly over time instead of suddenly having a huge selection of every power they think might be cool. if they really want [other power], they can work it in slowly to the character concept until they get the refresh they need for it. The uneven refresh doesn't really matter, I could start off new players at the same level the originals started off later in the campaign without worry about them being left feeling useless while I'm letting them more rapidly grow than the originals and feel like they are really growing their character nicely. I'd probably start them with around the same skillpoints/cap though as the cap seems to be the big deciding factor in how "powerful" a character's contribution can be when the dicerolls matter.

Aside from the above, the biggest change I'd make going from the start with a new group would be to define more of the world from the start, originally I was too worried about stomping on potential player ideas for the world & they were having trouble grasping the idea that the system was so freakishly fluid that they really could build the world with almost equal say while playing the game without breaking things. it took them a few games where I outright told them I went into it with a strong sense of a starting point, a general (or no) idea on the ending point, and maybe a couple bgits that I would like to slip into the middle bits, but they really did have the entire freaking world at their disposal & things were not set in stone. it took a few games to go from getting the occasional blank stare and "so do we know anyone who might know about..." and "can I use x to research & maybe find out about/who..." to "what kinda contacts roll would I need to make to know someone involved with [group/thing]... maybe his name is..., and he's kinda..." type things, but it was freaking beautiful once that started happening

I've been really happy with it so far though

Edit: another thing I'd probably do is... instead of just giving major milestones when appropriate is "you can have a major milestone by RAW or a major milestone with a stunt & skillpoint instead of the refresh point alone"

DFRPG / has anyone tried an incremental advancement houserule?

« on: October 30, 2011, 12:07:35 AM »

The milestone concept is a nice one, and I like it... but I find myself wanting for an experience/karma type of addition to the game to reward things like good roleplaying or contributions to the campaign website in minor but bankable ways. Lets face it, fate points are cool and all, but I'd like to have something a little bit more fine grained & less immediate for stuff that would normally get a few % extra experience/karma in a d&d/shadowrun type game. I worry about the possibility of too many fate points floating around over time with using fate points.

does anyone have any thoughts on the idea, or even better a system they tried that worked well/comments on what failed with their attempt?

DFRPG / Real life guiding your game?

« on: October 28, 2011, 08:34:28 PM »

I wanted to include some fun news stories for my players & let it help shape the world a bit and give them the chance to decide where to take the game without me needing to lead them quite as much towartds things. My original intent was to just pick odd stories from fark & such then just florida/dresden-ize them a bit

But then I decided to look for odd Florida news & was amused to find that they really didn't take much tweaking to fit them into the dresdenverse, the majority of the changes were just moving it to a different part of florida

has anyone else done something like this for their campaign?... is Florida as unique as fark makes it out to be?

Here's some news!
http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/florida-goes-bump/wikis/recent-news

DFRPG / So I got to run night fears for some total dresden newbies!

« on: September 06, 2011, 09:37:47 PM »

I'd been trying to gather folks into a dresden game around my (strange) work schedule for a while with some difficulties that were mostly due to the fact that my work schedule conflicts with a lot of people. the GM in a monday night pathfinder game I play in was going to be busy with a report of some kind and didn't think he'd be able to make it. One of the players brought some kind of Ad&d looking remake quickstart game thing he picked up at gencon, I brought night fears

. Since the guy who brought the other game had been interested in trying dresden, but conflicted with my other day off due to social obligations he had with his GF.. he voted for trying out dresden & the other guy agreed to give it a spin on the condition that we try out the other game if dresden seems to flop or something. Plus "how long could it take, we can probably finish either game up quick and start on the other one right?".... mwahaha!... That was at about 6pm. My players settled on mike the ectomancer for othergame guy & chris? the changeling for "how long could it take?" guy

The two made some jokes about the fact that all the characters seemed to look like they were like 10 or so while I was explaining that in the full blown game it's not just kids, just the pregens are for a simple no background needed quickstart sorta thing. & kids are easy enough to adjust as desired without complications due to the blank slate. I explained how they could be older if they wanted and asked the ho's idea was it to spend the night style questions.

It was decided that it wasn't a frat hazing thing and that chris was doing it to impress the girl character on a dare she gave him, but they were twenty somethings. He was also the one who experienced a death in the family (brother>plane crash>he blames a ghost for the crash and wants to destroy them all)... Mike the ectomancer was friends with chris since they were kids & decided that chris maybe suspects a little that he can d stuff b/c he's always getting "creepy feelings" before something happens... but probably doesn't know the full extent of his power.

I describe the mansion and ask them if they did any research beforehand or brought anything with them. Chris said he would have gone to the library and looked at some old newspapers & stuff & maybe brought a map, backpack, & crowbar. By sheer coincidence I had run off extra copies of the floorplan, gave him one & asked if he brought one for mike. Chris brought a flashlight and "like a pencil or something... maybe smaller" that he like to use his illusions to make look like other stuff. The map was pretty useful since we could draw on it and I could use it to explain the concept of zones, we had a dry erase grid map at the table, but I decided it was probably going to just complicate things compared to the maps and explained there are rules for using a grid map, but sit would probably be overkill for this and we could pull it out later if we decide we need it. Mike was getting a soda or some snacks or something out of the kitchen a few feet away (but in earshot) at this point. Seeing a chance to introduce the magic>technology fail mixing thing, I say "and you brought lets say a cellphone? I'll even let you use it for looking up stuff on the interwebs if you have a reason to"... Mike agrees that it sounds like a good idea and takes his smartphone with a flashlight app... He gets back to the table and displays his own with a giggle

. I asked them to just come up with a ghost story in the back of their head that may or may not get used or be important later and kick things off.

They decided to sneak in through the back door, which I decided led to that little closet looking spot near the stairs with the help of Chris' crowbar to pry open the boards so they can get in.

***
Originally I had intended to try and figure out some way to try and point out that chris has a difficulty with steel/iron using the cast iron sink so I could sorta drop in some setting shading... crowbar was just too perfect! Even better was he decided he stole it when I asked where he got it. I told chris it kinda tingles/feels odd in his hand, He chuckled and figures I'm saying he stole the "one crowbar in the world that's cold iron". I explain that it doesn't hurt or anything, just feels odd sorta like some people are allergic to nickles and any kind of iron/steel is enough, it's not just some hard to find crazy metal like D&D... The two think that's kinda cool & make it inside without trouble. I don't even think I made them roll to check given the presence of the crowbar and fun so far.
***

Originally they wanted to check out the kitchen first. Since that takes them through the main living room first, I got to start out with that after describing the little closet they came in through.

They ask if the spot in the kitchen could be blood & figure maybe it might be where he killed his wife while searching through the kitchen. By this point, I still was going 50/50 on if it was going to be survival horror or mystery... They find the tools and start talking about "stealing" them... I bang the table. "ok!... not stealing... maybe we will just leave them there and take them with us for now, but promise to put them back later" says mike. before taking the screwdriver & hammer in case & because he lacks a spiffy crowbar like chris.

Kinda freaked out, they go back to the living room and head to the dining room where I describe an old empty dining room with a hanging chandelier.Chris tries to invoke the old light to fall, I ask why it would fall or what he's trying to accomplish with the fall... He doesn't know & just figures it would be cool but wasn't trying to do anything. I explain there are limits to invokes and they can cause situations that give a bonus or penalty to someone/thing's roll, but have to be things that could possibly happen. They agree that it's unlikely the light would choose now to fall after 60+ years of hanging there & chris starts trying to convince mike to take it with him. After a bit of watching chris try to goad mike into taking it I decided to try compelling mike to point out the fact that chris us the one with the backpack. I don't remember what aspect I compelled (or if I even used an aspect, just seemed natural & I wanted to show how compels could be anything other than awful). mike agreed & did the expected "why are you asking me?... you want it & you got the freaking backpack, you take it... that thing looks heavy & we are going to be here all night, I don't even want it". Chris pretty quickly relents and the two start talking about moving on to continue exploring. At this point mike asks how he can use his described ectomancer abilities like talking with ghosts for information & such... "ever seen that ghosthunters show where they run around talking to ghosts?.. give it a try!

" ....

"mrs cranston?... are you there? it's alright, we aren't here to hurt you... can you come out and talk to us?" I decide this brings out a bang from the kitchen and sorta scratching rustling noise from the living room. Not wanting to tangle with the bang, they check out the living room and I decide to put her fingerbone in the wall behind the mattress

wondering if the mattress is there because "someone might still living here like some crazy homeless person or something?" Having previously described it as old &moldy I give it more detail and have them imagine a mattress left outside in the back yard for a week then pulled into the garage to grow because it's probably been sitting there for like 60 years in the Florida humidity and broken boarded up windows, but the mold doesn't look disturbed after making an average alertness(?) check by tagging mike's suspicious(?) aspect after an unlucky -3/-4 set of rolls. Thy think it's pretty cool that they get to make the roll then decide to start tagging aspects if it's not good enough while d&D/PF & most stuff is the other way around.After a lot of suspicion that the mattress was a trap or going to hurt them, they decide to use the crowbar to pull the mattress away from the wall. The rustling noises stop as soon as they start moving it...

"mrs. Cranston?" >rustle rustle rustle... They start digging into the wall with the crowbar & mike hears some sobbing coming through the hole in the wall & eventually pulls back enough of the wall & insulation to find the fingerbone. (mike pulling & chris making shadowpuppets of bunnies and such in sarcasm admittedly not trying to scare mike "because it's freaking obvious, it's like bunnies and stuff")

Mike decides to keep the fingerbone with him in his jacket pocket. Chris doesn't believe it's a fingerbone and sticks with the idea that it could be anything, but mike is blowing it out of proportion & the noises were just rats or something.

They decide to go visit the kitchen with the fingerbone *bang table*. The spot does not like them coming back in the room like they did (with her bone). They stay along the back wall and mike tries to have a brief conversation with a rather despondant mr cranston who keeps talking about his wife in not too pleasant terms about how she killed his little boy. Eventually that conversation plays out its usefulness and they decide it best to go check out the study. while chris (still) has only heard bangs and mike at this point is calling mike a little crazy & trying to just scare him or something so he can get with the girl he wanted.

They head over to the study where I describe an old desk and bookshelf with lots of old books suffering from years of florida humidity exposure. Mike gets suspicious of me and asks if there are any books talking about the old ones or lovecraftian horror type things. I chuckle and ask him how hard he's going to be looking.. he just wants to do a quick scan of the covers and such. I describe that it's mostly old "grown up" type books like encyclopedias,dictionaries, etc.. but nothing looking out of the ordinary.()neither one knows -anything- about the dresden setting beyond a quick 2 minute introduction earlier & what I told them about the cranston house, it seemed a reasonable worry)

I eventually point out that they are going to be spending the night in the cranston house and ask if they have decided where they are going to stay when they start trying to really dig into the books out of suspicion. I'm getting a distinct "why would there be books if they weren't an important clue"* vibe at this point & decided to try and move on to act2 if need be... they head upstairs!
mike manages a miraculously high alertness roll at the top of the stairs (it was like +6 or possibly better!) thanks to some tags and fate point spending. I point out that he sees the string to pull down the attic stairs is right there & he (but not chris) can hear the sobbing in the bedroom along with the occasional "horrible things" and "I did it... my fault" type thing. They head in there and talk to mrs cranston who eventually tells them to go check the attic for her proof.
I veered off the module a long time ago, in the attic they find someboxes, paintings (probably the ones that were on the walls downstairs) & her wedding dress Chris is still looking for riches and tries to invoke a civil war era rifle... I point out this all happened in the nineteen thirties and that such a thing might be out of place, what did he wamt it for & such "You know how valuable that would be?! ", he says in a way that reminds me if bob. I decide "no.. but you do find mrs cranston's jewelrey box with all it's jewelry in it"... "Score!", Chris giggles in glee about how he's going to pawn it and take the girl out to dinner & shag or something. The two are about to leave the attic with the hidden compartment still unfound & chris decides to check out the wedding dress. On their way over there a floorboard creaks and they stand frozen with chris thinking the attic floor is going to fall & mike wanting to investigate it, he finds her knife/silver cup/sketchpad.

The two look at the sketchpad& think it's pretty creepy stuff but wonder what was up with the knife & bowl. They decide to go ask mister cranston in case his wife is a possible threat.

Back in the kitchen they find out that mr cranston thinks he should have known something was wrong with her because she used to use the knife to bleed rats into the bowl for the "little people". Chris is being his usual silly making comments about his wife ("bet she was hot", "ask him if I can do her")type stuff through the whole conversation betwen mike & mister cranston who decided to be sitting on the counter (I forgot the chair originally) for the conversation. During the conversation mike tries to convince chris to be a little more respectful, chris still doesn't the ghost is real "Pfft... what's it gonna do, send rats to come attack me?".

Mister cranston laughs in amusement after a rat runs up chris' leg (2 mental stress after the roll, (I rolled good & him bad repeatedly, but he got it to +2 vrs +0) I got to explain consequences & both thought it was kinda neat.

Chris swats the rat across the room with the crowbar & kills it in the process. & eventually I decide to tell them that mike can hear a baby shrieking downstairs in the basement leaving them to run offand check on the screaming.

I describe the basement for them, low ceiling, dirt floors, the baby crib/furniture over in one corner & the furnace in the other (still shrieking for mike).Mike tries to convince chris that he hears a shrieking baby & warrily takes the crowbar to open it. Mike sees a transparant ghostly baby shrieking & on inside... chris sees nothing inside.
Mike decides to take the baby out and the flames stop immediately leaving him with a somewhat burned baby cooing in his arms (which chris can not see & is calling mike crazy). Mike puts the baby in the crib & it crawls over to curl up with the teddy bear.
The two decide to go tell the cranstons that they saved the baby. Mister cranston (first stop) quickly runs downstairs & chris hears the footsteps.
Not sure if they want to risk his wife just yet, they eventually go back to the basement to find him holding the baby with tears streaming down his face. Through conversation they learn that he was burned whenever he tried to take the baby out.... I raise a pair of crossed fingers and explain that magic works partly because the practitioner *believes* it will work. mr cranston was burned because he believed it would, mike was not because he did not (and I wanted to see what he was going to do!).

They decide to try using the smashed rat to fill the cup in the backyard and see what comes. Chris puts up a veil & mike goes upstairs looking through a window by way of the reflection on his iphone (thanks to chris' suggestion!).

At this point, everyone was still having fun (it was probably like 9pm or so) so I decide to have a sidhe come out of the forest. I think I called her Seline & she started chatting with chris... who tries to find out what she was to mrs cranston. She explains that he has nothing of value to her that he would be willing to part with & suggests he go ask her Eventually mike notices the reflection thing was bunk & comes outside to check on the two. Seline is friendly but sufggests they go ask her again. Eventually she agrees to trade chris his blood for the answer. I kinda do the cross fingers thing and point out that he'd bordering on trading "his blood" and that he can pretty much treat the entire conversation as like trying to get an iffy wish past the GM in d&d where the letter & intent were not the same & she steps through to the nevernever using a tear she created. I'm still being generous at this point and allow him to revise it as a small amount at a time over the course of 500 years (at his suggestion!), she accepts and mike is expecting this to kill the adventure, I point out that it's not and one of the really nice things about the system is that it makes it a lot easier than d&d type games for the GM to wing it even with a split party. Mike had tried to go along initially, but Seline told him she couldn't guarantee his safety & didn't think he could get back to the mortal realm on his own. Mike was wise enough not to try and bargain.

Chris walks towards arctis tor while chatting with Seline & I eventually cut back to mike who had passed through about 30 seconds of time by now with the tear only closing a moment ago. He decides to go talk to Mrs cranston (We called her Maggie).

Maggie is happy that her baby was saved and explains how it's probably not important to keep it secret now, given her being dead & all, but Seline was her teacher & was teaching her to control her powers. She explains through conversation that she was giving selene the rats blood as payment, but "oh god no I wasn't stupid enough to give her -my- blood.. oh you say your fried did?.. maybe we can save him"
Mike & Maggie go back outside & call Seline back with maggie's instructions.

Cut back to chris, a year has passed with him in arctis tor & Seline explains how he needs to come with her because she can't guarantee the safety of her investment while she's gone and that she needs to go to the mortal realm to uphold her end of a previous bargain.

Chris comes back with Seline in a new wardrobe a year older and tells mike about all the hot fae chick he was with (Chris's kid will come up in a future game I'm sure!). Maggie & Seline work out that it's not a secret anymore and the debt between the two can go to the kids. Chris figures it's about time to be getting baxk to his remaining 498 years and 287 days of the bargain and remembers the blood on the dress (I had firgitten but earlier suggested could have been Maggie's). After helping him around a couple oops bragains trying to get them used to dealing with fae while the risks were low, he eventually was able to bring her the bloodstained dress & Seline agreed that she would accept it from Maggie on their behalf in exchange for Chris' debt

Eventually a cop came & chased them off, but I decided to wrap things up before continuing since it was after 10 already and these were just throwaway characters that weren't going to be reused in another game.

Everyone had fun & it's looking like I might get to have alternating mondays with our monday pathfinder game. The guy who didn't come said he didn't know there was a dresden game, but loves the series & would be all over the idea of joining one. The pathfinder GM likes the idea of taking a bit of a load off him with his reports and such sounds great.

DFRPG / Question for mods (and whoever) onDiscussing Ghost story (no spoilers!)

« on: July 27, 2011, 07:35:09 PM »

Please no spoilers in this thread, I want to talk about how we are going to discuss ghost story. I'm 26 chapters in and it's fairly obvious there might be some new stuff with potential mechanics questions to flesh out. When it comes to doing so, is it enough to simply put a spoiler! tag in the subject, or would discussions have to be entirely within spoiler tags?

DFRPG / battlemaps/grids/etc & dfrpg/fate

« on: June 22, 2011, 03:20:25 AM »

Has anyone already figured out a good system of merging zones with battlemaps and the like for situations where tactical is important for the situation? everything I can think of either gets needlessly complicated, leads to logical inconsistencies like the range on guns changing depending on where you are, or leads to glacial/super quick movement and defeats the purpose of using a grid/hexmap.

I'm thinking maybe allowing base athletics+2df square(or hexes) as a supplemental action, defining a zone as whatever number of squares and allowing sprint to move zones instead of squares with difficult terrain imposing penalties of some sort. Walking through sludge might be -N to walk or the action it was supplemental to, sprinting could be a might/alertness/athletics/etc check to avoid falling/stumbling/etc based on terrain. tactical movement becomes glacial at lower power levels

Adjusting zonesize based on terrain is a little less complex/arbitrary, but encounters problems when you do things like say a gun fires this far in a big sandtrap but that far in a nice smooth parking lot unless you make it even more complicated by saying zonesize for movement is X, but Y for attacking.

The big problem is that tactical movement becomes glacial at lower power levels and higher power levels turns everything with a good athletics skill into the flash

DFRPG / Need help...Hexing in an alternate reality with different history/rules

« on: June 14, 2011, 02:18:52 AM »

First, a little background.. a while back our regular gm decided he wanted to not be gm any longer & I volunteered for taking over it. various real world hassles in people's lives combined to grow a general boredom with d&d 3.5 in some folks grew into some foot dragging and difficulties getting folks interested in/willing to make time for reading the rules to some new system they were trying to push the group into playing due to their 3.5 boredom.I have some interest in dfrpg from a couple people but one is hemming an hawwing over the fact that he's ly read the first dresden book and that he wants to read more of them* before getting into dfrpg, being a reasonabe excuse for a change, I'm willing to give him some slack, but having thought up & put together two fairly deep campaign skeletons for two entirely incompatible games/worlds (D&D +rifts) that this particular person was one of the loudest not dnd folks only after I was ready to start things.. then dragged his feet on aything rifts related.. each time naming a different KoS faction as the character he thought would be cool whenever I started making a rifts campaign... so I'm inclined to tell him to suck it up because YS doesn't really have any spoilers that compare to the back of the book summaries or your average movie trailer and give him some breathing room by setting the game in an earth that had a wildly different history/set of rules. using the autum and spring courts instead of summer/winter. now that some of the reall world issues people had are wrapping up.

Specifically the world would be one where magic was always around based on some fiction I remember reading. Why would Edison try inventing the light bulb or bell the telephone when every general store and local thaumaturgist could sell you a cheap crystal light or speaking stone. Why go through the trouble and danger of mining coal and building steam powered locomotives when you can just enchant the wheels to go or make a magic black box engine that turns them. Sure technology might be around, but just generally not worth the effort/risk/cost of trying to make a magicless version so you have horseless carriages instead of cars, Ethernet sites, browsers, and servers running through a crystal ball or something illusory instead of internet & computers. Saturday morning "action" cartoons are abut folks with crazy technology equivalent to the sort of magic/spititual stuff we see. Magic should follow some rules though so it's not too crazy/alien and n need of severe tweaking, I'm thinking function follows form being a big one.. a horseless carriage that looks like a carriage should be easier & cheaper to enchant/build because the general population knows a carriage sud drive and that faith makes the difference. a modern day car looking almost nothing like a carriage would be possible but way more expensive and difficult to build because each component would need to be enchanted to think it was the carriage equivalent and such. 50/60's creature feature moves would have been about the demon infused/black magic infused creatures crazed wizards let loose/created accidentally instead of radioactive mutated creatures wardens would just be a special branch of the police/govt agency. obviously that sort of world would have a much higher level of practitioners and having hexing do the same sort of thing it does in core would basically make it either useless or highly overpowered by letting it disrupt magic so easily... what should hexing do though?

*as soon as he finishes some other book series he will get started on books 2+ then dfrpg he said

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