Dresden Files Accelerated Magic?

[austinmonster]

First off - I love the Dresden files game.  I've been reading it since it came out, and even ran it a few times.  These few instances were usually for family and friends though, and my FLGS has opened up a game center where people can play and run RPGs.  The problem that I've run into is thus, the more and more I've been reading, the more and more I realized that this system will be very difficult to teach newbies.  Fate is pretty simple to begin with, but the magic system of DFRPG is just ponderous.  It's heavy.  Normally I wouldn't mind that so much if it was just some esoteric part of the system that wasn't very central to the game - but let's be honest, Magic is what makes the Dresden files cool! 

When Evil Hat's big kickstarter came out, I was elated to find out that they were doing an Accelerated version of the DF rules.   However, the more and more I'm reading different versions of Fate, I can't help but imagine - how the hell is it going to work?

How is Fate Accelerated going to handle the Dresden Files magic?  Is it going to be just kinda handwaving?  Will there still be the stamina cruch?  Will they manage to keep the feel of the game while smoothing out the sheer pagecount of rules?

[Sanctaphrax]

There's no way to be sure how they'll do it, but they could use the system more-or-less as is if they wanted to. It's not really that complex.

As an example, here's a quick writeup of Evocation:

Evocation lets you throw around elemental force in direct and unsubtle ways.

Determine how many shifts the effect you want is, then take mental stress equal to the difference between that and your approach (minimum 1). Then roll your approach against that difficulty: if you succeed it works, if you fail you need to take physical or mental stress equal to the margin or lose that number of shifts from your spell and have the uncontrolled spell result in side effects. 1 shift gets you 1 block strength, 1 to your maneuver roll, or 1 weapon rating. Use the control roll to aim attacks.

They'd probably want to ditch foci and specializations, though. Maybe allow simple stunts to pick up the slack.

[austinmonster]

Part of me hopes they add some actual Stunts to the DF accelerated.   The idea that you just kinda come up with them is fun for some systems, but I think DF does better with a little crunch. 

That's great for Evocation, but you gotta wonder how Thaumaturgy is going to work. Arguably, that's the most complicated thing in the book!  I hope they come up with something simple for it as well.   Someone on Reddit said they may use something like what Astral Sea does. 

[Sanctaphrax]

Thaumaturgy would probably need a bit of simplification, but not a whole lot. Cutting out the items and removing the special case rules ought to be plenty.

Not sure what you mean about stunts. DFRPG's stunt system could be pretty well described as "just kinda come up with them", couldn't it?

[InFerrumVeritas]

Before I had to drop out of the playtest, I got to see the first document.  They have an interesting new mechanic that essentially divides characters into tiers.  Magic allows a character to perform an action at a higher tier.  Success and failure mean different things when different tiers interact (so you can't shoot Mab in the face and kill her).  It needed some work, but I'm really excited to see how it finally polishes up.

Casting didn't involve stress, but a different mechanic based around the FP economy.  And I think that's all that can be said without violating the NDA.