The Dresden Files RPG Session 2
Session 2 of our run through the Dresden Files RPG covers most of character creation. There was a lot of explaining and brainstorming going on, so we didn’t manage to make it through the whole process, but what’s left (skills, mostly) is going to be done off-mic. Check out what wacky characters we came up with for our urban fantasy version of DC!
Relevant Links
(coming soon!)
Crunchy Bits!
- Intro music from “The Wizard” by of Idle Thumbs
- Outro Music “Black Magic Woman” by Carlos Santana.
Podcast: |
Tags: CJ, Jen, Kevin, The Dresden Files, Troll
Just a quick note, locations have themes or threats. They aren’t themselves themes or threats.
Also a quick note: Binding Demons isn’t a lawbreaker all by itself, but binding it to break a law for you is. Morgan gave Harry such a hard time with toot because he’s Morgan, and was looking for the absolute thinnest excuse.
I sent the Kevin an e-mail about this, since I’m always worried about starting flame wars by saying critical things in pubic on the internet, but he thought it would be of more benefit if the discussion were public, so here goes.
When explaining the benefits of a high refresh, I’m a little worried about the amount of emphasis that was placed on the ability to compel other player characters. I’m not sure if the rules were designed with that possibility in mind (there’s a box page 107 that may be referring to that, or may be talking exclusively about compelling NPCs). The Walking Eye guys and gal like their games with a fair amount of PvP in them, and I bet they can make it work. I just thought I’d mention that, as far as I can tell, the DFRPG wasn’t designed with robust support for PC vs. PC conflicts. I just want to be sure they realize that they might be drifting the game a little farther than they intended.
Also, there may be two issues here. 1. Using compels for one PC to manipulate another PC, which might, used sparingly, work nicely in a story sense. e.g. Murphy arresting Harry and dragging him into the station in Storm Front. 2. One player using compels to push their creative agenda at the expense of other players. The second, IMHO, can be some bad mojo.
I could be wrong about this. I’d love to hear if the guys at Evil Hat think the mechanics will do a good job of supporting that kind of play.
If I were in a DRFPG game with higher levels of PvP, I’d want to make explicit some things that are usually left up to the GM’s discretion. There have to be some firm guidelines about PCs knowing other PC’s aspects. You can’t compel if you don’t know the aspect that you’re compelling, so keeping those a secret from the other PCs becomes more important. I’d also make sure everyone has a good understanding for what makes an appropriate and fun compel, and what is just jack-assery; How far is too far to push with a compel, and what counts as a weak compel. Finally, I’d want a rule guideline about how often an aspect can be compelled by another PC, and what constitutes a fundamentally identical compel. This would avoid the “I compel your aspect.” “I buy off the compel.” “Well, I have more FP than you, so I just keep compelling it until you’re out of FP.”
Also, some rule nickpicks.
Jen’s character, as described, needs to have really high Empathy, not Rapport, although a high Rapport skill would also make sense. Empathy is more like Sense Motive in 3.x or Insight in 4e. Rapport is more like Diplomacy.
Supernatural Sense give a single sense for [-1] refresh. Strange Senses is an optional add-on, costing another [-1] refresh, allowing up to 3 related senses. If it were my character or my game, I’d probably define the empathic sense as the ability to roll empathy checks against another character without actually interacting with them. This includes the ability to make empathy checks against character that he can’t see or hear, maybe at a -1 or -2 penalty. For another [-1] of refresh, Empathy can be used instead of alertness to detect the presence of other creatures, and maybe lose the penalty to for purely telepathic Empathy checks.
This character will probably want to make extensive use of the assessment action (p115 and 195). Empathy based stunts like Read the Surface (p152), or a stunt that gives +3 instead of +2 for the free tag of any aspect assessed with empathy would make sense, and stack nicely with the supernatural sense power.
Oh, forgot to mention. Overall, I’m loving the episodes, loving occult DC, and I can’t wait to hear how things play out.
Alden
Compelling someone else’s aspect isn’t necessarily PvP. Compelling your friend at the right time can lead to some really great moments, and you’ve just handed him a Fate point, giving him an opportunity to return the favor.
Of course, if it is part of PvP, the system still works great. The rules for concessions, and the existence of social conflict mean that most fights won’t end horribly unless one of the participants is just determined to kill someone. And thats a person issue, not a system issue.
Possibly. I’ve never seen it done, but my group isn’t big on PvP. I suppose it could be a way for one player to ask for some spotlight time from another player. “Here, have a fate point, and do something that will help me be awesome now. Then you can use it to be awesome later.” Is that what you were thinking about?
In my group, it would probably be a suggestion to the GM that compelling the other player would be cool right now. That increases the trouble the whole party is in, and increases the total number of FP in the hands of the players.
I guess my basic point is, while keeping your character’s refresh high has its advantages, I wouldn’t sell “being able to advance your creative agenda through compels” as one of them. Do you think that’s an accurate way to phrase the idea that was being discussed during character creation?
I note that there is, as far as I can tell, no mention of PCs in (mechanical) conflict with each other in the rule book, despite the numerous examples of play. It makes me wonder if PvP might strain the system in unexpected ways. Have you ever played a session that included PvP? How did it go?
Please add the [not trying to start a fight], [not accusing anyone of badwrongfun], [really just kind of worried about game breakdown] [also kind of curious] tags to the preceding comments. I’m doing my best to phrase things in an inoffensive voice, but hey, it’s the internet.
Thanks
– Alden
I’ve had players do some limited PvP with social conflicts, but they didn’t commit to it, so I can’t say I’ve been able to stress test things in that regard. The group was made of some pretty traditional players, so they may have been uneasy about undermining the parties strength. But, I think if you have a group that doesn’t think in terms of an adventure party mentality, and instead works on the idea of using conflicts to make an interesting story, it should work out rather well for PvP.
I had been really repressed, I heard the Dresden RPG game was coming out after some play testing but I hadn’t heard is was out until almost 2 weeks ago.
I really was shocked when I found out my local D&D store had play tested it once and moved on already. I found yall’s podcast like Saturday night and decided I would listen to it, just for a bit. I jumped leaps and bounds into this game since.
I like the mechanics of creating the city. I understand the limitations of creating places, but I think that even if we read Storm Front. The number of places that become relevant at the very beginning are always going to be the scene of the crime, the SI squad office, Dresden’s apartment, a Cabin, The Pub, Red Court Grounds, Marcone’s Club, Dresden’s Office… And this is just for in my opinion a single threat.
Also our idea’s of threats and themes maybe a little different. I would have thought the Centuries of Secrets would have been a Theme. Maybe I am not exactly understanding. If its a momentary problem solved by a single solution like a spring of murders I would say is a threat, but if its a society pushing forward a slue of threats. I would think they would be a theme.
I mean I like the idea of having a cop/P.I./court emissary in the party to move the story around your city. I dont want to go to the Smithsonian and duke it out for 30 minutes with diplomacy and then battle.
I mean its fine if it ends up that way. But I just fear that the chase to the bottom of things shows the characters that nothing is ever what it seems.
I could see this campaign being a lot of fun, I understand that you want to keep it somewhat small though to show and see how it goes.
Thanks for all the hard work,
Taylor
Just for clarification. I think the TV Show that Jenn was thinking of in reference to what her character, Danny, looks like is Nightmare Cafe. It’s an early 90’s show that aired on NBC and never really took off that far. It was kind of a Night Gallery meets Fringe type concept, except the conspiracy stayed in one place and, like a lot of early 90’s shows, only placed restrictions on the main characters without actually providing an over-arching storyline. For instance, they were stuck in one place that seemed to defy the laws of reality… and that was about it. It honestly wasn’t that interesting a show, but I think that’s what made it so vaguely memorable. It was so uninteresting that my brain personally filed it away as barely noticeable universal fact.
Around 1 hour, 6 minutes: Great GI Joe PSA reference there.
You make this system highly desirable. Thank you.