Author Archives: Rick Neal

Ten! Ten, I say!

John Hawkins says:

Interesting — Item of Power and Sword of the Cross are listed separately, above. Am I correct in guessing that the Swords are called out more as an homage to their DF-relevance than because they are really a different power? Or are they somehow outside the scope of a standard Item of Power (like maybe the second section could have been called “Weapon of Power”, and can do somewhat different things from an IoP)?

Fred got this one on the comment thread. Thanks, Fred!

Lanodantheon says:

So, what’s used to build attacks for those items of power (like a magic sword)?

I could see Breath Weapon used to make Link’s Master Sword. I don’t know how a PC would justify having it let alone why it would exist in the Dresdenverse, but you could do it.

He also got this one. Thanks again!

Atlatl Jones says:

Does the Lawbreaker stunt have a mechanical benefit or effect, beyond moving the character closer to being an NPC?

Lanodantheon got this one. Thanks, Lanodantheon! However, I do have a couple of clarifications. First, you get a new Lawbreaker power for every new law you break. Each one only gives you the bonus for using magic to break that specific law again, and each one costs you -1 Refresh. If you have three or more of the Lawbreaker powers, the bonus increases for all Lawbreaker powers. And habitual offenses do kick in if you break the same law three or more times: the bonus increases, as does the Refresh cost. So, gaining Lawbreaker powers starts you sliding down towards NPC-hood.

Iorwerth says:

I may have missed it somewhere, but what are the mechanical differences between sponsored magic and non-sponsored magic?

Ihadris answered this one. Thanks, Ihadris! You got it right, but I’m going to supply a little more detail.

Your sponsor and his/her/its agenda can greatly affect your magic. For example, Seelie Magic is more potent for healing and more effective against Winter Court opponents than mortal magic. And it can supercharge a power you already possess on your own – this is where things like Hellfire and Soulfire come into the picture. You can also, from time to time, call on your sponsor for aid, essentially invoking an Aspect without spending a Fate Point, but that puts you in debt to the sponsor. And the debt will be collected. And, of course, as Ihadris said, if you try using the magic against the agenda of your sponsor, it’s not going to work nearly as well, if at all.

Ihadris says:

Again, as always, thanks for writing these Rick. I was just catching up on the Q+A’s and I wanted to ask another question further to one I asked previously concerning skills. In relation to vehicles you said that “Specifically, there are no rules for vehicles in the books.”. Does this mean that skills like ‘Drive’ and ‘Pilot’ have been removed?

Well, Pilot has been rolled into Driving, but Driving still exists. What I mean is that there are no tables listing different stats for cars, or planes, or tanks, or motorcycles, or boats. This is not a (mundane) gadget-heavy game – most equipment is handled through handwaving, as pieces of narrative colour and story props, not as items with their own mechanics attached. The exceptions are weapons and armour, which are each broken into four broad categories, and magical toys like focus items, enchanted items, and potions, for which there are more extensive rules.

And you’re welcome!

I understand completly where and why you have drawn the line and had assumed as much previously which is why Im not asking for you to give out a full list.

I appreciate the understanding, but lists are easy. It’s when we get to people asking for a complete description of everything you can do with the Deceit skill, for example, that I have to say no. What did you want a list of?

John Hawkins says:

I was trying to think how to model various types of cool characters, and it occurred to me that I’m not sure how the system as discussed thus far would model Inhuman+ *Precision*. I’m thinking of Kincaid, here, but in general I know how to simulate creatures with really badass endocrine, or musculoskeltal systems (speed, recovery, toughness, strength), but what if I want to model a really improved nervous system that allows for incredible precision with a firearm or something like that. Is there an obvious way to model such a thing? (I assume so, since there’s a write-up of Kincaid.) I guess you could get partway there with mortal stunts, but the same argument could be made for feats of strength or recovery, and there are outright supernatural powers for those, so I feel like there ought to be something with a bit more oomph.

Rechan’s chimed in with an answer in the comment thread. Thanks, Rechan! I have some further comments I want to add, though.

Kincaid is modeled by giving him Superb combat skills, along with Inhuman Speed and Strength, a nice array of combat Mortal Stunts and Aspects, and a possible Supernatural Sense. While it would be possible to build an Inhuman Precision power, I would be very wary, because it could easily become too good. If you plan on going that way, I would strongly recommend paying very close attention to the way Speed, Strength, and Toughness are built – different bonuses for narrow applications of things, rather than one big blanket bonus covering everything. Otherwise, I think the power would become so good that no character would pass it up, which means that their foes will probably have it, which means it’s kind of like nobody having it.

Anyway, that’s just my two cents on it.

Iorwerth says:

Thanks Ihadris. If your magic comes from a sponsor do you use evocation and Thaumaturgy mechanics, or has it got a system of its own?

You use the same mechanics, but there are a few tweaks, depending on what type of sponsor you’ve got. Basically, you get to be a little better at a couple of things.

Rechan says:

So can the game be played Solo (1 player, 1 GM)?

Definitely, though I recommend in that case that the GM create a character or two as NPCs in order to give the PC some folks to share novels with. And some contacts in the game, of course.

while a focused practitioner wouldn’t be able to make an Evocation potion specifically, Thaumaturgical rituals can be built that do the same things, only slower – or in potion form.

Now, what do you mean? How would you mimic evocation with thaumaturgy? I know that T takes longer. But are you saying that you could create the same effect for a potion/ward, even if you didn’t have it? Since I thought that T was limited merely to making declarations.

Thaumaturgy is far broader than that. You can use Thaumaturgy for pretty much any effect you can imagine. They even stat up Victor Sells’s tear-your-heart-out ritual in the rulebook. In the Thaumaturgy section of the Spellcasting chapter, there’s even an entry on the subject of Enhanced Evocation and Duration. Basically, by taking the time and building the ritual, you can use Thaumaturgy to strike an enemy with power, either in the form of a curse or as a direct attack.

I want to answer Iorwerth’s question, but I’m actually confused. I can’t figure out why Sponsored magic costs MORE than when it clearly comes with bigger limitations.

If you just go with Sponsored Magic, you actually get away with it being cheaper. Taking Seelie Magic or Unseelie Magic gives you the ability to use a narrow set of both Thaumaturgy and Evocation for -4, instead of the -6 it would normally cost you. If you buy it as an upgrade to either Thaumaturgy or Evocation, you get it at -3, and at -2 if you already have both. The bonuses depend on the type of Sponsor: Seelie Magic ignores one step of Toughness possessed by Winter Court faeries and a talent for biomancy, while Kemmlerian Necromancy gives you bonus specializations to power and complexity with necromancy. Stuff like that.

John Hawkins says:

@Rechan @Iorwerth my understanding from earlier discussions of the topic was that Sponsored magic allows you to call upon greater levels of power from your sponsor than you would be able to safely summon up by yourself, and that the constraints placed upon you by that sponsor are not sufficient to zero out that advantage. As to how that works mechanically, I’ll have to defer to those of you holding the book.

That’s the bottom line. I’ve laid out some examples above. Thanks, John!

John Hawkins says:

@Rechan — that does partly answer my question, but I’d love to see an actual synthesis of such a power as an example of how those very guidelines for new power creation are laid out. And to be clear: I’m actually more interested in Inhuman Precision or something that would allow you to very precisely aim a weapon at a long distance or that kind of thing. Heightened perception would factor into that, but it’s only part of what I was envisioning.

There aren’t actually any power creation guidelines in the books, but it’s fairly easy to eyeball things and set Refresh costs for them. The key is to keep the scope of the power in mind.

For example, Inhuman Precision strikes me as being a particularly slippery thing to nail down. Obviously, you want it to work with ranged weapons. How about lockpicking? That can benefit from the same type of combination of heightened perception and body control. And acrobatics? Driving? Martial arts? The scope begins to creep very quickly.

One option is to be very restrictive when creating it, maybe even renaming it to Inhuman Marksman and only making it apply to ranged weapons. Another possibility is to make it cost more Refresh because of its broad application; Inhuman Strength is -2, so maybe make Inhuman Precision -4, say.

Personally, I like the way they did it with Kincaid: Inhuman Speed, Superb Guns, several Stunts, and a few relevant Aspects. However, if that doesn’t do what you want it to in the game, then building a new Power may be your best bet.

Rel Fexive says:

Here’s another question for you – who’d a’thunk it?

That’s what I said! 😀

When Harry does that thing with his “wizard senses” to sense wards, spells, magical creatures (like fetches) and such, how does he do it in the RPG? Is it a spell effect, a narration of the use of his Investigation skill, an extension of his Sight power or something else?

Bosh gets part of this in the comment thread. Thanks, Bosh! The information is pretty much spot-on with The Sight stuff, though there are more rules attached to it than there were in the playtests, which produces a little more guidance as to what sorts of Assessments characters can make with The Sight.

The bit missing is something that I don’t think has been mentioned on my blog yet. Wizards can use Lore as a substitute for Alertness when inspecting magic with their normal senses. This is primarily how Harry detects magical effects and creatures, though he needs to use The Sight if he wants specifics. Although, as Bosh noted, that can be dangerous.

Thanks!

You’re welcome!

Bosh says:

I’ve love to play a burned out old wizard (so old he’s forgotten his childhood) who doesn’t have any power left (or memories of how he lost it) except Wizard Constitution and The Sight. His shtick would be that due to long experience and a horrible memory he’s mostly immune to the mental damage you get from The Sight and keeps his Third Eye open far more than just about anyone else can do without going crazy.

I like this idea a lot! Reminds me of the old Fallen Jedi template from West End’s Star Wars game, or the burnt out street mage archetype from the original Shadowrun. Cool!

Rechan says:

I seem to be at a loss how the math works here, Rick. I read the examples, scratch my head, and don’t see how they play out.

Look at the Earth Stomp spell (293). It says that it starts with 8 Shifts. Then the Discipline roll is 8 (so, 16 total). Now, it says the target rolls 2. Which results in 10 shifts? That doesn’t add up! 16-2 = 14!

So where do the numbers come in as far as spell slinging and resolving it all go?

I think the math is off, but not in the way it first appears. Here’s how I work it out. Fred or Lenny, am I doing this right?

First off, the Discipline roll of 8 is just enough to control the 8 shifts of power. You don’t add them together. Now, to target the four enemies that the spell describes, you’re making a spray attack (p 236), so you split your 8 shifts of Control (which is also the targeting roll) into four attacks of Fair (+2) with the power split between the four targets for four attacks of Weapon:2, as per the Evocation Attack section on p 251. So each target should take a stress 2 hit, plus every whatever they missed the Fair Might check by.

Is this right, guys? Do we split both the targeting and the power when using an Evocation as a spray attack?

Rechan says:

I wish there was an “edit” comment button. i have thoughts way after I posted.

Sorry, man.

Is there anything about spellcasters supercharging spells? For instance, Harry using the Lightning storm to blow up the toad demon. Or was that just a special effect for E?

That was Harry dumping Fate Points to tag a whole bunch of Aspects, including the Lightning Storm Aspect that was on the scene. And he still wound up taking a whole bunch of backlash!

That’s it for tonight. You know the drill, folks. I’ll be back tomorrow evening if you leave me more questions.

Wow. Part nine. Who’d’a thunk it? Hold on, folks, this is a big one.

Tush Hog says:

Again, many thanks for continuing to feed the multitudes!

Yeah, THAT comparison isn’t going to swell my head at all! 😉

What can you tell me about thresholds and holy ground?

While there’s nothing specifically that I could find about holy ground, the two pages on thresholds state that they work for all types of magical barriers or transitions, including things like running water or sunrise and sunset. This makes me think that the same rules would apply to holy ground.

A threshold can act as a block that opposes any affected supernatural actions, as a target for attempts to breach it, as a suppression of magical effects or abilities that cross it without permission, or as a source of harm against excluded supernatural entities that try to cross.

Also, how does immunity or resistance to magic work?

There are no powers that confer this. It can best be modeled with high scores in things like Conviction or Discipline, to make it much harder for magic to affect a character, along with an Aspect like Magic Resistant that can be invoked to increase the defense. Not much can be done about resisting a lot of Evocations; no matter how it got started, fire burns.

What can you tell me about Morgan and his Earth magic?

Morgan’s Earth magic is primarily Earth-based Evocation. It’s mainly good for knocking stuff – and people – down, and then dropping a building on them. It also affects things like gravity and possibly magnetism, and there’s a sidebar on how it can be used for lightning, as well. As for Morgan himself, he gets a nice write-up, including a fairly complete stat block. He’s got a Refresh Cost of -13.

Ancalagon says:

Can you tell us a bit more about potions? I thought about the idea of having an alchemist (a focused practitioner who does all his magic via potions) as a PC (or NPC). Could this work? Could he chuck greek fire at people? How many potion could a character carry around? etc (thanks for fielding these questions!)

Well, Rechan fielded this one. Thanks, Rechan! The one clarifying comment I would make is that, while a focused practitioner wouldn’t be able to make an Evocation potion specifically, Thaumaturgical rituals can be built that do the same things, only slower – or in potion form. So, yeah, I’d say that greek fire was a definite possibility, and an alchemist character would work just fine.

And you’re welcome.

Paul Edwards says:

Thanks for all the info so far, I am getting really excited about this game coming out!

Since the novels all follow a mystery/investigation story format to a greater or lesser degree, does the game have good advice for running a mystery story?

I find you can often get stuck having to hand out clues regardless of character success in order to keep the game moving, or scambling to improvise something to match their actions, neither of which I find ideal for satisfying mystery stories.

Is there much in the books about running mystery investigations?

Lenny Balsera actually had a really good answer for this back here. To sum up, he recommends picking an NPC with an agenda, figuring out how far along he/she is with it, and what pieces the PCs might stumble across. Harry’s mysteries are more like Phillip Marlowe mysteries than Sherlock Holmes mysteries: he solves them by poking his nose into things until someone tries to cut it off, then opens his can of mystical whoop-ass on the bad guy, rather than following an intricate trail of clues to a solution that no one could have guessed.

But yeah, there’s an extensive section on creating and running scenarios in the book, all about how to structure, pace, and run scenarios in this world. It’s all about making connections between the Aspects of your city, the Aspects of your PCs, and the Aspects of your NPCs. As I’ve said before, if you do the full city creation and full character creation, you will be brimming over with adventure ideas by the end.

Stacey says:

Damn, you must be exhausted!

😀 Not yet, but getting there.

Karla says:

All of this is really interesting, and I’m reading all the questions and answers avidly, but the one thing that really struck me from this post was:

For real, you don’t know about Avatar: The Last Airbender? Man, you are missing out. It’s a kid’s show, aired on Nickelodeon if I recall correctly, and it’s amazing. Three seasons of funnier humor, more engaging drama, and better character arcs than most adult shows can manage.

Let me clarify: I know ABOUT Avatar: The Last Airbender. I’ve just never watched more than the first couple of episodes. Too many other things going on for me to fit it in. At least, I haven’t been able to fit it in YET.

Lanodantheon says:

This Q&A is awesome!!!

Glad you’re enjoying it.

Spirit = Light. Does that mean that a Spirit Specialist Wizard can shoot Frickin’ Laser Beams?

John Hawkins pretty much nailed this one in the comment thread. Thanks, John! Short answer: yes, if your GM is okay with it and you can rationalize it.

John Hawkins says:

Meh. I find the argument that a Minor Talent with a Refresh cost of -1 actually costing -3 because you don’t get the 2 extra Refresh a Pure Mortal gets to be spurious. You might as well say that it also costs them the ability to use Evocations or change into wolves, because they didn’t take those powers.

::nods:: Sure, I get it. I guess it just seems odd to me that there’s no middle ground. Your point about thinking of it as a +2 refresh cost power is useful. I guess a relevant question is (and obviously this would be up to the GM, more generally) to what extent does the Character Advancement chapter imply that it’s good or bad practice to allow characters to gain more supernatural powers over time? I infer from previous discussions that that’s a likely possibility. In which case the Minor Talent isn’t shafted, just in transition. (They could choose to — with proper story support — become a full fledged lycanthrope on the second adventure or something.)

Character Advancement is pretty open to stuff like that, with the exception of the High Concept – the Aspect that tells you what your character is. So, Harry’s High Concept is Wizard PI, for example. This is a very important choice during character creation, and will affect your character for a good, long time. The books recommend that the High Concept should change only at major milestones, if at all.

Notice that the High Concept is not the template? Good, ’cause that’s also very important.

The templates, like Minor Talent, are far from strait jackets. They are a starting point to get the character creation started, and to reflect some of the distinctions we see in the novels. Once you use them during character creation, you’re pretty much done with them. You are no longer your template, you are your collection of Aspects, Powers, Stunts, and Skills. And these can change.

So, to answer your question, if you choose the right High Concept at the start – something like Fake Psychic Awakening to Real Power, say, or Seeker After My Berserker Heritage – then you could definitely scale up during advancement.

I might personally prefer that the transition were more gradual, so the first -1 power brings you to 10 refresh, and the second -1 brings you all the way to 8, but that’s a) very minor, and b) house-rulable.

You are very right that it’s minor and house-rulable. Also in that it will come down to personal preference. I’d encourage you to give it a try as written first, because I really think it’s not as big a deal as some of the posts I’ve seen make it out to be, but it is, after all, your game. Do what you need to do to make it fun.

Er… That first paragraph was wrapped in blockquotes, but I must have broken the syntax somehow.

‘Sokay. I got that. 😉

These posts and the comment threads have been the highlights of the last few days (and they have not been bad days).

Awwww, shucks. I’m glad you’re enjoying them.

There was a burst of discussion on Lenny Balsera’s blog about compels, and although it’s not really a question about DFRPG per se, I’m interested in your thoughts:

In your mind, how do compels work? What are your favorite compel examples from the books? What are your favorite compel examples from your own playtests?

How do they work? They work great! They are a wonderful mechanic for bri… er, REWARDING players for staying true to the more problematic parts of their characters. My one caveat is that, especially at the beginning, it can be a bit tough for the GM to keep track of everyone’s Aspects and what compels might be appropriate on top of actually running the game. But it gets easier with practice, and you can enlist the help of your players to let you know when they feel they’ve earned a compel. After a few sessions, though, it gets to be pretty much automatic.

My favourite example from the rulebooks is the multiple Aspect compel example, where Michael has to choose between his Knight of the Cross Aspect and his Family Man Aspect. It’s a nice little dilemma he’s placed in, having to make that choice.

From my playtests, I gotta go with the failed magical circle’s bright light chasing off a Red Court Infected PC. I wrote about it in greater detail here.

Lanodantheon says:

I just thought of another element I wonder the place of: Sound.

For Evocation purposes would Sound be Air or Spirit?

Lucart had an answer for this on the comment thread. Thanks, Lucart!

Lucart says:

I’m wondering if you could manipulate Sound by controlling the medium through which it travels, which could make Water or Earth viable as well under the right circumstances.

The Evocation section shows that there is overlap between different elements for different things, and that the guidelines for the different elements are just guidelines. With a creative explanation and a complicit GM, this sort of stuff is very possible.

Lucart says:

How does a character who has touched one of the Denarian’s coins function in the game? Can they even be PC’s?
Would it be similar to how Changelings work, with taking up the coin being akin to becoming a full faerie? If this is possible for a player character to do, would it have be its own character type?

There is no template for them, but it would be pretty easy to whip one up. And yeah, I’d work it in the same manner as the Changeling template, so that the more powers you take the closer the demon gets to taking over, perhaps with a touch of Emissary of Power thrown in. I’d say it would be its own character type, but those are easy to build.

vultur says:

Are there rules for Soulfire? The naagloshi? (Does the game still cut off at SmF or are any TC things included?)

What about Hellfire?

Yes to Soulfire and Hellfire – both are types of Sponsored Magic. No on the naagloshi. And yes, as Fred confirmed on the comment thread, Small Favor is the last of the novels covered by the game. Thanks, Fred!

keegan says:

are there monsters and people not in the dresden files books in the game

No, though there were several minor things that I had forgotten about, both people and monsters. Oh, and stuff from the Welcome to the Jungle graphic novel, and some of the short stories.

and is there advice or anything for running a game that happens near or around the times of harrys adventures

The basic assumption seems to be that you will be running around the same time – i.e., now. And the chapter on Occult Chicago gives you a wealth of source material to run in Chicago, though you’ll have to work out the Themes, Threats, and Aspects.

Iorwerth says:

How many rotes does a character start with and how are they built?

You get a number or Rotes equal to your Lore rating, so someone with Great Lore will start with four Rotes. They’re built just like other Evocations, except you build them once when you start playing, and then that Rote is exactly the same every time you cast it. You don’t need to roll Discipline to control the power – it’s assumed you can control it if it’s equal to or less than your Discipline, or that you automatically take backlash or fallout if it’s higher – but may still need to roll to target an attack. If you want to use a focus item with a Rote, you have to build it in to the Rote, so that the Rote won’t work without the focus. You can use Aspects when casting a Rote for an extra boost, either to the power or the targeting, but keep in mind that automatic backlash/fallout thing if you channel more power than your Discipline.

Riotopsys says:

Do the books contain any details on chronomancy or is it treated as strictly a plot device? Also thanks for doing this Q&A.

By chronomancy, I’m going to assume you mean specifically time-travel magic, which can include such funky things as duplicating yourself in the current time frame, warning a past self about future dangers, killing your foe’s grandfather, and trapping an enemy in stasis for a thousand years. Is that what you’re looking at?

If so, then there are no details, but the rules for Thaumaturgy certainly have the potential to produce such things. However, many of them violate at least the Sixth Law of Magic: Never swim against the currents of time. Even the Gatekeeper, who has shown he has the ability to at least communicate with his future self, is very, very careful about this law. Besides the obvious issue with being marked for death by the White Council, this is ripe material for the GM to runs some game-world experiments relating to the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Lanodantheon says:

I’ve come to the conclusion that the wonky math of a single -1 or -2 rrefrsh power actually costing -3 or -4 was indeed wonky and off-base. I was wrong.

I wouldn’t say you were wrong, but that path of thinking, I found for myself, led to some assumptions and ideas that play did not bear out with regards to the effectiveness of a Minor Talent.

Thinking about it more it is the sort-of happy medium between Pure Mortal and Full-blown Spellcaster. You have the one ability, but at every refresh you have copious amounts of Fate points base that allow you use that one ability. Plus, the math precludes the idea of taking any other mortal or supernatural stunts.

This is the spot the template was designed to fill, definitely. But I do have something important to say regarding templates.

People. Don’t get hung up on the templates in the book. Not only are they just starting points, they are also just examples, based on the things and ideas set forth in the novels. The guys at Evil Hat got this big time, and the first paragraph of the Types & Templates chapter reads:

While you and your GM can work together to devise new and strange character types for you own campaign if you wish, the actual Dresdenverse has many already-established peoples (mortal and semi-mortal) to draw from. In game terms, we refer to these “pre-packaged” character types as templates. Think of them as recipes for cooking up your characters quickly and easily.

Emphasis is mine. I hope Fred doesn’t mind me quoting from the book, but I think this is an important point to make.

Unfortunately, I know a lot of players of a certain persuasion who will be counting every Fate Point in hopes of breaking the system. I certainly know at least 2 players in my future games who will (for fun) experiment with a Pure Mortal who has a Base Refresh of 1. I can also see at least 1 player choosing to to take as many levels of Evocation or Thaumaturgy as allowed at first and being the Human Cannon/Thatumatalurgical God.

Good luck to them, I say. In running FATE games, though, I have come to the conclusion that the really important min/maxing takes place when selecting Aspects, and then playing to them in game. You need the right combination of Aspects to fuel your other character elements, and to provide you with a useful source of Fate Points during play to use them.

Fortunately, the FATE system doesn’t just reward players for playing characters with depth and variety of personality, a player has to do that ore the game doesn’t run. Especially when you do round-table character creation like I like to do so you don’t double up on Aspects.

You got it. You have definitely got it. And doing character creation as a group is one of the (many) best parts of this game. Create the city and the characters as a group, and the rest of the campaign starts writing itself.

vultur says:

I saw a mention of ‘True Shapeshifting’ somewhere, probably here; is that full naagloshii/Listens-to-Wind type “turn into many animals” (as opposed to a werewolf only being able to turn into a wolf, for example)?

Exactly right. To round out the power, I’d also take the Modular Abilities power, which lets the naagloshii pull in some special powers based on the form he takes.

If so, a naagloshii should be fairly easy to stat out myself, this doesn’t look like it’s going to be a ‘crunch heavy’ game …

Should be easy. And, as you say, the game works more on the descriptive/narrative path than math-heavy mechanics.

Atlatl Jones says:

The talk about shapeshifting is making me want to use this for an Amber game. The Amberites clearly all have Wizards Constitution, Inhuman Strength, and Inhuman Endurance as part of their template, as well as a custom Pattern Walk power.

That’d work, and there are some Supernatural Powers that could serve as guidelines to how to build the Pattern Walk power.

Is there any way you could write a list of all the supernatural stunts in the game? I don’t want to ask too much, but I’m desperately curious about what we might not have seen.

I will list them, but I gotta put a caveat on this.

This is not an invitation to get me to describe what each individual power does in detail.

What I mean by that is that I will answer general questions, but I won’t get too deep into the mechanics of the individual powers. There are two reasons for this:

One, I want you to buy the books when they come out. Evil Hat has been incredibly generous and open about this game, and we need to encourage that. You encourage game companies by buying their products, and if I’ve given away too many details on this blog, it may tempt some people to play with what they cobble together instead of rewarding the hard-working folks who laid the foundation and built an incredible game.

Two, these posts started at around 2000 words, but are creeping steadily higher. That’s starting to cut seriously into the spare time that I usually use to do my own writing and preparing for games. If I start explaining every power in detail, it’ll just get worse. Now, I don’t mind answering questions, and I knew what I was getting into, but I need to let you good folks know where I’ve drawn my line.

So, we cool with that?

Cool. Here we go.

Creature Features

• Addictive Saliva
• Aquatic
• Breath Weapon
• Claws
• Diminutive size
• Echoes of the Beast
• Hulking Size
• Living Dead
• Pack Instincts
• Spider Walk
• Supernatural Sense
• Wings

Faerie Magic

• Glamours
• Greater Glamours
• Seelie Magic
• Unseelie Magic

Items of Power

• Item of Power
• Sword of the Cross

Minor Abilites

• Cloak of Shadows
• Ghost Speaker
• Mana Static
• Marked by Power
• Wizard’s Constitution

Nevernever Powers

• Demesne
• Spirit Form
• Swift Transition
• Worldwalker

Psychic Abilities

• Cassandra’s Tears
• Domination
• Incite Emotion
• Psychometry
• The Sight
• Soulgaze

Shapeshifting

• Beast Change
• Demonic Co-Pilot
• Flesh Mask
• Gaseous Form
• Human Form
• Human Guise
• Mimic Abilities
• Mimic Form
• Modular Abilities
• True Shapeshifting

Speed

• Inhuman Speed
• Supernatural Speed
• Mythic Speed

Spellcraft

• Evocation
• Thaumaturgy
• Channeling
• Ritual
• Lawbreaker
• Refinement
• Sponsored Magic

Strength

• Inhuman Strength
• Supernatural Strength
• Mythic Strength

Toughness

• The Catch
• Inhuman Recovery
• Inhuman Toughness
• Supernatural Recovery
• Supernatural Toughness
• Mythic Recovery
• Mythic Toughness
• Physical Immunity

True Faith

• Bless This House
• Guide My Hand
• Holy Touch
• Righteousness

Vampirism

• Blood Drinker
• Emotional Vampire
• Feeding Dependency
• Tattoos of St. Giles

And there you have it.

Also, how does faerie magic and glamour work?

Faerie magic is a type of Sponsored Magic, based on the Court you owe allegiance to. So, there’s Seelie Magic and Unseelie Magic. Each lets you use rituals that reflect the nature of the Court they represent. Glamours also come in two flavours: Glamours and Greater Glamours. Both of them give you access to seemings and veils – basically, illusions – but Greater Glamours gives you a bonus to these and access to True Seemings, which lets you create objects out of ectoplasm.

That’s it. If you’ve got more questions, send them in. I’ll post them tomorrow if I get any.

Here we go again!

Rechan says:

Now, I know the book talks about advancing the opposition. But here’s my inquiry:

Does it talk about NUMBERS of opposition? To put it in D&D terms, you can gauge the level of the challenge based on the COMBINATION of the monsters in the encounter. Is there advice or a way to handle that here?

I mean, if you have 4 characters who are in the Submerged category, is a single opponent at -10 or so worth fighting, or do you need to drop several -10 enemies in there to make it a good threat?

Yes, there is advice on this in the Scaling Opposition section of the Running the Game chapter of Your Story. Starts on p 334 under the heading PC Groups.

This might constitute “niggling”. There’s a stunt called “Subtle Menace”, which says ‘when the context of power is absent, or when the victim is in a superior position’. What does this mean? Are there rules for ’superior positions’, and what do they constitute? As well as just the terminology of ‘context of power is absent’ is confusing to me.

John Hawkins got this one on the comment thread. Thanks, John!

As for niggling, it only gets to be niggling if it devolves into argument over inconsequentialities, so you should be safe. 😉

How does “The Catch” and Vulnerabilities work? For instance, I see Faeries have “The Catch: Cold Iron, magic of the other court, etc”. But, reading the Catch, it has nothing to do with making these things happen. It doesn’t deal with damage. So if a faerie gets hit with cold iron… what happens?

Basically, what happens with this is that none of the Toughness powers possessed by the creature work. So, no extra armour, no extra stress boxes, no fast recovery, none of it. This is on p 185 of Your Story, the first sentence of the Effect listing for The Catch.

What establishes Initiative? In the Notes section, it’ll say a creature has great initiative, but I just don’t see how they’re getting to that point.

Generally the Alertness Skill, though they have a few other options in the section on initiative on p 199 of Your Story.

Lanodantheon says:

Thanks to Rick, Rechan and everyone else who drops in an gives their 2-cents(and helps advertise for free). Now for a butt-load of Qs.

1. I don’t fully understand Wizard’s Constitution and Soulgaze. They don’t cost anything, but you have to be a Wizard to get them. How do you get these powers? Are they just free after taking Evocation and Thaumaturgy x number of times? I could imagine Harry chiming in on this saying, “It’s not like you get this from the White Council membership card and decoder ring, these abilities are marks of a certain level of power. ”

Wizard’s Constitution is a -0 power, so you can take it for free, as long as your High Concept supports that idea. It’s a good way to model other long-lived creatures. Soulgaze is a -1 power, but you can take it for free if you also take The Sight, which is -1. The rationale is that a Soulgaze is a special application of the Sight.

2. What’s the Marked by Power ability do?

It makes it so that you have some authority invested in you by a more powerful entity. You are their representative. Upside: people who might otherwise mess with you may think twice if they know you’re an emissary of Mab. Downside: people who hate Mab might target you as a vulnerable point. Upside: it opens the door to some other abilities, like Sponsored Magic. Downside: the boss is going to have an agenda, and you are expected to serve it. Mechanically, it gives you a boost to social abilities when dealing with those who fear or respect your boss.

3. How do the rules handle opening portals to the Nevernever? Is it possible for a non-Wizard to open a portal via some power or item of power? (I have a character in mind, Chauncy’s B$*%#, whose Aspect, “I’m 20 minutes away, I’ll be there in 10…” would be made really cool by Nevernever travel.)

There are a couple powers that specifically deal with crossing over, and things like demons and some fey have them. Of course, a Wizard can build a ritual to cross over, as well.

4. Would enchanted items cover non-potion one-use magical objects like say a can of Dr. Pepper turned into a magical grenade?

You bet. And of course, using it up frees up the slot for another one when you have time to make it.

5. What are some examples of Minor Talents? I love using Lucky FIrth, but I’d like a larger spread of examples.

Rechan beat me to this one. Thanks, Rechan!

6. I’ve been watching too much Fullmetal Alchemist lately. That said, how you simulate a Transmutation, a spell or power that changes something into something else of equal size? If used on a life form it is Transmorgification and break the laws of magic. But I was thinking of a spell that allowed a Magical Entrepreneur (An Aspect) to make stupid amounts of money by turning lead into gold or coal into diamonds.

Good thought, but the problem with this is the huge complexity and power requirement to make a change that lasts permanently. Most magic vanishes by the next sunrise or sunset if it’s enduring. Making it last longer can really bump things up in the complexity department, and hence the power requirement and the time requirement. I don’t think this is the reason for the way the magic system is set up, but a byproduct of it that I like. Really, if it was that easy, Harry wouldn’t be broke, and therefor wouldn’t have to take all the cases he does, right?

7. I assume rituals would be perfect for creating a Golem or a Homonculus(an Artificial Human)?

Yes, though again we’re dealing with some pretty high complexity, I’d say. A little homonculus servant might be doable, but building a lasting artificial human would be extremely difficult.

8. Let’s talk vehicles, how do they work? What if they have weapons like a Tank or a fighter jet? I ask because my game will be taking place within spitting distance of Fairchild Airforce Base and I could imagine one of my more ambitious/suicidal players taking advantage of that. Plus, I don’t think most demons would have ever anticipated the feeling of getting shot by a tank.

They work by plot. The vehicle does what the story needs it to do. Specifically, there are no rules for vehicles in the books. And you do not want to get a wizard anywhere near complex electronics. Not if you want the complex electronics to survive. So, that’s a no-go on most modern military vehicles beyond a humvee, and the humvee computer chips wouldn’t be happy.

9. As a point of comparison for this gritty system, how difficult would it be for a Pure Mortal to fire two guns whilst jumping through the air?

First off, I wouldn’t call the system gritty. Combat is significantly more dangerous than in SotC, but it still has a high-action, cinematic component to it. Stuff like the gun-fu thing you mention above is perfect. With the right combination of Aspects and Stunts, plus a few Fate Points to buy off the penalty for supplemental actions, it’s pretty easy. The write-up for Kincaid, the bad-ass mercenary bodyguard of the Archive, is a perfect example of some ideas, even though he’s statted as a supernatural character.

10. For laughs, how difficult would it be for a Wizard to fire a gun with one hand and evocate with the other whilst jumping through the air?

A little more difficult, because the Wizard would have fewer stunts, fewer Aspects that might be applicable, and fewer Fate Points to spend. But doable from time to time.

11. Again for laughs, how would you stat up the Evocation Avada Kedavra?

Evocations don’t quite work that way. It would be a powerful Spirit Evocation, without a doubt, but you decide on the amount of power kind of spur of the moment, and you’d need to pull in a pretty large amount to be sure of killing someone outright, which would be hard to control. The magical paradigms between the two systems just don’t mesh very well. Sorry.

12. Thinking about your statting up of Egg Shen and Lo Pan, I’m now interested in if it’s possible to do The Last Airbender or if I’m feeling really silly, Yomiko Readman aka The Paper from Read or Die (Paperkinesis).

I’m not really familiar with either of those characters, so I gotta take a pass. Anyone out there want to speculate?

I will say that the system is pretty flexible, and can build just about anything with judicious tweaking, but the farther you get away from the core tropes of the setting (modern magic in the western tradition working in a close approximation of our real world), the more tweaking you’re going to have to do to make it fit right.

John Hawkins says:

Do Minor Talents get 10 refresh base? 12? giving up the two freebies just for one tiny power sounds harsh, but I could imagine going to 11 (hah) to be a fair trade. What’s the scoop, there?

The trade is that, while Mortal Stunts are cool and all, they still give you options within a very specific set of limits. Supernatural Powers go beyond those limits in qualitatively different ways. Want an example? Vampirologist stunt. Lets you get a bonus to Lore checks about vampires. The Sight. Lets you open your third eye and tell which people around you are vampires. Or werewolves. Or where magic has been used. Or…

You get the picture.

What we found in the playtest is that Supernatural Powers – all of them, but especially the Spellcraft powers – opened up more options and more versatility for the players who took them. To minimize the spotlight hog effect of more versatile characters, Pure Mortals needed more Fate Points, whether for Stunts or for normal use in the game. This was all done to make it viable to play a Harry and a Murphy in the same group.

That’s the start. There are more points raised in the next question that I’m going to tie back to this.

Loving this, thanks guys.

Speaking for everyone who’s chiming in on the comments, you’re welcome.

Lanodantheon says:

@John Hawkins, I pesonally think of all the templates/character types/magical cookie cutters of the Dresdenverse in RPG, Minor Talents are by far the worst off.

Everyone is going to have a template that they think is worse off than the others. Sometimes, they’ll be the same, sometimes not. It’s one of the downsides of having multiple choices mapping complex combinations. It shows up in discussions on D&D races and classes, and on WoW boards (I’m told) and everywhere else where a game has a menu of choices. In fact, I have a friend who takes them as a challenge: he likes taking the choice that everyone is most down upon and building absurdly cool (and often horrendously effective) characters out of them.

I don’t want to get into an argument about what the “best” character type is, even for an established value of “best.” It’s kind of pointless when the books haven’t even been published, and most people are reacting to hearsay. In addition, everyone has certain things that push their own personal Win and Lose buttons. Also, they bore me. I will, however, try to address some of the concerns that have come up.

They give up those 2 extra refresh for 1 supernatural talent. Of course, that is assuming you don’t buy more than one talent or supernatural ability. I don’t have the books in front of me, but I gather from previous Q&A, analysis of preview content and extrapolation based on similiar games with copious lists of abilities that a template is just that, a template.

This is a very important point to keep in mind in these discussions. All of the templates are starting points, and get modified and personalized by the player. So some Minor Talents can wind up not being so minor after all.

If you stay “At template” as it’s been referred to at say a Base refresh of 10, a Pure Mortal will have 12 minus however many mortal stunts they take(I know and game with a few players who are going play Pure Mortals with adjusted Refreshes of 1). Meanwhile, the Minor Talent will ended up with an adjusted of 9 or 8 base on what talent they take and how many other stunts they take.

But a Template is just a template and you can take powers outside of what qualifies for it as long as it relates to the High-Concept and your GM isn’t an idiot. As a GM, I am not going to screw over a player who decides to take, “The Sight” to simulate his previous exposure to 3-Eye or the ability to talk to spirits.

Which I happen to think would be a very cool starting point for a character, by the way. 😉

Of all the components of the Dresden RPG, Minor Talents seems to be one of its 2 problemed character types. The cost isn’t worth the reward in my opinion because you are spending 3 or 4 refresh so your character can have a single 1 or 2 refresh ability. But, the 2 refresh Pure Mortal reward has to be there so Murphy and Harry and Marcone can be created equal and not suffer from the Star Wars RPG eternal problem of Force Users always having more….advantages then non-Force Users. The only way a Minor Talent can be worth it is if you take more Stunts and powers beyond that one trick otherwise, you don’t have as many abilities as other character tyoes have or as much refresh as a Pure Mortal.

Meh. I find the argument that a Minor Talent with a Refresh cost of -1 actually costing -3 because you don’t get the 2 extra Refresh a Pure Mortal gets to be spurious. You might as well say that it also costs them the ability to use Evocations or change into wolves, because they didn’t take those powers.

I find it’s more useful to think of the Pure Mortal template as a power that gives you 2 extra Refresh, but means you can’t take any other powers.

But you’re right – the balance is there so that non-supernatural characters can usefully go on the same adventures as Wizards and Faerie Knights. Which is in keeping with the source material.

The other problemed character type IMHO is the Lycanthrope. Their problems were discussed on the DFRPG’s comment thread. If I were running a game with a Lycan I would rule that they don’t need a Full moon restriction(if they still have one) so the player doesn’t feel useless ~28 days of the month.

Well, they get access to their powers about 5 days a month, according to the rules. This is easily tweakable, but let’s leave it where it stands as written. There is a discussion of what the impact of playing this type of character will be, mentioning the possibility of granting the character a compel if the full moon isn’t near, and the +2 Involuntary Change power takes some of the sting out of it.

What it comes down to is that there will always be templates that won’t do it for you. The ones you don’t like may or may not match the ones I don’t like, and may or may not do it for the same reasons. There’s plenty of other stuff in the book that should make you giddy with glee. 😀

But I don’t have the books in front of me(they aren’t out yet) so this might have been addressed already. I could see the sidebar:

Harry: Doesn’t it seem like Minor Talents get Jacked in this system of yours Billy?

Bob: That’s the lot of the small fish in the Supernatural pond…

Nice! 😀

Exploding_brain says:

Great stuff Rick.

Thanks!

How do the mechanics support the use magical powers to augment the physical or mental abilities of more or less normal mortals?

These work best as Enchanted Items, granting either bonuses to certain skills (Might, Athletics, etc.) or some powers (Inhuman Strength), for example.

For instance, how would the bear shaped belt buckle that Harry uses to boost his strength in one of the earlier(?) books work?

An item that boosts Might for one scene per session.

It would be cool to play something along the lines of an eastern monk, hardening his skin to block blows, channeling the power of his chi through his punches, making Jedi style leaps, using mental discipline to resist psychic attacks. Would that work better if you start with the knights of the cross template, or could you do it by messing around with a sorcerer/wizard/focused practitioner template, or some other approach?

Working with the GM, it would be pretty easy to build this as a special kind of Evocation. There’s even some mention of using Evocation for movement, which Harry doesn’t recommend, but it looks doable to me.

Or on a less grandiose scale, a gunslinger using a minor ability or two to augment his eyesight, speed, and/or coordination?

Could be done, but I’d be more inclined to go with Inhuman Speed (-2) and a Guns/Alertness stunt or two.

Oooh, new idea, any support for an enchanted sniper rifle?

Not in the book, but doable, as long as it’s not a high-tech gun or scope.

keegan says:

do the books have much detail on the undercity

Not a lot of detail, no, but the Occult Chicago chapter of Our World has a some entrances to Undertown pointed out in the neighbourhood write-ups, along with some features of Undertown in that vicinity.

Atlatl Jones says:

What kinds of evocations are there? The four elements and spirit have been mentioned, but are there other types too?

What do refinements do? They’ve been mentioned in many places, but I haven’t a clue how they can affect a wizard’s powers.

Rechan answered these quite completely. Thanks, Rechan! The one thing I would point out is that there can be other types of Evocation, and it’s mentioned that Ancient Mai probably uses Evocations based on the Chinese elements rather than the Greek ones, but details for that are left up to the GM.

Iorwerth says:

What is the difference between a focus item and an enchanted Item? Are they anything to do with rotes? if not, how do rotes operate?

Lanodantheon got the Focus/Enchanted Item question. Thanks, Lanodantheon!

Rotes are Evocations that you’ve mastered well enough that you can perform them safely. The power is safely within your limits, and all you need to do is roll to target. This is like Harry’s Fuego spell. If you want to stretch your limits, you use the regular rules for Evocation, but sticking with your Rote is easier and safer. Focus items can figure into Rotes, but if you have a Rote using a Focus Item, you cannot use the Rote unless you also have the Focus Item ready.

I feel a bit guilty continually firing questions and really appreciate you taking the time to answer them!!

As I said previously, I knew what I was getting into. I’m glad you’re enjoying the Q&A sessions.

Lanodantheon says:

Rechan can probably answer this minor clarification:

What is included in each element?

Water = Water, Ice (Rearranging the molecules) and Entropy?

Fire = Fire, Heat and Combustion?

Air = Air and Lightning?

Earth = Earth(as in soil), Gravity and Magnetism?

Spirit = Raw Kinetic Force (like Forzare), Veils/Glamours and….Spirit Energy?

You got it pretty much spot on, except that raw kinetic force seems to also be Air, you can also generate lightning from Earth (that’s one way lightning works in the real world), and Spirit includes emotional magic and light and interacting with the mind and ghosts and stuff. There is some crossover, as you can see.

And so ends another Q&A session. The longest yet, by my word count.

If you’ve got more questions, let me have them, and I’ll be back tomorrow if I get any.

What are the odds? 😉

Here’s a little Dresden Files RPG lovin’ to round out your Valentine’s Day.

John Hawkins says:

Actually, I’m a liar, one question does present itself: I’ve seen Channeling mentioned in a couple of places now, but it’s not obvious to me how it differs from Evocation. At 2/3 the cost I assume it’s not super limited — can you talk a bit about how it works?

Rechan jumped all over this one on the comment thread, and I’ve really got nothing to add. Thanks, Rechan!

Mike Ryan says:

Your enthusiasm is giving me some high hopes for this game. I’m looking forward to the release.

I think your hopes will all be rewarded.

My questions:
1. SotC was full of examples, and it’s probably safe to assume DF will be as well. Are those examples drawn solely from the novels, or do the playtest groups get some love? I can see the value of using just the books, but the playtesters (your group and others) have put some really cool things out there and it might be interesting to see it referenced beyond just an acknowledgments page.

From my reading, the examples come either from the novels or from a fictitious (I’m assuming) game being run by Billy Borden. I think it’s probably more than enough material to wade through in the novels that combing playtest reports for the right kind of example is just a time sink without any return on it except for a playtest group here and there being able to go “Cool! That was us!” While this kind of cool is nice for the playtesters, I would rather they spent their time putting cool into the game system itself. And they really did.

But yeah, there are lots of examples, which is great, coupled with the marginal notes and conversations that really help illuminate the rules and discuss special cases.

2. You’ve mentioned things like the Feeding Dependancy. Does a character with a limitation like that have to map all of his powers to that dependency? What I mean is, if I’m a vampire, can I have some powers that I can use freely and save the Feeding Dependency for the big guns?

The templates for the two types of character that have Feeding Dependency (White Court Vampire and Red Court Infected) both have a set list of powers that are linked to the dependency. These are mainly physical augmentations – Strength, Recovery, etc. The actual abilities that make them vampires – Blood Drinker and Addictive Saliva for Red Court, and Incite Emotion and Emotional Vampire for White Court – are not governed by the dependency. The listings for the different vampires in Our World have some extra powers that are governed by the dependency, and some that aren’t. My call on this would be to assess the individual power and ask if it’s something that the vampire learned, or is it something that he/she can do because she’s a vampire. If it’s learned, then it wouldn’t be governed by the Feeding Dependency (though I’d ask the player to make sure that the High Concept or another Aspect supported learning this type of power – A High Concept of Vampire Savage would not, in my opinion, make it likely that the character sat down and learned a spell to turn to mist, for example). If the power is something that the character does because he/she is a vampire, then I’d tie it to the Feeding Dependency.

From a min/max point of view, tying a new power to the Feeding Dependency essentially means getting a discount on it, so that’s something for the player to consider, as well.

3. Various sources have mentioned different categories of powers (“you can select powers from the Creature Feature or Minor Talent category”). If it’s not too much of a pain, can you fill in some of the other power categories?

It is not too much of a pain, but Rechan already beat me to it. The guy’s been busy while my back’s been turned! 😉

Rel Fexive says:

You’re doing great work here!

Thanks! I’m glad so many people seem to be enjoying it.

I have a question: harking back to all the talk about Thaumaturgy and the Complexity of spells, can you give us an idea about the various levels of Complexity and what sort of things you can do at each?

Here’s a list of effects from the Thaumaturgy section, along with the Complexity of each:

• Dreamless Sleep (Easy Version): 4-6, depending on duration.
• Dreamless Sleep (Weapons-Grade Version): 6-12, depending on duration.
• Entropy Curse (Mild): 9, based on target’s Discipline.
• Entropy Curse (Weapon’s Grade): 26, based on target’s Discipline.
• Extended Divination: 8 or 9 at least, sometimes up to 16 or more.
• Faerie-Trapping Spell (Pixie Strength): 4. More powerful faeries are tougher.
• Harry Blinds the Loup-Garou: 9, based on conflict.
• Harry’s Tracking Spell: 2-8, based on difficulty of Investigate task.
• Illumina Magnus (Magically Dusting for Prints): 3-8
• Memorium, Memoratum, Memoritus: 5, based on the ghosts being present and tagging all in the zone with one Aspect.
• Mind-Fog: 12, based on conflict and covering 3 zones
• Nevernever Crossover Detection: 8
• Phobophage Redirection: 14, based on conflict.
• Reading the Dead Eyes: 4-10, based on the time since death.
• Reiki Healing Spell: 8-10, based on the consequence healed.
• Victor Sells’s Heart-Exploding Spell: 32, based on conflict.
• Zombie Animation: 6-10 for summoning the spirit, based on conflict, and 10-14 for binding it, based on conflict and duration.

How’s that?

Cheers! Keep up the good work!

I’ll keep doing this as long as I get questions that I can answer. When things start getting too niggling or the answers start being entire sections of the book, then I’ll pull the plug.

Rechan says:

What I find slightly annoying is that Sorcerers are pretty much identical to Wizards, mechanically. The only difference is thus:

Wizards get Wizards Constitution and Soulgaze. They also MUST take The Sight. Sorcerers have the option (but it says that almost all of them DO, and they’d be “flying blind” without it).

So there’s not a lot of mechanical distinction between the two. Hell, you could take a Wizard and call him a sorcerer because he’s self-taught. The main distinction is fluff. So why make a distinction in mechanics I donno.

Also, I’ve not delved into the “making your own powers/spells” chapter, Rick. But I had an idea of a monster with a power that basically is an attack that does damage to the target, but “heals” the monster. Not quite the same as a Hunger Dependency (it doesn’t need to feed, but feeding makes it heal). The idea being a Mummy whose touch dessicates the target, while giving it back vitality. I’m not sure how to DO this (or even if it’s balanced; that’d make it REALLY LETHAL).

Fred jumped on both of these in the comment thread. Thanks, Fred!

I guess there ought to be a ‘Wizard Watchdogs +1′ flaw for Wizards, given how the council is fairly on-top of them.

You could do that, I guess, but given the few other +1 powers out there and how restrictive they are, I think this is too big a bonus. Especially during the War, when the Council is focused externally and pretty short of Wardens. I’d suggest instead taking an Aspect like The Council is Keeping an Eye on Me, which could be used for compels when the character is thinking of playing loose with the Laws of Magic, and also could be invoked for help if the character needs to get in touch with the Council.

Lanodantheon says:

Thanks for the answers.

The Ascension Rite does look like a Big Bad Plot Device. I personally was going to use it for an origin story.

Imagine an Aspect, “Failed Ascension Rite”

Nice!

Jon Hammersley says:

Will there be a “suggested reading” section with some places to start mining ideas for different magical cultures (i.e. Native American Spirit magic, Voodoo, Chinese Daoist magic, etc). Another thing I’d like to see would be more generic examples of beings not mentioned in the books (Babba Yaga, Rasputin, Jack-in-Irons, etc). I suppose these might be statted out already (Hag, Giant, Creepy Priest with Craaaaazy eyes, etc) but I’d like to know if they are actually called out by their more familiar names as examples.

Currently, there is not a suggested reading/viewing section. If people are interested, I could certainly compile a list of decent books for game-level research on different magical traditions and post it here.

As for the creatures not mentioned in the books, not a lot on them. Mainly just mentions like “this is one version, there are other variants.” Honestly, though, building and modifying creatures and other foes in this system is pretty easy – five minutes with the books and a pencil, and you’ve got a highly-customized version, especially if you work more with the Aspects than the powers.

Aspects, people. That’s where it’s at with FATE-based games!

Lanodantheon says:

I just thought of a good question.

Necromancy. I assume it is linked to spirit and zombie hordes require thaumaturgy.

You got it. There’s about a page of info on Necromancers in general, including a short bit on the Disciples of Kemmler, many of which get statted out (though not in the same section).

What do they have to say about Kemmler?

There’s about half a page on Kemmler himself, the most telling bit being Bob’s marginal note that if you have the slightest suspicion you might be encountering Heinrich Kemmler, RUN THE HELL AWAY! No stats, of course. He’s in that plot-device villain category. Several of his disciples – Grevane, Cowl, Corpsetaker, and Kumori – get their own entries. Corpsetaker (-17), Grevane (-19), and Kumori (-8) all get stat blocks, though with the usual this-is-a-starting-point caveat.

Ihadris says:

Again thanks for answering all these questions Rick! (Also to Rechan since youve started too)

You’re welcome!

Just a question about skills. Have they changed much since Spirit of the Century? Have any been removed or added in or perhaps changed what they do?

They’ve been tuned a little bit to better reflect the source material. This is mainly little things – Academics becomes Scholarship, for example – and tweaks to the applications to better reflect the modern era. Essentially, though, they’re pretty much the same as SotC.

Chad Underkoffler says:

Rick, here’s a challenge: estimate the refresh level of BTiLC’s Lo Pan.

A challenge! The gauntlet has been hurled! You’re on, sir! And I will show my work for extra credit. 😀

• Obviously, he’s got both Thaumaturgy and Evocation: -6
• It’s Sponsored Magic, tied into the demons he’s made his bargains with, giving him more power, but a couple of curses: -2 (based on Unseelie Magic)
• Let’s throw in a couple more levels of Refinement, just to round him out: -2
• Now, his funky two-forms. He’s got his Human Form at +2, because he can’t control the change himself. His powerful form has Hulking Size (-2) and Spirit Form (-3). In both forms, he’s got Wizard’s Constitution (-0).
• What else? Let’s see. Demesne (-1), of course. The Sight (-1). No evidence of an explicit Soulgaze, but Jack is temporarily blinded by meeting his eyes when they go all glowy, so let’s give him that, too, at no extra cost, because he already has the Sight.
• Oooh! Domination (-2)! Yeah, it could have been a Thaumaturgic ritual, but it works pretty quick, so let’s give him the power.
• He’s broken at least the First, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Laws of Magic, so that’s 4 x Lawbreaker (-4)
• Marked By Power (-1)
• Swift Transition (-2) to explain his vanishing acts and ability to show up almost anywhere.

So, that’s a total of -22. I could see giving him a couple more levels of Refinement, and maybe a few Mortal Stunts to round him out, but that’s my baseline.

How’s that?

Iorwerth says:

How do soulgaze, sight, and Wizards Constitution operate?

Well, I’m not going to lay out all the mechanics, but here’s how it works in a nutshell.

Soulgaze: This is a mutual mental attack, which can allow the participants to assess Aspects of the other participant if they do well. There is a real possibility of taking mental stress, though.

The Sight: This allows you to make an Assessment of the surrounding area using magical vision, so you can pick up the mystical Aspects of things you examine. It also can cause mental stress.

Wizard’s Constitution: The long life part of Wizard’s Constitution doesn’t really affect game play, but the other part of this is that you can eventually heal from pretty much anything that doesn’t kill you. It just takes time – sometimes a really long time, because it doesn’t actually speed the healing. It just makes it happen.

Atlatl Jones says:

@Chad – That would be awesome indeed! Hmm… would that make Egg Shen a local Wizard? What stats would you give the Six Demon Bag as a focus?

Yeah, I’d rule Egg Chen would be a Wizard. His Six-Demon Bag I’d stat as a focus item (probably Power rather than control) for each of the six Chinese elements – metal, water, wood, earth, fire, spirit – one demon for each element. That strikes me as a cool little item. In fact, it strikes me as so cool, I’d probably give old Egg the Aspect Six-Demon Bag, so he could tap it to help his spellcasting.

That’s it for today. I’ll be back tomorrow if anyone posts any more questions.

I’m back. Did you miss me?

xiaolung says:

I am in the midst of creating my own Jade Court vampires for my Dresdenized Hong Kong and I think I’ve got some great ideas for it. I’ve got their basic history, who they are and what they are doing – even a reason why they are so secretive and why there are so few of them. I’ll actually stat them out later (when I’ve got all the books and all the material). But right now, the ideas have been flowing like water.

If I use this material (over 1,000 words so far) for a Dresden game, I would like it to be compatible (at least in background terms) with the DFRPG. While I am pumped about the game, I would like to see if I can complete the writeup for the Jade Court. But I can’t complete that until I know what those few paragraphs on the Jade Court actually say.

Can you give me the lowdown on what those few paragraphs say about the Jade Court? Just summarize. Not word for word.

Thanks.

Well, you don’t have much to worry about, there. The section on the Jade Court says,  basically, they’re based in Asia, they’re well-entrenched and well-hidden, like to stay out of the public eye, and may have significant political and social influence in the mortal world. No one who knows anything about them, including the other Vampire Courts, is willing to talk about them, and that they have had some interaction with Shiro Yoshimo (Knight of the Cross) and possibly Ancient Mai. Oh, and they’re not involved in the current Vampire War with the White Council.

That’s about it.

John Hawkins says:

I’m very interested in the toolkit aspects of the game (I’m super excited about DFRPG as a — for me — drop in replacement for White Wolf, but I’m also very excited about applying the rules in other genres). To what extent are more Marvel Comics style powers represented in the base game? (e.g. Mr. Fantastic’s flexibility, or Iceman’s ability to fire freeze beams.)

Assuming those things aren’t represented directly, can you flex the toolkit a bit for us and examine how those might be constructed for a Flexible Freeze Monster in Dresden’s Chicago?

In particular I’m interested in how such a thing might function _outside_ the auspices of magic power per se. Presumably a creature that can spit acid doesn’t need to take a 3-refresh (equiv. to Evocation) power and put points in three separate skills towards that end, but I’m not sure how that works in costing and creating systems for non-magical (i.e. less flexible) powers.

Thanks!

Well, this isn’t a generic game. It’s specifically tailored to produce a modern supernatural play experience. So pretty much everything is explained and described in terms of magic. That said, a lot of the Supernatural Powers can be described differently, with different origins and power sources, if that’s what you want. Spitting acid? Easy. Take the Breath Weapon power (-2) and up your Weapons skill. Ice Blasts? Still easy. Take the Channeling power (-2) and boost your Conviction and Discipline. Elasticity? That’s a little more difficult. I’d go with Modular Abilities from the Shapeshifting category, and dump 4-6 Refresh into it, which the player could then use to buy other powers as he shifts his body into the appropriate forms.

It’s doable, but it’ll take some prep work and judgment calls on the part of the GM to make it run smoothly. Of course, we could just bat our eyes and beg Evil Hat to make a Superhero Fate game, right? Or check out Truth & Justice, from Atomic Sock Monkey.

Bosh says:

Thanks for doing this, you are very awesome indeed.

Aw, shucks. You’re gonna make me blush!

Two vampy questions:

“You can recover one point of Hunger stress per scene that you skip to spend feeding”

Does this mean that your character sits out a scene without doing anything?

Essentially. You’re character is off-stage, doing the feeding thing, and not involved in the current scene. Now, before people get all steamed about that, they talk about sitting out scenes as a game mechanic in another spot – preparing for casting a Thaumaturgic ritual – and they bring up the fact that that’s kinda boring. They suggest using it only if it fits the mood, or if someone is going to pick up pizza, or something like that. Personally, I find that a lot of games have scenes where the characters scatter for a bit to take care of personal things, and that’s a good time for someone to take care of that little hunger thing. I’d also say that cut scenes (“Okay, so now you’re waiting for midnight. Now it’s midnight.”) are a perfect kind of scene for the character to miss without the player being left out of stuff. And downtime (“It’s been three days game-time since the last session.”) is a perfect excuse to clear out the Hunger stress track entirely. On the other hand, you’re getting a point of Refresh back for taking the Feeding Dependency, so it’s gotta cause you some difficulties, right?

And I don’t want to give you the impression that after every action scene a Red Court Infected character is going to need to sit out the next four scenes to feed. There’s a roll based on what powers you used during the scene to see if you take Hunger stress, so if your Discipline is strong, you’re going to be able to go a while before you need to feed. It’s a complication, not an eternal punishment.

For White Court Virgins what do they DO mechanically? In the book they seem like normal old vanilla humans except for the chance that they can turn into vampires if they kill someone, they don’t seem to have any of the powers that Red Court Infected do.

White Court Virgins start with the powers Emotional Vampire and Incite Emotion (Touch). It’s not a whole lot, but it does leave more Refresh for Fate Points or other powers they buy outside of their template.

Sephilum says:

The Merlin sounds like he’s pretty strong. But is there anyone tougher stated up in the book?

Rechan got this one in the comment thread. Thanks, Rechan!

Jon Hammersley says:

One more reason to go with preorder is to get the .pdf file so that you can eliminate (or at least reduce) the amount of page turning that you have to do. Cut and paste is your friend with electronic documents.

1. I know I keep going back to the well on this, but what does it cost to use a stunt in play (i.e. SotC has some that require a fate point and some that do not).

Most Mortal Stunts do not require anything to use in play except the correct circumstances. Some of the more powerful ones will require a Fate Point, though. There’s a nice list of stunts in the book, but these are more by way of example of how to build your own stunts using the guidelines they give you.

2. While I’m sure that there is quite a bit of information about the standard (Dresdenversse) magical forces and what you can do with them, I’m curious as to how much information is spent discussing other cultures’ forms of magic (Voodoo, etc) and how they translate to the system. Do they all have members attached to the Whitel Council or are some magical traditions considered “outside” their control (Fey sponsored magic for instance).

There are descriptions of what you can do with Seelie and Unseelie magic (the two flavours of faerie Sponsored Magic). Because of the allegiance to the Courts, these practitioners are outside the purview of the White Council. As for different magical traditions, there’s a discussion of how different Wizards will use their own cultural trappings for their magic, whether they are members of the White Council or not. The mechanics are all the same, but the types of ritual, focus items, and other trappings reflect the symbology and outlook of the originating culture.

Because the source material deals almost exclusively with the White Council as the governing body of magic in the world, there’s not a lot of information out there on other traditions of magic. Sponsored magic is outside the Council’s bailiwick, and minor talents are generally seen as beneath them. That said, the Circle has been rearing it’s head, and they get a mention, and there are some solo practitioners, though the Wardens try to hunt these down before they do any real damage. And they definitely hunt them down after they do real damage.

Well, at least before the war.

3. Will we see guidelines for playing Fey characters? I’ve been thinking of a concept that involves some poor mortal who was tricked into switching bodies with one of the Fey (who got killed while inhabiting the mortal body) and get’s stuck that way (or vice versa). If nothing else it makes for a fun time trying to fix the situation (not to mention moral dilemma of where to get a body).

You bet. Some of the minor fey, as well as Changelings, make great characters at different power levels. And your concept could work very well even with a Pure Mortal, if you take the right Aspects.

vultur says:

Going with Sephilum’s question: Are any of the high-level Fae statted? Aurora, Lily, Maeve? Leanansidhe, the Erlking, the Eldest Gruff? Mab or Titania *shudder*?

As noted above, the Evil Hat folks have (quite rightly, in my opinion) decided that most of the heavy hitters are more plot devices than characters for statting. They’ve statted up Aurora and Lily, but the Queens and Mothers, the Erlking and Lea, and the Eldest Gruff are powerful enough that giving them stats is kind of pointless. Even for the Ladies, they list their stats as a sort of starting point, implying that they may have more powers that people just don’t know about.

And what about Dragons?

Ferrovax is statted up, but again, it’s listed as a starting point.

Lanodantheon says:

1. What does the Scholarship skill do?

Bosh jumped on board with the answer to this one. Thanks, Bosh! Two things I want to add: first, Scholarship is what you generally use to do research. Second, Scholarship is one of the key skills for make Declarations and Assessments about things that your character may have no direct knowledge of. As such, it’s handy.

2. How do you do Hexenwolves or Hexenbears? Do they always carry serious consequences like madness or does it vary by the sponsor(A demon vs. a Great Wolf Spirit)?

Hexen-creatures are just like were-creatures, with the addition of Item of Power and Demonic Co-Pilot. Negotiation with the GM could change the spirit of Demonic Co-Pilot to something like a Great Wolf Spirit, as you suggest, but the main point is that the sponsor has an agenda, and you have made a commitment to help it in return for its gifts. So, not necessarily madness, but it does carry consequences. For the Wolf Spirit idea, I could see the character becoming alienated from the rest of humanity, caring less about human laws than the simple black and white of an animal’s mindset, and things like that.

3. How do you do an Ascension Rite like the one described in Welcome to The Jungle? What would be its in-game effects?

Had to re-read the comics before I could answer this one. (Oh, no! What a hardship! ;)) Here’s my take:

First of all, the hag took decades to gather what she needed. It also seemed to take place in stages. And it confers godlike power, but makes you “more of what you are.” Sounds like a stat-less plot device ritual to me. In a game, I wouldn’t work out stats for it, because the PCs would stop it before it gets completed. That’s the whole point, right? But I’ve got to plan for an interesting failure, as well, so I’d probably work out what the hag’s agenda was once she completed the ritual. And if she did complete the ritual, I’d give her power roughly on a par with the Faerie Queens, at least, meaning she becomes a plot device, as well.

But that doesn’t really answer the question, does it?

If I needed for some reason to make this ritual by the book, I’d set the complexity up around 76 (ruling that transforming oneself so completely means having to overcome the Physical, Mental, and Social stress tracks and consequences for the hag), which means that even the canny Hecatean Hag is going to have to spend some extensive time preparing the spell with researching the ritual, gathering the materials, and arranging the appropriate power sources. It also means the actual casting time is going to be quite extended, which is why it’s happening in stages (which the rules really don’t cover, but it makes sense to me).

And if the ritual is completed and goes off? Well, first of all, “becoming more of what you are” sounds a whole lot like losing a bunch of free will and becoming an NPC to me, so anyone completing it loses all unspent Refresh and Fate Points. And then they gain the power of a Faerie Queen, becoming a plot device character set on an agenda and set of goals dictated by the character’s Aspects.

(Well, if you really have to have some stats for this, let’s say they must immediately spend all their unspent Refresh on new powers, and then spend another amount equal to their new total of spent Refresh on more new powers. This’ll set them with a real Fate Point deficit, which means that they are constantly being compelled by their own Aspects. Great power, but more of what you are.)

How does that sound?

Keep ’em coming, folks. I’ve got an unrelated update that’s going to go up this afternoon or evening, but I’ll have another Q&A post tomorrow if I get more questions.

Big wheel keeps on turnin’…

Rechan says:

Since we know that Red Court infected go over if they taste blood, and White Court virgins kill the first person they feed on… how do you “take the time to feed”? If you “feed”, you go over the edge into Monsterland. So how do you handle that? Is there any advice to how to describe being “taken out”?

First off, White Court Virgins don’t need to take the Feeding Dependency, so that’s not an issue for them. Red Court Infected do need to take the Feeding Dependency, but they don’t go over to the dark side for tasting blood – only if they kill while feeding. You can recover one point of Hunger stress per scene that you skip to spend feeding, or you can regain all your Hunger stress in a single scene if you feed deeply enough to kill. Which might be a cool way to have a character sacrifice himself/herself in play, killing to feed in order to regain the power needed to save the rest of the party, and then retiring to NPC land afterwards as a very interesting new enemy.

As to being taken out, that’s actually a game term, meaning the character is out of the fight. The book recommends that in this particular case, taken out can mean things like being too weak to continue, or mindless with hunger. If the GM is feeling stroppy, this would be a good time to drop some compels on the character, encouraging feeding.

Or would that be too nasty? 😉

I’m going to take a guess that the powers on an enemy’s statblock is going to require a lot of referencing, yeah? So if the monster has “Supernatural Speed”, you’re going to either need to reference what that is, or write it down somewhere, aren’t you?

(I’ve been spoiled by D&D 4e statblocks)

Yeah, you’re going to have to do more looking things up than in D&D 4E. On the other hand, there’s a significantly smaller set of powers, so it’s much more reasonable to expect to gain some mastery over it so that you don’t have to look things up all the time. And things like Supernatural Speed tend to mainly give bonuses to other stats on the character sheet.

On the topic of enemies. Based on their statblocks, is there a way to tell how tough a monster is? For instance, “This would be appropriate for ‘Toes in the Water’ level PCs” vs. “This would be appropriate for ‘Submerged’, who have been advanced twice”? Lenny in the Podcast said that he spent a third of a chapter talking about advancing enemies. But I’m curious if there’s any indication on the statblocks currently presented. (For instance, what’s the “level” of a Hecatian Hag?)

Each character and monster statted up in the book has an entry reading Total Refresh Cost. This makes it fairly easy to judge how tough a given foe is compared to your PCs. Playing in a Feet in the Water game? Then things with a -6 or higher Refresh Cost are going to be tougher than the characters. It also allows you to “level up” foes pretty easily – either give them more Stunts or Powers, or give them Fate Points to make up the difference between their Refresh Cost and the power level of the PCs.

Continuing with monsters. We’ve been told time and again that “If it touched me, I’d have been killed”. That’s clear. And that you should pick your battles and be careful. Sure, granted. But for whatever reason, let’s say the fight has to go down. Do PCs have lots of options for ‘keeping it from touching me’? Basically, what’s between them and that Troll picking up a tree to play croquet?

Basically, Fate Points. Spending Fate Points to improve your defense is a key tactic in combat – whether by invoking one of your Aspects (“I invoke my It’s All In The Reflexes Aspect to dodge the tree the troll is swinging”), an Aspect of the scene (“I invoke the Junk Piles Aspect of the scene to duck behind a stack of old refrigerators”), or an Aspect of the foe (“I invoke the Blinded By Sand Aspect I tagged the troll with last exchange to cause his swing to go wild”). Note that, if you tagged the troll with an Aspect through using a Maneuver, you get the invocation for free, without having to spend a Fate Point. This is why Maneuvers are important in combat.

Last Q of the night:

It’s been shown that there are lots of awesome ways to beat the heck out of people physically. Combat is dangerous. Evocation, shotguns, tons of Powers, etc etc. Not to mention armor and all other sorts of things. However. Mental and Social conflicts can equally rack up stress and consequences. Is there anything that you can use in a Mental or Social conflict? Anything that’s equivalent to a weapon, anything you can use to break your competition (or use as a defense!), or is it purely a test of skill vs skill and otherwise you’re on your own?

Well, it’s mostly a test of Skill vs. Skill, but in any such test, Aspects factor hugely. You can build Stunts pretty easily that help you with Social or Mental conflicts, too. There are a few Powers, like Emotion Control, that can directly affect such conflicts, and you can easily work out Thaumaturgical effects that attack Mental or Social stress tracks. Admittedly, none of them are as flashy as having a shotgun in one hand and throwing around fire with the other, but they certainly get the job done.

Iorwerth says:

I noticed you could have stunts that increased strength, toughness and speed. How many different levels are there of these e.g. supernatural, superhuman, inhuman etc? Also, are these the only enhanced stats, or is there superhuman intelligence etc?

Do they give a +2/+4/+6 etc modifier, or do they give +1/+2/+3 etc? I presume enhanced strength stunt can act as a modifier to your Might and would also add in to stress caused by fists, melee weapons etc – would that be right? Toughness subtracts from stress damage? How does increased speed help you out?

There are three levels of each “Stat Booster” Power – Inhuman, Supernatural, and Mythic. There are also a total of three different “Stat Booster” Powers – Speed, Strength, and Toughness.

It’s not quite as clear cut as a straight progression like you have outlined above. Inhuman Strength, for example, gives +3 to Might for purposes of lifting or breaking inanimate objects, +1 to Might when grappling and the ability to inflict a 2-stress hit on a creature you’re grappling as a supplemental action, +2 to damage when using muscle-powered attacks, and always positively modifies other skills that might otherwise be limited by Might. The higher levels do pretty much the same thing, but more.

Toughness can improve recovery times, help your Endurance skill, wipe physical consequences from your character during combat, and at higher levels even grant you Armour and extra physical stress boxes.

Speed can boost your initiative, your Athletics skill, let you move farther in a given turn, and improve your Stealth because you’re moving almost too fast to see.

Rechan says:

To add to Iorwerth’s question, what about Recovery? Does it make consequences heal faster, give you stress boxes back, what?

Recovery is part of Toughness, which both lets consequences and stress hits heal faster and gives you extra stress boxes.

Lanodantheon says:

Dammit I want to play this game the more I hear about it!!!

Then my evil plan is working! Mwahahahahaha!

Anyway, I did think of some good non-random questions.

1. What are the magical elements under Evocation? Is Entropy an element? Related side note: I’ve been pondering for 2 years the idea of a Sorcerer whose shield is Entropy based, a shield redirects forces around him instead of stopping it cold (Kinda looks like Fortune from MGS2)

The book focuses on the western classical elements: Air, Earth, Fire, Water, and Spirit. However, there’s a discussion on how casters from different cultures use their own symbology and mystical understanding to work their magic. For example, they point out that Ancient Mai uses the Chinese elements of Metal, Water, Wood, Earth, Fire, and Spirit.

Entropy is generally covered by the erosive, destructive aspects of Water in the basic write-up, as epitomized by Carlos the Warden. That said, most of the side effects of the various elements are pure jazz, and easy to change with the consent of the GM.

2. What is the spectrum of Control, Power and Complexity. Harry is the paragon of Power(A magical Thug). Who are the best examples of Control and Complexity?

As statted in the book, the Merlin is the highest Lore rating (Epic +7) – he hasn’t forgotten more about magic than you’ll ever know, simply because he’s never forgotten anything about magic! The Gatekeeper and Ancient Mai are close seconds. All three of these characters are tied for Discipline (Fantastic +6) – they’ve got tonnes of practice keeping great forces under their control.

3. Related to 2: What’s a Spellcaster with a high Lore and therefore capable of high complexities look like? What’s a character like that good at?

Rechan points out some of the things in the previous comment thread. Thanks, Rechan! Basically, Lore is the foundation that the other two skills build upon. Without Lore, you won’t have much flexibility with the power you can call, and your control over it won’t matter nearly as much because you won’t have the options of calling down the big effects. If you read Turn Coat, look at the description of how the Merlin casts magic – it’s stuff that leaves Harry cold, because he doesn’t even understand some of it.

Thanks again for the info.

You’re welcome again. 😉

BTW, I’ve had to explain the DFRPG character types like 4 times already and whenever I do, I explain minor Talents perfectly with Lucky Firth.

Heh. Yeah, he was a good character – one trick, but it served him very well.

Jon Hammersley says:

Rechan’s question above about social and mental conflicts stress and consequences and it got me thinking about how you could bring these into play.

Aspects like “Knows where the bodies are buried.” could potentially be used to force information out of someone (Social conflict through intimidation?). Protective aspects might include something like “Plays things close to the vest” or “Trust doesn’t come easily”.

Giving an enemy the Aspect of “Sight not meant for mortal eyes” could have an effect on your mental state (If you stare into the abyss, blah blah blah). If you want to play up the horror aspect of a game of mortals vs things that go bump in the night, the mental reprecussions can begin to add up rather quickly forcing some sort of breakdown. Protective aspects might include “I’ve seen it all” or “Clean up, aisle 3″ for characters who have been exposed to these things in the past and have a better understanding of what’s going on.

These are all spot-on. And Intimidation is one of the primary skills used in Social conflict. I really like Clean Up, Aisle 3 as an Aspect, personally.

I’m really beginning to enjoy the idea of aspects and how they can be used in game to bring about situations that advance the game. What’s got me curious is the “stunt” side of things and how wildly different supernatural and mortal stunts are.

FATE is a cool system in many ways, and I like it for a number of reasons. But the main reason I love it is the flexibility, colour, and interesting situations that Aspects bring about.

About Stunts: it’s important to remember that, even though they use the same mechanic to acquire them (spending Refresh), Mortal Stunts and Supernatural Powers are qualitatively different within the game. Mortal Stunts are basically little Skill-based tricks that you can call on in certain situations – things that are possible, even if they may be unlikely. This is stuff like having a special in-depth knowledge of a particular aspect of a given subject, being better at running than at climbing, having friends in high (or low) places, etc. All of these things can also be represented by Aspects, and there’s a great synergy that can come into play if you have both an Aspect and a Stunt that’s applicable in a given situation.

Supernatural Powers are impossible things. They let you fly, or turn into a snake, or summon fire with the force of your sovereign will. They mark the difference between mortals and supernatural creatures, which can be important in the game world. For example, Harry is subject to the Unseelie Accords. Murphy? Not so much. And now we’ve got Marcone straddling that line.

Rechan says:

It seems like the Conviction/Discipline/Lore model is very hardwired together, and to an extent you need all three. Since you have to call up power for a ritual wtih Conviction (and if you exceed it, you take stress). Some with Discipline and evocation unless you’re not concerned about effecting the area around you.

Yup. The three are very intertwined but, as I said above, in many ways, Lore is the foundation.

Which brings me to a new question:

It’s really easy to understand when destructive attacks blow into the environment. If you call up an Evocation that isn’t necessarily Destructive, and it exceeds your discipline… what happens? Let’s say you’re calling up a Spirit evocation to Block an incoming attack (With your Shield Bracelet, let’s say). If the effect blows out into the environment… what happens?

It’s up to the GM, but I might do something like having the pulse of Spirit force that you can’t control splash out around you, knocking things (and people) over, maybe knocking out structural elements of the building, or spilling over into bright light that makes you a target for everyone in the area. This is essentially what happened in the playtest.

Sorry for the massive amount of questions from me today, Rick.

Dude. Never apologize for enthusiasm! That’s why I’m doing this, after all. And I knew what I was getting into.

Tush Hog says:

I’ve got a few questions to throw at you.

How are death curses handled?

Ooooh… Good one. There’s a nice little sidebar in the Thaumaturgy section that explains it. Basically, it’s a ritual with all the preparation and components being represented by the fact that he’s going to die. He can tag all the usual Aspects, as well as all Consequences he’s suffered, and can inflict more Consequences on himself. He can cast it in one round, because he’s not worried about backlash or fallout – he’s dead, after all. This lets it be very powerful, and absolutely devastating, whether it’s a short-term thing (Death-Nuke, anyone?) or a long-term complete transformation of the target’s fate.

In the books there are several instances where one wizard “shuts down” another’s magic. Is that talked about?

For short-term smack-down of a single spell, there’s the counterspell application of Evocation, where you sort of wash out one spell with the raw power you channel. For more long-term solutions, like permanently removing someone’s curse or ability to work magic, Thaumaturgy lets you build a ritual that would work, though that latter application would be difficult.

How tough is Michael?

Pretty tough.

Let me put it this way – he has the same Total Refresh Cost as the write-up of Harry. His Conviction is as strong as Harry’s, he’s got Superb Weapons skill, and a nifty little stunt called Wall of Death. Notice how I haven’t even mentioned the Knight of the Cross or Amoracchius or the armour Charity made him? Yeah. He’s that bad-ass without even getting into that.

Wow. Posts are getting longer because the questions are getting more detailed and the answers to them more complex.

That’s it for tonight. I will not be updating tomorrow evening, because I will be busy running a Spirit of the Century game based on this little treasure. Keep those cards and letters coming in, though, and I will resume answering them on Saturday.

…Proud Harry keeps on burning,

Burning,

Burning,

Burning down Chicago!

Here we go.

Lanodantheon says:

When I asked my question earlier I never got around to mentioning that your playtest campaign greatly amused me 2-fold. I loved the characters and the stories and because my family’s originally from Winnipeg. Reading about it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Cool! You may have already seen it, but this is what we did with Magical Winnipeg, using the original playtest chapter on city building.

Anyway, I got some more questions I hope you could answer:

1. You mentioned that Conviction determines the power you can draw in and Discipline determines your control of backlash, but what does Lore do? I read somewhere that it has something to do with your spell selection.

Lore is very important in Thaumaturgy, because it lets you build the ritual you need for the effect you want. Basically, you can perform rituals with a complexity of your Lore rating or lower off the cuff, but you need to spend time researching, experimenting, and setting up symbolic connections (i.e. make a Lore check) for rituals of greater complexity. For Evocation, your Lore rating determines how many rote Evocation spells you know – these are dependable, relatively safe applications of power. Lore also determines the base power of any enchanted items you create.

2. Items of Power, magical foci and intellect spirits in skulls. How much are these things? I know that crafted items like blasting rods are slot based from the magical abilities you have but what do you use to buy them(in system)?

There are different ways to handle different kinds of enchanted items. Characters with Evocation or Thaumaturgy get a number of slots to spend on focus items (for things like staves and blasting rods). You can trade those in for double the number of enchanted item slots (for things like Harry’s force rings). If you’re looking for something substantially more powerful (like a Sword of the Cross, for example), you can take the Item of Power supernatural power. And you can add some extra flexibility to items that you really depend on by making them Aspects, as well, which makes it easier to spend Fate Points on them when you need to. For something free-willed like an intellect spirit in a skull, to model that in the game, I’d recommend taking it as an Aspect, and maybe a Mortal Stunt or two to have it help you with Lore checks or Investigation. You could still invoke the Aspect with a Fate Point to get it to do some other stuff – like possessing your cat, or whatever.

3. related to 2: Say I’m a 2-bit Sorcerer character who hit it big and scored a major magical item. How expensive are the major magical items like a Shadow Cloak and a broom…no Hockey Stick of Flying.

Well, if you just have Thaumaturgy at the basic level, with no Refinements spent on extra slots, you could have up to four enchanted item slots if you didn’t want any focus items. A Shadow Cloak that adds your Lore to your Stealth skill once per session would cost one slot. If you want it to be always on, it would still cost one slot, but would only add half your Lore to your Stealth. You can bump up the power by one level per extra slot you spend on it.

Now, if you want something with a little more oomph to it, you probably want to take the Item of Power ability from Supernatural Powers. That gives you something a little bit beyond the basics, but it costs Refresh, just like any other Supernatural Power. A Hockey Stick of Flying that lets you fly at will would probably run at -1 Refresh, based on the cost of the Wings ability.

4. I’ve asked this in other places and the typical response is, “Wait and see”. Any sign of RPG-specific material aside from Magical Baltimore, etc?

I’m not sure what you mean by “RPG-specific” material. If you mean source material for the game, then the entire second volume and some good chunks of the first all qualify. If you mean stuff that isn’t drawn directly from the novels, then there’s less of that – mainly just the Baltimore stuff and the real-world Chicago weirdness from that master of the weird, Ken Hite. That said, a lot of the characters and creature types from the novels have large amounts of information about them that didn’t really make it to centre stage in the novels. A quick glance shows entries on Nick Christian, Gowan Commando, Lisa Boughton, and Mickey Malone, so there’s a lot of stuff that might not be familiar to the casual reader of the series.

5. What advice do the books give on putting the supernatural into the Mundane? I’d like to get a head start on vetting Magical Spokane before the game comes out.

The main advice in the City Building chapter is all about coming up with themes and threats for your city – what aspects of the city are you going to focus on for story purposes, and what things are threatening them. The advice on adding the supernatural to the mundane is sprinkled through it, with one specific section called Locations and the Supernatural: Making the Connection. The advice is generally to look at the city from the point of view of magical beings, and see what would interest them. Draw on real-world ideas and geography to help make things work. For example, when we did Magical Winnipeg, we looked at the junction of the Red River and the Assiniboine River. This confluence is why there’s a settlement in this spot. So, looking at these two rivers, and the idea of a meeting and trading place for the First Nations people, and the fact that Winnipeg is a primary destination for recent immigrants in Canada, we came up with the idea of the Consecration of the Two Waters to give those themes and ideas a supernatural resonance.

That’s the kind of advice you’ll find in the book.

6. What is the base starting level for campaigns? At what refresh rate do things get stupid power?

Good question! There are four suggested starting levels, named for how far you wade into the supernatural world, ranging from Feet in the Water to Submerged. Each sets a starting Refresh, number of Skill points, and cap on Skill levels. Feet in the Water is 6 Refresh, 20 Skill points, and Skills capped at Great. Up to Your Waist is 7 Refresh, 25 Skill points, and Skills capped at Great. Chest-Deep is 8 Refresh, 30 Skill points, and Skills capped at Superb. Submerged is 10 Refresh, 35 Skill points, and Skills capped at Superb. To give you some idea of what that means, it takes a minimum of 7 Refresh to build a starting Wizard. At Submerged, you could build someone at about the level Harry was at the beginning of Storm Front.

Stupid power? I dunno. You definitely need to ratchet up the opposition as the characters advance through the power levels, but because of the way the Aspects tie into the character, and the flexibility of building opposition, I don’t really see there being much of a problem with things creeping up too high. Of course, your mileage may vary; we all have our own favourite power-level sweet spot where we like to game. It depends on the kinds of stories you want to tell.

Iorwerth says:

Thank you for answering my questions – much appreciated!!

You’re more than welcome. Glad to do it.

When attacking someone with an evocation spell, such as some sort of a fireball, would do stress damage equal to the difference between your Discipline roll and the defence roll, or the difference between the power level and the defence roll? Is there a defence roll at all?

e.g. Randalf has a conviction level of Good, so calls down a goodly amount of power. He then rolls his Discipline and gets a superb result, meaning he can easily control the power. The target tries to jump out of the way and achieves a fair result. Does Randalf do 3 stress with the fireball (Superb minus fair defence) or 1 stess (Good amount of power minus defence of fair)? Or am i missing something crucial somewhere?

Fred jumped on the comments of my last post and answered this. Thanks Fred! Good to know that you’re keeping an eye on this process – it means I can trust you folks to jump in and correct me if I miss something or get it wrong.

Rechan says:

So Rick, here’s my questions:

What’s the book say about Companions (ala SotC)? I’m curious about things like Spirit Companions (something like Bob, but you take it with you and use it), or refluffing it as a familiar. Or other uses.

Nothing explicitly. It doesn’t have anything akin to the Companions stunts of SotC. That said, it’s easy to figure out how to handle such things. For example, they talk about taking Aspects to reflect relationships, so you could take an Aspect like My Familiar, Hecubus. A little negotiation with the GM means that you can tap him to help with magic, either the performance of it or the preparation of it, and maybe to help with certain other things like Investigation by having him spy on your enemies. If you want a more reliable source of information, you can round this out with a Mortal Stunt or two, so that your familiar also gives you a regular bonus to your Lore skill, say. If I were creating Bob as something my character has, for instance, I would probably do both, with an Aspect like Keeper of Bob the Talking Skull, and a Mortal Stunt like Occultist (Magical Theory (Potion Recipes)).

Does the book talk about Spirits at all? Bob is a Spirit of Intellect. We know that Lycanthropes channel spirits of rage. But those are the only “spirits” we’ve seen. Monsters from the Nevernever, sure, but not straight up “Spirits” that just encompass concepts.

There’s close to two pages of discussion on Spirits in the Goes Bump chapter, and a very detailed write-up on Bob specifically in the Who’s Who chapter. Probably a few more, but I still haven’t made it through both books. Stupid day job.

Fred has said that spellcasting can create an “infinite” amount of spells. So, how is this done? Is it more “Effect based spellcasting”, or what? For instance, there are several elements out there for specialization we’ve not seen used (or barely used). There exists Water magic, but the only “Water” spell we’ve seen was the Water Bubble that Carlos cast in White Night. So if I wanted to play a Water-specialized mage, how would I make my spells? How would I make them on the fly?

Okay. There’s two flavours of spellcasting in the game, just as in the books. Evocation tosses around energy and elemental forces – this is Harry’s use of fire and air and Carlos’s use of water. There is a detailed discussion of the different elemental versions of Evocation, including talking about how water magic was also what Carlos was using to shoot out his bolts that turned the targets to dust (using the erosive properties of water). There are limited things you can do with Evocation – attack, block, maneuver, and counterspell. That said, there’s a good discussion of determining the visuals of the spell, and how you can use such bits of colour to your advantage. For example, it talks about Carlos’s water bubble shield that he then turned into an attack, using it to disintegrate an attacker.

It’s Thaumaturgy where you really get into the infinite variety of spells. This is very much effect-based magic: you figure out what you want to do, the GM sets the complexity based on how the effect is modeled by the game rules, you prepare the spell, and then cast it. It’s a very flexible system that becomes pretty intuitive after you’ve worked through it a couple of times.

Bosh says:

On the Jim Butcher boards, Fred Hicks said that damage can be situational (knives are better in some situations than in others) how does this work with what you’re talking about here? I’m very curious about what they’ve cooked up for the weapon/damage system since that’s been either not addressed or been implemented in ways that I’ve had some problems with in other FATE games.

Huh. I’ve just reread the section on weapons, and I can’t find anything like that. Indeed, the advice is to avoid getting bogged down by creating detailed weapon and armour lists, and make subjective judgments based on the situation. The combat system, as in other FATE games, leans toward the rules-light, high-trust, cinematic end. Really, with the structure of the Ladder, there’s not a whole lot of room for lots of minor variations on weapons and armour that are meaningful. That said, it’s perfectly reasonable for the GM to adjust things on the fly, or for characters to make Declarations about the weapons or armour of themselves or their opponents to gain advantage.

That’s it for tonight, folks. If you’ve got more questions, I’ll get to them tomorrow evening.