OneShot – Pregens

Hey, so its been a while. But the pregenerated characters took longer to complete than I expected, mostly because of the Aspects.

I’m really excited to run this game, but despite what it looks like by my posts, I’m still new to DFRPG. Aspects play such a pivotal role to the Fate point economy that I didn’t want these pregens to be “flawed”. Who knows, maybe they still are. We’ll have to see how they play “out of the box” as it were.

So here we go. I’ve only got the two players, so two pregen PCs. You’ll notice that they don’t have all 5 story aspects — I want to leave two that the players can work on before the game.

Pregen Character #1

Name: Teddy Ursavus Template: Were-form

High Concept: Werebear Cabbie Trouble: The Spirit Drives Me

Background: Small town farm boy from Vernon, BC. Youngest of a family of six. Loved to hunt with Pa’. Moved to the Big City (Victoria) to attend university, but brought the country charm with him. Aspect: You Need a Hand?

What Shaped You: One day Teddy and Pa were out hunting and stumbled upon a bear cub — and a breath later, it’s mother. She wasted no time taking a large swipe out of Pa’s face. All time stopped for Teddy, at which point he was visited by a Fae spirit named Ker Modei. Ker offered him the opportunity to “awaken the spirit within the blood” that would give him the power to save his father. Teddy agreed, and suddenly he was back, but he was larger and stronger, and tearing the mother bear apart with his hands and teeth! Afterwards Teddy took his Pa to the hospital, but he died several days later. Ker returned to collect on the favour, but Teddy argued that since her favour didn’t save his father, so he was not in her debt. Aspect: Bloody Spirit

What Was Your First Adventure: When a pack of Red Court vampires follow Teddy back home on Christmas Eve, Teddy tries to take care of them without alerting his family. But will Teddy succeed when a RCMP officer finds him starting a brawl in a Hell’s Angels bar? Aspect: Never Met A Brawl I Didn’t Like

Skills: Rapport (+5), Driving (+4), Guns (+4), Endurance (+3), Contacts (+3), Resources (+2), Scholarship (+2), Weapons (+2), Might (+2), Survival (+2), Alertness (+1), Athletics (+1), Fists (+1), Investigation (+1), Intimidation (+1), Craftmanship (+1)

Skills (Were-form): Fists (+5), Alertness (+4), Athletics (+4), Endurace (+3), Might (+3),Resources (+2), Scholarship (+2), Weapons (+2), Rapport (+2), Survival (+2), Investigation (+1), Intimidation (+1), Craftmanship (+1), Driving (+1), Guns (+1), Contacts (+1)

Stunts & Powers: Beast Change (-1), Echoes of the Beast (-1), *Human Form (+1), Inhuman Strength (-2)*, Inhuman Recovery (-2)*, The Catch (+1, Silver weapons)*, Lethal Weapon (-1, Fists), Like The Back of My Hand (-1, Driving)

Refresh 4

Stress: Phys 4; Mental 2; Social 2

Pregen Character #2

Name: Nathan Olfist Template: Red Court Infected

High Concept: Infected Black Belt Trouble: Son Of “The Dragon”

Background: Grew up in a single-mother household. Nathan’s father, “The Dragon”, abandoned the family to sell drugs in Vancouver. In his early twenties, Nathan took the mantle of the head of household, as his father returned and got his mother hook ed on heroin. Aspect:  The Provider

What Shaped You: Strung out on drugs, Nathan’s mother became a homeless street junkie who would not return to live with Nathan anymore. One day Nathan committed himself to finding her and putting her in a rehab facility. So he walked the streets for weeks until one night he finally found her, passed out in an alley. Standing over her were two Red Court flunkies, drooling over their next meal. Nathan attacked the thugs, but became infected in the combat. Aspect: Avid Doorcrasher

What Was Your First Adventure: When the Vancouver chapter of the Fellowship of St. Giles is attacked by a group of Reds, Nathan opens his home to house the survivors. But will Nathan succeed in stemming the bloodshed when Duke Antonio Alvarez arrives with another round of troops? Aspect: Bring It On!

Skills: Weapons (+5), Discipline (+4), Fists (+4), Endurance (+3),  Investigation (+3), Resources (+2), Guns (+2), Might (+2), Alertness (+2), Athletics (+2), Burglary (+1), Intimidation (+1), Lore (+1), Presence (+1), Contacts (+1), Stealth (+1)

Stunts & Powers: Addictive Saliva (-1), Blood Drinker (-1), Feeding Dependency (+1), Inhuman Recovery (-2), The Catch (+1, “holy stuff”), Inhuman Strength (-2), Tattoos of St. Giles (-2), Filthy Lucre (-1, Resources)

Refresh 2

Stress: Phys (4); Mental (2); Social (3); Hunger (6)

That’s them! Now I’ll let the players finish off the last two aspects, and they’ll be ready. Next, I think I’ll work on some NPCs to support the oneshot.

DFRPG101: Aspects

Well I’ve had, what, 3 posts on the Dresden Files RPG now, and yet have only mentioned that which drives the whole of the game: Aspects.

Aspects are descriptors for people, places and things. But they are more than adjectives and adverbs: Aspects must be important to the story of the game. And by naming the Aspects, players and the GM ensure that they remain important to the story.

Oh yeah, another thing about Aspects: they must be capitalized. 🙂

Let’s consider an example:

You run into a dark room, pursued by a Troll. You can easily assess that it is Pitch Black in the room, and will probably soon find out that there is Loose Rubble On The Floor.

Now during the character creation phase of DFRPG, you use aspects to describe qualities of your character that are important to his/her own story. One of your character aspects is Something’s Always At Hand — which describes how you’re a very flexible, handy character who seems to always find things when you most need them. As the Troll was a total surprise to you, you didn’t bring your bluderbuss with you, so you have to find something to bash him with.

You tell the GM that you are going to spend a Fate point to invoke your Something’s Always At Hand aspect to declare that while you scramble to find the light switch you happen to find a tire iron on a shelf. Likewise you quickly figure out that the rubble in the room would be useful, so you tell the GM that you’ll use your Athletics skill to toss some marble-like trash underneath the Troll just as it comes in the room, tagging the Loose Rubble aspect for a +2 to your Athletics roll.

Passing your skill roll, you describe how the Troll trips up and lands flat on the ground, which is a Maneuver that places a Prone aspect on the Troll. The Troll tries to get up, but fails the Athletics skill roll that would have removed the aspect.

You state that you take a healthy swing at the Troll, and get a free tag on the Prone aspect, giving you a +2 on your attack roll. It connects and while the blow lands with a great whump, the Troll appears more angry than hurt.

The Troll does manage to  pass his Athletics roll to take the Prone aspect off, but you have one final tactic: you describe to the GM that while the Troll gets to his feet, you back into the shadows. At the moment that the Troll turns his head towards you, you swing from the dark, tagging the Pitch Black aspect for another +2 to your attack roll.

The swing is good and lands square on the Troll’s temple, cracking his skull!

And the GM proceeds to tell you that gushing from his head are hundreds of tiny Trolls that scatter to the nooks and crannies of the building to escape. But that’s a Dresdenverse thing, so don’t worry.  🙂

As Aspects are a pivotal part of your character, it is important at the time of character creation that you consider how they can be used to benefit you (so you can invoke them for the +2 skill roll bonus at a cost of one Fate point), and how they may complicate your life (so that your GM can compel them and therefore pay you a Fate point). Additionally it may pay to consider how each character aspect could be used to make a declaration, as detailed in the example above.

Our friend Rick Neal has posted three more lengthy, better written articles about character aspects, and I’ll finish off with links to them.

The first article speaks to the impact of character aspects and how to determine their individual usefulness.

The second article covers the high concept and trouble aspects in detail.

Lastly the third article covers the story aspects of your character.

Thank you Rick! Have fun guys.

DFRPG101: Conflicts

One of the interesting aspects (ahem) of the DFRPG system is it’s strange conflict system. It’s strange, but good.

The manual talks about the “Death of Situational Modifiers”. Technically this is true of Fate: there are no charts or tables detailing the bonuses for attacking while prone, or when running, or using a weapon in your off-hand, etc.

However in practice its not so true! There are bonuses, but they’re standardized bonuses: they are all +2. And you get those bonuses by applying Aspects to things: yourself, your target, the environment, or the scene. Generally, in order to apply Aspects, you must succeed at a skill roll that is either opposed by a target’s roll, or is against a difficulty level set by the GM.

Once applied, those Aspects can be “tagged” once for a bonus of +2 to your next roll. If the Aspect is “sticky” you can invoke the Aspect again, at a cost of 1 Fate point.

This applies to all conflict: physical (combat), social (argument), or even mental (epic psychic staring contest).

For a better explanation of the role of aspects in conflict, and further strategies for conflict in DFRPG, I point you to our friend Rick Neal:

Down and Dirty: The DFRPG Combat Paradigm

Good luck kickin butt!

DFRPG101: Setting

The Dresden Files RPG is set in what is affectionately known as the “Dresdenverse”. It is a modern day setting, with an added layer of the supernatural that exists, sometimes in plain sight, but in many cases in the nooks and crannies of society.

Many supernatural events that occur in public are written off by those that are not “in the know” as being anomalies: flashes and bangs in the sky are considered temporary localized aurora phenomena; demonic attacks at night are viewed as gang turf squabbles; abnormal culling of the homeless by that which eats flesh and bone is a regrettably unfortunate result of the high incidence of drug use among that population.

But society has for a long time been oblivious to the dangers of the dark. As time has passed those dangers have become quite organized, almost civilized — as much as blood drinkers can be, of course. While other forces, such as the Fearie Courts of the Nevernever, have weaved their machinations upon human kind from the beginning of it all.

While there are a few groups that stand in the way, protecting us from the supernatural, one stands above the rest: the White Council of wizards.

To learn much of what you need to know of the setting of the Dresdenverse, I direct you to two wikipedia pages. Both detail the groups and organizations found in this alternate universe. Please read them to become more familiar with the setting.

Organizations

Groups

I note that these two wiki pages may merge; I’ll try to correct the link if it comes up dead.

DFRPG101: Magic

One of the most exciting parts of the DFRPG system is the magic. Obviously, as this is a game about wizards and their allies fighting the forces of spooks ghouls and vampires, a good magic system is important.

But what makes the magic in DFRPG so great is also what makes it so challenging: it’s flexibility. You can be paralyzed by indecision when you wish to use magic to solve a problem, because Dresden magic can do anything. And while the manual is filled with examples and guidance on it’s use, I still feel it would be improved if it was organized differently.

[My pet peeve is the amount of page references in the manual: “before you accomplish this important feat, don’t forget to consider Obscure Term (see page 200, 20 pages ago).” / “Obscure Term: A bit of descriptive text that could have been condensed and placed in the manual 20 pages from this point.”

This happens all over the manual, and I understand that it cuts down on the overall word count, but it does make for choppy reading when all you want is a straightforward answer to a question.]

So I’ve been looking for some guidance on the Web for some time, and finally hit the motherlode!

RickNeal.ca

Rick Neal is a technical writer from Winnipeg (waves to a fellow Canadian) who is a major gamer. He’s written some great pieces on the magical system in DFRPG. And so instead of trying to write my own text, I’ll point to his, organizing it a bit so it’s easier to find all the good stuff.

So here it is: six great essays explaining the magic system, piece by piece. Enjoy!

Mystic Theory 101: Magic in DFRPG, Part One

Evocation, or How to Blow Stuff Up: Magic in DFRPG, Part Two

Thaumaturgy, or How to Break the Rules: Magic in DFRPG, Part Three

Getting Ready, or A Thaumaturgic Preperation Cheat Sheet: Magic in DFRPG, Part Four

How to Build Spells, or A Practical Grimoire: Magic in DFRPG, Part Five

Math and Miscellany: Magic in DFRPG, Part Six

Welcome

Greetings and welcome to milezerorpg, a Dresden Files RPG campaign blog. My name is Greg and I’ve been out of the pen-and-paper roleplaying game master profession for many, many years. This is my attempt at a comeback. Mwahaha.

I decided that if I am going to begin running a rpg campaign in the 21st century, some 25 years after I got into the hobby, I should do it right: using the tools of the future! … well, I guess they’re tools the present… hpmf. As the kids say, “whatevs”.

This blog will serve as the origin for all things about our campaign, for my players. I’ll link to my research from here, write out some background to our campaign, maybe even run some campaign stuff “offline” here. Will it work out? We’ll just have to see.

“You don’t go walking into the proverbial lion’s den lightly. You start with a good breakfast.”
— Jim Butcher (Storm Front)