Hot answers tagged dresden-files
32
Yes.
The books never explicitly say that the GM should or must tell the players the difficulty, but that's because it takes it for granted. (It really should say, because – as you point out – keeping players in the dark is just so normal for so many GMs.)
There is circumstantial evidence in the text that the GM is supposed to set difficulties "in the ...
26
See DFRPG:
p.200 for Attacks
p.207 for Maneuvers
Whenever you attack someone, you choose the appropriate Skill to roll - Fists for punches, Weapons for knives/swords, Guns for guns, etc.. Roll 4dF (the 4 Fudge dice) and add the result of the roll, which will be between -4 and +4 to the Skill you chose.
The defender gets to make a defense roll with an ...
23
Write out a starter set of "power cards" on index cards, formatted somewhat like the D&D 4e power cards for familiarity. They can have some normal FATE combat options, and also some tailored to her Aspects - you can make these up yourself, or based on things you've heard her say she'd think her character could do.
After each combat, tell he she ...
21
To me it sounds like your player is a mix of being impulsive and a newbie to roleplaying. The newbie elements (needing stuff explicitly explained and such) should work themselves out with time. The impulsiveness usually needs a little bit of work.
Here's what I did once to rebuff the impulsive players in my campaign:
Set up a wonderful campaign arc that ...
19
First off, DFRPG is full of "the group should agree" (YS92), "keep in mind the intended play style" (YS31), "make sure your players are okay this" (YS338), "make sure you're on the same page as your players" (341), and "when in doubt, talk it through with your group" (YS99).
In many places throughout this book, the phrase “the GM decides” is often used ...
19
They give a very good impression of the setting, and they also give a pretty good background for understanding how the rules work.
The game was designed to very closely emulate the fiction of the books (Evil Hat and the author worked closely together for about a decade, and much of Evil Hat's work on developing and refining Fate over the years and multiple ...
18
Style
DFRPG is rather wordy; the manuals themselves are flavorful enough to give a solid sense of the Dresden Files world and its playful-yet-serious attitudes. Sadly, this occasionally obscures the rules a little, but overall it's very well written.
Also, the book's got a lot of art.
General Rules with Examples (35+ pages)
FATE is a weird system for the ...
17
Ask her for her character's intentions.
Then guide her through the game system towards the result she strives for.
The FATE system is quite different than many other RPG engines, and the great amount of creative licence granted to players can be overwhelming for newcomers used to other game systems. Some hand holding may be necessary until they get used to ...
16
I would say this is bad practice. You've just had the players roll alertness when they should be rolling empathy. Say one of your characters has Empathy as a Superb skill. They get a huge bonus on the roll. Say they also have only an Average Alertness. You've just denied them a +4 on that roll and they don't even know it! (If they find out they will be ...
16
Wraith's answer is absolutely right: Fate is designed to be open and transparent, and revealing aspects is crucial to the players' mechanical viability in the narrative.
Now, DFRPG itself occupies a rather peculiar niche in the Fate paradigm and its narrative style unfortunately led to a lot of engine philosophy being implied rather than stated. So I'm ...
16
It helps to first tell them that in a FATE game, the players are not their characters. Players are not much different than the GM in what they do, only that they usually have a limited jurisdiction (their character) and limited resources (their FATE points). Everybody at the table has control over how the story unfolds regarding their jurisdiction, and can ...
15
If you have high Conviction and low Discipline, you're a lot like Harry Dresden! I've been running a DFRPG campaign for several months now, we've completed one "novel" and we're in our second. So, I consider myself a pretty decent authority on this fairly young game.
Here are some tips:
You don't HAVE to gather as much power as your Conviction, you just ...
15
The reason for the White Court catch being 0, and not +1 or +2, I believe, is that True Love, like True Courage and True Hope (for the other varieties of White Court vampires) are exceptionally rare. You can't just get access to True Love, so even if you know about that particular Catch, there's not necessarily anything that you can do about it.
15
Yes, you can offer a concession that kills you. From the glossary:
Concession (Playing the Game, page 206): An alternative to being taken out in a conflict, wherein a player accepts defeat for his
character (or the GM, for an NPC) in exchange for being able to
dictate the terms of that defeat.
Going further and checking out page 206:
A ...
15
FATE doesn't go for fiddly bits
FATE, as I'm sure you've noticed, has narrative expendiency as its core philosopy. One result of this is that mechanics are pretty simple and don't have a lot of exceptions or fiddly bits hanging off.
So when the book describes one Court as stronger than another, that's primarily a narrative distinction, not something that ...
14
Yes. You can choose how an opponent gets taken out. That means you don't have to worry about accidentally violating the First Law.
There are some complications in the moment. One is that any of your aspects that indicate bloodlust can be compelled so that you do kill them. The other is that what the consequences have to match the action you took. If you ...
14
Stress tracks in FATE work as a pacing mechanism. It's not meant to simulate the physiological reaction of a body to punishment; it's there to provide a means of determining whether a character is out of the fight or not and reproduce a narrative aesthetic. Hit points historically have worked this way; the description of what a "hit point" is has often ...
14
The book does answer this question, but in the margin on page 253. sigh… I love Evil Hat, but hiding this important rule here is rather… Evil. Thanks to the player that was trying to cast the reactive shield for finding it.
Billy, Can you do Block evocations instead of rolling to defend? How about counterspells?
As written, no—although your group ...
14
Play a session or two of Roll For Shoes. Like an improv exercise, it will shake out your narrative muscles and make you stretch them a bit in a gaming context where it's ok to do the "wrong" thing or take the game in absurd directions.
This is the game that did the most to transition my old group from a D&D context to a more player-driven context. We ...
14
Baltimore is the most fully realized setting,
The Dresden Files RPG books Your Story and Our World cover Baltimore fairly in-depth, with locations, aspects, NPCs, and plot hooks.
Chicago is the default setting,
But it's more covered in the novels than in the game, so although there's a lot of Chicago in the game manuals there's no proper setting bible ...
13
Every Dresden Files book introduces new exceptions and mysteries to how Harry thought the world worked. So if the GM wants to, why not? There's always some exception—as long as it's treated like an exception, and a Big Deal that makes people want to unravel the mystery.
Which may not be what the player wants. If they just want to dodge an inconvenience of ...
13
Was reading through and found this blurb on YS 106:
The procedure to invoke an aspect that isn't on your character is
precisely the same as a regular invocation: just declare how that
aspect is relevant, spend a fate point, and take a +2 or a reroll. The
only thing to keep in mind is that, if you're invoking an aspect on
another PC or on a NPC ...
13
Yes, that is exactly the risk a character runs when they run out of fate points. Fate points represent a character's ability to modify... fate, or their free will. IF they don't have any fate points then they are locked into doing what their core character would do. This is the same as being an npc with 0 or less refresh, you are bound by your nature.
It ...
13
Attacking a character with high Athletics (or anything else) is pretty simple, as long as you don't simply try to beat it head-on. Simply put: use maneuvers that aren't opposed by Athletics. (Or, ideally, at all.) FATE is highly flexible, and gives you lots of room to work.
Leverage your skills.
There are lots of ways to turn scores in other skills ...
13
To answer the question, let's connect the dots in the rulebook.
On YS203 the following quote is found:
Stress is a transitory thing, but sometimes conflicts will have
lasting effects on a character— serious injuries, embarrassments,
phobias, and the like. These effects are collectively called
consequences, and they are a special kind of aspect.
...
13
Yes.
The narration of what happens on being taken-out is the realm of the player whose character did the action resulting in being taken out. They are subject to revision by the player of the character being taken-out.
Dresden Files: Your Story, p. 204 (sidebar):
Dictating Outcomes
While the player of the attacker that takes
out an opponent ...
13
The answer is going to depend on what role the poison is serving.
Wraith808's answer using the Venomous feature and tazers will work if it's a feature of the opponents and not expected to last a long time.
If it's part of a conflict with a poisoner, you can give the loser the aspect "Unknowingly poisoned with x venom" as a concession or loss. As an aside, ...
13
“Empty your cup so that it may be filled; become devoid to gain totality.” - Bruce Lee
New players to FATE won't necessarily have much trouble learning what the stress track is about. The issue here is that your players already understand one way of doing things, and are apparently trying to understand the stress track concept in terms of ...
13
Fate as a system is not a "Lightweight System."
For comparison:
Starblazer Adventures: 630pp. While it includes some setting information, it actually expects one to be quite familiar with the comics.
Strands of Fate: 469, no setting.
Spirit of the Century 426pp. The setting is encoded strongly into the skillls and stunts chapters, and gets only a few ...
12
Dresden Files does not limit the fate points you can spend in a single roll. As long as you have justifiable aspects and enough fate points, you can go for it.
That being said, Diaspora, another good FATE implementation, does limit you to using one aspect from each scope, the scope being the source of the aspect, like your character, opponent, scene, ...
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