What's the rationale behind mundane stunts decreasing the refresh rate?

[Bosh]

OK, I've looked through some playtest characters and reports and I've noticed that it seems that (at least from that limited evidence) that starting characters have five stunts pretty much across the board. As far as I can tell, mundane stunts seem to reduce your Fate point refresh rate by one each while for supernatural stunts, almost all of them seem to reduce the refresh rate by one except for a few that reduce the refresh rate by 2. As a result, pretty much all of the mundane playtest characters have a refresh of 5 while the supernatural ones have a refresh of 4, which is a pretty tiny difference.

Now I was really liking the mechanical implementation of supernatural characters having a lot of raw power and then giving more flexibility for the mundane characters (they can ignore compels much more easily) since it seems like an awesome way to balance mundane and supernatural characters power-wise while at the same time reinforcing a lot of the flavor of the novels (mortals have free will while magic creatures act according to their natures) with game mechanics. This also allows some kind of magical critter to be DAMN powerful when the PCs fight it without it being unbalancingly powerful if a PC plays it (since the low refresh rate drawback is much more of an issue in long-term play than over the course of just one fight). But if the difference is just 5 refresh vs. 4 refresh then isn't a lot of this distinction diluted?

I don't know what the Dresden character advancement rules are like, but won't completely non-magical characters end up with pretty damn low refreshes after a while?

A few possible reasons for this I could see:
A. Power balance: most supernatural Stunts aren't any more powerful than the mundane stunts, so having them have different effects on your refresh rate would be unbalancing.
B. In flavor terms a highly trained mundane character is very set in their ways, much in the same way that Harry becomes (same restaurant, same clothes, etc. etc.).
C. Allows for more distinction between the more minor powers the PCs get (which cause relatively minor reductions in the refresh rate) and the wizz-bang powers the most powerful NPCs get (which cause a much bigger hit to the refresh rate and thereby put themselves out of the reach of the PCs).

I am on the right track? Unless I'm missing something, (which I probably am) this still kind of rubs me the wrong way since I'd like to see a bit more mechanical distinction between the mundanes and the supernaturals than a one point difference in the Fate point refresh rate.

[TheMouse]

One of the ways that characters in FATE can advance is an increase in Refresh.

From what I've seen of DFRPG, there's going to be a bigger difference between totally mundane characters and heavily supernatural ones. Some supernatural creatures are going to be starting out with a Refresh around 2, while mundane characters might have 6 or 7. That's a fair difference.

[Bosh]

OK, that sounds good, maybe the small difference in the refresh rate is mostly for relatively low powered starting characters. A difference of 5 of so in the refresh rate would make a lot of difference.

[iago]

Many supernatural powers reduce your refresh rate by way more than 2.  Most of the cheap, entry-level ones only reduce it by 1 or 2.

As to what's the rationale behind mundane stunts decreasing the refresh rate?

John Marcone.

[Bosh]

So basically my perspective is off because I've just seen the results of the starter supernatural feats by looking at the playtest characters, which are newbie characters.

John Marcone.

Makes sense But if its standard practice for mundane people to pick up more stunts as they advance then everyone would end up looking like John Marcone after a while, which I guess makes a certain amount of sense (since seeing so much supernatural stuff affects you after a while). Murphy certainly looks like someone with a lower refresh rate in the later books than the earlier ones.

[Slife]

It seems like decreasing your refresh rate hurts some character concepts more than others.

For example, if you want to play a Knight of the Cross analogue, you probably won't want to go against the character's nature anyway (in fact, being extremely inflexible can end up being more cool than otherwise e.g. Rorschach).

Adding that to the fact that bad stuff tends to be more entertaining than good stuff (the rusty escape car stalling out, letting the monster start to catch up versus making a clean getaway), I'm not really sure how much of an incentive there is to keep your refresh high...

I feel like I'm missing something about the mechanic

[iago]

I feel like I'm missing something about the mechanic.

Have you played Spirit of the Century at all?  "Your nature" is part of aspects, but it's not the only thing.  You might find yourself with an aspect: Family Man.  The GM might compel it to involve your family in a dangerous situation.  Maybe as the player you don't want your character's family to get entangled in this particular badness -- but are you willing to pay the fate point to deny it?

[Bosh]

I feel like I'm missing something about the mechanic

Well having a high refresh rate is always better than not, since even if you accept every single compel that comes your way (as my players tend to   ) having more fate points to do awesome stuff with is always good.

For example if you have an aspect of "I kick ass for the LORD" and you accept every compel that makes you get into dangerous situations because you try to kick all kinds of ass then having a high refresh rate is freaking awesome since not only do you get Fate points for accepting those compels but you also get MORE fate points at the start of every adventure for having a high refresh rate. This results in lots and lots of kicking of ass for the Lord.