Hey, expert local knowledge on the city is always appreciated
We had our first real session of DFRPG today, again with John Whitfield the War Vet Warden and Temperance Smith the Unkneeling Coinbearer. Having survived the attempted hit by the Red Court, the duo got the hell out of Dodge, speeding away in the shot up classic Rolls Royce. They called their buddy
Jack Ellis for some help to run the license plate number of the car that the vamp drove away in; he also agreed to help fix up the Rolls Royce. In return, he offers them a pickup truck that's older than Temper and John's ages put together, saying he doesn't trust them with anything nicer. Everyone starts to recover from their Consequences. John calls his old mentor
Donald Morgan, warning that the vamps may be on the offensive, and urged caution. Morgan just told him to try not to restart the Wizard/Vamp war.
Meanwhile, Temper returns to her home, gets some sleep, and gets a job from a couple to hook their home with water, gas, electricity, etc. after FEMA rescheduled their activities, giving help to a different neighborhood. Here's where we fill in Temper's final missing Aspect,
Stick It To The Man, throwing her a FP, and causing her to investigate. The Vampire Hit started the A Plot, here's the B Plot. She does some digging, meets with a plumber, and finds that the entire neighborhood has been skipped over. Posing as a reporter, she learns that the reassignment of personnel was by the order of
Simon Walters (High Concept: Scheming Greedy FEMA SOB, Face of Legacy of Corruption), the head of the FEMA-led reconstruction efforts in New Orleans. She then met up with John for breakfast, and they ate at a Waffle House (for some reason?).
The group then tracked down
Maya Stephenson, famous author of the bestselling vampire novels (and the leader of one of the factions of the RC in NO) to her loft apartment in the Warehouse district. Temper waited outside, not wanting to reveal her face to the vamps; John was admitted entry after agreeing not to start any trouble. Her bodyguard was some goth-looking poser with a trenchcoat, sunglasses, and a katana (Damocles lives again!). She offered him some coffee, which he accepted (I thought about having it laced with vamp spit), then she apologized for the attack against him, saying they acted without any consent from her or the RC. Evidently a vampire had been killed by an entropy curse, and some vamps blamed the local wizard; she then told him that he needed to investigate the affair, or else THEY would (and the Council would have no cause to complain). The two interacted for a little bit, and she used Rapport to reveal one of her aspects:
Hates the Count (the other big RC vampire leader in NO). In retrospect, this really should have been a full blown social conflict. Oh Well. John left thinking that the Count had something to do with the assault, among other things.
Meanwhile, Temper noticed a man taking pictures of the building from a window across the street. I threw a FP at her to compel Paranoid, suggesting that she get rid of that camera. She climbed up to the roof, broke into the building, and tried to confront the photographer. She failed Stealth, and the PI, one Vince, ended up pointing a gun at her threatening to call the cops. Temper attempted an Intimidate, but failed when he revealed one of his aspects, Licensed Private Eye. Here we had a real social conflict, with the PI eventually winning (and inflicting a Flustered Minor Consequence on Temper), forcing Temper to leave. I tried to Compel her with Whispers in the Dark, the Fallen angel urging her to throw the guy out the window; sadly, she gave up a FP instead
. When she returned to the truck, she got John to throw a hex onto the entire room, hopefully getting the guy's camera.
John then left with Temper to check out the crime scene where the boiler exploded, killing the vamp. He "dusted for prints" and was able to learn that there was an entropy curse, but not much else. I wasn't really sure how much to give him; I don't think that you can track someone just with the trace of a spell (otherwise BR would have been a much shorter case!). I think maybe I should have revealed more. Oh well.
The two then went to the city's foremost non-wizard practioner who happened to run a magic supply shop,
Etienne Moiret. High Concept
Power Hungry Houngan, a sorcerer who led a group of minor spellcasters (He's totally based on Russel Carson, but with specs in Curses instead). Here we had our first real social combat, with Temper and John up against poor little Etienne by himself. Sadly, it was kind of a drag; everyone had Great Discipline, and no one could do all that much to each other. John did do a great little maneuver by reminding him that he was a reasonable man (unlike some other Wardens), and tagged with Afraid of Donald Morgan (although we pointed out that everyone should have Afraid of Donald Morgan on them by default
. One funny moment happened when Etienne pointed out how the wizards didn't do jack against the RC until the War, and that most humanity was at war with the vamps by default; Temper then assisted the guy
. However, eventually, Etienne offered a concession: he'd reveal what he knew about who used the entropy curse on the vampire, if the WC would sign on to him being a Freeholding Lord under the Accords. Whitfield agreed, and he learned that it was a woman named Cassie (and that Etienne basically taught her how to throw such a curse, and hooked her up with all the supplies).
John went to the address that Tien gave him. During this time, I think that Temper was attempting to find out why Simon Walters and FEMA was rescheduling their work orders to nicer neighborhoods; she learned that they were being bribed by some shell companies with links to Central and South America. While doing so, however, Temper attracted the attention of Simon Walters (she technically failed her Investigate, but I thought that success + bad consequence was more interesting. More to come on that later.
The house was in a run-down neighborhood battered by Katrina, and a woman answered the door. John introduced himself, and the woman hollered that someone was here to see Cassie. He noticed that a ring of salt, taped to the floor, ran all the way around the house. He also heard a door slam out back, and saw a woman running. They had a short chase scene, but John caught up and then used an Evocation to stop her with Air Magic. (He changed his character to be a lot more Air Evocation focused, instead of Thaumaturgy. Unsurprising.) He interrogated her, playing the nice guy and saying he was just here to help; it turned out she did cast the Entropy Curse, but that she also had Cassandra's Tears (hence her name. heh.) and that she Foresaw the vamp killing her. John pointed out that now all the vampires wanted her dead. It wasn't a real social conflict, but she agreed that next time she would go to him. When he helped her up from the ground, she had a vision about him, and seemed afraid for some reason. (Generic plot foreshadowing).
The two then met back up, compared notes, and then ate at Denny's (again, I don't know why; we joked that John should have the aspect Breakfast is the Most Important Meal of the Day). While they were eating, some Blackwater-esque ex-military commandos showed up and told them that Walters wanted to meet them. They made it clear that there wasn't really room for them to say no. Another social conflict! Joy! Walters first tried to play it nice by invoking his aspect Ex-Tank Commander and pointed out they both served in Desert Storm. No go. Then he tried to Intimidate them to back off, inflicting some stress. Still, not much, given everyone's Disciplines. He mainly ignored Temper, thinking her a bodyguard or detective, although he did try to use his Resources to bribe her, an automatic failure. John responded by creating a small vortex in the center of the room, a small Maneuver that resulted in Walters getting the Mod Consequence Freaked Out. I'm sure they'll find a way to invoke that next adventure too. In the end, John got the advantage, Walters Conceded to tell them stuff, and learned that he was being bribed by some shell companies, actually a man named
Jacque St. Germaine (aka the Count, the other RC leader) to delay rebuilding in certain areas. He was curious as to why, so he hired some detectives (including Vince) to spy on St. Germaine and his known associates (like Maya). John and Simon exchanged some threats, then the heroic duo left.
Damn this is long. There's still two Scenes left, including the cliffhanger ending, but I'm gonna post this now. Overall, my impressions were pretty favorable, but social conflicts took WAY too long. There's no weapons or anything, so I guess the real way to do them is to put a billion or so tags on them, then hit your enemy with something big. It's a real pain when your two PCs have average social skills and great Disciplines though. Bleh. I just used Concessions to say "Okay, the other guy's kind of losing, here's some info or something."
