New GM (to DFRPG) with a question about rewarding players

[Morgan]

Hello,
Our D&D group will be starting a campaign in DFRPG this weekend, set in Baton Rouge where we live.  As a matter of fact, we are going to try an ankle-deep world where everyone plays themselves as pure-vanilla mortals.  Their actual, statted-out selves.  Should be an interesting way to get into the campaign.

Anyway, with a group full of vanilla mortals, I can't very well reward them with magic items, since they can't use them.  It is such an odd viewpoint for me, coming from a D&D mindset.  How do I keep their interest in the game?  If I don't progress the world to knee-deep and beyond (taking it very slow), and I can't reward them with magic items, how do I reward them after missions?  If I give them money, eventually they will have enough money that their Resources skill should reflect their newfound affluence, right?  After all, if they make a major drug bust (for example), and liberate a huge pile of cash, and invest it, they will have access to a much bigger income.  But if they don't raise their Resources skill, how is this reflected in the game?

Very confused,
Dave

Hey Dave,

If you really want to reward your players with a bonus to their Resources skills after they stole money at a Drug Bust, then give them all an Aspect to represent the cash. Essentially make it a very permanent Aspect on each of their characters and on the game and call it something like "Dirty Money" or "Filthy Lucre", then each one of them gets to tag it for free for an instant +2 or a reroll on their Resources roll or they can tag it to make a Declaration, something like "I've bought a new boat" or "Paid off my Mortgage". Of course after that they are going to need to spend a Fate Point to Invoke the Aspect, but hey having great big piles of drug money around is still a great resource to have if they need it. And if they make a bunch of such thefts they could soon be swimming in all sorts of loot based Aspects just like Scrooge McDuck at his money bin.

Now comes fun part, now that you've made their loot an Aspect you now get to Compel the hell out of it! The Drug Dealers they stole from are going to want it back. If any or all of them are part of Law Enforcement then Internal Affairs might become curious about their suddenly bulging bank accounts after a major drug bust. If they aren't Law Enforcement maybe the cops are curious about just who ripped off that drug bust. If they are investing it (ie Laundering Stolen Money) who can they trust to do that? And who is to say that person won't get greedy? Finally if you think the Things That Go Bump in the Dresdenverse Night, are nasty creatures of evil and darkness introduce your players to the IRS! Let them rake in the Fate Points and then have to deal with the consequences of their exciting new life of crime.

Hope that helps.

[Morgan]

Big Money sounds interesting.  How do you guys manage to keep track of all the aspects that might add up all over the place?  It makes my brain hurt just thinking of the organizational skills it would take to keep track of them all.

Index cards and Sharpies, hand them out to your players and encourage them to write their own Aspects down after they've created them with Assessments, Declarations, and Maneuvers. Then have the player check them off when they get Tagged so you know they have to pay for them. Make your players do the work for you. Also a small Dry Erase White Board and some markers in the middle of the table works just as well.

[Belial666]

Someone that starts with a shotgun and .45 is by no means fully equipped.

Weapons
Sniper Rifle - weapon 3 with a scope to negate range penalties to attack and maybe night vision.
Grenades - weapon 4, usually straight damage but also flashbangs, smoke or poison.
Elephant Gun - weapon 4, armor piercing 1
Mines - weapon 5+
Specialized ammo - poison/sleeper darts, HE rounds, AP rounds and later silver, cast iron and the like vs supernaturals.

Defense
Tactical armor - armor 2 vs piercing and crushing, 3 vs low-caliber rounds.
Ceramic plating - improves tactical armor to 3 vs all bullets.
Insulated underlays - armor 2 vs heat, cold, electricity.
Nanofiber Suit - armor 3 vs most attacks, can be hidden under heavy clothing (replaces tactical armor components)
Gas mask - protects vs airborne poisons
Protective Headgear - protects vs visual and sonic attacks

Utility
Comm gear
Night Vision goggles
Hearing amplifier
Wrist computer+GPS

[Icefang01]

One of my fave rewards in the Fate system (We playes Spirit awhile back) is to reward them with new contacts that brings them deeper into the world that they're on the outskirts of. Have them start off using a street guy as a contact or a bartender and then work their way into a minor fae or a rep of the white court. You can also have them meet up with a rogue wizard of Council Wizard.

In this system, contacts and story hooks are valuable.

[Morgan]

Someone that starts with a shotgun and .45 is by no means fully equipped.

Or you know you could just take the Aspect "ATF's Worst Nightmare!" on your character sheet. Then Invoke it to have the just the right gun or gear for the job, and not sweat the details.  

Then you'd also get a shiny new Fate Point when you have to explain to the nice officer that you're hunting fairies while kitted up in full tactical gear and wielding an Elephant Gun.

[mostlyawake]

Yeah, honestly, pretty much throw out the idea of experience, cash, and treasure as a reward.  Throw out the idea of a reward.

DFRPG (I read this from someone else, most likely Rick Neal's amazing blog) sells itself on emotional investment in the characters. Not in their cool shiny powers. It really is a game about a created story, and I think it is most enjoyable when it steps completely away from the video game mentality of D&D or pathfinder.  The reward is time spent with your friends, creating this story together.

As I am running it for a bunch of power-gaming LEZ BrEAK EvURYthING! people, I am myself working on how to do just that.  Stealing heavily from Rick Neal along the way lol... but here are some suggestions.

Make them care about NPCS... Rick's post on his upcoming campaign asks people to design NPCs.  He also wants to link them into the PC's aspects.  Honestly, I have 2 (of 7) PCs linked to NPCs, and they seem to care the most... so this is prolly a great idea.

Make them care more about their characters... I've found that some basic character sketch ideas work great here. Use the "10 thinks your character would carry at all times" idea, but ask them specifically to NOT include their item of power, focus items, ect. Just say "I know those will probably be on you, and I will want a detailed description of each later, but not for this."

And when someone says "car keys", say "Tell me more about your car keys. What other keys are on your keychain? What type of key-chain is it? Who bought it?"

You'll probably get at least 1 story or NPC idea just from that. Say, if it's an ex-girlfriend, what happens later when the bad guys try to hold her ransom to get at your PCs?  "Dude, you kidnapped Michelle?  Go ahead and stab that beotch."  (And then you bring her back as a vampire, seriously pissed at the PC for leaving her to suffer.)

Speaking of that, flat-out ask the characters who they want to be sacrosanct. Many times (and I'm sure you found this in D&D) people will make their characters unattached orphans to avoid the "bad guys after my family" storyline.  It's totally cool (if unrealistic) to just tell your players "If you'd prefer to not have to deal with the emotionally sensitive subject of bad guys coming after your certain members of your family or friends, I can totally just make it so that never happens. That person will always be able to escape or hide on their own."

This may sound weird, but you really want emotional buy-in, and you're not going to get that if your NPCs kidnap the younger sister of a PC whose player actually had something like that happen, or is just uncomfortable with it.

[toturi]

Remember what constitutes a significant or major milestone may vary with respect to Refresh level. You killed a RCV? That may easily be a major milestone in a feet in the water campaign, but may be only a significant milestone in a submerged game.

So perhaps you could adapt the D&D mindset to "level" your PCs, reward your players with Significant milestones and Major milestones out of the gate and gradually tune it down. The nice thing in DFRPG is that the reward can take shape in many ways. For example, a Significant milestone may well mean that the character gets more money as he increases his Resources.

[luminos]

Consider some "non-loot" ideas for what constitutes a reward.  Make the game focused on the character aspects, push the players to pursue goals that they are interested in seeing their characters pursue, and you can easily turn the resolution of these goals into their own rewards. 

[Becq]

I suppose if you absolutely had to make a monetary loot mechanic in the game, you could do it by using flavored Fate tokens, perhaps.  You could hand the players a stack of green tokens with dollar signs on them (or your currency of choice) and a card that says "I'm Rich!"  They now have a party Aspect and a set of Fate tokens that can only be used to boost Resource skill rolls (or reasonably related rolls) until their money-Fate runs out.  (Note that for this purpose, the money-Fate tokens could be used to power other money-related Aspects with the same restrictions, allowing multiple aspects to be invoked with them.)

[knnn]

As posted above, there are ways in which characters who start out as pure mortals can gain magical power:

From the books:
- Become an Emissary of Power (one of the Knights, Winter/Summer mantle, etc)
- Pick up a Denarian Coin (or other such items).
- Infected Red-Court Vampire.
- Become a "True Believer" (for any god or Adversary).
- Someone gives you hexunwulf pelt.  You need to roll against conviction not to turn evil every time you use it or something.

Other powers:
- Barter for power with entity/ritual.
- Someone gives you a Noose.
- Dragon Emissary.  Become a Monoc employee (good health plan).
- Find Bob on a shelf in a curio shop.

Not-quite-human possibilities (mainly works for younger characters):
- White Court but never knew it (hadn't killed anyone during sex yet).
- Changeling but never knew it.
- Scion but never knew it.
- Latent wizard powers:
      Molly only became a wizard around 18, and she has Council-level powers.  A minor talent might only manifest itself later on.
      Billy and the Alphas only became shapeshifters in college, and had to be taught by Tara.
      Shadowman in first book only found real magic later on in life.
      
Weirder:
- Involuntary body switch with necromancer into a wizard body (not sure what the rules are on that one).
- Involuntary shapeshift into more powerful body (ghoul)?
- Bob the skull takes over your body (maybe only partially).  He has the power to cast spells.
- Get killed.  Come back as ghost/zombie/undead/force ghost with free will.
- Accidentally stand in middle of a vortex at during a DarkHallow.
- Your mother just died.  Turns out she was the Archive.

Finally:
Get Cursed by a Saint to become a Loup-Garou.    

Edit:  Or maybe you are a relative of Macfinn.  The curse is that there would always be someone in the family who was afflicted.  Macfinn just died...

[craggle]

Well, if they are playing game versions of themselves, this should be a lot easier to identify what your players would count as a "reward" in game as it would be similar to what they'd like to receive in life.  If one or more of your players are in a band, have their characters receive praise and recognition in the local (or even national, or international) media.  If one of them is big into technology, have them be given a powerful new gadget, perhaps to provide market research.  Or have your players' characters meet your players' heroes (real or fictional).

Basically, look at them as "super charged" Christmas presents: if resources and "real-world" limitations didn't apply, what would you give your players as a gift?  And once you've given it to them, look for ways to incorporate it into the story: What if a rival band decides to take down your players using so black magic?  What if the shiney latest techo-toy has a sinister agenda in making sure everyone in the world has one?  What if the hero actually needs the player's help with something?

Essentially, it's the same idea as giving D&D characters knighthoods, land grants, or the hand of the prince(ss) in marriage, but applying to a modern day setting.

[fishscribbles]

Try this:  Ask them what they want to see happen to their characters and reward them based on that. 

I've found this works really well, because the GM isn't a mind-reader and putting all of the burden on the GM to reward/tempt/coax the character often leaves players disappointed.  If a player wants to see how far his character can go as a pure mortal, rewarding him with powers isn't really going to be a reward.  If the player is eying the Changeling stuff but gets infected by a Red Court vampire, you could end up with a disappointed player. 

So ask them.  Maybe have them give you a list of a few things, this can be as abstract or as specific as they're willing to give you, from "I'd like to see my character eventually develop powers, but I'm okay being surprised by them" to "I want my character to become a power in the city, but I don't care how" to "I want to become a wizard."

You're telling a collective story.  Get their input or it isn't really their story.

[Lanir]

The easiest way to handle this would be to start in character generation. And honestly this is one of two areas where "make yourself" is going to be a problem. Basically, encourage them to add in some dramatic problem to their lives. It's cool to start as yourself but hey... maybe in addition to the normal stuff you add in a friend with acquaintances of the "questionable legality" type? Or a boyfriend/girlfriend who works in a local hospital in the ER and gets exposed to as much weirdness as you do in your adventures? Basically you'll want some aspects on the characters that basically say something like "I'm getting involved in the supernatural, it's real and OMG I am so in over my head!" Or at least lend themselves to being used that way.

To echo some of the posts above, this game is more about interacting with people than just having all the right beat sticks to knock the bad guys on their arses. In some of the novels the hardest part is just figuring out who the bad guy really is. They are detective novels after all.

The best way to reward people is to give them ties to NPCs, groups and information. Part of the draw of a story that slowly reveals the supernatural to you is knowing that... now the ball is in your court. Now you know. And you have to decide what you want to do about it. Between that and the new character ties you probably won't miss the item rewards from D&D. Consider actually some of your older games. If you've been playing awhile there's likely been some point where the PCs ran into a thieves guild, an order of mages, dark elves that weren't quite the vile evil things they were supposed to be, a love interest or some kind of character tie. Unless your guys were rushing you along saying "Yeah, yeah, the NPC is cool, now how many pluses does that sword have again?" then you'll likely be fine.

P.S. Remember to work with your players a bit. It's harder when they've made themselves, but if they've really made good characters then they'll have handed you ideas and problems that are already built into who the character is. If you don't have that... You probably need to sit down with the players and work out how to get it. It's a big part of what makes things work in this system and going without really puts a lot more pressure on the GM than is really intended.

[Wyrdrune]

you can have them find a tome or two detailing a common ritual or if someone in the group has a knack for magic, a tome that allows one spell of a sponsored magic type - see the "temporary access" rules.

[babel2uk]

you can have them find a tome or two detailing a common ritual or if someone in the group has a knack for magic, a tome that allows one spell of a sponsored magic type - see the "temporary access" rules.

"Guys, I found this old dusty book in a house sale. The author's name's Kemml...something, can't quite read that last bit. Anyway, when I ran the first paragraph through Babelfish it said something about a path to magical power!...."