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

[Lorillomar]

Some very cool ideas so far.  I think it will be a blast as the game progresses and they discover powers within themselves that they never suspected they were capable of.  I am planning a little intro-lead-off after city creation where they as a gaming group hear about a contest here in town: stay overnight in a haunted house and, if you make it until dawn, you get to keep the house.  Mayhem abounds.  If it all goes well, they will end up with a base of operations.

[exploding_brain]

One more trick for granting rewards in DFRPG: Give them an extra aspect, with free tag attached, as a reward.

"Tony Soprano Owes me a Favor", "Elf-friend", "I looted Magnovax's hoard", "Champion of the lower-east side".  In appropriate circumstance, free tag it when making a resources role, if phat lewt is what the player wants, or for a contacting roll, or a maybe a researching roll with lore or scholarship, or a rapport or intimidate roll if the target would be impressed/intimidated by the character's accomplishments.  Possibilities abound.

Sounds like a great opening scenario, here's hoping you guys all have a blast.

[Lorillomar]

Another, related question.

My wife will be playing in the campaign.  Normally, in a D&D game, she plays a bow specialist, due to the fact that she doesn't like getting down-and-dirty with the enemies in the middle of all the muck and mire.

IRL, she is a school psychologist.  I was thinking that the rules in the Dresdenverse allow you to make attacks against an enemy's social stress track using Intimidation and/or Rapport and her years of psychological training to undermine their confidence and exploit their social weaknesses, leading to their fleeing the conflict.

Am I missing something, or is this a valid approach?  She is not the type of person to pick up a gun or a sword IRL and hew into the baddies, but I could very easily see her dissecting their sanity and using cutting language to rip them an new one.  It should serve her quite well until enough refresh is available to the party to allow her to start learning some supernatural abilities, should she so choose.

[luminos]

You could, theoretically, hold both a physical conflict and a social conflict simultaneously in the same scene.  I personally don't think that social attacks are meant to be able to win physical fights.  One consequence of allowing this is that all conflicts become kind of samey, with just different skills for attacking and defending based on each character.  There becomes little to distinguish the fist fighter from the fast talker in physical conflict.  Also, I think talking skills would start to become much more valuable than physical skills because social skills would be a viable route in purely physical conflicts while physical skills wouldn't be applicable in non physical conflicts (talker talks mayor into agreeing, then intimidates attackers out of fight.  fighter, meanwhile, only contributes his apex skill to the fight.  kind of makes fighter feel like he's been hosed).

[Lanir]

Quick note: Some of the suggestions here are good but others, while they'd work out fine, kind of muddle the waters a bit as far as the default setting goes. Common rituals as a reward (for example) is kind of the equivalent of giving someone Blackrazor in D&D. Sure it's cool... It's just going to devour their soul sooner or later. You can ignore that in your game but you may have to create your own way to give the supernatural that scary "OMG, this is cool but it can seriously bite me in the arse if I'm not careful" edge.

As for the physical/social thing, I'm going with Luminos on this one. In general I believe the info on social exchanges says they kind of don't happen when you're in physical danger. I'd suggest rereading that section if you plan on seeing that type of conflict much. In addition to the limitations it also gives a better idea of what being taken out socially can mean (a lot of different things as it turns out).

[Becq]

I think that the basic problem would be how much occurs during an exchange.  An exchange in physical combat is certainly enough time to toss around some attacks, but is it enough time to do a meaningful social attack?  I'm not sure.

However, you might want to look into something along the lines of a White Court vampire for the effect you're talking about.  Perhaps Incite Fear, or even Incite Insanity?  The character could either be a member of some branch of WCVs, or could alternatively be a Scion of some sort with similar powers.  Basically a supernaturally charger version of what you suggested.  Though I have a hard time envisioning a non-monster character who'd use Incite Insanity as their standard attack...

[TheMouse]

The rules say that social conflicts occur when the participants aren't engaged in physical violence. It's in the second paragraph of the social conflict section on page 215.

I find this a little unsatisfying, though. Attackers can be frightened off. They can be calmed. They can be placated.

Of course, you could choose to model this as putting a block up by using a social skill or by doing a maneuver with a social skill. Putting the Aspect "Afraid of me" on someone and compelling it should accomplish what you want in many cases. A flexible GM might allow you to toss up a block through intimidation, forbidding a combatant entrance into your zone.

If that doesn't do the trick for you, you have options.

First, you can allow social conflict during physical. I would suggest placing limitations on this, such as no complex thoughts, or maybe something you can say in three seconds. Maybe social attacks receive some sort of penalty. As long as there are some limits, it shouldn't be too overwhelming because social attacks lack weapon ratings, so someone punching you in the face will tend to win out.

Or maybe you can come up with a Stunt that adds another trapping to a social skill: During combat. This adds a surcharge to using social combat in a physical fight and limits the number of people who can pull off this option.

[lankyogre]

I think allowing social skills in physical conflicts as maneuvers and blocks, but not attacks is probably the best way to do it. Intimidation just seems like it fits physical conflicts. And Harry is always using his intimidation in combat to piss off bad guys and cause them to make mistakes.

[Lorillomar]

You're probably right.  She can use her analytical tools to dissect their desire to fight before fists or bullets start to fly, but she had better start taking lessons at the gun range (not IRL, no time in the day for that) if she wants to be of assistance in the thick of things.  A good call.

[Becq]

This snippet from YS133 might be of interest:

"Under certain conditions, Intimidation is one
of the few skills able to deal direct mental stress
(see “Mental Conflicts,” page 217) to a target as an
attack, and you can use it both in physical and
social conflict situations."

[Ranma1558]

Two quick thoughts for you. One, if you're having a tough time rewarding players without a loot table make "loot" actually appear in game. Say your players walk into their favorite coffee house in Baltimore, looking beaten up and tired. The local caffeine-o-mancer, who owes the PC (could be written down as an aspect like "I owe Ethan my life" or something like that) sees how bad he looks and decides to help (GM cashes in the tag to change the stories narrative). She hands him his drink, infused  with her magic, which when consumed heals a moderate consequence. Roughly stated you just "gave" your player a potion of healing. Another way to do this is to give free aspects at points to reward players. If you helped the only wizard in the phone book with a case and suddenly find yourself in need to make some ghost dust a contact roll might give your player access to this npc and instead of just giving some information to help you make your own dust perhaps he gives you a pinch of uranium as well (two tags for the price of one). These examples give you a rough GP to favor mechanic that simulates a loot table if you need it.
As for your more socially inclined player maneuvers, blocks, as well as assessments and declarations could be come her "combat" forte. In my game I have a WCV who has taken a stunt called "Look! A distraction!" which allows her to use her rapport to make combat maneuvers, to which she has a secondary stunt that givers her a bonus to rapport. So far she gives a decent combat set up for my other players, who, in turn, use more physical skills to help her in conflicts. They've done things like tossed around desks and tossed knives near the "opponent" to place maneuvers on a subject so she could tag them to get information out of a subject (A social conflict).