Preferred Power Level for DFRPG Modules?

[Lanir]

I'm attempting to write a module that anyone can run to start a DFRPG game. It seemed like a good idea to focus on something that could easily be run as one of the first adventures the characters go on for a number of practical reasons but I'm not sure yet what power level people prefer to run with. The storyline I have so far can be altered fairly easily to handle any of the starting power levels so that won't be a problem.

The vote is set to run for two weeks. You only get one vote so make it count. Vote and if you wish, leave a comment.

[Richard_Chilton]

It really depends on what types of characters you want.  Some of the magic rules can require a couple of reads to get through so if you don't want new players being overwhelmed by thaumatury then you could set it at a level where it isn't possible.

Maybe starting as sorcerers or apprentice wizards (similar to Molly in OW) and work up from there?

Richard

[Tbora]

Weak is boring - Submerged is the way to go.

[MijRai]

I voted Chest Deep, since it gives all normal character templates enough room to work, but it limits a bit. You can choose to be a wizard, or a White Court, or a Knight of the Cross. At the same time, it doesn't make it too big, which would take more time to set up.

[Todjaeger]

I went with Feet in the Water, with the assumption that goal is to have an introductory module.

Assuming characters are set at this level (and the relevant S-MBEG) it can allow players and the GM to get a taste of some of the possibilities of the Fate system, without potentially running into the complexities more powerful characters and NPCs can have.

A full Wizard of the White Council is certainly more capable and has more options than just a sorceror, nevermind a focused practioner.  Until players (and the GM potentially) get used to how the system works, then having too many options could potentially cause problems.

Something else to consider is how many players for the module.  I found that groups of 6 were fairly capable, even at a Feet in the Water-level pre-gen convention game.

[HobbitGuy1420]

It might be hard to plot out a module for DFRPG, just because of how flexible and collaborative the whole game is.  Unlike DnD, where you can generally predict the capabilities of the party at a given level, with DFRPG you could have a party of physical powerhouses with absolutely no social or mental skill whatsoever, or a band of social monsters who don't know which end of a knife to hold, or something in between.  A mod that'd be a cakewalk for a group with a wizard capable of remote-viewing or tracking spells might be impossible for a group of vanilla mortals or were-changers.

[MrkMllr]

At the end of the day it shouldn't be all that hard to make the adventure scalable to any level of play.  It's pretty easy to scale up and down difficulty in a FATE game so I'd go with one of the middle choices and give a page or 2 on how to scale it for other levels. 

[SuperBunnyBun]

I voted up-to-your-waist.  It's a good starter level to give room to the players to spread.  Eventually it could be upgraded to chest-deep.

When you look at the dresden books themselves they seem to gradually increase from this level into submerged.

[Todjaeger]

In Storm Front, Harry was already operating at the 'Submerged' level, at least in terms of Refresh.  That is actually part of why I prefer to have starting players begin at a lower level of power.  A starting Wizard (like Harry was at the beginning of Storm Front), with some reasonable choices in terms of skills, focus and enchanted items, can be a very powerful, particularly if played intelligently.  Something else to keep in mind, is that in many of the casefiles, Harry is operating largely on his own.  Given what he has been up against, it shows what a full wizard can potentially do.

If the idea is for people to just get a feel for the game, then in my view, having people start out in the same league as Harry would be a bit much. 

If the idea is for something other than an introductory game, then having potentially complicated characters would likely not matter so much.  While this is my view, it has less to do with the ability to tailor encounters (since Fate is pretty easy to adjust) but rather making sure that the players can get a good grasp of the rules, and what their characters can or cannot do.

[Lanir]

Thanks for the replies and the votes so far.

To give a bit more info, I am attempting to allow for multiple paths through most of the encounters. I get that some groups will look like refugees from D&D while others will look like refugees from a vampire LARP.   I think any group that is totally focused on one method will end up with at least one encounter to struggle with. That's actually not too bad (and kind of gently nudges them to diversify a little... at least I hope it's a gentle nudge).

I'm not worried about games evolving to different power levels, not for this module. I kind of figure that a module would be most useful near the beginning of a campaign for several reasons. I'm not certain this will be the ideal "this is how to play DFRPG" module though, we'll have to wait and see how it turns out for that.