Tell me about your game! Your last session and experience with DFRPG

[Ghsdkgb]

That's actually exactly what he did. Only the Aspect he got was "I Abandoned My Friends and It's Killing Me".

[Alatain]

I ran a game for a few months. It was based in Baltimore (all my games are, it is the place I know best). I had several players, among them, a wizard stage magician, a paramedic, a winter court fae (bent the rules a bit here), a white court outcast, and a full mortal that was working to expand Marcone's influence into the east coast shipping industry.

I decided to key in on the tensions between the white court in Baltimore and Marcone's operations and the group kind of latched onto that. The player of the Mob guy (we will call him Jay) ended up hiring the other players (more or less) as consultants. After a few skirmishes against White court operations, I unveiled the big twist.

The White court ruler of the area decided to give over responsibility and control of the inner harbor area to Marcone, and in turn to Jay as regent. She met with him in his offices after describing the deal and getting everything hammered out, he agreed. Turning to leave, she placed a chess piece on his desk and lightly said "Check". What the group eventually discovered was that in relinquishing control of the area to them, she also transferred all current contracts with the supernatural community to them. Figuring them out and renegotiating everything, while keeping order in the area was the major theme of the rest of the game.

[Mr. Death]

My last experience with the game was when I just took over as GM from our previous GM, who had to drop the game because of reasons. Which meant, for me, a crash course in his NPCs, what he'd planned for the plot, and downtown Los Angeles, a city I've never once been to.

I managed to get most of that together (Yay Google Maps), and spent most of my inaugural game sorting out the disjointed previous sessions, and getting the party (who'd been broken up into 4 different locations) all back in the same place (save my character, who'll now be a GMPC)...only for them to promptly decide to split up (though in only two groups, now). Ah well.

So now we've got a hot-headed junior wizard and a blind wizard private eye negotiating with the Summer Court over an artifact of doom, while a cop and his pixie companion investigate a reporter who appears to have been Rip Van Winkled in from the early 90s and has some connection with a Black Court plot.

In an effort to make the Driving skill (and, more specifically, one PC's driving stunt) more relevant, I played out the aforementioned GMPC's encounter with a Black Court nest, and its sire, and marked off each round with a shift value--the higher that one PC rolls Driving, the earlier he'll get to show up. A 0 roll will have him arriving just as things start to turn against the GMPC, a +4 will have him popping up just as the fight's getting started, and a -4 will have him arrive just in time to pull the GMPC's battered and bleeding body out of there before she gets killed, with other notches along the scale in between.

I'm not usually a fan of the Worf Effect, but I figure the players will really get the message once I point out it was purely numbers, and not narrative contrivance, that left the physically-strongest member of the group just barely limping away with her life. She's the party tank, and the adversary--one of the Big Bads--fills up her entire Physical track and all the consequences short of Extreme if the fight plays out to its conclusion.

Next game should be fun.

[HumAnnoyd]

In our Emerald City campaign (see signature) we are gearing up to face a Denarion demon who had possessed my character's lost love.  In fact she was possessed because of him as part of his back story and nearly destroyed his whole family leaving his father in a coma and nearly sacrificing his little sister.  Needless to say my Warden is a bit distraught by the whole thing and is doing his best to hold it together.

Meanwhile he has been tasked by the White Council to host and referee a poker game between a bunch of supernaturals (vamps from the Red, Black and White Courts, the local Winter Fae, a Scion of Loki playing for a prominent businessman, a scion of Odin PC who works for his dad at Monoc and a rep from the Venatori) with the prize being a coveted statue that is the "stuff of dreams".  He has to remain neutral as a representative of the Accords in this matter but his friend has been tasked by a Winter Fae who owns him with gaining the prize no matter the cost.  He has agreed to help if he can but only AFTER the game is over. 

[SergeiVolkov]

All of these sound awesome and so much closer to what would fit in the Dresden Files reality than my game. Note that I am a first time player of the DFRPG and so far have only read three of the novels so I am still learning about the world. Oh, and I apologize if this turns out to be a bit long. Lots to explain and such.

Anyways, a bit of setup. My game plays a little fast and loose supposedly and is somewhat anime influenced at times. The game was originally supposed to be a Magical Girl game set in Moscow, but we ended up with:

• Agata - A 12 year old Pure Mortal Russian Mafia Princess. She provides support in combat via maneuvers.
• Sasha (Boy) - A 14 year old Hero of the Ages(modified Sword of the Cross template). He's the tank by far and away, though that doesn't mean he can't do some major damage when he wants to.
• Celino - A 14 year old Magical Boy. Offensive spellcaster, specializing in Spirit spells. He is the glass cannon.
• Sergei (Me) - A 13 year old Scion of Fenrir, the Ragnarok Wolf. Hand to hand specialist with Supernatural Strength to back it up.

And with this group we, through various coincidences and contrivances, ended up fighting against a group of evil spellcasters/magical beings wishing to destroy the wall keeping the Outsiders out. To reach that goal they use corrupted dream spirits called Nocnamoras who use the host's soul to take physical shape where they proceed to steal souls and gather other various energies needed to complete the ritual.

Yesterday's session had us meeting with a group of spellcasters, minor talents, and unknown quantities that had been working towards a goal we had just partially completed. Revealing the world of supernaturals to mortals and beginning to educate them. We had asked them to come because we sought their assistance in furthering this goal. The meeting had not gotten very far when Sasha noticed two of our friends from school (Focused Pyromancers) were behaving strangely. Upon his investigation he realized they were in the process of having Nocnamoras made from their souls. We tried to prevent it, but ultimately failed thus leaving us two Phoenix Nocnamoras to fight.

It was a pretty brutal affair. Between bad rolls, and good rolls by the enemy we were down two by the time we defeated the first Noc leaving only myself and Sasha to take down the other one. Of course, seeing its companion taken down enraged it and as I had landed the final blow on it (a devastating 14 stress uppercut) the other one was pissed at me. After one round of fighting it got tired of the interference by Sasha and sent out a massive blast of flame that pushed Sasha to the brink and left me in a ring of flame to face it alone. Sasha, using the last bits of strength he could muster tossed me his blade to use as it beat its catch. That lasted me one round before a really bad roll for me and a decently good roll for it left me with all my stress boxes filled and a moderate consequence.

Now before I go on let me explain an idea the GM and I had worked out for my character. As the game progressed I would 'evolve', slowly becoming less and less human in appearance till the final point of more closely resembling a WoD werewolf in Crinos. I had already evolved once leaving me with wolf ears, a wolf tail, and lacking normal human ears (thankfully, otherwise that would have been creepy). As you can guess from the setup this predicament triggered another evolution. But instead of a more controlled evolution I went full on dire wolf and due to the shift my mind was overwhelmed leaving me acting on instinct. One attack later and the second phoenix was no more. After leaping out of the flames my friends tried to calm me, but being lost in my mind and in a lot of pain the wolf struck out and severely injured Sasha who had just started to get up and had imposed himself between me and the rest of the group. That, along with a mental attack, snapped me out of it and horrified at what I had done I ran off. The session ended with my character being consoled by a former enemy turned ally, a new ally, and Sasha after he found me.

And Sergei still has to go to school... oh what fun will come of a like 6 or 7 feet long, 4 or so feet tall wolf on all fours navigating a school of teenagers. Certainly going to make an impression.

[wraithstrike]

I'm the GM for SergeiVolkov and company. We've had a lot of wild adventures thus far.

The most recent session was one meant for impact rather than action. With permission from Sergei's great-grandfather Odin, he was allowed to speak before the gathered warriors in Valhalla. He told them how Ragnarok is a self-fulfilling prophecy, and all the tactics the Aesir have used to prevent it actually bring it about.

Before this, Sergei met his father for the first time, so he had set up a cue with Loki to walk in with Fenrir at a dramatically appropriate time in the speech. As soon as Daddy Fenrir and Grandpa Loki entered the scene, Sergei told the gods that Fenrir was only destructively violent because he had been bound in an attempt to stave off Ragnarok. To prove Sergei's point, Fenrir apologized to Tyr for the hand thing and pledged his service to Odin as the great hunter.

The rolls for this were amazing, and Sergei's words, along with his father's actions, convinced Odin that they were speaking the truth. Odin declared that they would cast aside prophecy, rather than fulfilling it unaware.

Of course, without a Ragnarok occurring, all those Einherjar that were to rise for the final battle needed another purpose. So Heimdall gave the summoning horn to Sasha, along with a Valkyrie retainer to keep the horn safe until it was needed.

[fantazero]

we Wrapped up our Miami game. A Year and then some of Dresden fun.

[Ghsdkgb]

My group got to have a little fun last night. We fought Smurfs!

We have a quartet of pixies in our employ who we saved some time ago and are using to keep an eye on things. But they've been captured! And the place they're being held is far too small for us to get to (the cave entrance was only three apples tall!), so we had to be shrunk down, temporarily, through pixie magic!

(I didn't give anybody "diminutive size," though, since everything was small so the sizes were all the same).

The "smurfs" were Blue Court vampires, who incite emotions of gaiety and revelry, feeding on that the way Whites feed on lust (the Catch was true happiness, i.e., complete contentment in one's life, the kind of thing you only get as a new parent with a well-paying job and a loving spouse sorta thing; nobody in our group). And when the energy has been siphoned, instead of dying, you become one of them.

There was also a red-hatted vampire leading the village, who had sat invisibly atop one of the "mushrooms the size of houses" during our fight with his elite guards.

One of the guards was a wizard who, through a quick series of invocations and lucky rolls, ended up with me having to say: "‎The vampire screams and tumbles from the tree, dead before he gets to cast any of the cool spells I've written up" 

Another was a weresquirrel. A gigantic squirrel the size of a mammoth with ursine paws and teeth of a tyrannosaurus. Seriously, I statted up the weresquirrel with the Hulking Size power.

It ended with us negotiating a prisoner return, on the grounds that there were hundreds of them in the village, but they'd take a great toll on their numbers trying to take us down before they finally overwhelmed us.

So they let the prisoners go, and one of our characters went back the next day and bug-bombed the whole place.

(I did warn them, though, that the Blue Court story wasn't over, and we'd someday meet Gargamel).

[Orladdin]

My group got to have a little fun last night. We fought Smurfs!

We have a quartet of pixies in our employ who we saved some time ago and are using to keep an eye on things. But they've been captured! And the place they're being held is far too small for us to get to (the cave entrance was only three apples tall!), so we had to be shrunk down, temporarily, through pixie magic!

(I didn't give anybody "diminutive size," though, since everything was small so the sizes were all the same).

The "smurfs" were Blue Court vampires, who incite emotions of gaiety and revelry, feeding on that the way Whites feed on lust (the Catch was true happiness, i.e., complete contentment in one's life, the kind of thing you only get as a new parent with a well-paying job and a loving spouse sorta thing; nobody in our group). And when the energy has been siphoned, instead of dying, you become one of them.

There was also a red-hatted vampire leading the village, who had sat invisibly atop one of the "mushrooms the size of houses" during our fight with his elite guards.

One of the guards was a wizard who, through a quick series of invocations and lucky rolls, ended up with me having to say: "‎The vampire screams and tumbles from the tree, dead before he gets to cast any of the cool spells I've written up" 

Another was a weresquirrel. A gigantic squirrel the size of a mammoth with ursine paws and teeth of a tyrannosaurus. Seriously, I statted up the weresquirrel with the Hulking Size power.

It ended with us negotiating a prisoner return, on the grounds that there were hundreds of them in the village, but they'd take a great toll on their numbers trying to take us down before they finally overwhelmed us.

So they let the prisoners go, and one of our characters went back the next day and bug-bombed the whole place.

(I did warn them, though, that the Blue Court story wasn't over, and we'd someday meet Gargamel).

This.  This is...  my mouth is hanging open; that's what this is.

[sqlcowboy]

He left out the fact that my character, the were-dog, was being chased around by the were-squirrel.

[admiralducksauce]

That entire thing is beautiful, but this:

So they let the prisoners go, and one of our characters went back the next day and bug-bombed the whole place.

Is perfection.

[Mr. Death]

Tonight's game was one I've been waiting for for a while. A little background...

About a month or so ago, I took over a campaign from another GM who just wasn't feeling up to it anymore. I was the party tank, a valkyrie, and when he had last left the game, she had been compelled to investigate a scourge on her own, and the last in-game thing she did was head inside. I took over the game, learned what the previous GM had planned, and set about tying up the threads the other characters were on. For about a month's worth of games, my tank was offscreen (about a day passing in-game).

Then, tonight, they finally caught up with her. The vampires had gotten into a thresholded house, meaning one pure-mortal PC was fine, but the two wizards and pixie were crippled. Long story short, one wizard's nearly burnt out by the time the house is mostly cleared, but they get an invite and head upstairs to find the valkyrie, who's grappled by a badass vampire.

There's a bit of parley, the valkyrie wiggles loose, and the wizards and cop all let the vampire have it. Invoked gunfire, and triple-invoked fire spells slam into the vampire--who dodges the gunfire, and proves immune to the fire (Item of Power grabbed as a compel of one wizard's Terrifying Reputation aspect). Then skewers the valkyrie on her own sword before making her way out, leaving the others to attempt a risky thaumaturgic ritual to keep the valkyrie from bleeding out.

But the real kicker came in our OOC room just after they'd stabilized her (Brenda's the valkyrie, Roman's the cop, Helen and Maria are the wizards):

<Mr_Death> Also, FYI: What happened to Brenda was entirely by the numbers. A few weeks ago, I busied myself rolling out her whole encounter. THe Queen ended up filling up all eight of her physical stress boxes and -all three- of her consequences. Without Brenda ever laying a finger on her.
<@[Helen]> Yikes
<[Roman]> Holy christ.
<[Maria]> Jesus fuck
<@[Helen]> Whelp, we're boned

Priceless.

Another note about the session I'm still grinning about is what became my new signature, as one character briefly filled in another on what was going on at a crime scene.

[Elf_NFB]

I killed my game.

I made a number of mistakes in getting the game up and running. First and for most, no one other than myself had ever read the Dresden Books. We wanted to try FATE but I Was the only one willing to run and THIS was the flavor I wanted. Then there was trouble with Character Creation. We were all more than a little unclear as to how to tie the characters together. Add to the mix a bunch of players more used to Burning Wheel and with no good working knowledge on how to drive a story in FATE.

After 4 GAME sessions, I looked around at my players and no one was having fun.... least of all me.

But we do want to try this again. I think we can all see where we went wrong and what needs to change. I think the characters my players came up with were interesting and would still work with a bit of tweaking. I just wish I could get ALL of them to read Summer Knight first.

[fantazero]

I think what helps is playing the one Shots first.
Give people premade characters, story ect, and then let them see how the system works.

I'd say Read Small Favor first. Its the first book I started with. It gives you all the good stuff (Thomas, The Knights, Denarians, Fae ect) and then Butcher does a good job of explaining it without Info Dumping.

[noclue]

We wrapped up a long campaign set in Los Angeles where we had been framed for the murder of our mentor by a rogue warden. One great moment, we were ambushed on Sunset Blvd. by some Red Court infected gang bangers. My sorcerer had taken a car door to the face and was down. The sink hole I'd opened up with a failed discipline role was growing and Getting closer. Morgan's wizard had fried himself pretty bad with his last big spell. The Red Court hitters were coming for me machine guns in hand. It was clearly concession or taken out time...and then I smile at the GM.

Flashback to a couple sessions ago, when my character was glibly chatting with Nuada the Summer Lord of Hollywood who would offer us protection if I promised to find his lost Sword of Light. While leaving one of the Summer Ladies gives me her favor, a handkerchief that bore the lipstick impression of her kiss, and a pledge to come if I called...

So, in rides a Lady Knight of the Summer Court alternatingly on a supercharged motorcycle or powerful warhorse to save my bacon. And now I'm indebted to Summer. Unfortunately I had earlier pledged three favors to Winter for their help in saving a friend of mine and, wouldn't you know, their first request? Lord Nuada's golden sword.