Need to familiarize a total noob with the Dresdenverse...

[TimPendragon]

Hi folks,

I've been wanting to play a Dresden campaign for years now, and a small group of friends have finally gotten on the same page and want to do it as well. One of our friends has always had a mild interest in this kind of thing, but hasn't read the books, and since we're starting in less than two weeks, there probably isn't time for him to read Storm Front with his schedule. It's not like the concepts are hard to get, and he'll grasp the basics easily enough, but we want to give him a bit of a primer before hand as best we can.

It's been years since I watched the TV series, and while it does have it's flaws, it's "close enough" to give him an idea of the kind of world this is. Any suggestions on a couple of episodes to get him to watch as a sort of Dresdenverse primer, so he can have an idea of what kind of character to play and what to expect in the game?

[Sanctaphrax]

I don't know much about the show, but I've always been partial to Richard Chilton's intro piece.

[Tedronai]

If someone in your group has access to them (or you can get them at your local library) I'd suggest taking a look at the Dresden comic book / graphic novels.
They portray things much more accurately than the tv show while being drastically condensed as compared to the original novels.

That said, if you do want to go with some of the episodes, I suggest the one with the dragonfire.  It captured the whole 'the Council are jerks and the Wardens are even bigger jerks' feel pretty well.
Might want to throw in some incubi and/or hellions(sp?) for the 'lots of nasty not-humans in the world'.
Thief's hand for 'the dark powers are always willing to help'.

[Mr. Ghostbuster]

Hi folks,

I've been wanting to play a Dresden campaign for years now, and a small group of friends have finally gotten on the same page and want to do it as well. One of our friends has always had a mild interest in this kind of thing, but hasn't read the books, and since we're starting in less than two weeks, there probably isn't time for him to read Storm Front with his schedule. It's not like the concepts are hard to get, and he'll grasp the basics easily enough, but we want to give him a bit of a primer before hand as best we can.

It's been years since I watched the TV series, and while it does have it's flaws, it's "close enough" to give him an idea of the kind of world this is. Any suggestions on a couple of episodes to get him to watch as a sort of Dresdenverse primer, so he can have an idea of what kind of character to play and what to expect in the game?

He could design his character as someone who is new to the world of the supernatural so that the character itself is inexperienced. I did that for a game of Vampire: The Masquerade. It worked fairly well.

[TimPendragon]

Thanks folks! He surprised me and actually did manage to read Storm Front (in one day, no less). Loved it, and has started Fool Moon, so he's at least a little more prepared. But he just sent me a character idea (we're doing character creation in the first session, but I wanted him to think of the type of character he'd want to play at least), and I really don't know what to do with this...

When he was in his early teens he discovered he could heal people by touching them and wanting them to get better not realizing it was magic. So he decided to work for a Red Cross sort of thing helping people around the world but not telling anyone what he could do just doing it in secret. Then he realized his boss was using the organization as a front to supply vampires with bodies (would that work?)  and then his boss tried to kill him. So after almost being killed he is found by someone (maybe a wizard?) who knows what he can do and trains him to use his powers to heal and to fight with and now he travels helping people and taking down his boss' fronts. Does that work?

It's not a bad character idea, especially from someone who's very new to the whole thing, but my first thoughts are that a) healing magic is not something that human wizards can pull off easily (might work for some kind of scion to some degree), and b) how would healing magic even really work in gameplay terms?

So any suggestions on how to tone the character down some, or how to handle this kind of thing?

[narphoenix]

Thanks folks! He surprised me and actually did manage to read Storm Front (in one day, no less). Loved it, and has started Fool Moon, so he's at least a little more prepared. But he just sent me a character idea (we're doing character creation in the first session, but I wanted him to think of the type of character he'd want to play at least), and I really don't know what to do with this...

It's not a bad character idea, especially from someone who's very new to the whole thing, but my first thoughts are that a) healing magic is not something that human wizards can pull off easily (might work for some kind of scion to some degree), and b) how would healing magic even really work in gameplay terms?

So any suggestions on how to tone the character down some, or how to handle this kind of thing?

Ritual (Biomancy) works if he has a high Scholarship and Lore to know what's going on, as well as taking time to accomplish it. If he does it instantaneously, well, we're still struggling with that.

[TimPendragon]

I'm trying to think of ways to "tone it down" while still keeping the spirit of what he wants... Maybe the ability to sense illness in someone by touch? That could have led him, out of a sense of compassion, to want to help people. I would imagine that kind of compassion would be almost a requirement for skilled biomancy.

As for fighting... what I think he has in mind is some kind of kinetomancy/focused-chi thing sort of like Iron Fist (but not to comic book levels, obviously). Think there's any way to tie these two sides together?

What about the ability to sense illness in someone? Out of compassion, that could lead him to want to help people and wind up with the Red Cross-type group. That kind of compassion could reinforce an ability to channel his life-force in ways that could assist in healing rituals once he was trained, using his chi for faster things on a small scale (though it would drain him pretty quick), and that focused connection to his own chi could in turn lead to strong defensive/use-my-opponent's-power-against-him kind of mystic martial artist thing in combat.

Something like that would keep the spirit of what he wants, I think. Could a character like that work in game?

[UmbraLux]

Have you considered using the emissary template instead of wizard?  It gives you a bit more room for allowing healing powers without messing with canon. 

I'd be tempted to start there, give him an appropriately expensive touch version of Recovery and associate him with Asclepius (or other healing Power).  Adding healing senses and even martial abilities is fairly straightforward.

[TimPendragon]

Yeah, I've been thinking about Emissaries ever since Sam first asked "Hey, would something like Iron Fist work?"

Gotta see if there's a mythical "god of healing" type deity out there that's also something of a badass... There's probably something in far eastern myth...

[UmbraLux]

Bridgit or Dagda (Celtic) are possibilities.  So would the Morrigan for that matter...just changes source aspect based on granted power.  The White God would work as well - the Hospitallers (later Knights of Malta) were oriented towards both healing and war.  For Asian gods Vishnu or Rudra may work. 

[narphoenix]

Apollo isn't exactly a pushover, if you want something more traditional. 

[TimPendragon]

Thanks for all the input, guys. Just wanted to give you the heads up that we ended up going with Sekhmet, as goddess of both war and healing ("she owns the bullets *and* the bandages!"), and it's worked out really well, inspiring other stories and aspects for the character.

We've only had one session so far (a couple of people have really sucky schedules), so we only got through character creation, but everyone had fun, and that's good. I'm working on plot seeds, NPCs and fleshing out the Baltimore setting a bit more for the next session. *Fingers crossed*

[Godwyn]

Rather than start a new topic, I decided to borrow this one as the OP no longer needs it .  I am in a similar situation, with a group of us starting a campaign finally, but one of the players is not familiar with the Dresdenverse.  One thing that brought him in though, is the similarity to Supernatural (the TV show).  He designed a pure mortal after the Winchesters, which is working well.  My real question is for people familiar with both worlds; What key differences between the worlds do I need to make him aware of? 

[PirateJack]

1) The supernatural superpowers like the White Council, the vampire courts and the Sidhe.
2) The Nevernever.
3) Thresholds and magic circles. Hexing should be noted as well.
4) Magic in general, but specifically the True Name, symbolic links and the Laws of Magic.

That should be enough to give a decent overview of the Dresden Files world. Everything else is basically the same, though you might want to mention that Angels appear to be genuinely good people rather than assholes with daddy issues. It's only once you reach the higher levels of power that the discrepancies become really noticeable.

[Godwyn]

Thanks, I had really forgotten about the threshold and angel differences.