what playable stuff are you hoping for?

[TheMouse]

If you have friends who aren't gamers but who like Dresden, you might be able to make them into gamers. Such things  have been known to work.

[Soulless Mystic5523]

I got lucky, I got my DM hooked on Dresden long before there was even talk fo an RPG. And I keep feeding him the stuff that Iago is giving us and its causing an almost Pavlovian responce. By the time the RPG is actually released, he'll be begging for people to play.

[Melkarion]

Personally, I am so stoked for this game to come out... now if I can just find me a group to game with...

I actually found out through a few random quotes I dropped on game night, not expecting anyone to get them, that sometime DM, fellow gamer, and online acquantance of mine is a Dresden fan.  I'm kind of banking on him running a game, and getting some of his regular players interested.

If not, I may have to hit the streets, sourcebook in hand and a sock of dice in my pocket, desperately looking scrounging for three to five players for the next game, a shattered hulk of my former self.

[Valarian]

If not, I may have to hit the streets, sourcebook in hand and a sock of dice in my pocket, desperately looking scrounging for three to five players for the next game, a shattered hulk of my former self.

Not sure press-ganging players and chaining them to the dice is going to work as a friendly recruiting tactic. On the other hand, it could get you players more quickly than the standard methods. 

Does a sock of dice count as an offensive weapon?

[Melkarion]

Not sure press-ganging players and chaining them to the dice is going to work as a friendly recruiting tactic. On the other hand, it could get you players more quickly than the standard methods. 

Does a sock of dice count as an offensive weapon?

I could probably use it as a sap, but I'm not proficient.

My PC dice live in a sock; in fact, they live in whatever happens to be my most comfortable sock at any given time.  It's horribly unscientific, even superstitious of me, but it's also tradition by this point, and I am generally the sort to respect tradition, absent compelling reasons to do otherwise.

[NevynK]

Well I usually play a magic user but lately my characters revolve around brute strength so I'm hoping for equips tha support a vanila mortal taking on the baddies, basically a high tech van helsing or if not stats for a tech wiz support character hmmm maybe a junkie precog....

.... btw on a side note I'm going to be up at Goose Creek, South Carolina from the middle of march for quite a while (doing my A School  ) and wondering if anybody round there's gonna be running a game or something

[TheMouse]

Unfortunately, technology and magic in the Dresdenverse don't get along well together. Perhaps you could side step this issue to some degree by making a Wizard who was really good at artifice but terrible at on the fly casting. It would lack the superficial aspects of Van Helsing, but it would hit up the gadget use.

[NevynK]

By that I assume you mean artifice as a synonym of crafting or making devices and not strategy or deciet, although as we've learned from harry assumptions are usually a bad thing lol  . Nah I'm trying to stay off the magic for a while the D&D/BESM/WM sessions I would play in usually ended up like this

GM: You come upon the camp of a horde of orcs/brigands/soldiers/ect so far none have noticed you and if you're careful you should be able to sneak around....

Player 1: I'll use an invisilibility item/spell/skill/sneak/roll avoidance ect

Player 2-6:"                                                                               "

Me: I'll use a reveal all to find any sentries!

Everybody else:  ......

GM: Umm are you sure?

Me: Yeah and just in case I'll use a delayed fireball/energy blast ect on the command tent!.....

50 rounds later.....

GM:Allright all 120 of the soldiers are dead now we can FINALLY move on to the story

5 rounds later

GM: You enter the cave where the tome you seek lies but directly ahead you notice a sleeping wyvern laying across the entrance to the next cave.

Free Action

Me: I sneak up to the wyvern and stick my staff up its @$$...

Everyone:  .................

Its fun but I tend to end up being buried in flying soda cans and funnions bags, not cool. Me as warrior or theif preferably warrior/theif is similar but a bit more expected and the extra hp helps  but in something modern I gotta go tech chrazy or just crazy crazy nothing beats taking down the forces of evil in a straightjacket!

[TheMouse]

Yeah, I meant the creation of devices. I play too much Exalted, where the word specifically means the creation of magical items in many contexts.

The problem with mundane technology is that it's fragile in the Dresden-verse. It breaks in the presence of magic. That's an issue if you plan to use it to fight supernatural things, because it'll leave you without your gadgets completely. If you make magical items which accomplish the types of effects you want, you end up with something which is functionally identical to a high tech gadget, but it happens to be a stick covered in runes. Oh, and it doesn't stop working when a wizard casts a spell nearby.

[NevynK]

Actually so far it seems to be only wizards or other human practitioners that make magic go wonkey. So far the fae and vamp magics we've seen have no effect. Also for the most part I was thinking gadgets as weapons or defenses, maybe some investigating ones but mainly instead of batman using his billions joe blow goes to the fae for help and gets more than he bargained for sure his joerangs cut through undead like Harry goes through VW parts but all the same being indebted to the fae is harsh! Something along those line and since their magic seems to not make tech go kablooe they could probably work something in there to ward against the natural hex field and powers of the human wiz's

[TheMouse]

It's not just wizards and other human practitioners. Those faeries that fed on fear also killed tech stuff, and I'm sure that other things will too.

[NevynK]

as far as I recall they made things spooky but didn't kill the tech. After they left/were killed things went back to normal. At least as far as I remember might be wrong have to go check

[TheMouse]

If I recall correctly, the lights and emergency systems went out while they were around. There's nothing definitive in the scene one way or the other as to whether they knocked out other tech, but there's definitely enough that an individual GM might interpret it that way. That's how I interpret what was going on, for example.

Still, this type of thing is one of those game contract situations where groups should discuss what they expect out of the game. I generally make my gaming suggestions assuming that things will go strictly by the rules with as harsh an interpretation as possible, as then it'll likely be a useful suggestion under a broad range of game groups.

[NevynK]

True they knocked out the lights and emergency systems but then again they probably meant to do so. Magical intent is different from a natural occurance that happens whether you want it to or not. I mean come on the myurk we saw in SmF was some major mojo and the lights didn't even burn out till harry started waving his ju-ju stick around. Every horror fan knows the lights going out and the fog rolling in is standard issue, so of course the creepy crawlies had to hit the lights and all that jazz.

[TheMouse]

As I admitted above, it's somewhat open to interpretation. Clearly the vampire courts, for example, seem to get along perfectly well with technology.

Still, some things from the Nevernever seem to play havoc with tech. I believe I recall -- although I cannot back this up with text -- that some items don't work when taking into the Nevernever, or at least parts of it.

All of which is to say, tying yourself to high tech items in the Dresdenverse means that, at some point, you're going to have some major issues. I mean, the books are about a wizard. Someone in your group will want to play a wizard. It would sort of suck if, whenever that character was around, your character lost his schtick.

Of course, much of the above is a series of assumptions. And we all know what happens when one assumes.