One point to mention though, Thaumaturgy would give a caster a way to change these and be more adaptable (especially so in saving a slot for potions) - since he doesn't have it, he's stuck with more or less long term choices until he gets it.

That sounds untenably more complicated. Running more than one different type of conflict at a time, with different initiatives, I just don't see working at all.

And honestly? Once punches are being thrown, people aren't talking any more. A fight just doesn't work that way.

In reality? No... in comic books and most fiction is another story. Remember, the system is designed to tell a story, not emulate reality perfectly. Sometimes reality gets in the way of the plotline, and you need to bend physics a little to make life more interesting...

Farrovax (sp?) used only part of Harry's name - badly - and still got an effect simply because he's so powerful. It was a demonstration of his power, not of the power of true names.

As for how they work? I'd say no, it has to be a true name. How much of the true name is up to you or your GM - I'd say break it up by word - Harry is one, Copperfield is another, Dresden is a third and so on.

Mechanically? I'd handle this as a long term sticky aspect. Each name would be a separate aspect that would count as a tie for a spell, or a +2 to effect the named person. Thus, knowing Dresden's full name would be a easy +6 or +6 to the power of a spell cast on him. As all aspects, you'd get one free tag of it, then require fate points to continue to tag them - but losing the aspect would be pretty difficult short of straight out brainwashing or killing the person who knows it.

OK, so I'm struggling with my setting. I'm playing a low powered campaign and I have a lot of ideas, but parts of it seem kind of boring.

The city is actually a geographical area - and probably a large one compared to most. Southern Ontario. Specifically Waterloo region (which gives us several cities to work with - Waterloo, Kitchener, Cambridge and Guelph was tossed in for good measure.) We're calling this setting "The fractured cities"

Our Themes/Threats are "The fracture," "New school vs. Old School" and "Breeding ground for mediocrity"

The fracture: This is a threat, drawing on a combination of a real political situation in the area of cities merging, but still refusing to give up their individual identities. We've combined this with a magical geographical feature. Basicly, we're surrounded on 3 sides by the great lakes. As well, we've decided that overall, several powerful lay lines travel through the region and are split by the lakes into a massive net made up of tiny, useless tributaries. This net creates a sort of distortion field that effects everyone differently, mostly just grounding out magical power from outside the area. More on this later, but I will mention it's only a threat, not a change to the mechanics of the Dresdenverse.

Breeding ground for mediocrity - Basicly, the distortion field of the fracture drove out the traditional political powers and as a result, outsiders look at Ontario as the badlands: a human group is the dominant political power, Wylde-fae live here to avoid the pull of summer and winter, and Were wolves make up the other major faction.

Old School vs. New School: We've decided that the 'human' faction that dominates politics here is actually the large population of Mennonites in the region (that was a shock to me, but an interesting twist when I got over it) basically controlling things from the shadows. Too their credit, there has been no real organized crime in the region thanks to their over zealous meddling throughout history. Now however, thanks in equal part to the uprising in technology made possible by the fracture (see the universities) and the newly formed paranet, knowledge of the supernatural is getting around and a new school of mortal is forming. With this new awareness, the politics of the Mennonites is in question...

The factions:

The Mennonites: Our region has a large population of Mennonites. Some are true Amish, but many blend in with society and rule quite effectively from the shadows. Composed of pure mortals, they pulled a chapter of hunters over  early on as their leaders became aware of the supernatural and effectively took control of the supernatural world. With the Jagers keeping outside influances in check, the Mennonites effectively became the dominant political group in the area and kept the place clear of organised crime - both the mortal and non-mortal varieties. Still, in the supernatural world many consider them akin to a hate group when it comes to Fae and Magic users, or any other supernatural creatures. Old habits die hard, and no where is that more true than in Mennonite society.

The Universities - One major effect of the distortion field is grounding out static energy caused by mortal practitioners. While this isn't perfect, it has given local tech companies a distinct edge. Tech companies mean universities,  and universities mean scientists and students. As a result, the universities have slowly grown up in the region and are only now beginning to study the fringes of the normally taboo never-never. This has given the universities a new view point recently, and some have become aware of the true political landscape. As a result, the Universities have begun to challenge the rule of the Mennonites, although they don't fully realize the extent of what they deal with...

The Wylde-Fae: The fracture tends to ground out the pull of the summer and winter courts - something aligned fae hate. Unaligned fae however, who are constantly feeling the pull, love the fracture. Although they have no real political ambitions, many have come here and live mostly in peace: their children tending toward scions rather than changelings. For the most part, they've been driven out of politics by the far more zelous mennonites and, for the most part, they're happy with that. Their children, however, are always unpredictable... As a note: the local Fae recognize the accords and respect them, even if most of the mortals do not. The rest of the factions have only recently become concious of the accords as there has never been any need for them here.

The Jagers: Before immigrating to Canada, the Jagers were a German guild of hunters who secretly specialized in the supernatural - everything from witches to werewolves, the Jagers helped keep the German countryside safe from that which went bump in the night by killing non-mortals without exception (and even some mortals, if suspected of the black arts). So, when the local Mennonites noticed a population of werewolves in the region, they pulled Jagers from Germany over to help here. Modern day Jagers are much more civilised these days however and only really hunt if a creature has become a threat: more of a policing paramilitary than bloodthirsty systematic killers they once were. They still have a tendency to be a bit overzealous though, especially since most of their members are Mennonites. Using mostly raw training and the odd artifact captured over the years, the Jagers are more than capable of dealing with any local werewolf or Fae that decides to get out of hand, without ever even recognizing the accords.

The Paranet: another new face on the field, the Paranet only recently formed but has become a radical new faction here, with much more power than in most places. The Paranet represents a new unification of all of the lesser factions that the Mennonites have kept down all these years. Led by a council, this group has recently started calling the Jagers to account for their actions, and the Mennonites have begrudgingly respond with justifications, lest their political power waver. For the most part, they merely educate, but they've already shown to be a major political danger to the rest of the factions.

The Wardens: For mortal practitioners, casting magic is like breathing on Everest - it takes time to acclimatize yourself, but once you do it is possible. This process is an extremely slow process, so as a result, the white council has left several active wardens in the area to keep an eye on things. Since the Jagers generally do a good job of keeping threats taken care of, this long ago turned into a joke position: essentially a title and little else. Most are recruits from the region who would struggle with casting anywhere else anyways. Still, this contingent is maintained just in case: since the fracture seems to effect different types differently, you never know who might build up an army here in secret if the region were to be left unchecked. Today: the local Wardens are more or less a joke: pencil pushers who check in every once in a while to keep tabs on local events, but little else.

The Weres: No ones fully sure why, but there does seem to be a large population of Were's in the area: humans who through bloodline or by chance have learned to transform themselves into local animals. No ones quite sure why, but the tradition is a long one. The local Were's are more of a demographic than a faction here: disorganized but a bit more aware of things than most. For years, this was the primary concern of the Jager's: and with the paranet and Universities, this job is only getting harder as the Were's slowly realize just how many of them there are...

Other: No ones quite sure what else might be here, which is part of the reason why we have so many wardens here, joke or not.

So, for anyone who feels like reading, any thoughts? I'm sure I'll see some concerns right away which I can explain how I intend to handle them. Please bear in mind this setting was only partially created by me, so I am just working with what I've got

I can't see a social master intimidating the heck out of a beast to be honest. Not without a lot of maneuvers to tag anyways. The fact is that social attacks in a physical conflict are always going to be less desirable to physical attacks - except maybe in very rare circumstances. Gotta remember, the attacks need to have a plausible explanation to them. You can't just say 'I attack him socially!' - you need to come up with a way to do so. Intimidation, posturing, etc. For instance, social attacks on Sue the Dinosaur would be neigh impossible as ... well? Sue isn't capable of understanding most social attacks. I might deal with this as an auto concession in these cases: They take a minor consequence of 'oblivious' (or distracted) and concede from the social combat without conceding from the physical combat.

Also, I consider social attacks to require acquaintances around to be effective. After all, the bully doesn't have much ability to embarrass you in the school yard if no ones around to watch, right? Losing a social conflict typically means losing the respect of those around you.

I'd also say the consequences of a mental defeat or a social defeat would be much different from a physical defeat.

Also, I wasn't aware that there's only one set of consequences... I'm not sure I like this. I may house rule this though... I understand that a social consequence could be used against you in a physical fight, but in my mind you should be able to take minor social and physical consequences in the same  scene... or even major ones. Again, this is because losing a social conflict has different (and often less damaging) consequences than a physical conflict.

By the way, just for reference, I'm going at this to try and make my combats as realistic as possible. I like to ask my players what they want to do and then figure out how to do that within the fate rules (effectively if possible), as opposed to asking my players what fate rules they'd like to exploit. In my mind everyone should have something they can do in every conflict - whether it's the bruiser helping in social conflicts by being intimidating, the talker helping in physical conflicts be being distracting, or whatever equivalent mental conflict version. Sure, everyone will have their preferred roles, but I like the way fate works in that there should never be a time when someone sits in the corner while another player 'shines.' Fate works best when people work intelligently together to solve a problem.

I ran into this too. My 2 cents is yes - but it's not very effective. First, you're doing the wrong kind of damage - social stress doesn't stack with physical stress. Second, you need to consider the consequences of a social conflict are not as desirable in a fight with a physical creature, accept in certain circumstances - e.g. making an ogre start to stutter in the middle of a fight wont really help you hurt it - unless you can convince his friends to turn on him of course...

The end result? It's better to use social skills to place aspects rather than attacks. But on the other hand, if everyone else were to layer on the aspects and the social charactor used them to launch one massive social attack, it'd be effective, if not thematically awesome.

E.g. There's a big old ogre in front of our wily group of adventurers. Our group doesn't think they can take him in a straight on fight, but they figure he's more gullible than weak (he has more social stress than physical) so, when Hero A gets his turn, he places the aspect 'flanked!' on the ogre. Hero B places 'uneven footing' on the ogre, Hero C puts 'outnumbered on the ogre' and Hero D, being the social monster, uses all the aspects to launch a 10 social stress attack on the ogre. This is repeated and the ogre is convinced to surrender in a turn, convinced he can't possibly win and he should probably just give in and help them instead of trying to fight it out. The group sighs a sigh of relief: they've effectively circumvented the monsters toughness powers and formidable strength and finished a massive fight in 2 rounds. The GM grins, this is actually a pretty cool result.

My concern would be that 'innocents' would almost be a social catch, rather than a mental one. But it could work.

My other concern would be, as a GM, remembering who knows what. Your bad guys wouldn't necessarily know the catch, and you're doing the player a disservice if you don't play to that fact.

A suggestion: rather than 'innocents' - go with a vice or negative emotion. For instance: the catch is rage: get him angry and his mental fortitude is shot. Or lust, or envy, or greed. Pick one: no one's perfect. Or even concern/worry, which would be a more thematically appropriate version of innocents.