So, I've been noticing a bit of a contrast in the general "how to run the game" stuff in DFRPG.

City Creation seems aimed towards setting up this big sandbox with all these pieces that bump off each other. Players get their biggest rewards (Major Milestones) for changing Threats and Themes. It all seems to aim towards a player-proactive sandbox campaign where players set goals, initiate change, and the NPCs add to the story by reacting to player action and snowballing things sort of like a classic Vampire: the Masquerade sandbox chronicle.

But the adventures seem exactly the opposite. The advice seems to presume that the people taking action and shaking things up are going to be the NPCs, that the players will generally be going along enjoying the status quo until they run across the evil plans of an NPC and start blowing things up to stop them. The advice on creating adventures seems to be aimed at creating a fairly reactive campaign.

To  be fair - the adventure creation feels very much in the spirit of the novels. The books almost never start off with Dresden trying to accomplish a goal and then facing opposition. Usually it is just Dresden trying to put his life back together and reach some sense of equilibrium, and then he stumbles across some antagonist who he just can't let go unopposed (or someone comes to him and says "hey, buttface, you owe me/have this obligation, go do a thing!"). Dresden is generally an incredibly reactive protagonist.

Anyway, anyone else notice this? It is almost as if the game sort of bundles together two very distinct playstyles, and doesn't realize how different they can be. I'm seeing the potential for confusion in my players - when I finish an adventure up, half of my players assume they go back into "Reactive waiting for adventure mode" and presume things are unremarkable until their lives get messed up again, whereas another half go into "Okay, what's the next goal we're accomplishing/antagonist we're going after?" sandbox mode where they aren't expecting there to be much of a time jump between adventures.

Ah, fair enough. Curse my brain. Regardless, they were totally protected against the (admittedly-weaker-due to-threshold-crossing) demon inside the circle...He had to get out or it would have destroyed everything around the circle. It wasn't a function of Harry's will or the demon's strength.

Yeah, it clearly isn't a thing where he has to struggle to hold it together like he does for his shield. It is less of a spell, more of a law of physics. And one we also know unempowered mortals can also use to their advantage.

It makes high-Refresh spellcasters substantially weaker. You might not see that as a downside, but personally I don't like the idea of making Evocation so inaccurate.

I guess, comparing it to other high-refresh characters...are other high refresh characters likely to get big bonuses to their attack rolls that Wizards can't also get? It seems that stunts/powers that raise your attack roll (as opposed to damage) are pretty rare - for the vast majority of character types, the only way to raise your to-hit roll is to up your skill. Except wizards, who can pretty trivially get +4 to attack even by the time you're in the low teens of refresh.

I've been re-reading the books, and it seems that blocks are kind of a poor way to represent magic circles in some ways. Harry never really seems to worry that a monster might breach his circle through sheer might - his concern is always things like staying away or inside the circle or the like. And when he concludes something has been hidden away by a practitioner, he seems to be like "Oh, I guess magic won't find it, not even the Senior Council" - I'm guessing because it is probably inside a circle or the like.

Anyway, circles seem pretty much invincible in the fiction and are relatively fast to put up. It is more of a magical law than anything. But in DFRPG you'd handle it with a block...and, well, Thaumaturgy really is a matter of "Who wants to spend more time on it?" You can muster 10 shifts into your circle? Surely someone else can muster 11 with a tracking spell, etc. And even when going against mundane monsters, some of them aren't hard-pressed to breach 10 or so on a Might check to break something, whereas 10 feels like it should be a fairly solid circle...

Any thoughts?

I was wondering if folks had good guidelines for where the line between a self-compel and "just roleplaying" is. I have a hard time adjudicating such and knowing when to hand out Fate points or not.

Like, let's say you've got a character with a stereotypical "Smartass" Aspect.

I think clearly if she mouths off at a potential ally and turns them into an enemy because of it, definitely self-compel and she gets a Fate point.

If she mouths off to an enemy who was already going to try and kill her and all that really changes is the enemy focuses fire a bit more on her...that just seems fairly clearly roleplaying, it doesn't really introduce a new problem or consequence. No Fate Point.

But how do you sort of draw the line on the places between? What's a big enough disadvantage to warrant it actually being a compel?

What I'm really having a hard time is articulating what counts as a compel or not to my players in a way that helps them feel confident about when is a good self-compel so they can get more Fate points, and what is just kind of weak("My Hot Temper caused me to take a slightly less than optimal action in combat!").

That just means they're emotionally invested in their characters and now have something to work towards in regards to beating the Dragon. Never underestimate how far players will go to have their revenge.

Perhaps people have had different experiences, but in my experience this only works when they lose what they perceive as something resembling a fair contest. They tend to go the opposite way and utterly disengage if they feel it is coming from opposition they had no meaningful way to try and stop.

Here's another one for you folks...

Is there any good way, in this version of the DFRPG, to do combined fights/chases?

Like, it seems a ridiculously common scenario where someone will either flee midfight, or try and make a fighting retreat out of an ambush, and when a bunch of characters will all have actions like "I want to chase after him and hit him" or "I want to run to the car and fire a few shots at my pursuers". And DFRPG doesn't have a good system for multiple non-Supplemental actions.

So you end up with either
a) Everyone takes a Supplemental move each round. So everyone moves one zone. No one ever gains distance on the others.
b) Someone takes a Sprint action. They get no attack. Now anyone who wants to try and use a same-zone attack against him has to also take a Sprint action. Repeat every round, unless somehow the guy failing doesn't make at least a Fair on his Athletics.

Am I missing something? Should I just be moving things into a Cat & Mouse Chase as soon as one guy takes off running? (Presumably with a win by the cat in a Cat & Mouse meaning you've got the guy cornered and he can't easily flee again)