Has Jim let us know if there any way to establish when an event in the novels happened in "Real World" time? Or is that deliberately vague to within a few years?

One of my players has a notion having to do with The Disney Corporation, so naturally we're talking about "Frozen" and the events of "Cold Days". The relative timing of those things is probably going to become important. We will fudge things to make our story work if necessary, but going through the process of  "well, if things happened in this order, with this timing, they have done so because..." is more fun, and sometimes makes for a better story.

If anyone's interested, the current cast's aspects can be found here.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tC5MQ6jR8oaXMgzVLw8L50Nrj51lCXp6lUx9HZGVWZs/edit

Twofold response.  From a fictional point of view, those sound like powerful, evocative choices for Theme and Threat, and they would probably do a good job of driving a dark, brooding sort of game. My only criticism might be that they seem a bit generic, and could apply to almost any big city, anywhere, not necessarily New York, except for the use of New York's nickname "The Big Apple".

The from the point of view of a native New Yorker, I'm afraid (or rather happy) to say both Themes are horrifically out of date, by 30 or 40 years. New York's crime rate, relative to it's size, is quite low, there aren't a ton of homeless people, the poverty rate has gone way down, police relations are relatively civil, and the city government is famous for it's complexity, scope and occasional dysfunction, but not for corruption and apathy.

The city that you're describing sound more like New Orleans, Detroit, Baltimore, LA, maybe Miami, Philly, or DC. I hesitate to add Chicago to that list, since I bet the myths and the facts about Chi town are probably as mixed up as those about NYC.

The thing that's cool and scary about the real NYC is that it's a city of the world (arguably THE city of the world), and it can roll right over you crush you without noticing or caring. Also, it's target number one on the list of basically every terrorist group, foreign or domestic, on the planet. Also, a major center of world finance, and home of most of the asshats that caused the global financial meltdown. Also, the UN is here.

It's scary, but in a Summer court, "Look at all that freaking out of control growth!" sort of way, rather than a Winter Court, "Rotting corpse of a once great city" way.

As far as becoming prey, you're much less likely to lose your life than to lose you dream. The kind of predators that exist in NYC are more likely to consume the soul, and leave the body; an empty, corporate drone. And those are just the mundane predators that really exist, let alone the supernatural ones.

That bit about the competition between locations to be the next ACN is perfect, since NYC is where the powerful come to make deals that change the lives of people all over the world, for better or worse, so being the one ACN in NYC would be incredibly prestigious.

Having said that, hey, the themes you chose would totally work, and if you game group likes playing in that version of NYC, go nuts and have fun.

Reliable rumor has it that Evil Hat has plans for a supplement to the DFRPG.  I've heard that the 3rd book would update the rules based on events in the fiction, and give us several fully worked up "cities" like the "Nevermore" chapter of Your Story.

I'd love to know where the new book is in its development cycle, and if Evil Hat might be looking for community feedback regarding content we'd like to see.

Thanks. 

I was just re-reading the description of Sponsored Magic, and I realized I may have been messing up the application of sponsor debt this whole time.  The last paragraph on 288 says, in part, "Once per roll, you may invoke an aspect without spending a fate point. Doing so adds one to the debt between you and your sponsor."

I had always interpreted that as applying only to spell-casting rolls, sort of an alternative to taking backlash when you blow you control roll. But I think it's intended to refer to ANY roll, under any circumstances.

Anyone have any thoughts about that?

But access to stuff like clothes/badges/tatoos that actually have mechanical effect is generally represented as a stunt or an aspect.  You might narrate that two characters are wearing similar clothes, for instance, but for one of those characters, the clothes are just part of the description of the scene.  If the character wants those clothes to have an impact on the story, he or she should represent that by either having a stunt like "killer wardrobe", or use a skill-roll to place an aspect on themselves like "dressed to impressed", probably a resources roll, or maybe an contacts or empathy roll to know what sort of wardrobe would have the greatest impact.

Let me see if I can address the ideas of advocating for characters more directly, and maybe also the idea of the GM playing adversity without having to pay for it.

The introduction of the compel shouldn't necessarily trump the resolution of a conflict by other mechanics.  In the particular problem case that we've been discussing, the compel can best be used as a way to get the GM and players to discuss how to make the conflict a more interesting part of the story.  The GM brings the adversity, in the form of antagonistic NPCs and environment.  The Compel gives the GM more latitude to turn the screws that much tighter, because the PC has a connection with this particular adversary.  If the characters Aspect(s) suggest a way in which the conflict would be more interesting, by upping the stakes, or complicating the possible consequences, or changing the arena, he can suggest that the story take that particular turn, and offer the player a reward for giving him the tool to take the story in that direction.

Assuming the PC accepts the compel, he still gets to advocate for his character, but he might be up against tougher odds, or he might have to accept some limitation while doing his fighting, or he might have to concede a setback on one front so that he can concentrate on another.  Hopefully, the upshot is to increase the drama at the table, either by the increased risk of failure, or the pathos of having to sacrifice one desire to pursue another.

I don't know if that was very clear or helpful.  Usually I include examples to supplement these sorts of discussions, but I wanted to try to address things in general terms in this case.

P.S. Sometimes it is a good idea to let the compel short-circut the other game mechanics, if the consensus at the table is that the process of determining the some outcome won't be much fun, and there's one particular outcome that people are excited to see.  In that case, a compel, accepted or bought off, could the the most agreeable and efficient way to get to the good stuff. But I think we're concerned with conflicts you want get more fun out of, rather than the boring ones you might want to skip.