For some reason when I read this I immediately parsed it as:
Superman is in a physical combat with Darkseid.  He is using Athletics, Fists and Might to punch his enemy into the ground.
Lois is in a social combat with Darkseid.  She is using Empathy and Rapport to demoralize him.
Batman is in a mental contest with Darkseid.  He is using Intimidate,  Stealth, and Resources to keep him confused and off-balance.
Lois and Batman are not foolish enough to engage in a physical combat with Darkseid where they would get flattened.  Nor would Lois and Superman be able to stand up to him in a mental combat.  I don't know if Batman and Superman would be able to help out in Social combat, but they're pretty undeniably better at the type of combat they chose to engage in.
Darkseid just replies to each of these attacks in kind.  Because the GM knows what MyNinjaH8sU said about crushing the players out-of-hand not making for a good story.

The problem I have with the situation is there is significant incentive to coordinate to a single stress track, so you only have to do enough stress to fill that one up before you start dealing consequences.  If you split up the attacks like that then you have to fill up all three stress tracks.  I suppose it might make sense if all three are tanking Darkseid's attacks in their respective arenas.  (Lois is preventing Superman from being attacked socially where he could not take as much punishment).

Is that a crazy way to think about it?

Not at all. I think that's a fine way to think about it, actually. Though I don't think you have to combine stress tracks, since you can normally only take one Consequence of each type* (Mild, Moderate, Severe, Extreme) anyway.

Here's another way to look at it. Lois is a Pulitzer winning investigative journalist. She might just be trying to keep him off balance with questions and pointing out weaknesses, while Batman is the world's greatest detective, and is probably running everything from his mask back through the Bat-Cave's computer in real time, while employing his own prodigious intellect to identify patterns and weak spots in Darkseid's defense. Together, they are stacking up some epic bonuses via Declarations/Maneuvers so that when Superman comes back, it's going to be one hell of a punch...

(Preferably accompanied by a "World of Cardboard" speech!)


*Yes, of course Darkseid has extra Consequences, but that's beside the point.

Hey, it's been a long while since I last posted, and I'm hopefully gearing up to run another campaign for my local group soon. However, upon taking a look back at the forums, and talking to my players (new and old) I've noticed an old familiar concern cropping up:

"Wizards are so powerful! How are we supposed to manage that sort of thing in comparison to other characters? What do we do when one person wants to play a Wizard blasting things all over the place, and the other wants to play a White Court Virgin, full of angst and terrible possibilities?"

I feel like this is a very valid concern for people to have. It's come up so often though, that I have an answer ready, that I would like to share here. Hopefully, some of you will find a use for it, or have some interesting commentary:

"Superman, Batman, and Lois Lane are fighting Darkseid. Superman flies towards him, and Darkseid punches him away through several skyscrapers, causing chaos and scattering debris to the crowd below, and stunning Superman. Meanwhile, Batman is trying to distract Darkseid, mostly with flashbangs, smoke bombs, and other such things to throw him off his game, all while concocting a plan to take him out, relaying his ideas to Superman, dodging like crazy. All this time, Lois, who is being held hostage, is bantering back and forth with Darkseid, who is monologuing in return. Lois is pointing out how Superman and the Justice League have beaten him every time, while Darkseid is responding in kind, attempting to cow this human woman into silence with his intimidating presence."

Now, we all know that Darkseid would have no issue if he decided to punch a hole through Lois, or drop a whole building on Batman's head. However, he doesn't ever do this. Why?

Because it would make for a bad story.

Louis obviously isn't able to take the hit, so it would be boring if she just died randomly, with no chance to affect the story. Likewise Batman can engage the enemy, but not the same way that Superman can. They are both helping defeat him, by distracting him, throwing him off his game, and coordinating their efforts. Superman meanwhile, can take the hits, so Darkseid doesn't hold back with him.

When a player makes a character able to deal out massive punishment in my games, I always make sure they know that they are sending up a signal that they are ok having that kind of conflict directed back at them. I tell my players a very similar thing about picking Trouble Aspects: "Pick something that you think would be interesting for you, but complicating or difficult for your character. Don't pick something that will annoy you as a player."

Last, here's a quick example from a game I ran a little while ago.

One of my players asked if he could make a very "Crow-ish" character. Someone effectively undead, more or less un-killable, and hell-bent on vengeance. I said sure, because even though the rest of the group was made up of nothing more crazy than a Focused Practitioner and a Champion of God, I knew that all it meant was that every really, really nasty hit could be directed at our nearly invulnerable party member. I mean, what better way to show how scary something is than have it maul that dude?

In one game session he: Got blasted with a wave of force that threw him a football field, Got scorched and full of shrapnel by an exploding fan boat in a swamp (a fan blade had to be pulled from his sternum before he could be stitched back up), got eaten by a zombie gator (had to cut his way out, then it tried to eat him again), and almost got pinned under a huge falling tree.

And you know what? He loved it, and so did everyone else (all of whom had other things to worry about, as well).

I don't know if I've explained my point perfectly, and I apologize if I'm repeating something present elsewhere, but I'm of the opinion that more points of view are never a bad thing, anyway. I hope some of you find this interesting, and feel free to ask for clarification, if I was unclear.

I have a house rule for my group: An exchange for a ritual is a number of minutes equal to the total complexity of the ritual.

So, if, like them, you have a Ritual with a 25 Complexity (those little law-breakers, hehehehe), then each exchange you take is 25 minutes. So, when they do any kind of ritual, they have to weigh how much time they have (since there's usually somewhere they need to be, or someone coming to get them), they will be more inclined to not take it so slowly, and as a result risk more.

That said, in a conflict I tend to forgo this rule, but they end up spending a few exchanges preparing while the bruisers of the group hold opposition off, at any rate.

I believe my snark was very toned down and I was just responding in kind after reading the above post.

Heck, I didn't even make any veiled insults in my reply.  

See, my opinion is that the DFRPG rewards creativity, and both I and my players would see a GM who would not allow a fairly basic ritual to find something as piddly as true love when Harry Dresden can track a single person to hell and gone to be both narrow minded and stagnant.

Magic is not the answer to everything, but neither is making something needlessly complicated or harder than it has to be.

Hell, for a fate point, a PC should be able to make a declaration that his/her current relationship is true love while dealing with a WCV.

That's cool. I didn't mean to rub you the wrong way, if I did. We are very obviously playing very different games, as evidenced by you referring to "something as piddly as true love," so I'll leave you to it at this point. Peace out.

Like I said, I'm happy to agree to disagree, so no snark necessary. 

I just see those two things as totally different animals. One is really nasty evocation (maybe straight killin thaumaturgy, but still basically just earth magic - as in gravity) whereas the other is like healing someone: you can't do it without understanding it. Even a relative novice can make something float, or be heavier, but that's because everyone has experienced gravity.

As to the use of an NPC... if one exists in your game, feel free to use them, provided you are friends with them and can convince them. Honestly, that sounds like it would be one of the most bitter, angry and uncooperative characters ever, if someone could even find them to begin with.

All I know is that if my players tried to make glasses that could find true love, the rest of the people at the table would slap them upside the head.

I'll say it again, because I want to know the other side of the argument, and because this was simply not addressed: How is the Wizard supposed to know how to look for something that they don't understand? That's like saying they are going to make a dowsing rod for moon-dust. Even if there's some of it around, they've never touched it or seen it, so how to they know what to key the spell to look for?

True Love (or hope or courage or what not) seem like they are the sorts of things you could look everywhere for, but won't know what you're really looking for until you have experienced it yourself. That is to say, you could find a couple that seems like they are in true love, have one of them punch a WCV, and have nothing happen, because they weren't actually experiencing True Love.

I mean, really, how in the hell can you test for that??

A friend of mine is just starting to use FATE (mostly dresden, with perhaps a little bit of SotC thrown in) for a Deadlands game. 

Wood from a Mountain Ash is the bane of the Were-bear in my game. It comes from a legend in Scandinavia, where his family (of theriomorphs) is from. Apparently, the locals were told to plant them outside their homes to keep werewolves at bay. He's susceptible to weapons made from the wood, as well as treating the entire plant as highly toxic if ingested (such as a brewed tea from the leaves...)