OOC chat will be the best option.

I'd ask them, "Do you have a plan or are there some pieces of information that you are missing to formulate a plan?  Are you happy with actions being taken against you and the party always reacting?  Will you eventually go on the offensive and deal with this guy....er....vampire?"

I like what another poster put up and that is get out in the open what the expectations are.  If you party knows full well that the NPC's have plans in place and are moving forward, they can either just be wall flowers or they can pick up their dice and play an active "roll" in shaping the group's Dresdenverse.

Having passive PC's would suck since they'd have no chance to ever get ahead.

I created some Gremlins.

I gave them high craftsmanship, and the stunt Monkey with a Wrench.

Diminutive Size
Claws
Inhuman Speed(so they can work faster)

then I made some leader types that had some veils that would be used to hide the group.

I also figured they'd have an aspect like "Get 'em boys!" so they can gang up on a problem.

Thanks again DA.

Any chance that can be backed up with a rule?  I only ask because if it gets brought up again I'd like to be able to show it to them in writing somewhere.  And as much as I'd like to say your post IS writing, I can't really refer to it as law.

I have a different rule question in the write up  VERY helpful BTW.

In the combat Dave offered up an aspect he put on the Ghoul to Barry as a free tag.

I thought only the person who created the aspect could tag it for free?  This came up in a sample combat we had so I'm curious if there is something I missed.

We are starting at Feet in the Water.

I did this for a few reasons.  We are playing in Portland, OR, and I have ideas as to what is out there.  I wanted the players to explore and discover aspects of the city, find out what is going on.

The first adventure will bring the players together and make them a team, whether they want to be or not.  I'm thinking that this first adventure when it is done, will also push them into the next level of power level.

My big concern was that none of us know the system so I wanted to start low and simple and get a feel for it first.  Also, I have some power gamers, and so I wanted the power to creep up on them so it will be tougher for them to just make ridiculous characters off the bat.

Funny thing is, I have a player who is volunteering to have his character killed in the first fight so as to sober everyone up that this is NOT a DnD campaign.

Really anything would work, just rachet down the skill level of the bad guy.  It seems to me the refresh cost is not a good indicator of how powerful the baddie is.  It's the skill level that does the most harm, IMO.

So you could take a demon, but make it a minor demon, with lower skills.

I also made some gremlins(not the movie kind) that have their higher skills in craftsmanship, but made them diminutive sized.  That keeps them fairly squishy, but then added the concept of "Get'em boys!" so that way the little guys can gang up if they need to for a bonus.

I would like to make a character that will serve as an NPC.

I want him to be a caster of sorts, with his focus being a glove with a circle imprinted into the palm.  It is linked to another circle, somewhere else.

Whatever he places into the linked circle, and closes it with his will, he can command through his glove.

I know that sounds confusing, let's give it an example.

Character places a lit sterno can in the circle.  He focuses on his intent on when he calls upon it, and closes the circle with his will.

Now, he can let fly with some fire action out of his glove.

Basically, I view it as a channeler who can change his channeling, at the expense of not having as much flexibiltiy when he weilds.

Does this make sense?  Is it even possible within the confines of the rules?

I managed to make something very quickly, but it is completely all quoted text.   

I was able to copy the text from my .pdf copy of OW and paste the contents of each monster block into Excel.

Each workbook was a new type, as listed in OW, i.e.; Demons, Ghouls, Hag, Construct, etc.

So now I have a document where I can click on a page and scroll down to what I want.  It isn't perfect, but not bad for about 20 minutes of work.