How did the knife, book, and Jar become those things if you didn't have them planned?

Simple. More  traditional games use  knowledge skills for players to discover facts which the GM tells them. The FATE games call this assessment, but they also allow the skills to be used for what they call declaration, where by using these skills successfully allows the player to introduce entirely new facts into play. The GM of course can veto things but as a GM I try not to. I like to see my players adding to the game.

Our wizard said something like "I've heard of this knife. It belonged to the most evil Necromancer the White Council has ever faced." which was obviously a Declaration on his Lore skill. More importantly it was an Awesome addition to the game so we went with it. I could have done it by the book and had him roll, but it was interesting, suggested all sorts of interesting courses of action, and complicated the players lives so I just went with it (and he had a superb lore skill anyway).

As for the book, the same player made that declaration moments later and I figured it made sense so again no roll. The brain wasn't really a declaration. It was something the players joked about between themselves, but considering the two facts which had gone before I decided to pick it up and run with it too.

I then lept back to poor Edward, who woke up naked just after dawn, next to a cerimonial circle with a clergy man's corpse in it, a dagger sticking out of his chest. He had no memory of how he got there. He heard sirens so. He briefly considered staying to talk to the police but instead chose to turn into a wolf and sneak away (nice chance to compel to aspects which conflicted). He watched the police investigate for a while before disappearing into the night.

I then lept back to early morning when it was still dark. Vincent, Halfdan and Hanna were hunting some ghouls who'd been killing students. I figured that the three PCs had a total of 20 points in Stunts so a couple of ghoulds (-6 each) should be an interesting introductory fight. Boy, was I wrong. A short while later Vincent is 'Bleeding Heavily' with a 'Slashed Gut', Hanna is nursing a "Minor Concussion" and a "Wrenched Shoulder" and Halfdan has blown his last fate chip to turn what could have been an Extreme consequence into a "Infected Wound". Meanwhile one of the ghouls has taken a single point of physical stress and a mild consequence which it just "Shrugged it Off". I quickly reminded the players of the concession rules and agreed that the ghouls where distracted by some bright headlights and the characters escaped, but insisted that if this was the case Vincent left one of his enchanted items at the scene (he'd dropped it earlier in the fight) and that the ghouls now knew the taste of their blood and could track them all. The players agreed, and I made a note to readjust difficulty !! This fight was my first big surprise of the session.

I then took some time to introduce major plot hooks. One of Jack's old cell mates arrived asking for help, unfortunately encountering Halfdan. Both the local Warden and a church investigator turned up asking similarly awkward questions. The players discovered that the police had found wolf hair at the sight of the crime scene and were investigating. Then the players started trying to trace back the history of the books and daggers. It was at this point that Jack made his declaration that in his expert opinion the dagger was probably some dark necromantic artifact - and suddenly Heinrich Kemmler knife became a very real part of my campaign (That hadn't been part of my prep notes!!). The book which had been stolen was 'The Heart of Kemmler' and finally to really screw up any ideas I had for where this game was going the jar became Kemmler's brain stored in formaldehyde. Now this is awesome, far better than what I had planned - but its a real curve ball for the GM!

There was a bit of investigating of the ghoul problem. Jack's old cell mate was pretty much forgotten but thats not an issue - I'm sure he'll become important soon enough. Then someone realised they didn't know what had happend to the knife, so they went back to the church. Outside the church they found a couple of police cars, and documents which suggested the evidence (including the knife) was in a police lock-up. They were about to head to the police station when someone asked why the police cars appeared to be abandoned. This lead to the final scene of the session where they sneaked into the church to confront red court vampires who were searching for something.

A fight broke out. Based on my previous experience with the ghouls I figured I needed to keep the fight easy, so there were only two RCVs. This time the fight lasted a rediculously short time in the players favour. Jack openned up with a (conviction+2) blast of pure force, shattering the vampires wing and piercing its belly and before the Vampire had hit the floor our Inhuman speed werewolf had cleared a zone, tagged both the consequences the first attack had caused and ripped its throat out. The other RCV attacked but Vincent blocked cleanly. The players forcing the vampire it into a corner and Edward tried to grapple it (big mistake). The RCV threw Edward forcefully across the room (he used a few fate points to mitigate this attack, reducing it to a mild consequence), and the other players took the poor vampire apart. This second battle was abolutely no challenge to the characters. The session ended with the players walking out the front of the church straight into the search lights of arriving police.

I clearly still haven't got the hang of balancing fights. The ghoul fight should have resulted in dead PCs - the Vampire fight was no challenge. My scenario ideas need to change - Kemmler pickled brain was never part of the original plot. I really love FATE. It produces some incredible games. I'm now really looking forward to session two.

Probably simplier to just do d6 - d6 in that case, it'll give you a bit different distribution but it's fast.

Treating results of +5 or -5 as 0 gets it closer to the Fudge dice probability curve, but having +5 and -5 results doesn't break anything.

The important thing is that everyone uses the same method.

That sounds pretty good. We know where we are going, but the journey is a mystery and we're not sure what we'll meet on the way.

I'm concerned that during City creation we may have already determined where our campaign has to go. I don't like railroading. I'm pretty sure its going to get there without any, but I think the end has been set.

Anton Chekhov said:

If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there.

And its pretty good advice. If you advertise something in a game you really need to follow through. If you talk about an assassin who's unbeatable - no one has escaped his blade, then its pretty important the players at some point get to cleverly 'escape his blade', the impregnable fortress needs to be scaled, the dark forces gathering in the sewers need to be illuminated.

Unfortunately as part of city generation we've managed to come up with :

• A threat with the aspect "Something hungers beyond the Outer Gates"
• a city enclosed within city walls which act as a threshold to supernatural creatures (and wizards),
• a single gate which is the only way supernatural creatures can enter/leave the area enclosed by the c12th city walls,
• an ancient being (who appears to be an old woman but has immense power) who it is said hasn't left York since the C12th because if she did the walls would fall (and may actually be the Roman Godess Cybele !!).
• an ancient prophecy who believe that when Yorkshire falls to the thing from Beyond the Outer gates, that within Yorks walls alone will stand and the defenders of Yorkshire will rally there.
• and finally a cult lead by a Ectomancer who things she is hearing her dead husbands voice but is actually talking to something from beyond the Outer Gates bent upon bringing about that prophecy

Now we have loads of other plot lines involving the three Vampire courts, politics between the Church and the City Council, the police war on drug pushers and minor plots involving tourists and students - but it seems to me based on the bullet pointed items above the campaign can only go one way. If it doesn't its going to disappoint.

If you're interested the city sheets we come up with are here.

Personally I'd go with Sponsored magic and Ghost Speaker (enhanced version to talk to Ghosts and Loa).  Everything else would fall under rituals to get the Loa to do what you want. 

Doesnt that run counter to the guidelines in the "Some Guidelines for Thaumaturgical Shapeshifting?" thread?

Additionally, it should be noted that you need a Catch. Probably a +0 'depends on possessing Loa' Catch, but you do still need one.

Well spotted. For some reason I completely forgot the catch. Nothing springs to mind so I'll probably go with the +0 'depends on possessing Loa' Catch as suggested.

Any thoughts on the possession mechanics? Free ritual (no roll) followed by negotiation/rapport roll sound right? How tiring would you make the possession? Does the +2 human form sound right?