Interesting questions there, DFJunkie. I was indeed thinking that the return of spring would draw power away from both Summer and Winter. However, the return would be crucially set during Winter's decline and Summers resurgence. Thus, Winter would fight any encroachment of their power, while the instigator of this event, an ambitious Summer Fae, would back Spring long enough to use them to wear down Winter. Then after the first major battle, go on the offensive to deal a crippling blow to Winter holdings.

Yes, the return of Spring was going to necessitate the return of Autumn. I was trying to pin down exactly how that was figuring into things now. I currently see it as an after-the-fact, balancing act. They would come about from the imbalance of power towards the end of the next summer.

I will have to go back and re-read WoJ (oh, woe is me). I was thinking that the rulers of Spring and Autumn would be male, to offset the female aspects of Summer and Winter. I am a bit fuzzy on the Erlking and Santa though. I will have to take a look again.

I have found that the best way to get characters to be active in the game is to play to their desires for advancement. Gain is a big motivator for people, and in DFRPG, it is more difficult to see the "loot" from a venture, focus on setting/personal development rather than physical rewards. For instance, I had a PC that was trying to break in to Baltimore's crime scene for Marcone. He was put in charge of bringing the shipping industry under his control. After a few confrontations with the White Court in the area, I had the White Court cede control of the inner harbor to the PC. The idea being that this would cause the inexperienced PC into a sink or swim situation with a heavy emphasis on the sink part. This forced the player into dealing with the job of managing the supernatural contracts and issues of the area, drawing him into the setting with the promise of more power and challenge.

I am possibly going to be starting a new game for a group of people that I am deployed with (if this is you, stop reading now). We do not have a whole lot of time, but I am starting to feel the need to game, and that is taking precedence over sleep...

Anyway, I was looking at going for a story involving the reestablishment of the Spring/Autumn courts. The way I am looking at it right now, the Spring court will be the focus of the action.

I have a player looking to play an Emissary of power for an oath keeper/Law deity and one that wants to play a Winter Court changeling. I am going to start it with the changeling being tasked to welcome and assist this outside contractor (literally) with finding out why the Winter Court is loosing power more quickly than usual with the turning of the seasons from winter to spring.

The reason being that an ancient pact is renewing and the balance of power is shifting. The Spring Court is starting to take over the early summer months and is drawing away power from the Winter Court. I am thinking that the Summer Court would secretly be supporting the Spring Court in order to diminish Winter holdings. The way I am seeing it, is that Summer defends the nascent Spring Court against a large Winter attack, which weakens Winter enough for a Summer counter-attack as the power shifts.

I can see the players being a large deciding factor of whether the Spring Court gets off the ground or not. They could support the ancient pact and change the world, or crush the new saplings before they can get their start. Of course, there is also the machinations of the secretive Autumn court to deal with as well...

Well, sorry for the long post. It helped get my thoughts together, in any event. I am looking for any ideas, critiques, or just thoughts on the matter. It may never get run, but I will probably eventually use the idea somewhere...

I ran a game for a few months. It was based in Baltimore (all my games are, it is the place I know best). I had several players, among them, a wizard stage magician, a paramedic, a winter court fae (bent the rules a bit here), a white court outcast, and a full mortal that was working to expand Marcone's influence into the east coast shipping industry.

I decided to key in on the tensions between the white court in Baltimore and Marcone's operations and the group kind of latched onto that. The player of the Mob guy (we will call him Jay) ended up hiring the other players (more or less) as consultants. After a few skirmishes against White court operations, I unveiled the big twist.

The White court ruler of the area decided to give over responsibility and control of the inner harbor area to Marcone, and in turn to Jay as regent. She met with him in his offices after describing the deal and getting everything hammered out, he agreed. Turning to leave, she placed a chess piece on his desk and lightly said "Check". What the group eventually discovered was that in relinquishing control of the area to them, she also transferred all current contracts with the supernatural community to them. Figuring them out and renegotiating everything, while keeping order in the area was the major theme of the rest of the game.

Yes. I should have been more specific about the thematic side. A block of any sort can only block things that it logically could block. Grabbing someone with pure force and slamming him against the wall will probably stop him from running away, or actively fighting you in a physical way. It would not, however, stop him from using mental powers or socially berating you to goad you into a one on one fist fight...

A spherical shield will stop multiple people from hitting you, but still allows those other types of attacks. And it allows attacks on unprotected friends.

A lot of it is thematic viewpoint and logic. In my eyes, this game is not supposed to be power-gamed in illogical ways (aside from the illogical ways endemic to the setting, IE. Fairy laws, the accords, etc). Treat it as a good way to develop a good story in a urban fantasy genre and it will work fine. 

You can also think of an issue like this. Say you have a high power and a medium discipline. We will go with Conviction 5, Discipline 3. You want to put 5 shifts into a spell to blast an enemy hard and take them out fast.

You take your first mental stress and roll discipline (-+_ _). That is a total of four shifts of control. Now with no defense roll, this will net a total of 9 damage (weapon 5 + 4 control). However, if your opponent were to have an athletics of 3 or 4 there is a decent chance of them dodging your blast completely. And that is without a bad roll on your part.

The other scenario would be someone with the opposite scores. 3 Conviction, 5 Discipline. They can take the same one mental stress and the same roll to control it (-+_ _) and get the same 9 damage, only now they have a much higher chance of hitting the opponent. The athletics 3 guy would need a roll of (+++_) to get out of being hit which is much harder to pull off.

There is another side to this idea as well. If you throw your first spell as a flat conviction power level, then you are able to throw your next one for conviction plus one with no additional strain than casting a second time at just conviction power level (the conviction +1 power spell fills in the 2nd box, whereas the flat conviction spell would fill in the 1st box a second time rolling up to the same result). The same is correct for your 3rd spell as well. Now if you have a medium level discipline (say 3) then you will be rolling to control 5 (from conviction) plus 2 or 3 (from reaching for power). You now need 7-8 shifts of control. Not possible from a discipline of 3. If you have a conviction of 3 and a discipline of 5 you get to do one spell at 3 power, one at 4 and one at 5. All easily (more or less) with your discipline of 5.

It is basically a safer, more economical way of casting magic. It does mean you have to pull more power for bigger, non-combat effects. But if you are not in combat, then you will be able to do that without as much risk.

-Note- I am writing this without a book, so please correct me if I am wrong.