Dealing with Supernatural and High Combat

[admiralducksauce]

Also an option.

If you want a combat heavy game.  Gloss over facts about law enforcement and CSI teams.  It could help the game run smoother.

Also, smaller towns don't even have budgets to have a good CSi team (technologically advanced or trained experts).

And big cities have overworked and backlogged forensics teams.

FWIW, I use the "gloss over law enforcement" option for my campaign and it works just fine, but then my campaign actually isn't grounded in one city.  My PCs are nomadic by nature and necessity.

[Phil H]

Another thing that makes sense.  I would find it hard to believe that the world's security services (CIA, MVD, Mossad ect.) didn't know that all of this was going on.  They may have their reasons for wanting to keep it quiet, so they make sure that anything of that nature isn't properly investigated, and isn't treated seriously by the media.  That could open up some interasting scenarios as well as explain why the cops never run down whoever was throwing those fireballs around. 

[Keryth]

My last game (albeit was a d20 Modern Campaign in the Dresden Verse. DFRPG wasn't out yet), for which my upcoming Dresden Game is based on used a Secret Government Agency called The Agency (based on The Agency from Sci-Fi's The Invisible Man, the NYC branch was the Supernatural Branch and where all the REAL funding went). They would show up form time to time like the proverbial Men In Black. When my players finally found out who they were, they were shocked. Why didn;t anyone know about this group? Then they got recruited, and it went form there. Was great fun, provided a means to cover up alot of things, and led to one hell of a story.

[Phil H]

It does make sense that various security agencys, and terrorist groups and such would have some practitioners on the payroll.  I don't know about a special black agency, but you would think that CIA, MI-6, ect. would want those kinds of assets if they could get them.  Plus, a lot of the things Dresden has run into just might be considered national security threats.  I was thinking of playing it so that the White Council has kind of a secret treaty with the intellegence services.  It would state that the wardens don't mess with lawbreakers who are acting for an agency.  They get a pass on killing, messing with people's minds and things like that.  The Council probably would not want to tick off that particular bunch of mortals, as they are much bigger and could likely wipe the council out even without any kind of majic. 

[Becq]

That assumes that people react sufficiently rationally to evidence of magic that they are capable of believing it exists.  And it appears as though there is a metaphysical resistance present in the Dresdenverse that actively inhibits this for most people (but not quite all).  It seems so reasonable to us (gamers) that people would see someone fling a fireball and suddenly snap to the conclusion that magic exists, but there are many examples of this not happening.  People see monsters in action and assume it's someone in a mask, all evidence to the contrary.

The reaction is almost ... magical.

[black omega]

I've never worried about videos of supernatural on youtube.  There are videos of ghosts  and other creatures on youtube now.  If someone posted a real video of real trolls, the first comment would be 'Obviously fake, there are texture issues, and the troll design is obviously copied from <fill in the name of obscure movie>'.  There is so much fake stuff out there, it would be hard to filter out the real.

[InFerrumVeritas]

In my game, we've got something like the BPRD in our game, but it's extremely low profile.  Basically, they recruit low level practitioners to help on missions, often highly covertly so that they don't even know that they're working for someone.  They also handle any cover up that's actually necessary (although the mortal population has that active denial thing going for them).  There are agreements in place with the White Council, primarily the Gatekeeper and Blackstaff which are quite secret to most of its members.

My player's don't know about it and I've only dropped two hints so far.  One is our group's reporter's blog having their servers wiped rather often, the other is that every cop they've dealt with being replaced the next time they interact with the cops (I've got it set that any law enforcement without a "Special Investigations" has some BPRD plants in IA).

[Richard_Chilton]

I recently saw Underworld: Awakening.

One of the main premises of that movie was that the Big Secret got out and Humanity went nuts.  The first few minutes of that film describe a Purge that make the witch hunts look mild - teams going house to house, testing everyone for signs of "infection" with any resistance being met with enough firepower to put down a supernatural.  Informant lines set up so you can report anyone you suspect of being supernatural, specials guns and ammo being developed, squads armed with flamethrowers - and everyone on a team in constant communication so any contact brings backup in minutes.  Add in the helicopter gunships, tanks, rocket launchers - combine with overwhelming numbers - and the supernatural types didn't stand a chance.

That's the sort of thing that the Supernatural types in the DV worry about.  They have power, but humanity has numbers, tech, and ingenuity.


When it comes to "the government knows" type things, I think it's a bit like the old Word of Darkness where there were small groups that know - and since they don't want to cause a panic they keep things to themselves.  "Project Twilight" was a small FBI division that handled all of the X Files type cases and knew a bit about Vampires, werewolves, etc - enough to show up and toast anything that made itself a bit too public.  I can see a small unit like that existing in the DV - sending teams to deal with things that get out of hand.  Maybe even tying in a bit to the Paranet as infiltrators.

The RPG suggests that most towns have a SI branch of their police department or someone/something that does the same thing - keeping the lid on the supernatural and dealing with things that get out of hand.  Maybe it's not a cop, maybe it's the local supernatural boss who doesn't want anyone to make waves, but someone does the job.

And that's the only way supernatural beings can work in a small town.  If someone is killed there's a big outcry to find the killer.  If someone's house gets torn up, people go missing, telephone polls get tossed around, or anything else that would be noticed, then it doesn't matter that no one on three man police force can even spell forensics - they have the phone number for the state police, FBI, homeland security, and every other law enforcement agency out there.  Leave too many clues and the investigation will get closer and closer to revealing the supernatural world - which encourages supernatural types to find scapegoats.


If battles start becoming too public, I can see virtually anyone in a position of authority sending the PCs a message to "keep it down".  The local Red Court Noble, a Winter Court Fae, any White Council Wizard - if there's an NPC with standing then I can see him sending the PCs a reminder saying "if this goes too public we all lose".  And if any of the PCs belong to Accord nations I can see someone from another nation calling their nation and saying "looks like you have to do some housecleaning here".


Then again, that's the default setting.  If your group likes playing in a world where the chief of police has the local heads the Red Court, Winter Court, etc on speed dial, all the reporters know why some articles never make the paper, and its only the great unwash that are in the dark then that's close enough that most of the DFRPG can work in that setting.

Richard