What do you wish you'd known when you started?

[Tarion]

I'm looking at venturing into DFRPG.  I've gotten to the stage where I feel vaguely comfortable with most of the rules (I'm going to go through the spellcasting again), but I'm mostly curious as to what works and what doesn't.

Is there anything that's widely considered gamebreakingly powerful?  Character-gimpingly weak?

Any houserules that are basically taken for granted? 

I'm sure there's plenty more, but I'm about to go to bed.  Basically, what is it that you've learned over hours or even days of play that you can pass on to smooth my group's beginnings.
 
Thanks. 

[Ghsdkgb]

Don't build a wizard if it's your first character. Those damn things have so much to keep track of.

[Sanctaphrax]

Thaumaturgy is balanced by the table's shared assumptions. Make sure everyone is on the same page about what it can do.

Powers and stunts from OW are a bit suspect.

Specialization is the path to power. Pick one thing, become awesome at it. Or don't, but either way understand that doing so is optimal.

[InFerrumVeritas]

I wish I knew how stress worked when I started.  We screwed that up so badly our first couple games.  I'm sure the GM just didn't read it clearly, but wow.

[KOFFEYKID]

Crafting can break the game into tiny little pieces. If anybody in your group decides to make a character whose only powers are Ritual (Crafting) and Refinement (Lots of Enchanted Item Slots), be very careful.

[Orladdin]

1) The Orbius spell does not exist. 
"Well, what's this entry in Rote Spells the--"
    "Nope.  Does not exist."

2) Definately do group character/city generation.  It's super helpful for both getting great story hooks and making sure everyone at the table has the same idea about tone and theme for the game.

Crafting can break the game into tiny little pieces. If anybody in your group decides to make a character whose only powers are Ritual (Crafting) and Refinement (Lots of Enchanted Item Slots), be very careful.

Don't take this to mean that you should forbid crafting, though.  Just make sure everyone's on the same page about what's reasonable.  Doing group chargen helps greatly with this.

[Tarion]

Thanks for the responses everyone.  I have read all of them.  If I've not responded below, it's because it seems relatively straight forward, and not because I'm ignoring you.   

Powers and stunts from OW are a bit suspect.

Is OW just a case of putting fluff before balance? 

I wish I knew how stress worked when I started.  We screwed that up so badly our first couple games.  I'm sure the GM just didn't read it clearly, but wow.

Stress seems a bit weird to me. 

As I'm understanding it, there are lots of occasions where you're "wasting" damage, so to speak.  If someone's 1 and 2 boxes are already ticked off, a two damage hit isn't any more effective than a one point hit.  Am I right on this?  It's not exactly intuitive for someone coming from other systems, but it's certainly got it's advantages - It feels like it's going to be much rarer for a big-bad to take a great-axe to the face without flinching, only to die because he stubbed his toe, for example.  And when it does happen, it's far easier to justify thanks to the consequence system.

Overall, it seems that the stress system makes manoeuvres really useful, whether buffing yourself/allies, or debuffing your opponent, to set up for the big hits that'll force consequences (And thus, versus mooks, end the fight), rather than trying to bee-sting them to death. 

Crafting can break the game into tiny little pieces. If anybody in your group decides to make a character whose only powers are Ritual (Crafting) and Refinement (Lots of Enchanted Item Slots), be very careful.

Hah.  I had actually intended to add in a crafter-NPC, because I wanted a magical presence, but wanted a lower power than a wizard, and didn't want to have to worry about too much magic on the fly at the beginning.  If he ends up as a villain, I'll make sure not to make him too powerful. 

1) The Orbius spell does not exist. 
"Well, what's this entry in Rote Spells the--"
    "Nope.  Does not exist."

What is it about Orbius in particular that makes it so eraser-worthy?  Is it the effect or the power level?   

Also, it seems to me that the example spells seem to take it for granted that when you're creating the spell, you're choosing how the target defends (Defending with Might against "Ground Stomp" and the suggested variant of "Orbius").  That seems obscenely broken if someone's got a sadistic streak and a decent imagination.  "This spell summons an Outsider who insists you dance for them.  Defend with Performance, or take a massive hit". 

Now, obviously it requires GM/collaborative control, but I dislike the idea of saying that you can't require certain skills for defence purely because they're less commonly taken.  It seems arbitrary, and just outright weird in a system so flexible.  Besides, I don't remember any other references to this earlier in the book.  Did I just miss them? 

2) Definately do group character/city generation.  It's super helpful for both getting great story hooks and making sure everyone at the table has the same idea about tone and theme for the game.

For sure.  This seems like such a huge part of the game. 

Its also amazing how easily the city came together.  The themes and factions basically wrote themselves. 

[Orladdin]

What is it about Orbius in particular that makes it so eraser-worthy?  Is it the effect or the power level?   

This:

Orbius is pretty mechanically broken.  By itself, unaltered, it's not bad--because it's not good at anything.  When you take that effect and modify it, as they suggest you do in the DFRPG, it becomes a terrifying monster.

The problem is, it takes something that's not broken (the grapple rules) and breaks them in a subtle way.  The break isn't obvious in the example as-given.

Basically, a grapple is OK because it deprives a character of most of their options at the cost of some specific set-up on the part of another player and follows it up with continued wasted actions by both players.  When you use magic and a duration to achieve it, the primary player no longer needs to spend his actions maintaining it and can even add Area to it, effectively depriving a large number of characters their actions for extended periods at no additional action expenditure by the caster.

Also, it seems to me that the example spells seem to take it for granted that when you're creating the spell, you're choosing how the target defends (Defending with Might against "Ground Stomp" and the suggested variant of "Orbius").  That seems obscenely broken if someone's got a sadistic streak and a decent imagination.  "This spell summons an Outsider who insists you dance for them.  Defend with Performance, or take a massive hit". 

Now, obviously it requires GM/collaborative control, but I dislike the idea of saying that you can't require certain skills for defence purely because they're less commonly taken.  It seems arbitrary, and just outright weird in a system so flexible.  Besides, I don't remember any other references to this earlier in the book.  Did I just miss them? 

It's up to a table-wide sanity check.  When creating the spell you can suggest what defensive skill should be used, but if a defending player can suggest a reasonable alternative, it should generally be allowed.

A dancing demon would actually be pretty awesome if statted fairly.  But an "attack versus performance" would (and should) get the poo-poo at any game set in a quasi-realistic setting.

[THE_ANGRY_GAMER]

It's up to a table-wide sanity check.  When creating the spell you can suggest what defensive skill should be used, but if a defending player can suggest a reasonable alternative, it should generally be allowed.

A dancing demon would actually be pretty awesome if statted fairly.  But an "attack versus performance" would (and should) get the poo-poo at any game set in a quasi-realistic setting.

I look upon it as a recommendation more than anything else: for example, if you're making a zone-wide attack with a fire evocation by heating the floor to 100 degrees celsius, you can specify that it's an attack vs. Endurance. That is, it makes sense for the attack to be defended against by Endurance, but you can still defend with Athletics - you'll just need a more creative justification.

You can always defend against a physical attack with Athletics (unless it's specified in the attack skill's trappings that you can't) - but when your attacker gets creative with the way they attack to stop you from using that, you'll need an equally creative justification.

In the floor-heating example, 'I dodge' isn't really going to cut it, but 'I scramble up onto the kitchen counter, which isn't nearly as hot' is a plausible justification for defending with athletics.

[Sanctaphrax]

Is OW just a case of putting fluff before balance?

I think they just didn't test/edit OW stuff as much. Lots of silly little things that collectively add up to dubiousness.

For example, the Sacred Guardian Power was almost certainly intended only for physical combat. But there's nothing in the actual Power writeup about that...as written, it's really good in social combat.

And the bonuses it provides are bigger than they should be.

As I'm understanding it, there are lots of occasions where you're "wasting" damage, so to speak.  If someone's 1 and 2 boxes are already ticked off, a two damage hit isn't any more effective than a one point hit.  Am I right on this?

Yes.

I had actually intended to add in a crafter-NPC, because I wanted a magical presence, but wanted a lower power than a wizard, and didn't want to have to worry about too much magic on the fly at the beginning.  If he ends up as a villain, I'll make sure not to make him too powerful.

Don't worry too too much. The main problems only show up when people really pump up their item strength.

What is it about Orbius in particular that makes it so eraser-worthy?  Is it the effect or the power level?

Orladdin covered this. (Though it's vague whether the area thing works.)   

Also, it seems to me that the example spells seem to take it for granted that when you're creating the spell, you're choosing how the target defends (Defending with Might against "Ground Stomp" and the suggested variant of "Orbius").  That seems obscenely broken if someone's got a sadistic streak and a decent imagination.  "This spell summons an Outsider who insists you dance for them.  Defend with Performance, or take a massive hit". 

Now, obviously it requires GM/collaborative control, but I dislike the idea of saying that you can't require certain skills for defence purely because they're less commonly taken.  It seems arbitrary, and just outright weird in a system so flexible.  Besides, I don't remember any other references to this earlier in the book.  Did I just miss them?  For sure.  This seems like such a huge part of the game.

Oops, forgot to mention that.

There's nothing anywhere in the game suggesting you can dictate defensive skills, except for Earth Stomp. I prefer to ignore that example.

Perhaps I should have mentioned that the rules are, from time to time, vague and/or contradictory.

[Jimmy]

Perhaps I should have mentioned that the rules are, from time to time, vague and/or contradictory.

Such as the Entanglement example spell. It spends one shift for duration to make it last for a scene, rather than the 1 shift per exchange rule mentioned in the evocation rules for maneuvers (YS253).

[Chrono]

I wish I had known to extend the city and character creation to 2 sessions. I also wish I had taken better notes on what piqued the players' interests.

[InFerrumVeritas]

I wish I had known to extend the city and character creation to 2 sessions. I also wish I had taken better notes on what piqued the players' interests.

I wish the person originally GMing hadn't decided to skip those.  They really are an integral part of the system.

[Mr. Death]

How to properly balance encounters. The biggest stumbling blocks in my early games was that my players tended to just roll over whatever obstacles I put in their way.

[Keryth]

1) The Orbius spell does not exist. 
"Well, what's this entry in Rote Spells the--"
    "Nope.  Does not exist."

2) Definately do group character/city generation.  It's super helpful for both getting great story hooks and making sure everyone at the table has the same idea about tone and theme for the game.
Don't take this to mean that you should forbid crafting, though.  Just make sure everyone's on the same page about what's reasonable.  Doing group chargen helps greatly with this.

What is your problem with the Orbius spell? - Never mind. Read your other posts

And I agree on Character creation. City creation though, I still feel is primarily the pervue of the GM. Though my players are each contributing a location ro two relevant to their characters, I've designed my version of NYC