Dresden Files RPG Story Advice

[The Monster]

As for allies to the BCV, he's a relatively new Vamp so having allies would be useful. Turning them into Thralls or promising them 'immortality' could work to convince them to cooperate with his plans. Moreso, I feel like the psychologist should be the Master Manipulator in the situation. Using the BCV for his own ends. But it's like playing with fire...

Manipulator psychologists make great villains! The idea that s/he's puppeting BCV works great, especially since BCV is both a 'recent' immigrant (not much time conscious in the new country) and to modern life in general (computers? cell phones!? - he's not even a 'Boomer,' ha!). Strong potential for the players to drive a wedge between them

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

For sure. It doesn't have to be one thing of course. There just needs to be connections of some kind between the strands, and more than one way for the players to connect the dots. Based on your characters, you could seed information in police reports, old news articles, you could have additional information available form witnesses who were interviewed at the time (the clues make more sense to the players when they know about the BCV). You could have elderly NPCs from the time, police, news and church. Some of the key players at the time might be dead, but their belongings could be with relatives still in town. Letters, journals, whatever. I prefer to leave the exposition in the hands on NPCs as much as possible, but documents are useful too.

Both the news and the police would have records of all these things. You haven't found a tie-in to the university yet though. Perhaps the uni has an occult department that could be a source of links. Perhaps crazy old professor McGregor was shouting about vampires at the time but no one wanted to believe him. He could be useful source of exposition and is a natural way to connect the now to the then for the players without it seeming forced. If he was 30-odd in the early 60's he'd be in his 60's in 1994- that works.

You're really working two layers. There is the immediate in-the-now events of 1994. Your post seems a little light on that side. What's going on in town now? The now is going to be more important to start than the past as the players need a reason to start digging up info from the 60's. The events in the now need to index that there is a connection to the past, and the past needs to have a lot of handles and hooks in it so that you don't need to nudge the PCs in a particular direction. The PCs should be able to dive into history to connect the dots, but those dots are in the present. That's where you need to link some things up IMO.

Yeah, I feel have this really cool backstory. I almost want to set the game in the 60 since I have a pretty good handle on how events unfolded. My problem is tying it to 1990s. My idea is the original priest, who discovered the first BCV i the 60s, in the story would still be alive. The missing person article I read said that the last person to see them was 'a clergyman' picked up the missing person who was hitchhiking from the psych hospital to his parents in the town. I thought, 'that would be neat if that interaction was the tip-off to the BCV'. Maybe the guy was talking about meeting someone at The Bingo or about how someone told him he'd 'found a cure' to his issues etc...

There's just this huge void between what happened then and what's going on now.

I like the idea of the Professor who was calling out the 'vampire' scare at the time. The Student Character has a trouble of 'Conspiracy Theorist'. Maybe a tie-in to that teacher. One of the players suggested the student is a grad student studying Aboriginal Studies. So maybe that teacher also has a connection to the local spirits and legends. I was going also tie the Psychologist to the University...make them a part-time professor. Psych students doing placements at the hospital etc...

I was even thinking of having an emo-goth student character that pretends to be a vampire. Either as a red herring or as a connection.
Rethinking the phobophage. I'm still going to use the portal in the hospital idea but phobophages feed on fear. I feel despair is probably more fitting. I don't want to introduce WCVampires. I might just homebrew something or find a legend that works.

 

[Fenris-77]

I was even thinking of having an emo-goth student character that pretends to be a vampire. Either as a red herring or as a connection.

Sort of like the Alphas in Fool Moon. That would work well I think. You could even have a whole little vampire/goth subculture going on at the university. Perhaps within that subculture is an agent provocateur who is guiding the kids in the direction of despair to feed the phage. Maybe one actual vampire, or someone connected to the vampire, hidden in a crowd of fake vampires.

Rethinking the phobophage. I'm still going to use the portal in the hospital idea but phobophages feed on fear. I feel despair is probably more fitting. I don't want to introduce WCVampires. I might just homebrew something or find a legend that works.

That doesn't sound like a hard change to manage. I'd probably call the creature a type of phage, just to keep the connection to Butcher's fiction strong.

 

[Aldarc]

Dresden Files RPG was before I got into Fate with Fate Core, though I do have some familiarity with Dresden Files Accelerated. However, I'm not sure if system is your particular concern with your question. Hopefully I can look through it later when I have a bit more time.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Dresden Files RPG was before I got into Fate with Fate Core, though I do have some familiarity with Dresden Files Accelerated. However, I'm not sure if system is your particular concern with your question. Hopefully I can look through it later when I have a bit more time.

This is a setting/story-line question. No need for mechanics advice. Any ideas you have are welcome! Thanks.

 

[The Monster]

Rethinking the phobophage. I'm still going to use the portal in the hospital idea but phobophages feed on fear. I feel despair is probably more fitting. I don't want to introduce WCVampires. I might just homebrew something or find a legend that works.

What if, while the hospital is mostly closed, one wing of it, or an outlying building, is converted to a senior-care facility, for those sick enough that they aren't expected to live long... plenty of despair to feed on, and if the sick (and often, but not always, senile) old codgers see anything weird, nobody is going to pay much attention to their ravings, right? <villainous wink>

And for despair-o-phobe, don't forget the idea of vengeful ghosts or spirits of people who lived in the area previously. I can imagine one which doesn't even intend to harm its victims, but is just looking for sympathy ("misery loves company")...

 

[MarkB]

Rethinking the phobophage. I'm still going to use the portal in the hospital idea but phobophages feed on fear. I feel despair is probably more fitting. I don't want to introduce WCVampires. I might just homebrew something or find a legend that works.

Maybe something like a Night Hag, a Fey or spirit who can invade and influence peoples' dreams, causing them to experience terror or despair as they sleep and then feeding upon those emotions. It could stalk the wards at night, feeding upon sleeping patients.

 

[Fenris-77]

Maybe something like a Night Hag, a Fey or spirit who can invade and influence peoples' dreams, causing them to experience terror or despair as they sleep and then feeding upon those emotions. It could stalk the wards at night, feeding upon sleeping patients.

Kind of like the Nightmare in Grave Peril? I like it. You could use a bunch of elements from that story to good effect.

 

[MarkB]

Kind of like the Nightmare in Grave Peril? I like it. You could use a bunch of elements from that story to good effect.

I had a feeling there might be an existing entity of that sort in the setting, but I couldn't think of it. I probably need to re-read that one - about all I remember from Grave Peril is the party and its aftermath.

 

[Fenris-77]

I had a feeling there might be an existing entity of that sort in the setting, but I couldn't think of it. I probably need to re-read that one - about all I remember from Grave Peril is the party and its aftermath.

It's a good one. I'm just starting a reread of the series myself. The Nightmare is a solid model, but the spirits he binds with his sorcerous barbed wire and drives insane would also be a good template. Depends on how many layers you want in your onion I guess.