Tell me how crazy I am? [Dresden Files / Gotham City]

[OGIHR]

As I've been working tonight, I've done a lot of thinking about the various "supernatural nations" of The Dresden Files and how they'd fit into my Fort Adolphus (Gotham City) backdrop. Bear in mind, all of this is just my gut impressions without any input from the eventual players, and will certainly be retrofitted to suit their interests. Also, I'm expecting the game to start at either the Chest Deep or Submerged power level, because I want the heroes to be able to face supervillain-scale Threats. 

But first, for the high-level view of the city, I'm planning one Theme and one Threat up front; assuming player buy-in, or I'll adjust my plans accordingly. 

Gotham City was always an Atlantic Ocean port city and a railroad hub, whose prosperity fell when the interstate highway system caused a bunch of the railroad money to flow into trucking companies instead. Water and iron and decay. Thus, I am planning Fort Adolphus to have a city-wide Theme of "An Age of Rusted Dreams". Lots of iron, lots of rain, lots of brown in the runoff water. Faeries hate going downtown. 

Similarly, because the Joker is so very iconic a villain for the Batman franchise, I'm planning my game to start out with a city-wide Threat of "They'll Never See It Coming". With the city's populace being at the mercy of the supernaturally-powered (either demon or sorcerer) serial killer known only as The Laughing Man. 

The middle box on the city creation worksheet, for a third Theme/Threat slot, I plan to leave entirely at the players' discretion, when they tell me what they want their game to be about. 

Given all the rust, no fully Faerie beings want to be in Gotham. Summer's main representative would be a Changeling with Sponsored Magic, and despite obviously being the local reflection of Poison Ivy, I'd start her out as a sweet nurturing provider of healing magic (which Summer can do far more easily than a properly mortal Wizard can) to the supernatural community. So that her Sponsored Magic's debt compels her to be less and less human, and the misanthropy takes root and blooms in-game. Making her a villain down the road.

Winter meanwhile, obviously gets a reflection of Victor Freize. He's too scientifically minded to be served well with Sponsored Magic, and I figure that he's sacrificed very nearly all of his humanity in pursuit of the impossible goal of saving his wife Nora from her vaguely-defined terminal illness. Just one Refresh left. Unfortunately, the same day as he made his (not quite final) Choice, a nasty rainstorm came washing down the iron framework of the elevated train tracks, and now his (mostly Faerie) body is irrevocably contaminated by The Bane. He's completely cut off from the Winter Court, and in unending agony. Should be interesting to see who offers to come to his aid. 

Next up, Vampires. Assuming the players want the game to be pre-Changes, then the Red Court either took hold of the Wayne family fortune ages ago (if players want no heroic Bat), or are actively usurping the powerbase of the organized crime families with the promise of power to stop the vigilante's interference (if they do). 

The White Court are best known for the lust-feeders, but that's what resonates with Harry's view of the world (check out The Codex Alera to see Jim Butcher write libido-free narration). The fear-feeding Malvora family obviously resonate with the Scarecrow (and a case could be made for connecting Jonathan Crane with Darby Crane's horror-filmmaker persona), but a part of me wants to cast Killer Croc as a horribly disfigured WCV of the hypothetical wrath-feeding variety. Likely tying him into all the street gang turf wars around the Manchester Viaduct racetrack.

As for the Black Court, it's a pretty tough sell adapting them to Gotham (outside of the veritably apocalyptic storyline of the Batman vs Dracula Elseworld miniseries), but there is one super-strong corpse villain who might fit; Solomon Grundy. Make him a very old and very scary BCV whose mind was utterly shattered by a Wizard's death curse, and give him some comparatively baby-vamp minions (none powerful enough to make a claim of being the new master of their nest), and give them no hurry at all to see their old tyrant restored. And you'd have the goonsquad trying to use their former boss as dumb muscle to carve out their own powerbase, a setup which promises to converge in all sorts of interesting ways with the other factions' agendas. 

The tone of the White Council's presence in the city will depend entirely on what interests the players in terms of timeframe, magical geography, and Wizard PCs. So I can't even speculate there yet. 

And although they aren't properly a supernatural nation as such, I have a great fondness for Were-Form protagonists, so I've been envisioning a Lesser Skinwalker modeled on the original Clayface (Basil Karlo), who presents himself as a kindly old man determined to get the most out of his lifetime membership at the Gotham Zoo. He befriends young people who express a particular sympathy with a particular animal, and teaches them to become Were-Forms. Maybe he does this to share his joy of transformation, or maybe he's gathering the little pieces of their human souls they give up to let the animal in. I haven't decided yet.

So, those are my thoughts tonight, all of which are subject to player buy-in, of course. 

Questions? Comments? Lynch mobs?

 

[Wednesday Boy]

My fear is that I could get one player who (like myself) can recognize at a glance either a Jim Aparo or a Norm Breyfogle drawing of Batman, one player who only knows the Schumacher version, and one who only knows the Adam West version. Without a common frame of reference, I fear I'll be right back where I was last month, trying to run a horror game while one of my players insisted on not changing his in-text-chat display name from "I AM THE GOD OF WAR NONE SHALL DEFY ME". And just imagine trying to maintain a horror mood when the bottom of the chat window reads "I AM THE GOD OF WAR NONE SHALL DEFY ME is typing..." Hopefully you can see why I pulled the plug on the Curse of Strahd campaign.

Yeah, I certainly see what you mean. I imagine you could find one version of Batman/Gotham City that everyone was familiar with. It's hard to imagine a gaming group who hasn't seen the Christian Bale Batman movies. (But they might not match your vision of Gotham City.)

Aspects are a wonderful tool for adding capabilities into the game without filling dozens of pages with selectable special rules, but being able to use them frequently relies on an abundant supply of Fate Points, and in my experience the players of super-capable characters are far less eager to take Compels to provide themselves with that supply. But that might just be the players I've done the Dresden Files RPG with in the past.

I haven't noticed players of super-capable characters being less eager to take compels but there certainly are people who hoard Fate Points. In my experience Fate is much better when the Fate Points flow.

Oh yes, the freedom to choose whether or not your attacks inflict lethal force at the moment of Taking Out an opponent is a wonderful feature of the game. And I could have been more clear about this, but I was picturing a multiplayer scenario, where the Wizard character takes the First Law very seriously and refuses to kill (thus non-lethal evocations), while a Kincaid-style monster hunter avoids that problem by using purely non-magical means for killing human foes. Which still yields a dead villain and a loss of potential future stories. And it is of course the player's rightful choice for whether or not his character solves his supernatural-threat-to-the-public problems that way.

However, since one of the Joker's two main narrative attributes is his exemption from permanent consequence, I figured that reflecting him as a demon from the Nevernever was the best solution here.

Sense making?

Certainly sense making! In my group I think the GM could ask for killing to be generally off the table and the players would be on board (especially for a superhero game). One of the things that I like about Fate is how it encourages players and the GM to discuss and collaborate on themes and elements they want to see in the campaign. In my experience people are frequently willing to play the campaign in certain ways in order to achieve a feel or dynamic that one of the players or GM want in the game.

 

[OGIHR]

Another night of work, and more pondering...

I think that I have my Fort Adolphus campaign's opening scene pretty well figured out. I'd start out of course with the discussion of power levels and initial character concepts (more towards Types & Templates than High Concepts at that stage), then go through the normal collaborative city/character creation, one phase at a time. 

Once the PCs are properly assembled, I'd look over their Your Stories, and pick one who is most plausibly both happening last chronologically and going to result in some police attention at the scene. Then I offer that character a Compel. 

If he's willing to be front and center in the first scene of the game (knowing the criteria I used to select who to make the offer to), he gets an instant Fate Point. And if he's willing to have taken a Mild Consequence (which will take only a few scenes to recover from) then he gets a second Fate Point. I'll also explain that normally Compels cost a Fate Point to turn down, but I'm waiving that for the opening scene of the campaign. Entirely his choice. 

And if he declines, then I figure that SOMEBODY has got to volunteer for the "free" combo of spotlight and Fate Point(s). Right?

Then I turn to those characters who have ties to the volunteer via Guest Starring Aspects (in either direction), and they get the exact same offer. Then everyone else (except for the volunteering for Consequences bit). Personalized invitations to Compel themselves into being in the very first scene of the campaign.

Then, with everyone (who ‎wants to be) on the stage, we open on the immediate aftermath of the first volunteer's Your Story's climax. As the heroes are emerging from the crisis locale, and a beat cop is arriving onto the chaos of the scene. 

A gathering of colorful characters at a crime scene is certainly going to attract any policeman's interest, and this cues the first Conflict of our game. But unlike the usual opening brawl, this is a Social Conflict, with the cop on one side and all the PCs on the other. The cop's goal is to get any of them to paint themselves as suspicious enough to justify arrest, while their goal is to get him to give up on them as potential suspects and instead just tell them to get out of there. 

Whoever gets Taken Out doesn't get what they want. One or more PCs getting Taken Out means they're selected for arrest. Even if the cop is Taken Out later in the Social Conflict. Attacks and Maneuvers and Blocks are all certainly viable (as would be Assessments / Declarations), but anybody trying to Sprint (or otherwise change the Conflict to a Physical one) is certainly going to be Conceding the Social Conflict in the process. Which means they get to narrate the circumstances of their being taken out. Which could easily be "sacrificing" themselves to let the others go free.

This plan is intended to give the players a "live fire" tutorial of the full Conflict + Consequences rules, with zero risk of "expositional gunshot wounds" for the slower learners of the group. And this way, the first time somebody pulls a gun, the players will already understand that Maneuvers are their friends.

And even in the worst case scenario, of somebody getting themselves arrested after having taken a part in the triggering Your Story which would have left forensic evidence behind, it just takes one Clued-In Cop NPC to surreptitiously tamper with the chain of evidence to prevent any permanent fallout from the introductory scene. 

What do you all think?

 

[OGIHR]

I finished re-reading all the rules chapters of both the Dresden Files RPG corebook and the "Paranet Papers" supplement (setting chapters still to be re-read), and put together a draft of the questionnaire which I'd ask prospective players to answer for my game. Both because it will give me insight into their hopes / expectations and because anyone unwilling to take the time for my questionnaire will be unwilling to meaningfully contribute to the collaborative process of City Creation. 

I also realized that I'd forgotten a pretty major part of the City Creation process, where the chosen Themes / Threats are supposed to directly inform the choices of Locations and antagonists. Oops; I guess my spec work on the supernatural nations' representation was even more speculative than I'd thought. (grins)

‎Here's the questionnaire which I plan to email (along with an attached PDF of the research material) to those people who express interest in playing my game. It's got six questions of a "what" nature, and four of those have followups asking "why". So ten questions total. 

I invite your critique...

1. First off, something very simple as a warm-up. What is the first visual that pops into your head when you think of Batman? 

2. How much familiarity do you have with The Dresden Files ( the novels, the comics, the RPG, the short-lived TV series, anything)?
   And "none " is certainly an acceptable answer, as I expect that some people's interest in this game will be on the Gotham City side rather than the Dresden Files side. 

3. What sort of monster-fighter character do you expect to be playing in my game?
   I say "expect" not because of any intention to bait-and-switch on character concepts, but rather because I've had it happen before that players change their minds when something cool catches their fancy during the process of collaboratively defining our setting.
   As I am planning the PCs to be built at the highest of the four "power levels" described in the corebook, the whole heroic field is open; both in terms of characters with ridiculous powers at their personal command and in terms of "weaker" characters with so many Fate Points at their discretion that they hardly ever have to accept a Compel of their Aspects just to earn some good luck for when they need it in a later scene. 
   If you are familiar with the various forces of the Dresdenverse, then feel free to describe your concept in those terms. And if your interest in this game comes from the Gotham City side (or you're imagining something that's never appeared in the books, like a Scion who's half dragon), then feel free to describe your preliminary concept in whatever terms you like. 

4. Please tell me why you chose your answer to question #3?
   I will be better able to run a good game if I have a better understanding of what variety of awesome you're looking for. 

5. ‎Of all the various threats (supernatural or otherwise) which our heroes could have occasion to face off against, which type are you most looking forward to? 

6. As above, please tell me why you chose your answer to question #5?

7. Please name any one character from the Batman comics you'd love to see reflected (as PC, ally, or enemy as the case may be) in our game? 

8. As above, please tell me why you chose your answer to question #7?

9. From the provided research material, name three things which jumped out at you as particularly cool source material for the inspirations phase of our game's City Creation efforts? 

10. As above, please tell me why you chose those elements for your answer to question #9? 

...So, what do you folks think?

 

[Gwaihir]

I create a players guide before every campaign. In my experience - that is my players - the only thing they care about is character creation. Once thats done, sometimes with some form of background, or sometimes not; the Campaign Guide is toast to them. I also do a session summary report - Tale of Deeds or Tall Tales Tally and I suspect no one reads that either. But I do that mostly for my own notes anyway.

 

[woodalcm]

Well, I'm entirely willing to run games online, using Roll20 on my desktop for the character sheets and playspace and dice mechanics, while running Google Hangouts on my laptop for voice conferencing.

So, if you're interested, message me privately, and I'll gladly email you the PDF of "Night in Gotham", so that brainstorming can commence.

I won't actually be in a position to run a game again until after I get out of my current job (one way or the other), but anyone who is willing to work with me to create a backdrop that we can all thoroughly enjoy is welcome to give it a shot.

Once I have a different job and know how my work schedule impacts my possibilities for game scheduling. ‎

I would absolutely LOVE a .pdf copy of Night in Gotham, please!