[Casefile four, Page one: 4/15] Dresden Files - Those Swamp Wizards

DevoutlyApathetic

So I decided I should try and get some grasp of what this stuff was and went looking for the books.

Wiki Dresden files, read book list.

Uhm....

Well no way I'm typing that into google.

Doesn't help things that Harry starts talking about the White Council almost immediately either.

I'm like halfway through the second book right now. Kinda curious what a Loup-Garou would actually have to stat out at for refresh. It appears to be a very high number though.

OptimusZed

90% of the main plot baddies in Dresden Files are powerful enough that they're not statable in the game. They say as much several times.

For that one, specifically, I think they wound up with it at -19 or something like that. Since it can be, and was, taken out through raw violence. But there are quite a few that are just basically scene aspects on the universe that you can't mess with directly.

Ardent

Remember, Harry starts out very advanced and his enemies are monumentally huge.

Also, we need an ATV course.

With jumps.

OptimusZed

Google doesn't turn up anything obvious we can steal from real life, so I move that we make something up. Something ridiculous.

Loco Manuel's ATV Corral and Explodanarium; Come for the jumps, stay for the third degree burns.

Ardent

"Now with gator-full swamp course!"

Oats

I almost prefer the inverse.

Now with swamp-full gator course!

Ardent

Oats wrote: »

I almost prefer the inverse.

Now with swamp-full gator course!

Why would you put swamp on gators? That doesn't even make no sense.

DevoutlyApathetic

Swamps are only a sometimes thing in Florida.

Gators are an every time thing.

Ardent

DevoutlyApathetic wrote: »

Swamps are only a sometimes thing in Florida.

Gators are an every time thing.

Hoooey boy. Y'all are gonna be suuuuurprised.

Whole state's one giant swamp hiding behind a sand bar.

Ardent

wait

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait

we don't have an airboat rental place

that is literally impossible

Ardent

@jdarksun

http://www.leugardens.org/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Eola_Park

https://www.yelp.com/biz/berlin-wall-segment-orlando

https://orlandotouristinformationbureau.com/museums/orlando-fire-museum.htm

https://www.yelp.com/biz/ripleys-believe-it-or-not-orlando-orlando

I'll take a stab at whatever nobody else finds inspiring.

There's a ton of stuff in/around Orlando, but most of it is amusement parks.

Ardent

So that's definitely a place. A sand mine, specifically. This one happens to be on the southwest shore of Lake Okachobee. But there's nothing stopping us from putting one right outside Orlando.

Full article, for interested readers: http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/17/13660014/miami-beach-sand-erosion-nourishment-climate-change

P.S. Florida is boned.

P.P.S. For our Canadian friend, imagine an entire state getting a bad soaker.

Oats

I found Florida Man's familiar.

jdarksun

What We Have

See the OP (which I apparently cannot directly link to) or this PDF.

Our city (Orlando, Florida), the working name (Those Swamp Wizards - until we find something better).

A pretty well fleshed-out Theme ("The World's Imagination, Bought and Sold" with the Aspect of "Everything's Fake. Everything's Real."), complete with Faces (Mickey Mouse, The Universal Studios Globe) and Concepts for them (It's Always Been Mickey and Monster Peddler).

A rough Threat that needs work ("Vampire Courts Feeding Off the Tourists", with a Face of Juan Ponce De Leon).

And a notion of a Theme ("Old vs. New").

A couple places (Sea World and Kennedy Space Center) that need work.


What We Need

Once we understand Themes and Threats, we need to hash out the Balance of Power.

What is the Supernatural status quo?

What is the Mundane status quo?

Who are the Movers and the Shakers - who seek to Maintain the Status Quo, who wants to Rock the Boat? Who's in the Know? Who's in the Dark?

Once we have a good handle on the high level view, we can dig into more locations. The sheet has room for 9, but we can expand that if needed.

Same goes for Faces. People (...or things) populate Locations. Maybe not 1:1, but we should know some of the folk that roam around these parts.

This is all covered in Your Story, starting around p. 30.

After that, we can finish off character creation.

@Ardent @DeamonIzual @DevoutlyApathetic @Oats @OptimusZed

jdarksun

An idea I'm kicking around as an example:

Location
Name: Cinderella Castle
Description: The symbolic seat of Mickey's power
Theme or Threat: Threat
The Idea: This Castle Controls Entertainment
The Aspect: The House of Mouse
The Face: Crispin Arts, one of the Mickey

Love it? Hate it? Want to talk about it? Quote it, make some comments, let's hash it out. Have another idea? Create a new block like it!

OptimusZed

Did we ever decide what breed of vampire we've got in town?

And in the case of it being the White Court, which family?

I've got some location ideas, but I'm gonna need more of a consensus on some details.

OptimusZed

Location
Name: Blackbeard's Buccaneer Buffet Bonanza
Description: Tacky pirate themed restaraunt made from planks of the cursed ship its immortal staff used to crew.
Theme or Threat: Both?
The Idea: Blackbeard doesn't allow supernatural throwdowns in his place, but he's happy to run guns and drugs out of the back.
The Aspect: Perilous Parleys Protected by Pirates
The Face: Blackbeard, in full pirate costume with fake hook

OptimusZed

I like the idea that on the mundane side there's a push by locals to try and make Orlando less tacky and ridiculous. And that it's pushing up against Disney and the like, which is resulting in normal v weird friction that the normals can't properly parse. But Mickey has been subtley leveraging the local political environment to try and put some of his supernatural competitors out of business.

I also like the idea that the police chief (who I'm assuming my character knows for reasons) is secretly dialed in but isn't able to do anything about it for some reason.

Ardent

Name: The Orlando Fire Museum
Description: Retired brick firehouse that may be the oldest standing building in Orlando thanks to several fires it helped fight.
Threat: Inhabited by a fire elemental
The Idea: The Elemental occasionally burns down parts of Orlando, often at the behest of others or simply because it believes that's what people want.
The Aspect: Renewal by Fire
The Face: OFD Lieutenant Pete Grimm, retired, who is the primary tour guide (and possibly a vessel for the elemental)

Name: The Leu Gardens
Description: One of the most beautiful botanical gardens in a city and state famed for such, Leu Gardens sits right up on Lake Rowena.
Theme: Orlando's Accords-bound safe haven
The Idea: There's a meeting space and lounge accessible beneath the Floral Clock and the entire park is neutral ground.
The Aspect: A Bit of Peace in the Middle of Chaos
The Face: Danielle Johnson, curator emeritus, a wizard of minor skill

OptimusZed

Location
Name: Rainy Day Loans
Description: Payday loan outfit run by a low-mid-level White Court Vampire from out of town that just can't catch a break with the local families.
Theme or Threat: Threat. Mickey is basically a wannabe mobster determined to make his mark and get in good with the family.
The Idea: The Irish family feeds on the despair coming off the locals who use their services while perpetuating a cycle of poverty and hopelessness they use to afford mid-range luxury vehicles.
The Aspect: Lack of Luck of the Irish
The Face: Mickey Irish, an overweight carpetbagger White Court Vampire with aspirations of a payday loan franchise.

OptimusZed

Location
Name: Orlando Police Headquarters
Description: Shiny new police building built with political donations
Theme or Threat: Theme
The Idea: Chief Williams is under a lot of pressure, both public and private, to curtail the local influence of the theme park industry and keep it from expanding any further. Through whatever means available to her.
The Aspect: Orlando is For Normals
The Face: Chief Rene Williams, fresh-faced possibly-clued-in authority figure with a rolodex full of powerful and popular locals.

Location
Name: Amway Center
Description: Local sports arena and after-hours bloodsports attraction that probably isn't built on a secret temple dedicated to dark, ancient powers and definitely isn't feeding on the weird number of deaths that have occured inside.
Theme or Threat: Threat, probably
The Idea: Come for the sports, stay for the mystical pyramid powered by the souls of the dead. Because it won't let you leave.
The Aspect: A Pyramid (Scheme) of Skulls
The Face: Samael Smith, CEO of the Amway Center and totally not an earthly vessel for something unspeakable

OptimusZed

Name: Loco Manuel's ATV Rodeo
Description: Biggest ATV park in the greater Orlando area. It got national attention for a few days last year when the family of a customer who got eaten by a gator was denied any sort of death payout due to the now-famous "Ride or Die" clause in the park's injury waiver.
Theme or Threat: Theme
The Idea: A huge course of ATV trails and stunts where just about everybody comes to blow off some steam with sick jumps. There's enough space out here that just about anything could be going down on the sly.
The Aspect: WOOOOOOOOOOOOO
The Face: Manuel Gutierrez. Knows everybody, might be a weregator. Frickin' loves ATVs, man.

Ardent

OptimusZed wrote: »

Name: Loco Manuel's ATV Rodeo
Description: Biggest ATV park in the greater Orlando area. It got national attention for a few days last year when the family of a customer who got eaten by a gator was denied any sort of death payout due to the now-famous "Ride or Die" clause in the park's injury waiver.
Theme or Threat: Theme
The Idea: A huge course of ATV trails and stunts where just about everybody comes to blow off some steam with sick jumps. There's enough space out here that just about anything could be going down on the sly.
The Aspect: WOOOOOOOOOOOOO
The Face: Manuel Gutierrez. Knows everybody, might be a weregator. Frickin' loves ATVs, man.

I think you mean:

Aspect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui8XSnjkRoQ

OptimusZed

That's pretty good, too.

DevoutlyApathetic

I have trouble seeing Scooter as a potential were-gator.

Totally a Florida Man in training though.

OptimusZed

He doesn't have to be a were-gator. He could be an air-spirit changeling or a mechanomancer or something.

That just seemed like the florida-est thing I could make him.

Ardent

He could easily be a kelpie.

DeamonIzual

Sorry I haven't been involved much, still trying to figure out the system. Just for my clarification, themes aren't supposed to be nice things. They are supposed to be long standing pervasive problems that are really difficult to deal with as I understand from the book. So from our examples the corruption with the police department fits that category but the ATV park and Gardens don't really seem to be problems. Right? Just trying to make sure that I understand, not criticize what people are doing.

Ardent

Themes are complicated. The joke about Fate being a "black-belt RPG" is a pretty accurate description.

They aren't necessarily problems; they're things that are fundamentally "true" about something. Leu Gardens is a safe place bound by the Accords -- which is sort of the supernatural Versailles Treaty and Geneva Convention rolled up into one -- meaning supernaturals who are there abide by the rules or everyone removes them.

If Orlando had a Watchtower that would be either a good thing, if the group is acting in a way the Wardens like. But if the group is running headlong into trouble like I suspect they will, the Wardens probably wouldn't like that.

Those themes (or threats) provide Aspects that we can tap into to help us. But so can't Mike as the GM.

The Aspects are the really important piece of the puzzle, those are your levers to interact with the locations without dealing directly with the Face.

What you may be struggling with at the moment is scale.

The city itself has a theme and a threat (but can easily have two themes or two threats -- or more -- depending on the group) at the outset. We'll probably change them in the course of play.

But now we're applying themes and threats to specific locations within the city.

The ur world can also carry themes and threats.

Think of these as playing cards; you can always play cards from a higher level into a lower level, but not vice versa.

OptimusZed

I feel like the distinction between themes and threats is overly confusing.

The city has aspects. Locations within the city have aspects. An aspect is an aspect, and could be good or bad depending on how you interact with it. If it's bad for you, you might get a Fate Point. If it's good for you, you can spend one instead to get a bonus or have something good happen. Just like character aspects, you'll probably get caught on the bad side of good ones and find ways to make good things out of bad ones.

jdarksun

OptimusZed wrote: »

Did we ever decide what breed of vampire we've got in town?

And in the case of it being the White Court, which family?

I've got some location ideas, but I'm gonna need more of a consensus on some details.

White Court is fine, looks like you went with Skavis (Despair) for Mickey Irish. Do you mind if we change his name to something other than Mickey? Might get a bit confusing between him and the Mouse. Though that could be funny, too.

I dropped Kennedy Space Center because we ran out of space on the sheet. We can bring it back / add more space as necessary.

Updates for SeaWorld...

Name: SeaWorld
Description: Sinking aquatic theme park
Theme or Threat: Threat
The Idea: Publicity problems imperiling profit
The Aspect: The black fish knows
The Face: Old Man Marsh, cantankerous cetacean caretaker

OP is updated with everything we have so far. Please take a bit to review what's listed before the session tonight, and to consider your character idea (Template, High Concept, Trouble, Name, Background, Rising Conflict, and First Adventure). Not everything needs to be set in stone; it's perhaps better if it's not. But ideally we're all at a point where we can finish things up and complete the Guest Star phases tonight.

OptimusZed

Yeah, call him whatever. Mickey was just the most Boston Irish name I could think of at the time.

Ardent

OptimusZed wrote: »

Yeah, call him whatever. Mickey was just the most Boston Irish name I could think of at the time.

Pretty sure that's Ben.

OptimusZed

Just as a warning: I'm on solo kid duty tonight and he's got his first cold. He's completely miserable and hasn't slept all day. It doesn't bode well for tonight. Hopefully I can get him to drop and stay down through the game, but I can't promise anything.

Ardent

Well that means you've got the dadliest of duties: teaching your kid how to buck up.

OptimusZed

We doing this on mumble, or with the audacity setup?

DeamonIzual

My guess is this would be like the Star Wars campaign, so mumble. But Mike might decide otherwise.

jdarksun

DA is also delayed / unavailable, so we might do some world and abbreviated character stuff. Depends how it shakes out.

I feel like Mumble is easier, but local Audacity is probably better quality.

jdarksun

First Adventure hashing outs

Florida Man - When Dustin Turnbull decided to do some good in this world, he was struck by a bolt of lightning... meant for someone else. Dustin sets out to find the identity of the would-be killer, but will he succeed when [antagonist provides opposition]?
Redneck Moon Knight - When Jack DuChamp sets out to bust up a child prostitution ring, he does so without any regard for his personal identity or safety. But will Jack be able to cover his tracks when [antagonist provides opposition]?
Nearsightered Golf Wizard - When Franzibald vonFaustenberg is called upon by the White Council to investigate the disappearance of Orlando's Warden, Frank gets back in the game for Just One More Job. But will Frank find out what really happened when [antagonist provides opposition]?
Fledgling Winter Knight - When Victor Grace is tricked into taking the Winter Mantle from his mentor <Bob>, Mab is pissed and wants <Bob> dead. Or Victor dead. So Victor should probably get on that. Good luck!

OptimusZed

@DevoutlyApathetic

We may have built your character for you last night. I wouldn't worry too much about his mysterious backstory. I'm sure it won't come up.