Character Creation Guidelines

[Josh]

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For this game, we will be using the Dresden Files Accelerated rather than the Dresden Files RPG. You MUST have the pdf or book to play in this game.

Starting Level:

DFA Standard:

Follow the steps on pg 91. Characters will have the following:

• A Mantle (possibly more than one, read below)
• High Concept and Trouble
• A Third (Background) Aspect
• Character Description
• One Good (+3) Approach
• Two Fair (+2) Approaches
• Two Average (+1) Approaches
• One Mediocre (+0) Approach
• 3 Base Refresh
• One Free Stunt

Mantle Note Addition:

• Changelings, Werecreatures, WCV Virgins, RCV Infectees also get one Mortal Mantle
• Homerule: Pure Mortals (those who take no supernatural Mantles) may also pick another Mortal Mantle. Or, they may take two additional stunts instead. Should you pick up a Supernatural Mantle later, one of these must be dropped at the following Milestone.
• Homerule: Changelings can use an alternate to the Called Condition. Instead of Called, you can chose to 'slide' into the True Fae mantle. This means, at start, you get one of the Conditions from the True Fae mantle instead of Called. Then, for every 2 (or three, up to your GM) Fae stunts you take, you take another True Fae Condition. Once you have all three, you must make your Choice.

Aspects and Phases:
At Start:

• High Concept Aspect
• Trouble Aspect
• Background Aspect
  
  After Basic Character Creation:
• Two Other Aspects

[Josh]

The Kinds of Characters I'm Looking For:


Fit the Setting and Atmosphere:

On the broadest level, characters need to work in the Dresdenverse. Mortals that use magic are subject to the Laws of Magic, spirit things come from the Nevernever, and belief has power. I'm not taking child characters for this game, as in, all characters most be 18+ years old. I'm not looking for gods or immortals for the most part, and anyone that operates beyond Supernatural on Scale will be need to have very good reasons for being involved.

In this game, I'm striving to meld elements of mystery and horror of the early Supernatural, Teen Wolf with the early Dresden Files. Where the characters are thrown into dangerous, frightening circumstances where they have to look for the truth if they want to get out with their skins intact. They can put up a fight, but aren't the toughest things on the block and aren't that experienced. They are also going to be tempted by beings of great power and will need good reasons and motivations to both be tempted and, when they can, refuse those offers.

The setting is Charleston, SC, a real place which I'm painting up with all the urban fantasy goodness I can. All the characters have to be in the town for the stories to play out, so they must be a resident or stuck there for the foreseeable future. I'm not interested in people just blowing through, vagrants, or random arrivals.

The atmosphere will be a bit dark. Monsters and weird things will be happening. Murders, disappearances, thing coming out of the dark, the whole nine yards. I expect the characters to be able to react to these things, and I expect those reactions to be realistic. These characters should also be able to get invested. When something rears out of the dark and eats their friend right in front of their eyes, that should matter to the characters.


Interesting Troubles

You want a Character's Trouble to be unique, personal, and most of all, important. It is what takes a PC from being a flat, boring archetype to a fluid, breathing part of the story. It makes a PC fallible, human, and interesting. Troubles also complicate the story, earning you Fate points when things go off the rails.

A Trouble is a problem, a glaring weakness, a blind spot, or an outside force that constantly hounds. It's not easily resolved. It's also not entirely damaging either. There are upsides to a Trouble, but make sure these don't overtake the downsides. Troubles are also suppose to be somewhat complicated, containing some depth.

An aspect named '"Let's Do It!" would be an example of a good Trouble for a character. The first layer is that she is the first one to rush into danger. She goes head first against everything, and that's obviously dangerous. She also tends to dismiss the dangers and doesn't prepare for complications. You could also say it depicts her passion and anger, which causes her to act /right now/ without planning. Yet, there is another part of it too. It's also a expectation. Others expect her to be all the above and even need her to be, so she feels compelled to uphold that standard. Even when she is scared or worried that she can't perform, she tries to act like she can handle stuff even when can't. And when she fails, it eats at her.


General Help/Thoughts on Aspects

Here are some links about aspects!

A good Fate one:
https://plus.google.com/app/basic/st...3diguiuxjcqrcw

Here is one that is largely about DFRPG, but this does carry over to Fate Core (Stuff under character creation):
http://web.archive.org/web/201607312...a/?page_id=842

Some stuff I've said in the past:




Also, I want to state some of my pet peeves regarding aspects. Number one, I hate one word aspects. Two words, even. Aspects are meant to establish who and what your character is in the game and story. Your aspects are what decides what you can and can't do, so you want them to be expressive. They also earn you FPs, which in turn let you have moments of awesome. Or not die. And the best way for them to earn you FP is to be relevant to the story and come up as often as possible. To do that, an aspect needs to say as much as you can pack into four to five words, and say it well!

Which brings me to peeve two. Can't stand generic aspects. Don't be generic, guys. Be unique! Just about everyone grabs a cliché or a common saying for an aspect, that's common practice. But what separates the good from the bad is whether you leave it at that. If you use something common, only do it as a baseline. Adapt it and personalize it to your character.

[Josh]

Mantles

What are Mantles?

Mantles are the new big gimmick of the DFA system. They are the most defining piece of your character you will pick, more so than your HC and Trouble even. What it does is state what your power is, what it's source is, how it manifests, and what it's demands are. It grants all the stunts and conditions necessary to embody the core of your abilities.

What if I want a Mantle that isn't in the book? What if none of the Mantles fit my idea?

Assuming the idea fits what I'm looking for in setting and the like, than I will build you a custom Mantle, with your input. However. There are some restrictions on that. For example, if the intent is to mash the elements of several Mantles together for a super Mantle, I'm going to turn you down. Another reason is that not all ideas require a new Mantle. For example, the majority of minor talents and true believers are probably better represented by taking one of the Mortal Mantles and a unique stunt to represent the special ability.

Can I have more than one Mantle?

Yes, you can acquire additional Mantles. To do this, you have to buy the entire Mantle's core stunts and conditions out of refresh. Purely detrimental Conditions will be granted for free if deemed necessary.

Do I have to have buy the whole thing to use a part of it?

Nope. You can buy parts off of any Mantle, assuming your aspects can justify it. For example, because you are a Regional Warden Commander, you can buy part of the Followers track to represent the Wardens under your command. Or, you can tie it into your current Mantle by saying it is an extension of your current powers. For an example, a Magical Practitioner buys the Transformation Condition from the Werecreature Mantle can justify it by saying they have mastered a spell to allow them to shapeshift into a buffalo.

That said, aspects are important. You can't buy things all willy nilly. Everything must be justified.

What happened to Inhuman/Supernatural/Mythic powers?

They have gotten replaced by Scale! So, take Valkyrie for example. In DFRPG, Valkyries (or at least Gard, who we are working off of) had Supernatural Recovery as well as Inhuman Strength. For recovery, that's handled by a stunt, while there is no mention of a strength stunt under the Valkyrie mantle. That doesn't mean the Valkyries don't retain Inhuman Strength. Instead, anytime they are acting within the bounds of their Mantle such as being physically strong, they would gain Scale towards those actions which comes out to be the same effect as having the stunt in DFRPG.

[Josh]

The Cost of Things
So I want to break down the cost of things in Fate, in general, and this Hack, in particular.

The basic building block we will be dealing with is the Fate Point. The whole economy is built around FPs and their effects in play. A character’s Refresh is how many FPs you start with at the beginning of a scene, should your pool be currently lower.

A Fate Point can do one of four things.

• Invoke an aspect for a +2 bonus to the roll.
• Declare a Story Detail, granting permission to do something.
• Reject a Compel, canceling out an action or effect.
• Allow for a reroll.

A Stunt is a special ability that changes how an action or circumstance works for you. In a way, it acts as a permanently active Fate Point. That is why a single stunt starts off worth a single Refresh; you are trading the flexibility of a FP to gain a more persistent bonus, more often.

Stunt = 1 Refresh = +2 worth of effect or the ability to declare a particular detail or grant permission.

Examples:

• Superpower Scholar. Due to being a nerd who studies everything about powers that she can find, Victoria gains a +2 to Scholarship when drawing on that knowledge
• Bird’s Eye View. Victoria can use her flight ability to fly up high above the battlefield, she can place the aspect Bird’s Eye View, with two invokes, on the scene.
• Shock and Awe. In addition to being able to inflict aspects representing fear on targets, Victoria now has permission to inflict feelings of awe on her targets instead.

There are several ways to increase, empower, and broaden a stunt’s effect.

• Stacking. This is the easiest method, you exchange more refresh for more effect. For each refresh, you add an additional +2, additional effects, more uses etc.
• Adding stipulations. This means it takes more to use the stunt, in exchange for effect, but at the same refresh cost.
• Splitting the effect. You can split the +2 bonus so that it is tied to two different actions.
  Example: Herculean Might. When using her forcefield to augment her strength in order to lift heavy loads, Victoria gains a +1 to Physique when using to Create Advantage or Overcome.
• Restricting its use. There are three levels of use restriction.
  1. Once per scene
  2. Once per session
  3. Once per scenario
  Once Per Scene is worth +2 additional effort, Per Session worth +4, and Per Scenario +6. Or the equivalent in permission or declared details.
• Additional Cost. Instead of costing another Refresh, you can instead use another resource.
  1. Spend a FP.
  2. Mark a Condition
  Spending a FP usually means the stunt is worth +2 additional effort or more powerful effect When you mark a Condition, Fleeting is usually worth +2 per box marked, +4 for a Stick, and then +6 for a Lasting.

Since I will be using Mantles, I will be using Conditions, rather than Consequences. So I will be breaking these down as well.

“A condition represents and initiates special rules following certain events during the game. You mark the condition when the event transpires and apply all the rules in the condition’s description. Recovery from the condition is
requisite before you can mark it again.” DFA, Pg 116.

There are four levels of Conditions.

1. Fleeting. These conditions clear after the end of a scene or other trivial moment.
2. Sticky. These take a concentrated effort to recover from and usually a dice roll.
3. Lasting. The same as Stick, these take an action to recover, but in addition to that it usually takes a measure of time or a secondary objective to fully recover.
4. Special/Unique. These are Conditions that are usually always marked or have very special circumstances attached to them.

As stated above, each level of Condition has a typical value to it. They typically use stunts to grant these mechanical benefits. Like stunts, the bonuses granted by Conditions can be increased or the side effects decreased. You can do this in two ways:

1. Another Condition can be attached to the first. This often represents a weakness or a drawback that can cancel the first Condition until it is recovered.
2. Stunts can be used to bring a Condition down a level or expand how many times it can be marked.

The Transforming and Transformed
A lot of supers transform, in one fashion or the other. Sometimes this is into various new shapes, sometimes it's just ‘powering up’ into their super form. Other supers are permanently stuck in a nonhuman form, granting them a different baseline than the human norm.

It's actually easy to handle both cases. The answer is a Condition. For Transforming, you take the Change Condition, which is described under the Metamorph mantle. This covers multiple forms, just describe your limitations and forms in the description.

For Transformed Supers, you take a Unique Condition describing your altered body and the benefits (usually described by Scale) and drawbacks.


Scale And How It Works
So what is Scale? For us, it's a way to rank differences in power. It operates fairly simple. There are a number of ranks, usually defined by the setting or the GM. In this case, we will be using the Class levels of Wearing the Cape. The ranks look like so:

Mundane < Supernatural < Otherworldly < Legendary < Godlike

Scale grants you several options when it is applied:
+1 per scale level to the action before the roll
+2 per scale level to the result after the roll, if the roll succeeds
1 free invocation per scale level on a successful advantage after the roll
When applying Scale against something or someone with Scale, you compare the two levels and then count up to establish your bonuses. For example, someone at Otherworldly in scale can gain a +2 before rolling or +4 after a roll on success or 2 free invocations on successful advantage roll. But, up against a Supernatural, they would only get a +1, +2, and 1 free invokes because there is only one level of difference between them.

It doesn’t look like much, but Scale serves to take the place of several ‘booster’ stunts you would find in other hacks. Dresden Files had the Inhuman, Supernatural, and Mythic level powers and Wearing the Cape had stunts that boosted the Attributes attached to your power. It does this through defining the character’s permissions in their Mantle’s description and often brought to the forefront by their stunts.

For example, in the Vampire-Type mantle, it is stated that vampires have superhuman strength, though they don’t have a stunt regarding it. But, because they have a permission, they get to use their Scale when the GM feels it is justified when doing things where strength is concerned. Which means in practice they would still have the benefits of the old Inhuman (whatever) Strength power stunt.

The Squash Problem
Now what are you going on about, Chee? As I was creating the Mentalist mantle, I came across an issue. There really aren’t that many ‘basic’ Mentalists that all the others branch off of. So when someone goes, I want to play as a Mentalist, it's like when someone asks you to pick up some squash from the store. You start shopping and find out there are a lot of different kinds of squash.

So what do you do? Well, if you are me, you take a swing at creating a couple of different example Mantles. The more approachable solution is to remember that the GM has the right to grant (or remove) Conditions and Stunts they feel are necessary to make a Mantle true. If you feel like a Mantle needs a few extra bits to work for a concept, then add them. Keep in mind that this should be reserved for ‘musts’ or ‘core’ mechanics; if a power or ability is something that the character could do and not must be able to do, then that should be considered an Additional or Unique stunt and bought with Refresh.

But We Aren’t All The Same!

A common complaint I’ve seen about mantles is that, while the different Types come with different stuff, those that share a Mantle start off looking the same. Starting off is the key phrase though. It is intentional that Mantles share the same base abilities, that is what defines each Type and makes them different from each other. But it is important to remember that choosing your Mantle is but the first step of character creation.

Picking your mantle sets you apart from other power sets, picking your aspects is what sets you apart from those that share your power. Your High Concept in particular, is what sets up your individual proficiencies and weak points, and from there you buy stunts to further specialize.

For example, both Watchman and SaFire are both Atlas Type. Both are pretty vanilla examples of their Type and come with the same set of Conditions and Core Stunts. But, the two are very different characters who use their power differently. Watchman, who has a A True SuperRanger aspect, would be better at using his Supersenses to pick a target out of a crowd than SaFire would be, while SaFire would be a pro at airlifting the injured out of a battlefield. So in play, this would be displayed by invoking and compelling their aspects. You could then take it a step further and take additional stunts, such as Trained Senses for Watchman to show that not only is his bonus from Supersenses higher, he has additional permissions as well.