Dresden RPG- Getting the Gang together (3/13/11)
So tonight was our first session of actual play for Dresden. We started with a flashback to the First time Alex Forrester: Reluctant Warden and Riley MooreL Inconspicious Journalist met, in all places, an elevator. After Riley made a wisecrack, they locked eyes and entered into a soul gaze.
I'm still not really happy with the soul gaze mechanics. I think from now on I'm going to run it as a full psychic combat, until one character is "taken out". As it was, two points of stress were inflicted, and no concequences. But they RP'ed the meeting where the reporter found out he's a REAL wizard... and the wizard got that she's a minor talent and that she's loyal to a fault and is protecting her husband's secret.
Alex then invites Riley to Vesuvio's, The bar owned by Venus Galliano: Retired Goddess which has been accorded neutral ground. Alex gives Riley the "warden talk" and she tries to weasel out information about the supernatural. Alex leaves her without much to go on, as Venus slides up behind the bar to pour Riley a drink and talk about "things".
Riley gets a phonecall from her reporter partner Simon, that he's got a tip from SFPD that there's been a double homicide matching the pattern of the "Husband", a serial killer who would torture and kill the wife in the most brutal and sadistic ways while the husband watch, before slicing their throat. He earned the nickname the Husband because he always took the couples wedding rings. Furhter investigate to the previous 13 murders 13 years ago showed that each wife had been cheating on their respective husband.
Riley gets to the scene, and uses her glamour to assume the appearance of an FBI agent she knew back in Atlanta to get past the yellow tape. She goes in and takes a look at the scene, finding the gruesome mess left behind. As she's walking down the stairs to leave, a Black Gov't Car pulls up, and said FBI agent from Atlanta gets out! With a -4 on the die roll, he completely misses Riley disguised as himself, and barges in upstairs. Agent Winters:Clued-in S.A.D. Agent barges in upstairs on the dectives, being 5 years older and sporting a set of wickedly hideous scars over the left side of his face. Confusion ensues leading to guns being drawn and pointed at everyone. Riley walks back in calling out "Hey Uncle Joe", and convinces everyone that she's Agent Winter's Nephew, to allievate the scene.
Winters and Riley go back to the car, where he proceeds to chew her out throughly, and she manages to accidently let slip all this stuff she knows about vampires, which is what clawed on his face. Finally, he tells her to stay in the car, and heads back inside. Of course, she beats a hasty retreat into GG park, where she meets up with the friendly neighborhood were-raccoon, which has been listening to their whole conversation underneath the car.
At this time, Alex gets a call from his boss, Carlos Ramierz, letting him know that word from Edinburugh is that someone "hinky" is going on up in his neck of the woods, and to "cape up" and find out what's going on. Alex heads back to Vesuvio's to see if anyone has heard anything, at which point Venus informs him that one of her "girls" has been killed, and that she's just on her way to SFPD to talk to the dective. Alex offers to drive, and they take his vintage Jeep so he doesn't hex her nice shiny car.
Alex and Venus arrive at SFPD, where venus has every male officer eating out of her hand, and they are led into an interview room to find out her relationship with the victim. Agent Winters arrives, and during the course of the interview, Alex tells him to get some cold iron bullets. The lock eyes, and another soulgaze occurs.
Alex get's the whole shebang, how Winters' parents were murdered by the Husband, how as a boy he was there in the house when the monster killed his parents, how the money from the book deal and movie rights was hollow, and how during a raid on a "drug cartel" last year, a RCV nearly ripped his face off, and how Winters wants payback.
Winter's gets quite a bit in return as well, including that Alex has the knowledge he needs to find and kill the vampires that left him "hideously scarred".
After the interview, Riley and Alystria are at Vesuvios when Alex and Venus get back (I know, I couldn't resist the 4 heroes gather in a bar bit), and Riley remembers not seeing her reporter friend Simon at the Scene, and his cell is going straight to voicemail, and noone is picking up at the house. Red Flags are raised, and the gang springs into action.
They arrive at Simon's place in the Marina, and all the lights are off and noone's home. Alystria goes were-raccoon and scurries up the drainpipe to the open window on the second floor (Declaration!), and inside smells blood, sweat, fear, and !wrong!. After a quick discussion, they decide to call Winters, who races over from downtown while the group snoops around the perimeter.
Winters arrives, and with some loose definition of probable cause, kicks in the door and they search the house. It's obviously has been trashed, and there is no sign of either Simon or his wife. Alex decides he's got to "look" and opens his third eye. What he sees is a warzone, complete with razorwire dividing the bed in half. Additionally, everything is covered in ice and snow, like some WWI Eastern Front movie scene. Alex's player rolled so good I gave him two assessments to figure out the nature of the creature they're dealing with. Fighting to close his eye, he does so, but not until he take's 4 points of stress!
Fearing for Simon's life, they gather up some hair and some of the blood, and Alystria and Alex start a Diviation ritual. After invoking an aspect to prevent "bad things(tm)", Alex diving rod locks onto Simon's location....
And that's where we left things for the evening.
What Could have gone better:
Like I said, I don't much like the Soul Gaze Mechanics.
It took a while to get the characters all gathered together, and I was really having a tough time trying to figure out how to hook the were-raccoon into the game, till I remembered she also has ritual, which would make her "known" to the warden.
Still needed to look up how to run a thaumaturgy, even though I specifically studied it during the week.
Not enough compels. I only had one compel so far, cause while people acted on their compels a couple of times, it didn't really add to or complicate the story. Will need to hit them harder.
What Went Well:
Everyone enjoyed themselves. Always a good thing to start off with.
The mechanical stuff we did do was very educational to folks, since this was the first time playing Dresden for 3 plays, and FATE for 2.
I like the plot line I've built, and I think I'll be able to drag it out into multiple sessions and build to a climax.
I'm still not really happy with the soul gaze mechanics. I think from now on I'm going to run it as a full psychic combat, until one character is "taken out". As it was, two points of stress were inflicted, and no concequences. But they RP'ed the meeting where the reporter found out he's a REAL wizard... and the wizard got that she's a minor talent and that she's loyal to a fault and is protecting her husband's secret.
Alex then invites Riley to Vesuvio's, The bar owned by Venus Galliano: Retired Goddess which has been accorded neutral ground. Alex gives Riley the "warden talk" and she tries to weasel out information about the supernatural. Alex leaves her without much to go on, as Venus slides up behind the bar to pour Riley a drink and talk about "things".
Riley gets a phonecall from her reporter partner Simon, that he's got a tip from SFPD that there's been a double homicide matching the pattern of the "Husband", a serial killer who would torture and kill the wife in the most brutal and sadistic ways while the husband watch, before slicing their throat. He earned the nickname the Husband because he always took the couples wedding rings. Furhter investigate to the previous 13 murders 13 years ago showed that each wife had been cheating on their respective husband.
Riley gets to the scene, and uses her glamour to assume the appearance of an FBI agent she knew back in Atlanta to get past the yellow tape. She goes in and takes a look at the scene, finding the gruesome mess left behind. As she's walking down the stairs to leave, a Black Gov't Car pulls up, and said FBI agent from Atlanta gets out! With a -4 on the die roll, he completely misses Riley disguised as himself, and barges in upstairs. Agent Winters:Clued-in S.A.D. Agent barges in upstairs on the dectives, being 5 years older and sporting a set of wickedly hideous scars over the left side of his face. Confusion ensues leading to guns being drawn and pointed at everyone. Riley walks back in calling out "Hey Uncle Joe", and convinces everyone that she's Agent Winter's Nephew, to allievate the scene.
Winters and Riley go back to the car, where he proceeds to chew her out throughly, and she manages to accidently let slip all this stuff she knows about vampires, which is what clawed on his face. Finally, he tells her to stay in the car, and heads back inside. Of course, she beats a hasty retreat into GG park, where she meets up with the friendly neighborhood were-raccoon, which has been listening to their whole conversation underneath the car.
At this time, Alex gets a call from his boss, Carlos Ramierz, letting him know that word from Edinburugh is that someone "hinky" is going on up in his neck of the woods, and to "cape up" and find out what's going on. Alex heads back to Vesuvio's to see if anyone has heard anything, at which point Venus informs him that one of her "girls" has been killed, and that she's just on her way to SFPD to talk to the dective. Alex offers to drive, and they take his vintage Jeep so he doesn't hex her nice shiny car.
Alex and Venus arrive at SFPD, where venus has every male officer eating out of her hand, and they are led into an interview room to find out her relationship with the victim. Agent Winters arrives, and during the course of the interview, Alex tells him to get some cold iron bullets. The lock eyes, and another soulgaze occurs.
Alex get's the whole shebang, how Winters' parents were murdered by the Husband, how as a boy he was there in the house when the monster killed his parents, how the money from the book deal and movie rights was hollow, and how during a raid on a "drug cartel" last year, a RCV nearly ripped his face off, and how Winters wants payback.
Winter's gets quite a bit in return as well, including that Alex has the knowledge he needs to find and kill the vampires that left him "hideously scarred".
After the interview, Riley and Alystria are at Vesuvios when Alex and Venus get back (I know, I couldn't resist the 4 heroes gather in a bar bit), and Riley remembers not seeing her reporter friend Simon at the Scene, and his cell is going straight to voicemail, and noone is picking up at the house. Red Flags are raised, and the gang springs into action.
They arrive at Simon's place in the Marina, and all the lights are off and noone's home. Alystria goes were-raccoon and scurries up the drainpipe to the open window on the second floor (Declaration!), and inside smells blood, sweat, fear, and !wrong!. After a quick discussion, they decide to call Winters, who races over from downtown while the group snoops around the perimeter.
Winters arrives, and with some loose definition of probable cause, kicks in the door and they search the house. It's obviously has been trashed, and there is no sign of either Simon or his wife. Alex decides he's got to "look" and opens his third eye. What he sees is a warzone, complete with razorwire dividing the bed in half. Additionally, everything is covered in ice and snow, like some WWI Eastern Front movie scene. Alex's player rolled so good I gave him two assessments to figure out the nature of the creature they're dealing with. Fighting to close his eye, he does so, but not until he take's 4 points of stress!
Fearing for Simon's life, they gather up some hair and some of the blood, and Alystria and Alex start a Diviation ritual. After invoking an aspect to prevent "bad things(tm)", Alex diving rod locks onto Simon's location....
And that's where we left things for the evening.
What Could have gone better:
Like I said, I don't much like the Soul Gaze Mechanics.
It took a while to get the characters all gathered together, and I was really having a tough time trying to figure out how to hook the were-raccoon into the game, till I remembered she also has ritual, which would make her "known" to the warden.
Still needed to look up how to run a thaumaturgy, even though I specifically studied it during the week.
Not enough compels. I only had one compel so far, cause while people acted on their compels a couple of times, it didn't really add to or complicate the story. Will need to hit them harder.
What Went Well:
Everyone enjoyed themselves. Always a good thing to start off with.
The mechanical stuff we did do was very educational to folks, since this was the first time playing Dresden for 3 plays, and FATE for 2.
I like the plot line I've built, and I think I'll be able to drag it out into multiple sessions and build to a climax.