Character Types
It’s our goal to support as many types of characters as possible for the Dresden Files RPG. Ultimately what limits the kinds of character templates available as PCs is simple: it’s a question of whether or not the type of creature represented has so much power it loses any capacity for the mortal gift of free will. Free will is what makes PCs — and heroes — possible in the Dresdenverse. And when you lose it all, that’s when the dictates of nature take over. When wizards fall too far into the black or reach too high for power, when changelings make the choice to become full blooded fae, when a politician makes every moral compromise necessary to take the reins of influence, that’s when they stop being people and start to resemble monsters. It’s a slippery slope that’s all too easy to slide down.
To give an idea of what characters we’ll be supporting in the game, we’re doing a series of posts on our blog covering each of the character types. You can find the series to date, here.
How about when a host of a fallen loses control of their body or a half vampire feeds and becomes a full vampire
@Victor, that’d be when they become NPCs.
mavra from dresden files npc… magical sorcress vampire, best villan ever!
No way Nicodemus is the best villain ever come on a fallen working in harmony with its host
I have to agree with Victor somewhat, Nicodemus is awesome, especially with the biblical references, it creates a character for him outside the Dresden Files
will the White Court be playable characters? I assume the Black Court will be considered NPC’s ( also considering there is only Mavra in the official universe) but i would love to play through as White Court.
@Bane-, we aren’t to the “W”s yet. Stay tuned.
what if, in the unlikely scenario, you come in contact with a fallen coin? how would your class change if at all and how would you substitute the increase in magic due to hellfire if used? …considering you wouldn’t just be taken over altogether like Lasciel mentions that the other fallen tend to do
Well, let’s remember that Harry’s contact with a Fallen coin was not the same as him taking up the coin. He got access to an additional kind of magic, there, but he didn’t necessarily get access to the full boat of Denarian style power.
In that specific case, it’s mainly a case of taking on one new power, something indicating that you now have access to a new source of “sponsored” (external) magic.
That seems like it would be tricky to support, roleplay-wise. Any player I know would jump at the chance to fling Hellfire at his enemies, and then it’s just one long slide down into the tricky obstacle course of temptation. On the other hand, only an exceptionally good RPer would have a character which would be overly noticeable to the Fallen in the first place, so I suppose it’s a full-circle cycle.
@Skullduggery, I dunno, man. Getting your character turned into an NPC within a few seconds of truly accepting a Denarian coin (which, like I said, Harry didn’t do) is a pretty strong disincentive to me to do it.
So will there be any out of the box playable character types which haven’t been covered here?
See the problem is, is that people assume that when your evil you wont help out the good guys. Read oots, in it a character named Belkar is chaotic evil yet he helps out his Lawful good fighter boss. Why? Because he enjoys killing things that is his one true reason for fighting the badguys. So why can’t characters like this be in Rpg games more often?
@Dan from Chicago, there might be, but we’ve covered around 95% of them, I’d say.
@Vega, this is less about the Belkar thing and more about power levels. Evil tends to be high power, and high power tends to be evil. It’s like any system where you can only buy so much character potency as a PC.
So would a character like Glau or Kinkaid be playable, or considered too high power for a standard game?
I think the classes listed already cover a broad enough spectrum. I also think a plain human who uses lots of modern weapons would work really well. I think that the denarian’s coins should not be a class rather an item to be used for temptations.
Just my 2c. When the game designers start telling me that my character is no longer viable to play because he is no longer weak enough to be a PC, I tell the game designers that they are wrong.
On the other hand, there are situations where a PC /typically/ should become an NPC, I point you to V:tM’s humanity system. Which, when you run out of it, you literally become a beast without thought or retribution (outside of some rituals and other external forces intervening). It would be very hard to play such a character. Until you realize that you could revel in the concept and just go full tilt until the character either is reigned in by someone else, or killed.
My point being, don’t take away a concept by not allowing for it as a PC in the very rules (usually reinforced by not including the ‘stats’ and such for the concept that a player would need to play it as a proper PC). Give me the tools to do what my group wants, and if we decide that we want to have a Fallen as a PC, that is our choice.
If anyone has played Exalted, you see a great example of people able to play really super ridiculously powerful characters… if they so choose. Within the same system, you can have just as much fun playing a considerably ‘weaker’ character.
At the very least, give us a splat book on the concepts that are too ‘powerful’ for the standard you’re setting for what you believe PC’s should be.
@Eric, take up your argument with Jim Butcher, then, because that’s how things work in the world he’s writing about. Get powerful enough (and keep in mind here, we’re talking VERY VERY POWERFUL), lose the option at free will. It’s a core law of how the Dresdenverse works in the books. We’re emulating it.
If I could go back in time when he used to play on a certain MUSH I happen to still be on, I would be happy to. If I knew then, that he would become an awesome writer of a great series of books that I love… I’d probably have chatted him up a bit more.
I’ve read the books though, and will extrapolate from there.
Yes, very very powerful. Vague, but with a purpose. I have no interest in powergaming here, just the ability to attain power through IC means and still be able to /play/ the character, albeit down whatever darkened pathway they have decided (or been forced) to journey.
In the case of the Fallen, I’ll relent. The books are pretty clear on how much of a mindless monster under the control of the demon in question that one becomes upon actively taking up the dark powers offered. But on the other side of the coin (pun intended), is it really an unplayable character who has incredible and immoral political power? A full-blooded Fae? Or a Red Court Bitten who has chosen to feed? Wizards that have just… become “too” powerful? Sure, it is no longer the same /game/ that you were playing before… but it is still a viable game.
Black Court thralls that have been broken, the Fallen, and such I’d again, relent upon even wanting to bother trying to play as a PC. But I’m a fan of having as much choice as possible. D&D 3E’s ability to play any monster as a PC rather than 4E’s stringent modularity that only allows the concepts predetermined by a seeming character tree concept taken right from Diablo or WoW.
Perhaps this is the difference between a normal tier game, and what some call ‘Epic Level’ gaming (rather than gaming that is Epic in scope, which is possible in all power levels).
On a quick additional note… I’m quite impressed that you very quickly took the time to answer my concern.
I appreciate that and /am/ very much looking forward to this game.
@Eric, there’s always the possibility that a GM could allow someone to play a “negative refresh” character — but that’d essentially be under the proviso that the character could be made the GM’s bitch a lot of times, each session essentially, until he works off the “deficit” of his negative refresh each time — essentially accepting compels against his aspects automatically.
(If that’s all Greek to you, no worries — it’ll be clear once the system’s actually in your hands!)
I’ve read about the Refresh Points system, and am intrigued. Especially by the idea of a (perhaps optional) rule to allow for buying off Negative Refresh. Side-quests and such, sacrifices, moral dilemmas et al are the tastiest of tastiness in my RPG world.
It reminds me of Wraith, in which you have two players controlling aspects of one character. You come into the character (or take on this new component of it) with full knowledge that it won’t be easy, or simple, or fully within your control… but it will be /fun/, interesting, and a damn good story. That is what I want to portray. The story. Let /me/ decide if the actions I take lead to redemption, or ultimate loss.
This said, I’m more excited than ever to play this thing.
@Eric: I see what you mean, but don’t worry. Every character starts with that lack of an ‘easy, simple, and fully within your control’ nature. It’s built into the game that everyone’s got urges, sometimes irresistible urges.
Aspects are usually a two edged sword, and the player wants them to be a two edged sword, even if the character doesn’t: When they inconvenience the character, or the player makes the character do what the DM wants the character to do, the player get paid Fate Points; when the player would like aspects to act in your favor, they cost the player Fate Points to invoke.
This gives the player the incentive to have sacrifices and moral dilemmas which they can bring into game. If they don’t, they find themselves Fate-Point broke pretty quickly.
In short: if you want to play a character who’s at the mercy of their urges (and carries phenomenal cosmic power purchased through that loss of free will), that’s built in.
What the refresh cap does is measure (roughly, inexactly, via metaphor, etc) the ability of a player to impact the story; trading refresh for phenomenal cosmic power can be seen as trading up the character‘s ability at the expense of the player‘s ability.
There’s relatively little different between a character with refresh 1 (that started at 16 and sold it all down for power) and refresh -5 (that started at 10).
Oh, except the refresh -5 is unplayable. Not “too powerful” — “not usable in the context of a game as the word is commonly defined”.
Why? Because a character with that refresh has one player, the GM. The ostensible player is rendered (mechanically) just an observer, pretty much all the time.
It’s way better to just lift the refresh cap higher, either for that character or for everyone.
It’s more honest, too, since the player doesn’t really have negative refresh. I assume that that would mean that at the start of every adventure they hand the GM some fate points. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t work: they don’t have any yet!
Refresh as it is being bandied about is more a balance tool than a story tool, it seems. But it does not have to be, is what I’m also getting. I’ll have to wait to see the system to see how it handles changing the ‘refresh cap’ as you call it. I don’t know how much each character starts with and such, and if there are ways to buy the cap up or… what have you. I’m interested to learn more about it.
Mostly, I don’t want a door slamming in my character’s face because I want to take him down an interesting path with very high-level consequences along the way, both for the benefit and detriment to my character. I never want to fill the canvas, I want to keep painting the character much like a writer can keep going with more and more novels long past the point of the character’s original story being told. I don’t want a level cap, is the gist. I want to, if I stick with a character long enough, rival Wardens and Marcone-level humans and Queen Mab level characters… even if that makes me ‘the bad guy’ because the actions I take are against all that is good and natural… I want the /option/.
I also suppose I prefer the rules for such things to be included in the rulebooks somewhere because, well, I am not an RPG writer. Hence, if I tried to come up with something to make what I want possible basically from scratch, it’ll probably not be very well done.
The people who are making this game are professionals, and I want my Epic Level gaming to have a professional touch.
I say this, by the by… with an RPG based on an original concept sitting about a quarter done on my hard drive. I know how hard it can be, at least in theory. Doing it alone? Nigh-impossible, even.
Uhh, I am not entirely sure what the topics are about. I did notice something about the Fallen Coins. I think that if you were to put it in the game that it should give your character debuffs or something… Maybe altering your characters actions/choices as you use the coin more and as it gains power over you. Possibly even make the coin able to randomly consume your character and make him do unwanted actions. Eventually resulting in being fully consumed. I am sorry if i don’t make any sense in this
I think I ment the Denarian Coin <.< I havent been able to read any of the books for a while and havent gotten past White Night yet because of my Library do I apologize if i messed up or something xD
I have to say, all of the character types look amazing. It makes me really want to play or run a game of this. A question though, are there (or will there be) rules for playing scions? I think that’s a proper term for them, it’s been awhile since I read that book but it’s what Kincaid is according to McCoy.
@Nostri, we’re going to “cover” them, but not provide an explicit template — because the field’s wide open, due to variety. Still, we’ve got a sidebar drafted that should guide people for how to grow their own.
I have a question, kinda in the same league as eric’s. Will the GM have access to the stats of the fae and such; so if I as the GM chose to allow someone to play a Fea, full vampire or any other spectrum of nasty I could by applying and tweeking the stats?
The ability to grow your own templates, whether based on imagination or existing monster writeups, should be exceedingly easy for a GM.
What happened to the scion character type. Ive been looking for it.
@Rion The scion is a sidebar — the sort of thing that needs to be done on a build-your-own basis, since the variations out there are so numerous and so potentially widely different.
@Skullduggery
More over, Each coin contains a specific personality, Harry’s coin is one not normally used to ensnare people because it was unpredictable. Each Denarian would behave differently when coming in contact with PCs
As a point of interest can black court vamps tread upon holy ground even if they must avoid holy water..the threshold of a church is open invitation..could they actually trespass upon church property?
@Lon, regardless of the holy ground question (I personally would think they couldn’t manage it), churches have a ludicrously high threshold, the sort that would strip supernatural beings of their power if they weren’t invited onto the premises. I’d expect BCVs to be unable to hold themselves together in the face of that. The holy ground part, that’s gravy.
thanks, what about a church owned hospital? My sinister thinking is that they could manage it well enough as it is not actual holy ground and has an open threshold.
@Lon, I’m inclined to agree with your thinking.
Score one for the devious storyteller.
OK this all looks awesome but where or what would Kincaid be classified. All we really know is that McCoy doesn’t like him and Harry saw him with the Sight. He obviously has some power but no one (other than Jim) knows his origins. I have always been fascinated by him.
Ah just saw the sidebar response. Should have read more closely
I have done alot of reading about the fate system and spirit of the century so i could become familiar with the system and from everything ive read about the system and this game you guys are making i think it all sounds great my only question is will characters like dragons, Naagloshii, and old gods be provided (like in stat form for the gm) i realize most of these sorts of characters are not often talked about in the dresden world and what they are capable of is also unknown.
@chris, as we’ve said before we can only go so far as the books will let us, but we’ll speculate on whatever glimmers of information show up about the less detailed things. Sometimes that’s not much.
It seems to reason that the Naag..the thing from turn coat..and dragons could be placed in the ubiquietous category of MONSTERS..(shiver)..thus you relly don’t need to explain much more than what they do..
for the interested.
Player: Could I play a well meaning Denarian?
ST (Me): (frown) how so?
Player: Like when harry was in control over Lash?
ST:Harry refused to carry the coin and it took an extreme effort of will not to use the power it had often.
Player: Yeah kinda like that only using it for good.
ST: right up until you became an NPC that killed the whole party for the good of humanity?
Player: good point.
Ok, i’m gonna take a leap here on the topic of Kincaid. Everyone seems to be wanting to know where he fits in, what “class” he is, and if something like him is playable. Now, reading the character types, and taking from the books, it seems that all the player-character types have one trait in common, and that is a level of humanity. Even the possibly playable fae (assuming the gm allows such a thing) have a level of will, morality, and general weakness. Kincaid, as he is presented in the books, is very much not human, and also seems to have a very, very skewed version of morals, if any. In fact, short of his attachment to Ivey, he may not have normal emotions. His feelings on Murphy are described as vague, at best. Simply put, a virtually immortal killing machine with a brain as alien as Kincaid’s would honestly be best left as a plot device.
Given, this is just my opinion, and end choice goes to the game designers.
But yes, Kincaid is a badazz.
first i am re commenting because i put the wrong email adress last time, dont know if that does anything,but i noticed on the character sheet it says power level submerged for Dresden, what does that mean?, is there a level system then? just out of curiosity
@dante, check out this post by playtester extraordinaire Rick Neal:
http://www.rickneal.ca/?p=594
never mind answered my own question,and as with on the changeling page, can you make a half demon?i mean do they have any must?, because like corbin said yeah kincaid is a Bamf but he has no emotions, but say you had one really wise cracking, very involved half demon who was very human like except in power,could that be a pc? and another of my unending army of questions didnt they hint kincaid was a scion?
thankies fred
Check out the Changeling page for my response. I would also point out that Kincaid is not emotionless no matter how hard he tries to be. He has obvious feelings for Ivy beyond their contract. he expresses anger at the idea of disrupting her childish enjoyment of the sea otters and acknowledges his and Harry’s near familial connection to her. He is also at least somewhat sentimental with Murphy. A hard ass he might be but he is still human to some degree.