Philly on Fire - A Dresden Files Adventure

We started a new Dresden Files adventure on Saturday. The characters are recurring from an adventure I ran maybe 2 years ago. The characters are:

• Alvin – A half-ogre Philly cop trying to balance his responsibilities to two worlds.

• James – A mortal who heads up a mercenary outfit called Charon. He’s new to all of this insanity regarding fairies and magic.

• Kara – A winter court changeling who is grudgingly accepted as a wizard of the white council. She operates an underground railroad for those supernatural in need.

• Maeve – Scion of the archangel Michael. She’s got a bad reputation with the law and is stubbornly independent.

• Mike – A were-panther hacker who used to work for the government. He’s incredibly paranoid and lives as far off the grid as possible for a hacker.

• Sean – A holy warrior chosen as God’s right hand. He’s related to Maeve, swings a mean sword, and is reviled by the church.

I started the adventure by running everyone through what I call a “short story”. Basically, I put each of the PCs in a bad situation. We go around the table and each player tells me how they got into the situation. We go around the table again and they tell me how things get worse. Every bad thing they tell me, they get a fate point. We go around the table again, and they tell me how things get even worse. More fate points. Finally, they tell me how they get out of the mess. Every unresolved hook garners them another fate point. There are no dice involved. It's all narration for short stories. Players can get as wacky or epic as they want.

At the end of the short stories (the player ended up threading them together so they all happened at the same time), we had the Comcast building lying in ruins, a Denarian running free, sorcerers plotting to take over Philadelphia (and potentially the world), a chemical plant explosion, a bounty hunter possessed by an Outsider, the collapse of the global economy due to a mysterious plot, and a member of Charon kidnapped. All in 1 night.

With as crazy as things were, I had to start the next adventure immediately afterwards, so we could resolve all of those great hooks! And so the adventure started…