Dresden files rpg review

Like mortal stunts, powers are detailed in a separate chapter. The powers are divided into functional groups based on general supernatural type, and as there are more powers than stunts a convenient table is provided with an alphabetical listing of all powers with brief summaries and page references.

A final note on refresh levels, a character cannot have their final refresh drop below one. If this happen the character loses its inherent humanity and free will, thus becoming an NPC under the control of the GM. This limit serves two functions, the first is in the novels reference is made to the importance of free will and how it separates the heroes from the monsters. Secondly it serves as an in game limit as to how powerful a character can be, keeping the levels within the general range of the characters in the novels.

Each character begins with a number of fate point equal to their final refresh level. There are three types of damage a character can suffer and these are tracked on stress tracks. Each type of stress: physical, mental and social, begins with two boxes and can be increased with higher ratings in associated skills.

Also each character has a number of consequences they can suffer, which can be increased by skill and power selection. A discussion of stress and consequences can be found in the next section.

The minimal preparation method skips the phase portion. In the on the fly method, players begin with blank character sheets and fill them in during play. One aspect of the DFRPG really stands out, is that in addition to collaborative character creation, the setting is created in the same manner. This shift in creative responsibility has two benefits. First it reduces the amount of preparation time a GM must commit to the game; as an older GM with other time commitments, I find a short preparation time to be a great boon.

Also, DFRPG gives the players direct influence on the design of the setting and what types of stories and themes are played out. In addition, I have found that getting players involved in some setting work helps engender a sense of ownership in the setting and much more involved players.

Setting design as presented in the DFRPG has a top down structure, in which the group begins with an overview of the city and gradually adds more detail.

There are several options available for cities that can be used in this game. All of the options lay upon a continuum from using the city the group lives in, a city everyone is familiar with, a city that is familiar from television, or a premade setting. This book includes an example of the last option, using Baltimore as an example thorough the city creation process, and having it fully detailed in its own chapter towards the end of the book.

After determining which city is to be used all of the players and GM should have an equal level of familiarity with the city in question. If familiarity is an issue then a bit of research is in order and recommended to create something more than a caricature.

Referencing Internet sites and trips to the local library are both quick and easy ways to get a sound foundation. If doing a little background reading is off-putting for the group there is another, and in my opinion less satisfying, method available, the Vancouver method. This is based on the trick in the television trade of filming the majority of scenes in a less expensive city, e.

Vancouver or Toronto, and only filming in the actual city when you have skyline shot or need to include a distinctive landmark. After deciding on a location the group needs to determine which elements of the city they wish to interact with. These elements can range from specific locations, public figures, popular mis conceptions, subcultures, etc. The recommended goal is a dozen distinct ideas, that will see play at some point in the story.

These elements are then used to drive the creation of themes and threats. These are problems facing the city and will be used to drive the story forward.

A theme is a recurring problem that is deeply entrenched in the city and will take a long while, in story time, to resolve. A threat is typically a single entity that actively wants to harm the mortal populace of the city in question. Once the overview of the city is worked out and recorded on the City Sheet provided, the group moves on to populating the city with various organizations. This can simply consist of deciding which groups have an interest in the city and going from there, or as detailed as developing relationship maps.

The themes and threats to the city should drive which supernatural organizations are present. The second half of the City Sheet addresses some of these relationships with spaces to fill in the mortal and supernatural status quo and a graph to be filled in with various groups displaying their desire to maintain the status quo and how much they know about the supernatural.

From here the focus narrows and specific locations within the city are created next. Much like the high level planning there is a worksheet provided to keep note of the various locations created during this process and during play. Locations are broadly divided into neighborhoods and points of interest. Neighborhoods typically cover a larger physical area while points of interest are tightly focused.

Each location should address either a theme or threat identified in during city creation so as to keep it tied in. Each location then receives a face, an NPC that embodies the location, and at this point each person is given a high concept and motivation. Ideally each face will be connected to another and potentially PCs through some kind of relationship. After the faces have been established each location is given an aspect reflecting the theme or threat and is recorded on the location worksheet.

Faces have their own sheet recording their name, location, concept, motivation and relationships stats for faces are worked up in game. Alternatives to single city play are addressed and suggestions are given as to how to use the same process on a larger scale. Examples include dealing with a traveling band of characters at a national and global level, and even into the realms of the Nevernever the mystical other world of the Dresdenverse.

On the fly city setting design is addressed as well which places a heavier burden on the GM as all of the themes, threat, locations and faces are created during play. The FATE system uses a dice pool and target number to determine the success of actions taken by characters.

The dice are six sided and have two plus signs, two minus signs and two blank faces. To this result is added any bonuses from aspects, skills and stunts the character can apply. This total is then compared to the difficulty set by the GM. In the future I plan on doing system reviews as I read, re-read, run, or play systems.

The book comes in a pages and available in PDF, soft cover, and hard cover. The production value of this book is excellent. The book consists of chapters on the notable thirteen chapters. The first several chapters talk about the Dresden Files setting. The next couple of chapters outline game and character creation.

Though the chapter on Stunts, Conditions, and Mantles is stuck in the middle of the book when it should really come after the character creation chapter.

Then comes chapters outlining basic rules of the game. Chapters on come at the tail end of the book. The system uses specialized dice called FATE dice. The approach the character is using is added to the results to get value on the FATE ladder. The idea is that the dice role provides you with a numeric and descriptive value of your results.

It find that the descriptive result on the FATE ladder encourages better descriptions for character actions. Nothing brings a player more joy than describing how their character pulled off that legendary result they just rolled. There are four actions that characters can perform create an advantage in the form of an aspect , overcome usually removing an aspect , attack and defend.

These four actions cover almost all situations that come up in a typical role-playing session. I cannot blame this on ham though, because this is a matter of my personal tastes. You can serve a world class Virginia smoked ham prepared by Woflgang Puck and I probably still would not like it. Every time that I have tried it ham it turns out to be not my thing.

I do not hate ham, but I do avoid eating it. My personal tastes though should not blind me to the fact that you can still have a good quality product in the form of ham. Obviously other people like ham, and I should not try to convince them otherwise.

The Dresden Files RPG is an obviously well-crafted product that will appeal to many people that I myself am not that crazy for. Never before have I reviewed a product that did not appeal to me, but that I knew would appeal to others on a large scale. I finally understand how my friends who do not like the film The Godfather feel. This product has many outstanding qualities, and you can easily find others singing its praises on the Internet through various web sites. It recently made the prestigious short-list for the Diana Jones Award.

Not a great place to be as a reviewer. How do I tell you the obvious this is a really good product , and still be honest this is a really good product that I do not care for?

In an attempt to be both both fair to The Dresden Files RPG , as well as to share my honest opinion with all of you I am splitting this review across two web sites. Here on Gnome Stew I am going to tell you why this product deserves the praise that it is receiving, and over on my personal blog SinisterForces I am going to share with you why I do not care for the product for personal reasons. Read one of the two reviews, or read them both, but remember that my reasons for not liking the product are based upon my personal tastes as a fan of RPGs.

Props to Fred for letting his work stand on its own. From the moment you pick up The Dresden Files RPG full color artwork greets you on the cover and continues to leap out at you from its plus pages. The layout work done on this product is absolutely incredible. You get a real sense of the book being a dynamic story unto itself, and in may ways it is more on that later. Every details seems to have been picked on purpose to ensure that this RPG does not just present you with the rules but also sucks you into the game world.

The fonts, borders, and everything else seems to fit perfectly into the setting that the product describes. This is not just a book, but a portal into the world of Harry Dresden. I confess that I have only read three of the Harry Dresden books, but even with my limited knowledge of the Dresdenverse it is clear that this RPG is loyal to the source material.

Anyone who has read any of the titles from the Dresden series will be treated to many references to events that occurred within the books. In some ways this book is not just an RPG but a reference guide to the Dresdenverse. Even if you have not read any of the books the RPG serves as a good introduction to the world of Harry Dresden which is by all means a fascinating one.

Yes the book is gorgeous, yes the book has style, but none of that matters if the game sucks. Luckily the game is solid as well, and if you are a fan of the Fate system Spirit of the Century , Strands of Fate , etc.

Fate is a fantastic rules system that focuses on the storytelling aspect of RPGs. It is a derivative of my personal favorite game system Fudge , and it stays true to its roots while at the same time expanding upon the system and tightening up a few parts as well. Fair warning — Fate and Fudge are game systems that may not be for everyone. Luckily both are available for free on the web for you to try before you buy, and as much as I am a fan of these systems you should try them out first before buying The Dresden Files RPG.

In many ways Fate and Harry Dresden are a perfect fit, because magic in the works of Jim Butcher is not dependent so much on what something is but what it represents. This again just builds upon the synergy between the RPG and the published works. With all of the production work that went into The Dresden Files RPG there has to be a price, and in this case that is literally the price!

It should be noted though that Evil Hat Productions provides a PDF copy to anyone who buys a print version of their products through retailers, and orders placed through their online store for print products includes the PDF versions. Perhaps it is better to think of it this way: Do you want a Mercedes? There are very few reasons to buy a Mercedes-Benz automobile from a practical standpoint. And in that time, I finally had the chance to read a book series that I had heard fellow nerds go on about.

As I visited a new city with crammed together townhouses, a decidedly different attitude, and loads of history, it became fun to look for ogres under train trestles, secret societies in Independence Hall, and ways to dig into a city where strange but wonderful things lurked. And, truth be told, I rather enjoyed it.

In fact, I still consider the short story that was included in the GM guide entitled Our World to be worth the price of admission. But even I, fanboy that I was, had to admit that there were some major balance issues, and long term games kept being derailed due to the format. The game was released after Spirit of the Century, but before the launch of Fate Core 3E, and there were signs of it being a beta version before the full copy was released.

It is, and I say this lovingly, absolutely unbalanced. In particular, the magic mechanics really sent things off the rails, and I found my first gamebreaking system loophole pretty easily.

But I still have a fondness for the setting, so when I voiced an interest to my fellow Cannibal Halflings, it was brought up that a new version had been released based off of the Fate Accelerated tweaks from Evil Hat. So, with the past in mind, I took a foray into the system update. I am happy to say that a lot of the non-mechanic features made their way back in.

Dresden Files Accelerated carries over a tradition from the other books, in that it maintains the fiction that the rule book is a practical survival guide that is getting published in the Dresden Universe as a RPG Core book.

Their notes keep the tone from the other books, and help provide helpful notes to players, as well as offer a few jokes. Personally, I enjoy the change, because story events have made the setting so different that it could be hard to play in.

Now in terms of mechanics: overall evaluation, I do think that Evil Hat succeeded in their goal of making the game more streamlined. One of the more difficult hangups of the previous version was the setting creation process, which required a lot of moving parts to be spelled out.

For some play styles, that was fine, but it made the plot dependent on initial GM and player planning before you began play, in which you would have to build out areas and NPCs of importance. In Accelerated, you pick a number of these five are given as an example and, if desired, you link your PCs to them.

For each faction, the players and GM will pick a Face of the organization, and will give a rough outline of their goals, their obstacles, their resources, and their weaknesses. GMs can control exactly how much player influence they have, and can introduce secrets to these groups, handle some of the details on their own, or introduce one of their own without telling players.