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December 12th, 2008
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- And if you want to enjoy the (rare) opportunity to get @longshotauthor to sign your DFRPGs, there's an autograph event at 1pm on Saturday! 2 days ago
- Fred will be on the Indie Publisher panels happening Friday at 11:30am and Saturday at 2pm. 2 days ago
- We've also confirmed that Adventure Retail will have copies of the DFRPG at #dragoncon so if you haven't picked yours up yet... 2 days ago
- Speaking of Atlanta, @fredhicks will be at #DragonCon as will @longshotauthor! 2 days ago
- An Atlanta-based "living campaign" of the Dresden Files RPG: http://groups.google.com/group/paranet-adventures?hl=en 2 days ago
- RT @RyanMacklin: My video interview from GenCon is up on GameSalute.com, talking about DFRPG & Fiasco. http://www.gamesalute.com/?p=2947 1 week ago
- Yay drift! RT @hedgedevil:All in all, good night. A Buffy game using the @dresdenfiles system is remarkably fun. Alt universes for everyone! 2 weeks ago
- We will be suspending shipping operations after today at the Evil Hat webstore while we transition to a new shipping partner. 1-2 weeks. 3 weeks ago
- Brennan Taylor reports first day sales at the IPR/Evil Hat booth: 99 Your Story, 75 Our World! That's some heavy volume. 3 weeks ago
- Evil Hat's products are going to be distributed by PHD, LLC as well now. We've been expanding our list... 2010-07-21
- More updates...
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Dresden Files RPG LJ Community
- Need some ideas for rote spells August 23, 2010
- Even hand short story. August 12, 2010
- It took him long enough! August 12, 2010
Hope too see this come
HAY!, what are “Tut Tut”s game stats?
@Thomas We don’t have them yet. And it’s spelled “Toot-Toot”
Is there any plans for LARP rules? I emailed you about it recently but haven’t had a response. I’d love to help with that if needed.
@Joe LARP rules are not a priority for us right now. Let’s please focus on getting one thing right at a time!
I (and the 8 players in my group) am really looking forward to Dresden RPG. It’s a must buy when it comes out!!
Ditto. I just ran a SotC hack with a friend of mine — who turned out to have been a (unfortunately tight-lipped!) player in an early Dresden Files RPG playtest — and now I want it more than ever
Fred, I would just like to say Don’t Rest Your Head is possibly my favorite RPG of all time. I can’t wait to see what else you and your genius come up with in The Dresden Files RPG.
On a side note: Is there anyway you guys could release some more information on the Starblazers RPG?
@Brandon Beard — We’re not producing Starblazer (no plural), so I can’t tell you THAT much. Here’s the website: http://www.cubicle-7.com/starblazer.htm
I’m a big Dresden RPG booster but I have to tell you its been a while. Butcher’s Turn Coat complicates things. He can write a whole book by himself while you research the RPG.
I hope you can keep up with the Dresdenverse additions from the new book. (insert spoiler here) and anything he adds while you fine tune. People are going to want the game to cover what they know when it comes out.
I say nice things to people who’ve given up waiting. Looking forward to the RPG.
Sigurd
Our cut-off for the published game will be Small Favor. If we manage to get the game out before Turn Coat comes out in paperback, that fits our idea of “stuff everyone has had access to”. Not everyone can afford Turn Coat in its current form.
@fred
You have to have your publishing goals and at this point I think sooner is better than perfect. Still Turn Coat introduced the concept of a wizard’s sanctum and gave a lot of concrete organizational information about the white council. Without worrying too much about the plot or characters I think the setting information would be welcome.
Sigurd
I was wondering, are there going to be supplements after the core book is released, like on book on the Vampire Courts, or another on the different Werewolves. With plots and ploys to explain the politics and game mechanics more in depth?
@WayneBHead, check the comments here for more, but right now we’re focusing on producing one book that’ll cover the whole deal.
Can’t wait! really looking forward to seeing some item creation information. Jim thinks up the coolest enchanted weapons and nick-knacks.
As a fan, all I want to say is: If you do justice to the books (which I know is what you want to do) I’ll be there with cash in hand.
@fred
>>Not everyone can afford Turn Coat in its current form.
Fred, as a side note for cash-strapped fans… don’t forget about libraries! True, libraries don’t let you keep the books, but they are a great resource for Dresden info. The library in my area has all of the Dresden files available in book format, and we have the books on CD as well. All for free!
We know that the older the corpse is, the more powerful the zombie, and human zombies are more powerful (but it is more evil to create them), I wonder…
What would happen if Sue the Zombie T-Rex faced off against, say, a zombified Turkana boy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkana_Boy).
WELCOME TO NECROMANIA! IN THIS CORNER, WEIGHING IN AT OVER 141 THOUSAND POUNDS AND AGED AT OVER 65 MILLION YEARS… OUR CHAMPION, SUE THE ZOMBIE T-REX!
AND IN THIS CORNER, WEIGHING IN AT 95 POUNDS AND AGED AT 1.5 MILLION YEARS, OUR CHALLENGER, TURKANA BOY!
ALL RIGHT NECROFANS! LET’S GET READY TO RUMBLLLLLE!!!!
OH YEA
CAN NOT WAIT
THIS IS SO COOL!
our City setting is New Orleans, WE BEGAN IT in OWOD, its called shadows and vials, and I am going to place it into the Dresdenverse now!
we here in new Orleans have a different world all together as it were, and y’u just got a more darker game. we got a Wizard lawyer name Howard L Christoph. a spirit of the city as it where called symbol- he called That due to the strange symbol he found on his chest over two hundred years ago. his real name is Charles Lloyd Holmes, well that is that is the name he gose by now. we got vampires and voodoo and some nasty ghoul issues and you want ghost we got them too and a few odd one like a little ole girl name Rebeca Sinclair who is a living vampire- here of later we got a child running around with a magic tome name Thomas white – this here tome is said to be sentient Directing the boy to do acts of magic beyond his years.
top it off New Orleans is a Freehold and now one dare upset the balance, or the city its self well take care of you, usually by symbol but there are more harden ways, you thanks Katrina stopped all that>?
no ma sharey* it don’t not it just made it hungrier and darker more desperate its the city that well not die!
come for a visit, stay a while, but if you thin your going to wheel in here and push you magicks like you want? well, I hear that there are things that com up from the bayou like a man and takes ya ‘ll under like a gator!
I was wondering if you guy’s where planing anything for Dexcon coming up in July, I always attend (If cooped up in the staff suite most of the time) and was simply wondering.
@Waffles, no idea, I’m personally tight on time this Summer outside of Origins.
Hello me and my fiance would like to pre-order the books. We would like to be able to have a copy of the pdfs on each of our computers though, will we be able to have two pdf downloads when we pre-order or would we have to buy a second pdf copy?
Brian Berardi
@Brian Berardi, play groups share their physical books, so why not PDFs? Our policy is that limited sharing of that sort is OK, so long as the shared copies don’t go any further afield and aren’t kept permanently without a purchase.
Heyho, just preordered DFrpg because of it being a Fate3 modern mysticism thing and I am PLEASED!
Will you be represented at the Spiel2010 this Fall in Essen,Germany?
It is one of Europes biggest game and toy fairs with a decent share of roleplaying games.
greetings from across the pond,
Alex
Is anyone having connection problems with the forum on Jim’s site?
@Stoak, yeah, the traffic level due to Changes has really shot memory usage through the roof, so the webserver keeps dyin’ with an out of memory error. It’ll improve as the fervor dies down, I think.
Have my preorder PDFs. Now what the heck does “(NE)” mean? It’s peppered all over the place next to characters names? (Yes, I realize I’m probably missing the easy answer, but there you are.)
@Tom, go to the beginning of the chapter and read the post-it note that has highlighter on it.
I really wish y’all would work with some artists to get some extra material.
Dresden themed fudge dice, or play mats, bordered city sets.
Avatars, anything to make this even way better, though that will be hard because it is epic!
can’t seem to join the forum…can’t get an activation email…which is sad because I would really love to join the community…
If you’re having forum access issues, contact the feedback address shown towards the bottom of this page: http://www.jim-butcher.com/feedback/
will the black court be available to players?
@Dave, generally, no — too powerful for starting characters. But depending on the GM and the power level she sets for the game, and of course the general philosophy about whether it’s appropriate in the game to play a relentlessly evil walking corpse-creature — maybe.
Hey, the forums are down but I had an important question-
I have a character in my game that is an apprentice to “Injun Joe” Listens to Wind, and I want him to be able to learn the animal transformation magic that Joe uses in Turn Coat. Obviously he isn’t going to be able to take on a half dozen forms at will, but I would like him to be able to turn himself into one or two shapes and back very quickly.
How would you adjudicate this- both as far as how to make it work and how to affect the stats of the changed forms?
I’d have him spend some points on a shapeshifting ability instead of refinement.
Man, that’s tough for a starting character who already has -7 from the Wizard template. I guess maybe I’ll just have to rely on thaumaturgy involving a lot of prep work until he has points to spend on a whole second template.
@T.J., there’ve been several long conversations on the forum boards about the topic. You may find other thoughts there. But my take is that at “low” levels you’re either a One Spell Johnny (like the Alphas), or you’re not far enough along in your spellcraft to be able to pull off a very advanced trick like shapeshifting. There might be ways to emulate some of the effects of shapeshifting, but they’ll beat you to crap with all of the effort you have to put into it. (Imagine each use of a power effect provided by shapeshifting as a separate spell-casting event.) The way you lock that kind of effort down to being something that DOESN’T beat you to crap is by actually investing the refresh points in the capability to do it repeatably, reliably, and without a lot of preparation and sacrifice.
How many shifts are we talking about to turn into- let’s say a Hawk, anyway? My quick and dirty idea was to just use whatever the refresh cost for the equivalent shapeshifting would be (-6 in this case.) Does that seem way too low?
@T.J., if you’re really rule of thumbing it, I’d count up the shifts of effect, not the refresh points. Using stunt logic, each point of refresh provides about a 2-shift effect — but that’s only as a general principle. That puts your starting cost at 12 shifts. But that’s not really what’s going on, because each power has multiple effects; which effect are you talking about? The ability to shift around all your physical skills? That’s shifts equal to the new value of the skill, each time the new skill is used, etc (or you could spend the 1 point of refresh on Beast Change, at least, and not have to worry about that part).
Or you could take the alternative track: how much would it take to construct a spell that kills the target? Now redefine the “taken out” result as “okay, instead of dead, you have the following new character sheet”.
Even 12 shifts just seems really high, even for low-balling it. I mean, assuming Joe as he appears in Our World is really underestimating his power. Even if we bumped his Lore and his Biomancy power and control up by 2 each, that still wouldn’t put him in a position to take a different animal form with evocation speed every exchange like he did fighting the nagloshii. It seems like there’d have to be an easier way to do that. Unless of course we’re assuming he took each of those forms as a separate shapeshifting template, that is.
@T.J., yeah, I think Billy is seriously underestimating all of the Senior Council in Our World, because the data we have of the Senior Council in action is really scant prior to things like Turn Coat. As the series develops I’d be more inclined to rate the Sr. Council refresh totals in the twenties, easily.
As far as the Naagloshi fight goes: True Shapeshifting + Modular Abliities = Rapid changes. Then again that was a PLOT DEVICE FIGHT, so it got a big dose of handwavium.
Alright, I think I can live with that. I guess I’ll just base the character around picking up that shapechange template down the line, then maybe “trading up” the refresh points into to True Shapeshifting if we ever get into that league. It’ll eat up my ability to take refinement, but I guess that’s fair considering his shapeshifting magic really *is* his refinement.
Anyway, thanks for the feedback! I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a response that quick and with that much detail on any gaming site before.
@T.J., yeah, that’s the line of thinking: sometimes your ‘refinement’ is actually another power. (If I was writing for the game *today*, I’d probably put something in the refinement options like: “Or, maybe you’re actually spending this point of refresh on something else — like Beast Change — as an expression of your practiced magical power.”)
The trick with any biomancy (which shapeshifting is an advanced form of, really) is that the effects it creates are just that, effects. You want to supercharge your muscles so they lift heavier weights, that’s a spell shift cost equal to the level of Might you want to operate at for lifting; you want that to also mean your punches hit with Weapon:4 strength, that’s another 4 shifts of cost as well. With the spell system, intent precedes mechanics, always. Answer “what’s the *effect* (in terms of “what effect happens this exchange?”) you’re looking for?” first, then find the mechanics that match it. “I want to punch extra hard” “Okay, that sounds like an attack effect, let’s build it that way”.
@T.J., another thing to consider is that maybe this guy sucks at any ritual spellcasting that ISN’T directed towards shapeshifting; maybe he has Evocation, Beast Change, and Wings — and that’s about it. 5 refresh.
I had considered that, actually. Give him the beast stuff up-front and he can develop into a well-rounded wizard later. It’s an 8 refresh game, so I could even take that and add on Ritual (biomancy) and still come in under par. That or tack on Inhuman Speed as well.
I am seeking someone interested in telling good stories in the Dresden Files RPG over Skype, for an internet campaign. I have players that are willing to play and ready to go but I just need to find someone dedicated to being a good GM and telling good stories. I am looking to play, personally. You can reach me at jonathan.baldridge@gmail.com.
Will you be putting out a Story Teller’s screen for Dresden Files rpg?
@jimofpeace, we don’t have any plans yet, but we may do this. Can’t say yet.