The Dresden Files RPG

Cover Art Wallpaper Is In

We thought you all might like to see the cover art for both books from David Seidman today, formatted as wallpaper for folks looking to adorn their desktops. Click for the bigs!

Your Story

(Widescreen Version) (Non-Widescreen Version)

Our World

(Widescreen Version) (Non-Widescreen Version)

You’ve seen the first one for a few years now, but the second one just showed up in yesterday’s press release.  We’re excited to get that scene from Blood Rites illustrated, and it continues in Evil Hat’s tradition of making sure we have an ape on another cover.  Double victory!

Product Pricing

When we announced the release of The Dresden Files RPG for the upcoming Origins 2010, we had to put little “TBDs” (to be determined) for the pricing on the books. The reasons were several — we needed to figure out who our printer was likely to be (we’ve done that), and moreover whether or not we’d be going into distribution in order to get the product out to as many game-stores as we could (and as of yesterday, we’ve done that too).

Once those decisions were in hand, it was time to crunch numbers: we needed to make sure that every scenario we constructed made sure Jim got paid what he deserves, and that Evil Hat gets enough of a cut that it can make its costs back and, with a little luck and support from our fans, grow. It’s heady algebra, but we’ve run the numbers backwards and forwards at this point and we’re pretty confident we’ve gotten the prices down to where they’re competitive for the market, supportive of Jim, mindful of the fans, and friendly to us staying in business.

Which means we can share ‘em:

The Dresden Files RPG: Volume 1 – Your Story ISBN 978-0-9771534-7-3. Approx. 400 pages, 8.5″x11″, full color hardcover. MSRP $49.99.

The Dresden Files RPG: Volume 2 – Our World ISBN 978-0-9771534-8-0. Approx. 270 pages, 8.5″x11″, full color hardcover. MSRP $39.99.

No preorder announcement yet — but we are doing our best to stay on track for one that’ll land in the earlier part of our projected “sometime between early April and late June” range we’ve already been talking about.  And as with all Evil Hat preorders, when we do kick that off, it’ll come with an immediately-available PDF download so you can sink your teeth in while waiting for the physical things to arrive.

General art, david seidman, price, product info

Wow, time passes when your nose is to the grindstone.

It’s Ryan again, posting up another project update. Everyone on the project is pretty hard at work, and while it’s hardly exciting to type “so, we’re still working!” it is exciting to be in that state. Fred’s been tweeting about working on the magic & spellcraft chapter, and Lenny & I have been pushing to revise the various chapters, incorporating playtester feedback. Amanda & Adam have been taking the drafts and working on them as fast as we can get them out. Overall, we’re working like a well-oiled machine.

Read more…

General art, jennifer rodgers, status

Hi, it’s Ryan again. It’s been a few weeks since the last update, so it’s time to give you the Dresden Files RPG skinny!

The last update was pretty lengthy, since I had all sorts of news to share. This one will be shorter, but not because we’re lying down on the job! Indeed, we’re hard at work going through the revision process on most of the chapters – particularly the basics, like Aspects & Skills. A lot of the text was inherited from Spirit of the Century, so we’ve been going through and fix any inaccuracies that came up in tweaking FATE for the Dresden Files. Combine that with our editors hard at work going through the drafts we give them, and there’s a lot of work going on but not a lot to blog about.

Still, I have a couple neat points. One is that going back through chapters like Aspects has given us a neat opportunity. Often, we’ll get on the FATE mailing list or on various forums about how aspects work, such as if you can, as a player, compel an NPC’s aspect (which, by the way, you effectively can – check out “To Catch a King (Tagging for Effect)” on p. 42 of Spirit of the Century). Given the last couple years of experience in answering these questions, we’re going through the text to see how we could better present these options to players, focusing in part on making sure the terminology makes sense in the face of three years of public “playtesting”.

Lenny’s looking forward to talk about such things on the site in the future, though probably not often – we want him working on the book first and blogging second!

The other is that I got a chance at Dreamation to sit down with Jennifer Rodgers. She shared with me some pieces that are still in progress, and I have to say I’m always stunned by her work. But rather than tell you, let me show you one:

Read more…

General art, jennifer rodgers, lenny, status, system

Just a reminder, Fred is blogging pretty regularly about all things Evil Hat over on his LiveJournal:

http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/

You can filter just the posts about the Dresden Files RPG this way:

http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/tag/dresden+files+rpg

Recently, Fred gave us some previews of an art piece Jennifer Rodgers is working on for the RPG:

http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/354561.html
http://jenniferrodgers.livejournal.com/26637.html
http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/355699.html
http://jenniferrodgers.livejournal.com/26887.html

Over in Bleeding Alpha playtest land, Rick Neal’s had a lot to say:

http://www.rickneal.ca/?tag=dresden

But he’s not alone:

http://spazingames.blogspot.com/search/label/Dresden%20Files
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=387839
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=388884
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=387347
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=386779
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=387348

And did we mention that Small Favor is out, and dancing around the top of all sorts of bestseller lists?

http://www.amazon.com/Small-Favor-Dresden-Files-Book/dp/0451461894/iagonet

Or that the Dresden Files comic book will be coming out next week?

http://dabelbrothers.com/index.php?categoryid=37

General art, jennifer rodgers, jim, playtest

From the inestimable Jennifer Rodgers, one of the artists we have on board for the RPG.

In other playtesting news, the “bleeding alpha” group is tearing into the rules, making Dresdenified cities, and working through some core components of the system. We’ve still got many more weeks to keep swinging at it, but the initial response is pretty good.

Keep an eye around the blogosphere, you might even see a few of them talking about it!

Talk about this over on the Jim Butcher forums

General art, jennifer rodgers

Melissa Gay pursued a BA degree in Studio Art at the University of the South (c’ 1990), an MS degree in Biology from Middle Tennessee State University, and a less-than-satisfying career in fine art before realizing that she had always wanted to be a fantasy illustrator. In 1998 she began to show and sell prints of fairy paintings at science fiction conventions, and she has been happy ever since. Her illustrations have appeared in roleplaying games and supplements, lab manuals, herbals, a comic book, and a newspaper. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband and baby son, one resident cat, and two cats errant who just stop by for meals. When not drawing or painting, she is reading or singing to her child, practicing Wado-Ryu Karate, roleplaying, hiking, writing, harassing a musical instrument, sewing, or otherwise getting into mischief. She has been an avid roleplayer since the age of 10.

Melissa is our September spotlight artist, and brings us a glimpse into the Summer and Winter Courts of the Fae.

Read more…

General art, melissa gay

Born in Atlanta, Talon Dunning was raised in Miami, Florida before moving back to Atlanta in 1997 after graduating in Fine Art from Auburn University. Talon now does freelance illustration in the RPG and CCG industries. Currently, his main client is White Wolf with whom he interned in 1999-2000.

Talon is our August spotlight artist. We’ll be giving you more peeks into the game’s art and other artists as the months progress.

Read more…

General art, talon dunning

Residing in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, Ed Northcott likes to use lots of
capital letters in his opening sentences. When not chained
to the drawing board or vehemently cursing his computer, Ed
can usually be found spending time with his wife and their
housepests (two dogs and a cat). For relaxation and fun he
spends time in his unheated basement clanging about iron
plates and screaming. The neighbours love him for
this. You may recognize Ed as the artist behind Guardians of
Order’s Silver Age Sentinels. He’s also done work for
Abstract Nova’s game, Heaven & Earth.

Ed is our July spotlight artist. We’ll be giving you more peeks into the game’s art and other artists as the months progress.

Read more…

General art, ed northcott

Christian N. St. Pierre has done illustration for a number of game companies, including Mongoose Publishing, Morrigan Press, and Key 20 Publishing. He brings a bold, distinctive style to the Dresden Files RPG, and we’re excited to be able to include his work.

Christian is our June spotlight artist. We’ll be giving you more peeks into the game’s art and other artists as the months progress.

Read more…

General art, cns

Mike Kucharski may be most familiar to role-playing game folks for all the work he did illustrating the Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game from Phage Press. Mike has been drawing since kindergarten, starting with a certain well-known art correspondance course found at the back of a comic book. Since his graduation from the School of the Society of Arts & Crafts, he has been a graphic designer, art director, cartoonist, art teacher, and an illustrator producing TV commercial storyboards, video box covers, movie posters, B&W and color illustrations for magazine & newspaper ads, comic book adaptations, portraits, billboards, and product illustration.

Here at DresdenFilesRPG.Com, we figure it’s about time we give you a sneak peek at the work Mike has done for the game. This is our May spotlight on artists — we hope to give you other peeks into the game’s art and other artists as the months progress.

Read more…

General art, mike kucharski