The Dresden Files RPG

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:

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General art, jennifer rodgers, lenny, status, system

Hey, everyone! Ryan here. As promised, we’ve got some updates on the progress of The Dresden Files RPG to share with you all.

For those who haven’t been a part of our alpha runs, you might not be familiar with one of the big design elements in DFRPG: mortal stunts & supernatural stunts. If you know Spirit of the Century, then you know stunts – those are pretty much what we think of as “mortal stunts” around these parts. And all those wicked awesome creature & wizard abilities are, of course, “supernatural stunts” (which we sometimes shorten to “powers”).

I mention that to say this: Lenny & I spent a couple weeks going over every single supernatural stunt, taking in alpha tester feedback and further observations, and tweaking the language to make it clearer and to consider some unexpected combinations of powers. Some of them were little things, but there were a couple that unexpectedly turned into multi-day conversations – the Toughness stunts started as a “eh, this’ll be quick, we’ll slam it out of the park” ideas that turned into a four-day conversation between Fred, Lenny & myself about how the various limiting factors (or “catches”) should work.

We’re pretty happy with the changes there, but it has eaten up more time than we expected. Along with that, Lenny & I have worked out applying Adam’s redlines on the Spellcraft chapter and working up text on “Sponsored Magic” – how the rules work when the magic you’re wielding comes from another power, like, say, the Summer or Winter Queen.

But, there’s a lot more to this project than just what Lenny & I have been working on!

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General baltimore, chicago, ken, lenny, playtest, setting, status, system

[45min 38sec] While in Las Vegas for GTS, Fred sits down with Lenny to talk about all sorts of things. In this first part, they cover what it means to be a game designer, the mayor of Las Vegas, and some of the things Lenny’s been working on with the Dresden Files RPG.

You can download the episode from this page:
http://thatshowweroll.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=336154

General dev, fred, lenny, podcast, system

We’re pleased to announce that we’ve added Leonard Balsera to our development staff for the Dresden Files RPG.

Leonard has been playing RPG’s for almost seventy percent of his brief life. Putting his better known alias, Landon Darkwood, into Google.com will turn up house rule designs for several systems in several languages and other, younger writing embarassments which he begs you to ignore.

While this will be his first published credit, Leonard’s invisible hand has shown up in various works that have come out of Evil Hat Productions, as he is a frequent sounding board on our development efforts, and a steadfast ally in keeping us honest to our goals. We’re excited to be able to have him officially involved in this project, and we’re certain it will be all the better for it!

General dev, lenny, system