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!

Awesomeness incarnate, thy name is Clark Valentine. He handed us the Baltimore chapter – which is essentially an application of the City Creation chapter as a playable-out-of-the-box example. Now, I’ll be honest, the idea of playing in Chicago sounds fun, but I prefer to play in places that I could make my own. And I really want to play in Clark’s Baltimore. What he’s made is a fantastic, unstable web of politics and seething inhumanity that’s just ready to boil over, and he’s practically provided you with a dozen PC hooks into it (including just taking characters from the write-up, which is a City Creation method I particularly like). We’re not quite ready to leak anything from Baltimore, but I’m looking forward to when we can!

Our crack editing team of Amanda & Adam haven’t has as much work as we’d like them to have, mainly because Lenny & I have a lot on our plate to get pushed back to editing. But Lenny & Clark aren’t the only writers here! We’ve received the Chicago chapter from Kenneth Hite, and Amanda is going through that right now. I can’t tell you how eager I am to start going through it myself, though I have to get my own work done before I do.

I think that leaves us with what I like to call the Relentless March of Statblocking. Fred & Clark have been working hard stating up all the supernatural critters using our adjustments from supernatural stunts. If you’ve been following Fred on Twitter, you’ll see him talking about stat-blocking quite a bit. I know that I get excited every time, since every single one gets us closer to the goal: getting you a brilliant (and more importantly, finished!) book.

You know what? I’ve been geeking out over all this, and it’s probably hard to geek with me when I’m talking in shotgun updates. So, let’s share with you all what’s been exciting me. Here’s some of that sweet, sweet Fred statblocking action I mentioned:

He Who Walks Behind

Description: Whole appearance unknown, though he is said to have an inhuman face—and spines.

What We Know: AKA The Hunter of the Shadows, Lord of Slowest Terror.

Long considered by Harry Dresden just to be a major-league hunter demon or spectral hit man sent to kill him by Justin DuMorne, it turns out that He Who Walks Behind is the most powerful of all of the Walkers.

He Who Walks Behind has an “anti-sound” scream—a noise that absorbs other noises.

He sponsored the Evil Eye Franchise’s ritual entropy curse targeting Arturo Genosa’s female associates and can apparently possess mortal corpses for at least a short time.

Powers: He Who Walks Behind’s abilities include (as far as we can discern) tons of supernatural strength and toughness, can track nearly anything anywhere, can possess people once summoned, might be able to turn into a gaseous cloud, is covered in spines, can emit an “anti-scream” that eats sound, and can even be called upon to empower rituals without fully entering into our world. Except for evidence that it’s been beaten before, this creature looks to be practically undefeatable.

Weaknesses: Since He Who Walks Behind is the Lord of the Slowest Terror, it’s possible that his normal speed is slower than even a mortal’s usual top speed—this would indeed make He Who Walks Behind glacially slow compared to most other supernatural entities, but still fast enough to walk up to you and kill you proper.

HARRY: That’s highly speculative, Billy. I couldn’t say if you’re right one way or the other.

Harry Dresden somehow managed to kill its temporary shell for a time. It apparently took quite a few years for He Who Walks Behind to regenerate a shell, or perhaps just to regain access to the mortal world again.

Otherwise, as per other Outsiders.

BILLY: What can you tell us about this thing’s powers, Harry? Am I on the right track?

HARRY: You’re in the ballpark, at least. But honestly? I was young and desperate—I didn’t really stop to take an inventory.

For all I know He could have just been toying with me and I surprised him.

BILLY: Got it. I’ll write this thing up as essentially unbeatable.

High Concept: Outsider Assassin

Other Aspects: He Who Walks Behind; Lord of the Slowest Terror

Skills

Discipline: Great

Fists: Superb

Endurance: Great

Intimidation: Superb

Stealth: Great

Most other skills default to Good.

Powers

Claws [-1] (Spines)

Domination (Possession) [-5]

Gaseous Form [-3]

Supernatural Sense (Senses) [-2] May “impossibly” track its prey, assuming it has access to a fresh ritual component from its target—fresh blood or hair, its True Name, etc…

Supernatural Strength [-4]

Supernatural Toughness [-4]

Supernatural Recovery [-4]

The Catch [+2] is a weakness to holy items and expressions of genuine faith

Physical Immunity [-8] (speculative!)

The Catch (Stacked) [+0] is … honestly, I don’t know. Swords of the Cross and Harry Dresden have managed to get past it, but we’ve got no idea what else could.

Zone of Silence [-1] (see below)

Stress

Mental oooo Physical oooo(oooo) Social oooo

Zone of Silence: He Who Walks behind may emit an “anti-scream” placing a “Silenced” aspect on a zone that prevents any sound from being heard within. Each creature in the zone may get a “free tag” on the aspect, once per scene, when making a Stealth roll. The zone dissipates at He Who’s whim, or when He Who exits the zone in question.

(rest of effects summary follows)

Total Refresh Cost: -30

HARRY: I am in so much trouble.

So, I think my next status update is around early March. But if you want to talk with me about the project, I’ll be around at OrcCon in LA & Dreamation in NJ next month. Free free to come up and chat!

- Ryan

Now we’re looking at moving into a period of internally-focused revisions and internal playtesting before we’ll consider doing any more external playtests.  We need to get text complete on several key remaining chapters, plus we’re doing our best to get the system chapters into their final revised form — the much-coveted “non-moving target” that will allow us to proceed with some secondary system implementation efforts (like completing the stat-blocking of all the creatures and features of the world).

At the conclusion of the Burning Alpha, we put out a call to both playtester groups to supply us with any links we might not have publicized yet so everyone can get a look at what’s been shared.  One key difference about the Burners over the Bleeders is that one of the Burners kicked off a Livejournal community that did much of the rounding up of links along the way, so beyond even this post, we highly recommend you check the community out, at http://community.livejournal.com/dresdenfilesrpg/ (we’ve even syndicated its posts in this site’s sidebar).

Here’s what we’ve got.

General Playtester Links

Gilbert Isla: http://heroiccthulhu.mypodcast.com/index.html contains a few recordings of some Dresden Files play, under the “Merry Christmas” heading.  (Here, here, and here)

Mike Parker: http://spazingames.blogspot.com/search/label/Dresden%20Files

This Modern Death: http://forum.thismoderndeath.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=74 and http://shaun.thismoderndeath.com/category/gaming/dresden-files-playtest/

Paul Watson: http://eyes-of-winter.livejournal.com/tag/dresden

Stacey in Astoria: http://staceyinastoria.livejournal.com/tag/burning+alpha (Stacey was a real hero of this; he’s the one that set up the LJ community!)

Ed Wedig and his group only got to work on city creation due to timing, but says he’ll continue posting on http://www.dresden.edwedig.com/ even after the playtest period’s done.

Tomi Sarkkinen points to some city builds on http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=396454&page=2

Matt Doerhoefer has been blogging his playtest experience at http://brominated.livejournal.com

James Carpio gets into it on http://dregg.wordpress.com/

The Monster That Is Sean Nittner

We had to split our buddy Sean’s links out into a section of their own — he provided a ton!

Blog Posts (started on the community page and them migrated to my personal page, so here are the individual links):

http://community.livejournal.com/dresdenfilesrpg/9926.html
http://community.livejournal.com/dresdenfilesrpg/10668.html
http://community.livejournal.com/dresdenfilesrpg/12579.html
http://community.livejournal.com/dresdenfilesrpg/13564.html
http://community.livejournal.com/dresdenfilesrpg/14103.html
http://community.livejournal.com/dresdenfilesrpg/15073.html
http://community.livejournal.com/dresdenfilesrpg/16330.html
http://community.livejournal.com/dresdenfilesrpg/20471.html
http://wildljduck.livejournal.com/33690.html
http://wildljduck.livejournal.com/35240.html
http://wildljduck.livejournal.com/37463.html
http://wildljduck.livejournal.com/39363.html

Podcasts:

Narrative Control – Episode 3: http://www.narrativecontrol.com/index.php?post_id=380416
Narrative Control – Episode 4: http://www.narrativecontrol.com/index.php?post_id=382891
Narrative Control – Episode 10: http://www.narrativecontrol.com/index.php?post_id=400612
Narrative Control – Episode 13: http://www.narrativecontrol.com/index.php?post_id=407242

Scott Dorward

The main blog is at:

http://microwavesushi.com/

The relevant posts are:

http://microwavesushi.com/?p=9
http://microwavesushi.com/?p=18
http://microwavesushi.com/?p=21
http://microwavesushi.com/?p=33
http://microwavesushi.com/?p=36
http://microwavesushi.com/?p=48
http://microwavesushi.com/?p=56
http://microwavesushi.com/?p=61
http://microwavesushi.com/?p=64
http://microwavesushi.com/?p=72

There are still a few write-ups to come (we’ve had four sessions of actual play, with one more to come this week), but the player who has been doing
them has been on holiday recently and she still needs to catch up.

Matthew Glover’s Group (Including “Momma Ambrosia”)

City Building
http://matthew-glover.livejournal.com

Summary of our Characters
http://lyra-ambrose.livejournal.com/11532.html

Story from one character’s point of view
http://lyra-ambrose.livejournal.com/8460.html
http://lyra-ambrose.livejournal.com/10906.html
http://lyra-ambrose.livejournal.com/11263.html

Story from another character’s point of view(she may or may not have
it updated)
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4662471/1/The_World_of_Magic_A_journey

Our groups final thoughts and comments
http://lyra-ambrose.livejournal.com/11935.html

That said, we wanted to call your attention to a series of podcasts over on Narrative Control. These guys were part of the Burning Alpha and give the game some good attention. (That said, a lot of our playtesters got caught up in city creation more than anticipated — something we’re working on in our current revisions — so you’ll be seeing a fair amount of that in this round, too.)

Here’s a guide to the Dresden Files Burning Alpha episodes on Narrative Control:

Title: Episode 3: City Creation – Part 1
Topics: Picking a City and Themes
Link: http://www.narrativecontrol.com/index.php?post_id=380416

Title: Episode 4: City Creation – Part 2
Topics: People and Places
Link: http://www.narrativecontrol.com/index.php?post_id=382891

Title: Episode 10: Actual Play Report
Topics: Compels and Fate Chip Economy
Link: http://www.narrativecontrol.com/index.php?post_id=400612

And here’s where they talk with Evil Hatter Fred Hicks:

Title: Episode 13: Interview with Fred Hicks
Topics: Points of Tension, System and Setting Integration, Advancement System, Stunts and Damage
Link: http://www.narrativecontrol.com/index.php?post_id=407242

So what’s new? Well, we recently kicked off the Burning Alpha Playtest. This is the second alpha round, with another 20 or so playtesting groups selected out of our pool of over (yikes!) 750 applicants. Stacey Chancellor, one of our Burning Alpha playtesters, has started collecting links to the various places you can see the Burning Alpha underway, over on the Dresden Files RPG Livejournal Community:

http://community.livejournal.com/dresdenfilesrpg/10010.html

Evil Hat will be attending GenCon, as a part of the IPR / Forge Booth (#1939) — and by that we mean lead developer Lenny Balsera, setting guru Chad Underkoffler, and Evil Hat owners Rob Donoghue and Fred Hicks will all be there, along with other members of our writing and editing staff. Come on by and pick our brains!

And while we’re on the topic of GenCon, the Ennie Awards voting is underway, and Evil Hat’s product Spirit of the Season is up for an award for Best Supplement. We’d love to get your support with just a couple minutes taken to vote (you don’t have to vote on everything, just the stuff you’re familiar with).

http://www.ennieawards.com/voting/index.phtml

If you’d like to familiarize yourself with Spirit of the Season before casting a vote, please do! We have a completely free 40-page version (trimmed down from the 72+ page version that’s for sale) available on DriveThruRPG:

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=51248

Thanks, everyone!

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

Read about it at his site

http://www.rickneal.ca/

Jeramy Ware posts about Dresdenified Austin Texas:

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=378250

Rob Bohl of the Independent Insurgency has Dresdenized Newark New Jersey:

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=377474

Come talk about this over on the Jim Butcher Forums

http://indie-insurgent.livejournal.com/7803.html

Fred Hicks, Chad Underkoffler, and Leonard Balsera got interviewed recently by RPG Virtual Tabletop. We say a few things about the Dresden Files RPG in the interview, so run on over and give it a read.

In playtesting news, we’ve gotten over 600 (not-spam!) applications since the we opened up the door for it in late 2007. Thanks very much to everyone who submitted an application — and rest assured, even if we don’t end up selecting you at some point in the process, we’ll be doing what we can to show our appreciation for you taking the time & effort to fill out those applications as we get closer to publication.

Of those 600+ folks, we’ve narrowed the field down to less than 5% (about 30) applicants to get an opportunity to participate in our first phase: the “bleeding edge alpha”. These folks are the ones who are going to get an experience most like seeing how sausage gets made, and honestly we don’t envy them their jobs. The documents are still messy and occasionally disorganized, not to mention incomplete, and we’re going to be relying heavy on these folks’ familiarity with Spirit of the Century so we can shorthand some parts of the system for them (“like SOTC, only something nasty can eat your face as follows!”)

This is just the first step of many we have planned. Eventually we’ll get past the bleeding edge and on into an alpha-test proper. Once we get past the alpha stage, we’ll start one (of possibly several) beta tests. How long will it take? We aren’t Cassandra, people — and besides you’d never believe us!

Still, if you put in an application and haven’t heard from us, *don’t despair*. We may yet have use for you in the months to come. And regardless, as I said, we will be saying *thank you* in some way once we’re past all of this, whether you end up as a playtester or not!