Dresden Postmortem

There's a reason I haven't been doing any actual play posts of our Dresden Files games, and that's because I haven't been all that pleased with how they've gone. I do want to go into what I think were the reasons behind this, as well as the handful of interesting events, both good and bad.

The first problem was the power level. We decided to go with the highest starting power level because we wanted to play with all the toys, particularly with the spellcasters. This was a mistake on a couple of levels. First, playing with all the toys meant playing with all the rules, which I'll talk about more later. Second, the sheer power of a group of five Dresden level characters is enormous, and the books do little to help you deal with this.

The rules mention the possibility that the books are an account of a solo adventure, and I think our play confirms that. The entries in Our World are all woefully underpowered when it comes to challenging a group like the one we had. It more or less takes a plot level NPC to make the characters break a sweat. With more experience I'm sure I could have dealt with this, but I didn't yet have that experience, so that's why this was a big mistake.

The second problem was the players, in which I include myself. I'm not blaming the players, they were all a great bunch, both the regulars and the ones new to the table. Unfortunately, the couple of guests we had to the first two sessions had playstyles that didn't quite mesh with the existing group. Our group tends to be more narrativist and they were more rules oriented. Specifically, they knew the rules better than I did in most cases, which is something I'm not used to, and was unprepared to deal with.

Combined with my need to confirm things, this led to a great deal of page turning and rules reading when we should have been playing. It had the plus of leaving me much better acquainted with the system by the time the first two sessions were over, but the minus of making those sessions less enjoyable.

A third problem was that I'm just not that big a Dresden fan. I like the books well enough, but they don't generate a great deal of enthusiasm for me. I actually read the books because I'm a fan of the Fate system and knew that the game was coming out rather than having read them first and then gotten the game because I was a fan. This led to a certain level of apathy on my part when it came to preparing for sessions, and that was reflected in how the sessions themselves went.

A factor that wasn't necessarily a problem, but which became apparent in play is that the Laws of Magic are a "Big Deal". Now, the novels say they're a big deal, but in practice they're simply a plot device that either restricts Dresden's actions or triggers important plot twists. They don't work that way in the game. In the game they present a big massive potential for unintended consequences. This can be a cool thing as long as the players are prepared for it, but I don't think that the game books do an adequate job of portraying the potential pitfalls.

The way this came up in our game was in the climax of the first adventure. The players had to stop a ritual that was threatening to waken a great evil. The ritual was taking pace in a field and one of the casters used a fire spell to roll through those casting the ritual in the hopes of disrupting it. What wasn't apparent, because of the high grass in the field, was that there were a number of victims lying bound in the grass awaiting sacrifice. These victims were incinerated in the blaze and the end result was a rather massive breaking of one of the laws.

This could have been a very cool thing to explore, but the important thing is that none of us in any way had intended for it to be a possibility. It didn't dawn on me what was going on until after the action was taken, and I was the only one with a grasp of the overall situation. In fact, it wasn't until after the session was over that I fully grasped the implications. This is largely my fault for not fully grasping the significance of the laws in the game, but it's a mistake that I think could be made by a lot of GMs.

The biggest disappointment with the game was that fate points proved meaningless. The players could simply deal with the stuff I threw at them without needing to use them. The players took them from me because they liked being compelled, but they didn't need to.

Things I'd do differently if I had to do it over again? I'd start by going with the lowest recommended power level. This means fewer rules to deal with, and you can use the stats straight out of Our World to challenge the party with. I'd only go with the highest power level if I was playing with one or two players, or if I had a lot more experience with the system.

The group became disenchanted enough with the game that we ended up deciding to forgo our final planned session and instead made characters for our upcoming Pathfinder Kingmaker scenario/campaign. That probably says more about how enthusiastic we are about Kingmaker, but I'll talk about that in an upcoming post.

Dresden Files: Northwest Arkansas

We had our setting and character generation session for our Magpie Night Dresden Files game about a week ago. We have a lot of interest in this game, so we're doing things a bit different. Instead of our usual one shot, we're doing two adventures for Dresden Files. Our regular Magpie Night attendees (Josh, Liz and Jonathan in this case) will be playing in both sessions, while the four other people who expressed interest are going to play in one session each, two in each session.

I wasn't sure if this was going to be completely necessary, but after our first session with all seven players and me, I'm glad we decided to do it this way. We got most of the stuff done that we needed to do, but it took longer than I expected, and we had to take a couple of minor short cuts. I was also so busy managing things that I really didn't get a good grasp on anyone's character, which is a big deal for a GM in a Fate game, since pretty much everything revolves around the characters.

I think there should be fewer problems with only five players instead of seven, and I'm looking forward to putting together the adventure once everyone posts their finalized characters to the thread on the NWARPG Forums.

As to the game itself, the overall process of setting creation seems a lot more involved than in Diaspora. There's no random element to give you a starting point. Fortunately, we'd already decided we were going to set it here in Northwest Arkansas, so I did a little research into legends of the area. Having spent about two thirds of my life in the area didn't hurt either.

Some of the players came to the table with ideas as well, so we had a decent starting point. If this hadn't been the case, then I don't think we'd have gotten very far. As it was, getting this all down into three overall themes and threats, plus nine locations and twelve aspects and faces to represent all of the above still took some time. We're still short an aspect or two, but most of the work got done.

At this point we'd already used more than half the time I'd expected the entire process to take, and we still needed to make characters.

Most of the players had a better idea of what they wanted to see from their characters than they did from the setting, and that helped things somewhat. A couple had no concept or only a partial concept, and that slowed things down a bit, but not too much. I couldn't complain about it either, because I'd made a point about not being too committed to character concepts in case the communal setting ended up not supporting a concept, or suggesting a better one.

We did end up having at least one concept changed by the setting and the contributions of the other players, and the one player that didn't come to the table with a concept was able to develop one largely from some elements of the setting. In fact, his ended up being the only PC that is also a "face" in the setting.

Another item of interest that came out of our session included our decision to go for the "submerged" power level, which is the highest starting level, and equivalent to Harry Dresden in the first book in the series. I had wondered whether this area would justify such a high powered group, but the threats and themes we ended up creating developed a supernatural presence for the area that is quite strong.

For example, in the Dresden books there's a bar that is considered neutral ground among the supernatural. We established an entire town that is neutral ground, complete with a ruling council made up of representatives from all the supernatural factions, including those currently at war with each other outside the town.

Now I just need to get everyone to turn in their finished characters so I can create the first adventure.

Dresden Files

The Dresden Files RPG is up for pre-order. I'm more of a Fate fanboi than a Dresden fanboi, but I still placed my order. A bit pricey for the complete set (two volumes at a total of $89.98), but you can buy them individually if you want. They're essentially divided into a player's book (Your Story) and a GM's guide (Our World), with the first containing the rules and the second background and monster stats.

The pre-order comes with pdfs for immediate download. I've been skimming over them, and they're very pretty. The game is written with the conceit that it's actually being written by the young werewolves from the books and are filled with sticky notes and hi-lights from Dresden, Bob, and Billy. If you've read the series then it might help to realize that the game is Billy's modern day attempt at re-creating Stoker's Dracula: an expose of the weaknesses of various supernatural creatures masquerading as fiction.

This will definitely be making an appearance at Magpie Gaming Night in the future (assuming that I don't totally botch Diaspora to the point that no one wants to try Fate again...)

Caveat: this blurb is based totally on Evil Hat's pre-order page and my having skimmed maybe two dozen pages of the pdfs. I hate reading pdfs, so a more extensive review will probably have to wait for the arrival of the print versions some time in late June or early July.

Dresden Files

The DVDs that I talked about a few months ago suckered me into trying the novels. I finished reading the nine that are out in paperback a few months ago as well, but didn't get around to posting my comments until now. I understand why people like these novels. They're good escapist fiction, if a bit formulaic at times.

Before I go on about the novels, I want to say a couple more things about the DVDs. I mentioned that there was one hanging plot thread left at the end of the DVDs. I assumed that it was something that you could probably find out about by reading the books. You can't. The plot was one of the ways that the DVDs differ significantly from the books. The hanging thread still isn't much of a cliffhanger, but I felt I should clarify it.

Now, for the books themselves. I enjoyed reading them. I don't have so much free time that I would have read nine of them if I didn't. The dialog is witty. The action is well written. The plots are well planned and have enough twists and turns to keep my interest. If you are a fan of modern fantasy then you should probably read these books.

The major complaint I had, and it's one that I had with most of the books after reading the first couple, is that there is definitely a formula that the books follow that is ripe for parody. I think I can go into it without spoiling things, but if you are really against any spoilers whatsoever, then you may want to just stop reading now until you've had a chance to read the books for yourself.

The formula goes like this: Harry gets tired, Harry gets beat up, Harry can barely channel his magic, Harry somehow manages to come up with the biggest most powerful spell yet seen despite being tired, beat up and out of magic. Now, the author always has some sort of explanation for this, although sometimes the explanation is better than it is at other times, but every single book uses this formula. To me it started sticking out like a sore thumb around the third book and was something that kept me from enjoying the next few books as much as I should have.

Fortunately, the author starts introducing some more interesting metaplots shortly after I started getting tired of the formula. These kept me interested in spite of my beginning to roll my eyes every time Harry "ran out of magic" at the climax of the book, knowing full well that he'd pull out the biggest spell yet in the next few pages.

Mind you, the author seems at least partly aware of his formula, at least to the extent that he's gone to some pains to explain how Harry manages to recover from all the beatings he keeps taking (and some of the more serious injuries do linger from one book to the next). I'd still like to see him come up with an interesting story that didn't fit the standard formula quite so much.

That's my biggest gripe. Now for something that I have to really give him kudos for: the way he handles the bad guys. Generally there are three kinds of bad guys in most continuing series: the ones that get killed, the ones that turn into a recurring villain, and the ones that turn into the hero's ally. Most authors screw up the last kind. They fall into what I like to call "Eddings Syndrome" after David Eddings, who is the absolute worst offender at turning any villain that survives his or her initial appearance into a good guy. Even gods of evil end up cracking wise and serving good by the next trilogy in Eddings' work. Jim Butcher doesn't fall into this trap. There are several villains that have ended up being allies of Harry, but the author does a very good job of pointing out that they are still bad guys. They may sometimes be the lesser of two evils, but that doesn't make them good.

He does also have a couple of villains turn good, but he handles it well.

Further, his bad guys aren't all carbon copies of each other. Motivation, strategy, and tactics all differ from villain to villain. This is a great strength of the books. Unfortunately, this feeds back into my major gripe. Despite the differences in the villains, the hero often seems to go through the exact same process in facing them.

Overall, the series is a good read, and if I'm a bit critical of parts of it, it's only because I like the overall series. If I didn't like it, I wouldn't spend the time to analyze the bits that bothered me.

Dresden Files DVDs

I haven't read any of the Dresden novels, but I wanted to learn a bit about them due to the upcoming Dresden Files RPG. Normally I wouldn't care anything about a licensed game based on a property that I was unfamiliar with, but this game is going to use the Fate system. As I've mentioned before, that's a system that I'm quite interested in.

A quick look at some online reviews indicated that the Dresden Files TV series was favorably viewed by at least some of the fans of the books. Taking this as a good sign, I ordered the first (and only) season on DVD.

My wife and I watched all twelve episodes over the space of two days, and they were quite enjoyable. The acting is generally good, the stories are entertaining, and the presence of a few meta-plots makes for some extra interest. For the record, most of the meta-plots appear to be resolved, or at least partly resolved, over the course of the single season. The main one that I felt was unresolved was more of a "where are they going to go with this?" situation than it was a "what the hell is going on here?" situation. So, the ending of the series doesn't leave you on a cliffhanger.

The special effects are mostly good as long as they are kept to minor effects, but the few fully animated creatures aren't really rendered all that well. Fortunately, they are kept mostly to the shadows.

With vampires, werewolves, ghosts and wizards, this should be a good series for anyone who's a fan of fantasy set in the modern day. I'm generally not, and yet I still enjoyed them.

Finally, I feel reasonably well enough educated on the universe of the Dresden Files to better appreciate the game when it comes out. I may still try to read one or more of the novels if I have time, but if I don't then I'll at least have some idea of what's going on when I read or play the game.