I just couldn’t resist. I tried for a while but just couldn’t. I went ahead and pre-ordered it. First, I love the Dresden Files and the urban fantasy genre in general. So what can I say about this game? I was really wishy washy about it for quite a while. The main reason for that was the core system, FATE. Now, there’s nothing wrong with FATE. It’s a good system, I just wasn’t sure if I could sell to my players.
Let’s kick this off with “What is the Dresden Files?”. It’s a series of bestselling novels by Jim Butcher telling the story of Harry Dresden, a wizard private eye in Chicago. The Dresdenverse is chocked full of what you would expect in an urban fantasy world. Wizards, demons, vampires, werewolves and whole host of the mythical and magic beasties. There all here. I love the books. They’re a blast to read. There are audio versions of the books as read by Spike, I mean James Marsters. There’s been a short lived TV series on the SyFy channel (now available on Hulu) that didn’t do the books justice. And Dabel Brothers are doing graphic novel adaptations of the books.
Now, let’s talk about the RPG. The Evil Hat crew has literally been working on this game for years and it shows. The books are filled with source material and well thought out mechanics to play in the Dresdenverse. The Dresden Files RPG uses the FATE system as I mentioned before. This is the same system with some minor tweaks as Evil Hat used for their pulp game Spirit of the Century. FATE is basically FUDGE on steroids. There’s been a few comments that this is rules lite system. Volume 1: Your Story (basically the “core book”) is well over 400 pages. Volume 2: Your World is pretty hefty too. That really doesn’t say “rules lite” to me. But the system does have somethings that may put some people off. It’s a very narrative game. Sure there’s crunch but the real driving force behind the game is Aspects. Like most games you have Skills. Characters in the DFRPG also have a thing called Stunts. If you’re a d20 fan, the closes thing I can equate them to is Feats. Then you might (depending on your character) have Supernatural Powers (spells and other things that your Joe Average couldn’t do). Unlike most games there are NO stats. You don’t roll or point buy Strength, Dexterity ad nauseam. Those type things are handled through Skills, Stunts and Powers. But Aspects are what really define your character. The bulk of the book covers using and arbitrating Aspects.
Aspects are not advantages nor are they disadvantages. They are both and neither. There is no set list but there are plenty of examples. So how do you get Aspects? You just make them up as part of character generation. That’s right no set list. No specifics. Just use your imagination. A good Aspect is both a help and a hindrance. Here’s an overly simplified example: Our character, let’s call him Gary, has the aspect “Knight in Shining Armor Complex”. Let’s say that the heroine of our adventure is being attacked by a crazed cultist. Gary jumps in to attack the cultist, he invokes his Aspect to improve his attack. Let’s say at another time Gary is on the run from the same cult. He’s beaten battered and missing most of his equipment. He passes a dark alley and hears a woman scream for help. The GM can compel his Knight In Shining Armor Aspect to go down the alley and investigate. Now is the time to mention FATE points. Because these are the currency of the game. When a character invokes an Aspect, he spends one of his Fate Points. If a character’s Aspect is compelled or used against him then he gains a Fate Point. The GM doesn’t have to compel an Aspect, players are encouraged to do it to themselves. And not only do characters have Aspects. So do places, scenes and objects. Even damage is basically handled with Aspects.
So as you can tell by my little example here, combat, conflicts and scenes are going to be very narrative. This may put some people off. You won’t have a tactical map. You won’t be counting squares to see how far you move or what area a spell will affect. Players will be forced to use their imaginations and creativity and not rely on specific rules crunch to win the day. Players would forced to think outside the common RPG mechanics tropes. This is one of the reasons that I think some folks will not be all to keen on the game. A lot of the safety nets and crutches that we’ve grown accustomed just aren’t there. Another reason I think some folks won’t be flocking to the game is that has been a long time in coming. With popularity of the Dresden Files, many folks have already home brewed versions using World of Darkness, Savage Worlds and Cortex (just to name a few).
What do I think of the game overall? Like any licensed RPG, capturing the feel of the source material is difficult. Mechanics can help but it’s the GM and the players that really deliver the feel. The mechanics of the DFRPG do support the feel of the books and make it fairly easy for the gaming group to emulate the originals. The narrative style of the game won’t be for everybody. Personally, I like to think of myself as a Storyteller type so I think it is a great game. GM preparation isn’t that hard with flexible system. Most of the GM’s effort is going to happen during play as he reacts to character actions and choices. So what are players going to think? Some players will just eat this system up. If your players feel that their creativity is constrained by most rules systems then they will like this game. If they are a storyteller or roleplayer type then they will enjoy it. If they are into rules lawyering, min-maxing, power gaming and number crunching then not so much. So my recommendation: It all depends on your gaming group. Personally, I’m glad I picked this up and plan to pitch it to my group as a possible game for the future.
I’ve rambled on long enough. There about a half dozen other little thoughts running through my head right now but I’ll save those for later posts. Just go check it out at the very least.

I couldn’t resist Green Ronin’s pre-order deal for the dead tree version and get the PDF free offer. And I have to admit that I’m addicted to the video version of the game but this little review is about the table top version.
So what’s this whole Dragon Age thing about? The video game is by the fine folks at Bioware (who gave us such greats as Baldur’s Gate). It’s billed as a dark fantasy. Fereldan is not a happy go lucky place. It’s rife with racial, cultural and religious biases. Various human factions have battled for centuries and have their own problems. Elves are either living a nomadic life or are regulated to slums (called alienages) in the cities. Either way they are second class citizens at best. Dwarves live by a strict caste system. Mages are closely watched by the Templars just in case one of them goes astray. And the major bad guys, the Blight, that was the making of mortals. But the setting boils down to getting past all those things and some how managing to be a hero.
Green Ronin has done a good job at mixing an old school feel into the game. First, the game is being released in a series of sets. This is Set 1 and covers Levels 1 through 5. Subsequent sets will cover five level spreads up to Level 20. Kind of reminds you of the old D&D boxed sets. That was the idea. Intermixed with the release schedule will be various adventures. The sets will be spread out over a period of two years. That’s right one set per six months is the announced schedule. I’d really like to have the sets more quickly but I think that this may have to do with Bioware and their schedule for having two years worth of downloadable content for the video game. But I really wish that they were coming out much closer together. Heck, one a quarter would make me happy.
Character generation is pretty old school. Roll 3d6 (compare to chart) straight down and take like a man. OK, you can switch two ability scores. But this is not as bad as it sounds. Ability scores raise fairly quickly as you level so any bad rolls you started with will be taken care of after a couple of levels. But this does give a little concern. Like some old school games, there’s no cap on ability scores. The average for an ability score is 1 and your character can easily min-max and end up with some whomping high scores like 14 or so at higher levels. I might be wrong on this but with the character advancement as written in the first set this is real probability. So eventually some tasks will be difficult at early levels then incredibly easy at higher levels.
The table top game has pretty simple mechanics. Roll 3d6+a couple modifiers against a target number. Skills are replaced by Foci which grant a flat +2 bonus to your roll. Each class; Warrior, Mage, and Rogue, have their own little bonuses and abilities that come into play. And there the Talents which are similar to Edges in Savage Worlds or Feats in d20 that give you even more special tricks to use.
It’s supposed to be an introductory game but after reading through the first set, I’d like to think of it more as a rules medium game. It’s a little more crunchy than Savage Worlds but less than a d20 game. New gamers shouldn’t have that much problem with it and it looks to be a good gateway game for them. Plus there’s the good old sections on “What is an RPG?” and GMing tips for the newcomers. For some more experienced gamers somethings may be a little tough. I’ve ranted on this before about Savage Worlds and I’ll do it again here. It ain’t D&D. Combats in DA:O are going to be mobile and dynamic. There aren’t any attacks of opportunity, so you can run around the battle field. It’s easy for combatants to move each other around (more on that later). Disarming an opponent is pretty easy. You can get knocked on your ass. And, well, pretty much a whole of wild and crazy shit can happen during a battle.
Which leads me to the really neat parts of this game. First you have the Dragon Die. Before I mentioned that all your checks are on 3d6. One of those die is your Dragon Die. It’s just another d6 but a different color. It’s used several different ways in the game. In the case of a tie, whoever rolled higher on their Dragon Die wins. If a degree a success is needed then the higher the Dragon Die, the better. Now some folks have had a little problem with this. Mainly in the case that if you need to beat high target number then your doing to have to roll high on your Dragon Die. Yeah, true. But this use of it really isn’t a crunchy one, it’s more fluff/creative means for the GM or the player to throw in some description that really doesn’t have any game mechanic effect.
Finally, during combat the Dragon Die grants you Stunt Points. Now this is so cool. Here’s the basic mechanic. If you roll doubles and succeed then you get a number of Stunt Points equal to whatever you rolled on your Dragon Die. You spend these points on that round, you don’t save them up. The player or GM gets to do a little description of what happens and you move on. This is like it’s own little build your critical hit system. Fighter types can knock opponents back or down, they can do more damage, they can by pass armor. Spell casters can reduce the mana (Yeah, it uses a Mana point system for spells) cost of the spells, increase save TN’s and a few other tricks. This is the mechanic that makes the combats dynamic and more than just two sets of numbers banging it out toe to toe.
Do you really need this to play in the world of Dragon Age? No. There’s plenty of the fluff material online that you can easily convert it to your favorite system be it d20, GURPS, Chaosium’s Basic Roleplaying or Savage Worlds (Yes, a Savage conversion has crossed my mind.) If you’re a fan of the video game and aren’t too sure about table top games then it’s a good buy. If you’re an experienced gamer and not slavishly loyal to one game system then its still a good buy as fantasy game that isn’t D&D. For me personally, I haven’t pitched it to my gaming group yet but it has gone my list of games that would be fun to play or run.

Keeping up with the spirit of the season, I figured I’d do a short review about one of the neatest and possibly lesser known horror RPG’s. Project Nemesis is a fan driven modern dark horror game inspired by all the literary masters of horror, primarily Lovecraft. It uses the quick and deadly One Roll Engine (ORE) from Godlike and Wild Talents which was created by Dennis Detwiller and Greg Stolze (whom you may recognize from such horror game classics as Delta Green and Unknown Armies).
It matches all my criteria for a good game. It’s fast, flexible and easy to learn. The drawback (IMHO) is that it can be really deadly. I mean “bang”! Game Over, Man! One good hit and you are out or dead. The system is very flexible and can be adapted to just about whatever style of campaign you want and it can be tweaked to improve survivability of player characters with little or no problem.
Here’s the system in a nutshell. It uses a pool d10′s. With one roll, you determine initiative, damage and hit location. It’s all based on matching numbers with two criteria. Height which is the higher the number the better. And Width, the more matches the better. So four 10′s is pretty damned awesome.
And this is pretty well supported by the community. There are plenty of the usual support materials you would expect from a professional game publisher like adventures, monsters and all sorts of add ons and extra rules tweaks.
I could go into more detail but why? Here’s one of the neatest things. It’s free. And as bonus fans have worked out other genres and coversions using the ORE. So go check it out.