Author Topic: Designing Dresden #5  (Read 11646 times)

Offline iago

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Designing Dresden #5
« on: December 06, 2006, 06:25:38 AM »
I've posted a lengthy delving into the ideas of lethality and toughness in the Dresden Files RPG, from a "look at the design process" perspective.  Interested?  Check it out here:

http://www.dresdenfilesrpg.com/news/archives/2006/12/designing_dresd_4.php
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Offline Slife

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Re: Designing Dresden #5
« Reply #1 on: December 17, 2006, 02:23:29 AM »
It seems like it would be interesting to allow players to voluntarily *increase* how severe something is.  Why?

Let's say you are an ogre-blooded changeling fighting off a bunch of monkey demons.  You have to defend someone, and as such can't afford to take a penalty.

Your current stats are

mild
  • []

moderate
  • [][][]

severe
  • [][]


In this case, you'd rather have a moderate hit than a mild one, since if you have a mild consequence you've effectively lost.  Sure, you'll go down fast once you run out of higher level damage to substitute, but you'll be at full capacity for longer.  There's some precedent for similar stuff in the books (Dresden loves to burn his candle at both ends)
Rule one of magic:  Never, ever, under any circumstances, trust someone named "Morningstar".

Offline iago

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Re: Designing Dresden #5
« Reply #2 on: December 17, 2006, 06:02:10 AM »
Good thought, Silfe!  I'll have to chew on that one.
Fred Hicks
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Offline The Last Bean

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Re: Designing Dresden #5
« Reply #3 on: December 20, 2006, 02:06:57 AM »
Seems like this would be very condusive to the dramatic style of FATE gameplay, especially if the person has to get into the gritty details of exactly how they make the damage worse. Heck, you could even use something like that to your advantage.

"rather than dodging, I jump straight into the knife, wedging it between my ribs, and grab hold of the guy's arm." Now you've got a higher damage tier involved, AND at the DM's discretion the enemy might take a penaty to dodging whatever you do next, or be unable to move away.

Offline Lord Nedd

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Re: Designing Dresden #5
« Reply #4 on: December 21, 2006, 03:42:57 AM »
Seems like this would be very condusive to the dramatic style of FATE gameplay, especially if the person has to get into the gritty details of exactly how they make the damage worse. Heck, you could even use something like that to your advantage.

"rather than dodging, I jump straight into the knife, wedging it between my ribs, and grab hold of the guy's arm." Now you've got a higher damage tier involved, AND at the DM's discretion the enemy might take a penaty to dodging whatever you do next, or be unable to move away.

"Do you know what your sin is, Mal?"

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Offline The Last Bean

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Re: Designing Dresden #5
« Reply #5 on: December 26, 2006, 05:46:58 AM »
Heh, funny you mention Firefly. I actually just recently ran a FATE-based Firefly game. Was loads of fun. Only took about half an hour to do the conversion too.

Gotta say, FATE is the best game for new roleplayers I've ever come across. So long as there's nothing weird like magic to worry about, only need about 4 pages of insructions for character creation and play (plus DM to fill in details) and with a group of 5 newbies (2 new to roleplaying, period) only 45 minutes for character creation AND quick lesson in how to play. (which is almost the same thing, after all). I can definitely see why they went with this system for Dresden.