We have different values here. I consider the game to be generic because I consider the Dresdenverse to be a generic urban fantasy setting.
And I consider it specific urban fantasy setting.
Anita Blake does not fit in the DV. Neither do the majority of other protagonists in Urban Fantasy novels. Heck, even most of the Harry Potter characters would be hunted Lawbreaker.
This is the problem, because actually yes, you are taking that position.
I've stated my position openly. Please quote the message where I said you had to read all the novels.
Which will be hard to do, since I've never said. Alas, I cannot control what you read into my posts.
You're attempting to use novel canon to dictate game rules, and even worse, you're attempting to refer to such canon as RAW when it's not even part of the DFRPG. This is a really bad thing because it's totally untrue and very confusing for people reading the forums to have to parse.
Please point to anyone who is confused. Pretty please.
When you stop using the acronym RAW to refer to things that are not even in the DFRPG, let alone rules text, and stop referencing novels as substitutes for the game's actual mechanics, this problem will go away.
I have avoided using the word "you" as much as possible, but I don't seem to have a choice.
Your problem is that you refuse to accept that the Dresden Files RPG is based in the DV. It is rooted there. It has taken years of work to get a game that can model Jim's work. When things happen in the books that aren't possible in the game, the game designer posts how to make it workable - adapting the rules to fit the novels.
A big chunk of the Paranet book will be updating the game to a certain point in the novels. Because playing in the DV is the point of the game.
Until you can grasp that point, I don't think we have anything more to say to each other.
Richard, the cover text there shows that the game can be used for the DV. It does not show that the game cannot be used for anything else.
You did read that quote, didn't you? I'm sorry, but based on your reply I had to ask. Because the cover text says the game
was designed to be used in the DV. The rules give you total control of your game world, but it was designed for use in the DV.
Which is pointless, because we all know that. The question of whether the system can be used for other settings has gone completely un-addressed by you.
I am so sorry that you've missed the posts I've made where I've said that homebrew is encouraged or the ones where I've said that since I'm not at your table I don't know what you've done to the world - just as you don't know what I've done to mind. You see, I have said in various posts that since we don't know each others changes the only common ground we have to discuss things is the DV.
And perhaps you've missed my attempt to start a thread dealing with how the DFRPG can be adapted to other Urban Fantasy worlds - because they would have to be adapted to some extent to play outside the DV. Jim's setting elements would have to be abandoned and new ones added - which require changes to the rules.
So I have to admit, I have trouble taking your arguments seriously.
As do I have problems taking your "the game can be divorced from the setting" arguments seriously. Because the rules do their best to model the setting.
I personally don't care if, in your game, you have Angels or Fae with freewill. I do have a problem with you saying that those are valid character types for the game, because they don't exist in the DV. I don't care if your game has the gold piece that Judas was tipped with linked to a dozen fallen who war for control of the mortal who picks it up. I do have a problem if you tell others that such a character fits in the DV, because Jim has repeatedly said that Judas wasn't tipped. If, in your game, the athame given to Lea at Blanca's dinner party was something made three minutes before by a local witch, that's fine, but in the baseline DV it has been revealed to be something else.
Actually, I think it's a product licensing some of Jim B's material to create a setting in our world. Hence the titles of the two RPG books.
One of us has read the OGL in regards to Jim's work.
I do tend to think the books can be useful adjuncts to discussion - but they're not rules. They're setting background. Flavor text...fluff if you prefer that term. (I don't, but that's another issue.)
And I feel that if it can happen in the books then the rules can (and should) be stretched so it can happen in the game. That they rule out certain things while encouraging others.
That the game exists to model the books.
But I have a feeling that this unending bickering is leading nowhere. I know I'll never convince some people how utterly wrong they are, just as I know that they are not going to shift me from my position. So why don't we let this argument die a natural death and get on with life?
Richard