Hi. I've been lurking a while, but I felt there were things which needed to be said on this thread, so I've registered and am going to post. I disagree with some of the stuff thats been said. This is only my opinions, and I'll try to back up why I say what I do. You are of course free to differ and although it may appear from some of the things I post that I dislike d20 games and 3.5e in particular I don't - I just appreciate their short comings, partially as a result of running a weekly game
I got to say, I loves me some Spirit of the Century, but I would be hesitant to call it a good fit for the Dresden Verse.
FATE is one of the best fits for the Dresden Universe, or at least Jim Butcher's style of writting I've actually seen in print, and I've been roleplaying a very long time. It has a number of major advantages over most other systems. For a start it has a mechanical mechanism built into it to not only support the abuse Dresden goes through, but will actually make the powergames in your group actually aprove of their characters going through hell. Then it encourages players to think outside the box - something thats a must if you want cinematic fights (and athough they may be gritty Jim's battles are also highly cinematic), and finally because the system is sufficiently abstract it doesn't tie you down to concepts the authors thought of when writting it.
The Combat system could work I suppose, although the books seem to go into a much greater level of detail than can be represented in the Spirit system,
There are two views on this. The first view is that all the details of a combat should come fom a rules system. This results in complex systems that detail every aspect of combat. I would clasify things like Phoenix command, Champions and to a lesser extend D&D in this category. At the other end of the scale there are rules light games which depend on the players to provide the detail, and the rules are a framework upon which to hang those details. Examples would be Amber, FATE or Risus.
In my opinion both sets of systems can provide precisely as much details as the players want, but the rules light system actully
encourage the GM to provide that detail. I frequent two different conventions each year, and play in various con games. In a typical D&D game I frequently hear things like "He hits you for 5 points of damage", whilst in a rules light game like Amber I am much more likely to hear something like. "He strikes before you have chance to recover, his sabre sliceing sideway catching you a glancing blow across the brow. Its more startling than painful but you suddenly become very aware that his quicker than you. A lot quicker."
Neither system demands the GM add colour - but the rules light system seems to encourage it.
The second thing to remember about trying to capture the 'detail' of Dresden is that when he's writing Jim doesn't cover every aspect of the battle. He jumps from character to character, deailing with the most interesting moments of the fight. He will cover large chunks of the fight in a few lines but then detail the battle between leading figures in great detail. When one of the combatents brings minions they are usually their for flavour and dealt with quickly and then moved off camera. Finally Jim moves character on screen, and into the fight when it makes dramatic sense rather than when it would make the most sense on a tactical map. Finally Jim doesn't dwell overly long on fights. Once the key dramatic events have happened he moves on fast. This immediately makes me look for a couple of things in any system trying to emulate Dresden
1) Minion rules which religate minions to the role of minor annoyance
2) Rules which encourage cinematic action
3) Rules which work well without a map
4) Rules which are fast, and don't try to analyse the action at a granular level (or put another way no threatened zones and Attacks of Opportunity)
Whilst this list might suggest systems like Feng Shu, or ORE (Godlike, Wild Talents and Reign) its also a good list for FATE.
In fact Jim lays out his view of battle pretty well in HArry's words in Grave Peril:
"In games and history books and military science lectures, teachers and old warhorses and other scholarly types lay out diagrams and stand up models in neat lines and rows. They show you, in a methodical order, how this division forced a hole in that line, or how these troops held their ground when all others broke.
But that's an illusion. A real struggle between combatants, whether they number dozens or thousands, is something inherently messy, fluid, difficult to follow. The illusion can show you the outcome, but it doesn't impress upon you the surge and press of bodies, the screams, the fear, the faltering rushes forward or away.......It's an obscure kind of torture, an acute and temporary hell-because one way or another, it doesn't last long."
So what I'm saying here is that a rules light system like FATE is great for trying to capture the flavour of cinematic action. I like rules heavy systems to and have had great fun running Rolemaster and D&D, but I don't think they are right for this.
and they would certainly have to impose some kind of more gritty health system (Dresden and his buddies tend to be pretty fragile once you discount magical protection or supernatural abilities). Although gaining complications would work perfectly, such as when Dresden Burned his hand. That GM was all the time tagging that aspect.
In fact the existing system is already surprisingly gritty
because consequences actually have impact on the game. Its a major improvement over systems where players accumulate damage which has no impact on them. It also allows for an infinite array of damaging effects because the consequence is an aspect limited only by your imagination. However I agree that a few tweaks need to be made. For a start the dresden universe really needs to have creatures who can do a
lot of damage. No matter how much favour text I add to that Dragon's attack, it would be nice if I could back it up with a mechanic to say, this is deadly.
The changes suggested by Fred here:
http://www.dresdenfilesrpg.com/news/archives/2006/12/designing_dresd_4.phpgo a long way towards providing the grittiness, but I think one more tweak needs to be made. Harry frequently ends up with several consequences which would under the current FATE rules be described as 'Severe'. As an example in Full Moon he is shot in the shoulder very near the beginning, and things only go
down hill from there. This could be done with flavour - change moderate consequences to things which sound worse, but I feel the simple answer is to allow people to take multiple severe consequences. Alternatively they could just change any of the many feats which allow a player to take multiple moderate consequences and change it to allow multiple serious consequences.
There's also the Magic. I know they said they were going to start that over from scratch, so maybe they'll surprise me, but the magic in the Dresden Files is extremely detailed and extensive. I just don't know if the the Fudge "Roll 4 -1 through +1 dice" provides enough of a range of variable
Now this confuses me. You are concerned that the magic system will be poorly detailed
because you don't feel the dice rolled allow a wide enough range of results??
The most detailed in game magic system I have ever seen was the system in Dangerous Journeys. It was the sole thing which made that game completely totally and utterly unplayable unless you house ruled it to death. Just because a magic has a well fleshed out background in the Dresden books doesnt mean we want an over engineered rules system backing that. A good set of rules for magic, like everything will be simple, fast and encourage descriptive play.
I've seen several fan written sets of rules around which capture much of the Dresden feel. Theres a great set of "Evocation-style Magic" rules on the Yahoo group, unfortunately aimed at a Stunless game. There are also some nice rules in "Spirit of Steam & Sorcery". Whilst neither of these are perfect for Dresden they show what can be done with the system.
And four fudge dice is a great mechanic to base a system round, since it produces a bell curve, which makes balancing much much easier than using any flat probability method. Also the fact that its centered around zero makes the mathematics very easy.
SotC is one of those systems brimming with great ideas. Many of them I'll borrow and retrofitted into other games I run. If the Dresden Files RPG lives up to the standards set by SotC I'm sure it will be a great game. Could it go dreadfully wrong - maybe, but if it does I'm sure the basic FATEv3 system wont be to blame.
Hmmm.. Mini rant over. Thanks for your time. I'll go back to silent lurking.
Cheers,
R00kie
