The DF verses the DFRPG

[ways and means]

Jim has made it clear that angels who exercise freewill fall.  There's even that conversation with Lash concerning how she didn't have freewill as angel.
Richard

So fallen angels have free will which makes them playable characters which is kind of nice for those wanting to play an angel. It is interesting that Jim treats freewill as a negative in this example whereas throughout the rest of the game free will is treated as the difference between being a monster or not. If we follow the logic of the rest of the setting this means that Angels are in-human monsters and fallen angels are something more than their kin.

[Silverblaze]

I don't think fallen angels are evil.  They just lost the grace that makes them without sin.  It is no longer foreign to them, they are capable of it.

Sin is not the same as evil.

I will say this is too philosophical for the topic however.

I am abstaining from the vote.  If I have learned anything from the internet, everyone has opinions and less than 1% cares what an individula's opinion is.  Polls won't change it. 

I will say that I try to keep very close to Jim's setting or I'd play something.  I like other systems better.  This one is the one that accompanied DFRPG.  I play it.  I often houserule it a lot.  I suppose as much as I want to vote for option 1, I can't quite. 

I vote for option 1.5

[devonapple]

So fallen angels have free will which makes them playable characters nice, it is interesting that Jim equates freewill with evil in this example and lack of free-will with monstrousness in other examples this means that Angels are in-human monsters and fallen angels something more.

Depending on how one wishes to characterize them, yes: Angels can be terrible, terrible monsters, as completely inscrutable to humans as the Fae, if you are between them and the Will of God. "Legion" is an excellent portrayal of the bloody, Old Testament, wrath of God brutality that had historically been attributed to His servants.

Conversely, insofar as "evil" is traditionally defined as "against humans" - and Angels are commanded by God to serve His creation (humans) - then yes, "falling" could, by dint of exclusion, connote "evil", but as Silverblaze notes, I would prefer to characterize that they exist in a state that is susceptible to sin. I believe an Angel could conceivably define its rebellion in a way that does not automatically make them anti-human. Again, taking "Legion" as an example, one angel defies His will and Falls in order to serve the greater Good. But these concepts get tinkered with in any supernatural setting that includes God, Angels and Devils.

Back to the DresdenVerse: I'm not certain whether or not the setting/Jim has said outright that the 30 Fallen bound to the Blackened Denarii comprise ALL of the Fallen to date, or if there may be an unknown or unnumbered cadre of Fallen who have not aligned with the Knights of the Blackened Denarius. For the sake of an open setting, I'd buy that some of the Fallen didn't actually join the Denarians, aren't specifically aligned with "evil" - that is, until I'm presented with canonical evidence to the contrary. And even so, I might condone it as one of those compelling "exceptions" like Thomas.

[Sanctaphrax]

So we should tell Fred to jettison the "Update to the setting" chapter in Paranet?

Um, no.

Setting material like that is very useful to some people.

Point is, there's nothing even remotely close to mandatory about using that update. The game is written broadly enough that you could use it to play a superhero game or a game about mortal dancers in the real world.

[Mr. Death]

Back to the DresdenVerse: I'm not certain whether or not the setting/Jim has said outright that the 30 Fallen bound to the Blackened Denarii comprise ALL of the Fallen to date, or if there may be an unknown or unnumbered cadre of Fallen who have not aligned with the Knights of the Blackened Denarius. For the sake of an open setting, I'd buy that some of the Fallen didn't actually join the Denarians, aren't specifically aligned with "evil" - that is, until I'm presented with canonical evidence to the contrary. And even so, I might condone it as one of those compelling "exceptions" like Thomas.

I think he has. Someone asked if there was a 31st Denarian with a gold coin, and Butcher's response was along the lines of, "No, the Pharisees didn't tip."

[Katarn]

I think it can be either.  I personally favor being lockstep with Butcher's works, but I don't think they have to be.

[Becq]

I think he has. Someone asked if there was a 31st Denarian with a gold coin, and Butcher's response was along the lines of, "No, the Pharisees didn't tip."

Note that saying "there are more Fallen than the those thirty that bound themselves to coins" is different than saying "there are more than thirty Fallen who have bound themselves to coins".  WoJ is that there are only thirty Blackened Denarians, but he hasn't said the same about Fallen in general.  For example, Chaunzaggoroth might be a (lesser) fallen angel; if he isn't, it seems likely he has a boss who is.

[Richard_Chilton]

So fallen angels have free will which makes them playable characters which is kind of nice for those wanting to play an angel.

Playing a Fallen Angel isn't the same as playing an Angel.

Note that saying "there are more Fallen than the those thirty that bound themselves to coins" is different than saying "there are more than thirty Fallen who have bound themselves to coins".  WoJ is that there are only thirty Blackened Denarians, but he hasn't said the same about Fallen in general.

Lucifer is a Fallen Angel.

The quote "He was a captain of Lucifer's, after the Fall. Anduriel leads the thirty Fallen who inhabit the coins." clearly implies that there were more than 30.

Richard

[Viatos]

Playing a Fallen Angel isn't the same as playing an Angel.

Interesting. What difference is there?

[Tsunami]

When playing the game, by necessity you are expanding the setting given to us in the Dresden Files Novels.
The Rules even encourage you and tell you how to do it. City Creation anyone ?

If you were to "prohibit" setting expansion, then you would effectively make it impossible to experience anything new in the game.
A new NPC ? A new town ? A new bad guy ? Original player characters ? All of those expand the setting in some way.

Yes, it's an extreme interpretation, i know.
My point being that the two answers are not exclusive.
By necessity we leave the world of the Novels and enter a new world we create for ourselves. But how far we stray from the premise of the original is totally up to the individual gaming styles.

My latest group is playing close to the current events in the Books. We even have one PC that's taken from the Books. So the setting is actually pure DF. The other players are playing original characters, some of which are close to DF standard, others stray a bit.
Another campaign i played in was set in 19th century Arizona... I didn't see anything of that setting in the Books *g*

A Game may even start as a Pure Blooded DF setting and evolve into something else.

So my answer is: "Both. Whatever strikes my fancy at any given time."

[Becq]

Interesting. What difference is there?

I think any priest could give you all sorts of input on this subject, more authoritatively than I could. 

I think in DFRPG, however, the most important difference is that Angels seek to further God's plan (in which Free Will plays a key part), whereas the Fallen seek to subvert Creation for their own purposes.  I suspect that mechanically, the differences are akin to the differences between Hellfire and Soulfire (which is to say that the mechanical differences are less than the flavor differences).