Question reguarding the setting.

[Alberich]

Hello, I just recently got the RPG book but havent had a chance to read it cover to cover yet. I did have a question about settings for the community though if I may?

My brother wants to run a game with it but set in Anchient Rome, being that hes a huge history fan and has a passion for all things roman. Is this possible in the game mechanics or is it only a modern day type of setting?

I know how he pitched the idea to me, playing a Roman Soldier Lycanthrope seemed oddly fitting and appropiete.

[devonapple]

Off the bat, I would say:
Skills will have to be retuned slightly, but not much. Most of the trappings will carry over, but some of them assume technology or contemporary cultures. Guns, obviously, has to go, to be replaced with Bows or something like that.

Buying and/or making things will be impacted, so the GM will have to rework the Buying Things chart, or just wing it.

Magical hexing should be replaced with a mechanism that conforms to Dresden's assertions that in ancient times, mortal magic spoiled milk and things like that: basically, have it do things which are inconvenient and easy-to-notice in a medieval setting.

Other than that, a lot of it will easily carry over.

[jb.teller4]

I'd started to write a long reply, but devonapple nailed everything I was saying much more succinctly.

I know that other people have played Dresden Files in different eras (e.g. Rick Neal's Fearful Symmetries campaign set in Prague in 1620 during the Thirty Years' War) and it didn't seem like they had any trouble converting the system to earlier eras.

-John B.

[Arcteryx]

One thing that'll go amiss is the whole juxtaposition of technology/science and magic - and wizards wouldn't have to worry about hexing anything. Besides that though, playing in ancient Rome sounds like a damned cool idea

Can't see why it couldn't be done.

[InFerrumVeritas]

I forget exactly where, but I know in a few places it was stated that in pre-modern tech times wizards did things like spoil milk and such.  Before the renaissance or so, wizards would get pocks and boils as magic marred the skin.  Just things to keep in mind.

[EdgeOfDreams]

Totally viable.  Actually, you might want to look into Jim's other series, the Codex Alera, which has somewhat similar magic and is set in a civilization inspired by ancient Rome.  Some people have made attempts on this forum to convert the Dresden Files RPG to running Codex Alera.

As far as running DFRPG in a Roman setting, there's only a few things that really need tweaks:

• Guns and Drive skills
• Scholarship skill, if only in the sense that what you can know is limited by what civilization had discovered up to that point
• Resources skill needs to take into account the economy of that time
• Hexing
• Certain powers and factions may not exist or exist in a different form, for example, the White Council or the Swords of the Cross

[TheRealMe]

Or you could run in the modern day, but your player is an immortal centurion or something.

[Alberich]

Thanks for the replys, I thought it might be malleable like that. Its good to hear.

And yes on the Codex Alera suggestion, My brother and I have read the books and use that as some additional source material for the ideas.

My brother wants to base the game just a little before Julius Caesar began his campaign in Gaul.
Alot of the Faction existed relativly the same as they are now at this time, like the Vampire Courts infiltration into mortal soeciety. The Council of Wizards may need some work as it seems very likly to be alot more split then it is now. I suggested I probably wouldnt want to deal with say Egyptian Necromancers and such in this time period for sure.