Cognitive dissonance? It's never what you expect the game to be.

[Radijs]

Thanks for the myriad of replies everyone. It's pretty much all along the lines that I expected and I can call my friend's fears more or less unfounded.

[Oblyss]

this a thousand times this. Nothing sucks worse than having to take back seat to Pet Npcs, Characters from the book or anything thats not a PC being awesome

I agree with you quite a bit, though I don't think it's always bad to have an NPC show up and save you. I mean, Dresden shows up and saves the day a lot, but he also ends up requiring saving a lot as well. So as long as you balance it out I think it works out, and can give the players a Brothers in Arms sort of feeling with the NPCs if they are always saving each other out of messy situations here and there. As long as it's not one sided.  But yeah I totally agree, I want the players to get to feel awesome.

I mean how would your players feel in this sort of situation: Tell your players, "There's a man shooting fire at a bunch of ghouls and getting kicked around a block away, he looks in trouble." The players save the guy and he says, "Hell's bells, that was a close one. Thanks for the help guys, I thought I was a goner for a minute there. Name's Harry Dresden."

That's really how my friend described the Dresden novels to me anyway when they got me reading them. "Dresden gets beat up: The books."

Personally, my GM hasn't used any named characters from the novels yet.

[Lanir]

Two things.

1. I've run several Amber games using the setting based on the novels. I tried talking my players into using the same rules but going with a new setting, but they would never go for it. That setting basically requires that the NPC's from the stories are present, although not necessarily showing up in any scene. The PC's can look them up pretty much at will. I found they were largely archetypal so it was not terribly difficult to portray them. The players who knew the stories were willing to buy into how I ran them and I actually got complimented on doing it well most of the time. I think I largely went with the NPC's having a particular attitude and atmosphere that I tried to portray, one point they wanted to deal with and then let the players direct the conversation afterward.

2. I had it easy in that Amber was setup this way by default but you could readily import this idea into any other game. The powerful NPC's I dealt with were all involved in an intricate and subtle game of chess. Sure the PC's were pawns, but they were also the only pieces on the board that could afford to move. Everyone else was locked because the moment they began to show their real power, the whole board would light up as everyone else responded. In the Dresden Files novels, Harry only looks awesome because he can move around and is largely free to do things. The White Council, the various vampire factions, the Winter and Summer courts, they're all stuck. They can't move. Hell they have a big pact (the Unseelie Accords) that generally spells that out in big letters. You can either add some adversary for Harry & Friends to stalemate against or you can have them join a faction.

(click to show/hide)

Yes, I know as Harry gets more power in the novels it comes with increasing ties and obligations. It puts him firmly on the board as something other than a pawn. The point remains however: pieces like that in this sort of game can only move freely when the GM/author sets up specific circumstances that allow it. Otherwise the offending piece will be lynched by it's own side with extreme prejudice just to attempt to convince the other factions that the offender was a rogue element.

[fantazero]

can you play Amber without having read the books? theres a debate in my group about this

[Deadmanwalking]

can you play Amber without having read the books? theres a debate in my group about this

Yes. But not very well if the canon characters are included. If they aren't, a quick summary is more-or-less sufficient.

[Lanir]

can you play Amber without having read the books? theres a debate in my group about this

It's like any other story. If the introduction is good enough you'll get the high points and move on. It's also possible to take a similar route to the first books with new people who've never heard of it. Let them learn about things in character. That also makes the invevitable minor misunderstandings much more interesting. Especially as they start to pick up how the people in the setting behave and wonder whether there was a deliberate cause or motive behind any misunderstandings.