How canon are the RPG books to the Dresdenverse

[wardenferry419]

I have all three books and I was wondering how much credit I could give them ? For example : the section in paranet papers covering Simon and the Russian events.

[argetlampuppeh]

Jim proofread the first two and actively told them what they could and could not include, so those are solid. Paranet papers, I'm not as certain on, but if they went through the same process, they're as golden as any WOJ

[wardenferry419]

Thanks.

[Bearclaw]

I found it very useful to have my DFRPG books on my tablet when I read the Skin Game.  There's enough time between each book now that I really appreciate being able to check up on who's who.

[wardenferry419]

I write character updates in margins.

[Lawgiver]

How close the RPG info comes to the DV storybooks is, to me, relevant only in how closely one want to run one's game to those stories.

The sections on Central/South America as well as the one on Russia seem pretty solid to me - based on what I've gleaned from the books.  I'd say they're roughly 70%(ish) on the mark, the rest is filler that can be reasonably construed from that, or filler that doesn't really make any difference.

The Everglades is beyond me mostly because I have little to no knowledge of the area so can't judge it.

The Las Vegas portion is where I concentrate.  My wife and I love going to LV.  In our 50's, we've both been many times and know the place pretty well - not just the Strip from Downtown to the south end, but many other "regular Joe" portions of the city too.  So do several of our friends who have gone to LV with us at one time or another and who also game with us on a regular basis.  I can say that what's been written there caught my attention in a big way and all the players really appreciate both the large scale and subtle nuance bits in the write-up.  We have an absolute blast because we don't need a lot of maps (road or building) to visualize what's going on.  Gunfire in a Strip casino nightclub?  We know where the doors, windows and bar are, how the tables are laid out and just exactly where not to aim so bullets don't go careening out into the casino floor.  A car chase?  Hoo, boy!  Imagine the hilarity when one of our guys is trying to outrun police on a busy LV Blvd (the infamous Strip) and the "action" is relegated to low speeds that make one think of the low-speed chase scene in Steve Martin's The Jerk - and we know exactly why it would be like that!

The supernatural elements introduced into LV via the books are plausible and - short of the dangerous "thing" that's resting underneath - fit almost perfectly into an orthodox DV world.  If the others are as tight a fit, then I wouldn't worry about any small stuff.  Just chalk it up to customized verisimilitude and have at.

[dragoonbuster]

Jim proofread the first two and actively told them what they could and could not include, so those are solid. Paranet papers, I'm not as certain on, but if they went through the same process, they're as golden as any WOJ

Have a source for this? Never heard that until now. (FYI, he is listed as an Author in YS and OW, but not for PP.)

Personally...Jim approving something isn't the same as every note in the book being canon. There are questions asked in sidebars that imply "that's how it works" but...I've read/listened to enough WoJs to know that he loves raising those kinds of questions to screw with people. Those sorts of vague guesses, questions, suppositions, etc by non-Harry/Bob writers are highly suspect in my opinion. I would take them with a small pile of salt and use them or not in your games as it please you.

[Cadd]

The canonicity (if it's not a word - it is now!) of the RPG books are... complicated.

In my mind, we have to chop them up in a couple of parts.

First, YS.
I'd go out on a limb and say No. Relatively Canon-fitting, but not canon. If nothing else because the Billy writing the book is clued in to a degree at least an order of magnitude higher than canon Billy becomes in TC, which is later in the timeline than YS. He has also never been shown Bob, and I doubt Harry would. So all the little quips, the explanations of how things work, etc may or may not be specifically JB approved.
My verdict: Non-canonical.

Second, OW.
This gets a lot more complicated.
The short story, "AAAA Wizardry", is straight up written by JB. Ergo, just as much canon as the other short stories.*
Ch 1-3: Old World Order, What Goes Bump and Who's Who. These (or parts of them at least) are used as reference material by JB when he's writing the novels. He has stated as much in several interviews. This puts them in a sort of semi-canonical state in my mind, since JB clearly considers them good enough to inform his own work.
Ch 4: Occult Chicago. Since I don't know much about Chicago, I don't know, but I get the feeling that this is actually a lot more Real World RPG'd than Dresden Canon.
And as with YS - the various IC quips? Non-canonical on the same grounds as YS.
My verdict: Mixed bag.

Third, PP.
This may need separation like OW did, but on the whole, I think this is back solidly into non-canon.
I don't know if JB uses the updated Who's Who like he does the original from OW, but that is probably the most canonical in the book.
The five "locales" are probably not to be considered canon, given that some of them takes approaches that are... Not contradictory, but... A bit odd in relation to the novels. The immense spread of magical ability of some sort in the Neverglades, the exchanges between Eben and Simon in the Russian Revolution chapter**, etc.
My verdict: Non-canonical.

* I am almost 100% certain that this is the full extent of what JB has written specifically for the RPG. I'm completely uninformed on how writing credits work, but a quick flip through YS showed at least one case of exact quoting from the books, and not specifically as a quote - there's a phone-book ad with the full text just as in the novels. I'd think that'd be enough for a writing credit in YS.

** I can't recall any WC prohibition against political involvement. The Council as a body does not take sides, but I haven't seen any problems with individual members being involved; as long as they don't break any laws and clean up their own mess, I don't see the Council intervening. On a lower level, but the same principle, individuals fight wars on whatever side they feel loyalty to - Morgan fought for the UK in WWI, while Eben, Langtry and presumably LtW were all active in the French and Indian War. The strongest indicator of a prohibition that I can recall is LtW's non-involvement when his tribe was killed.

[Quantus]

As a point of reference, according to Iago (aka Fred Hicks, Keeper of the Boards here but also one of the founders of Evil Hat and a driving force behind the DFRPG):

Iago posted this with reguards to the RPG canonality
Quote from: iago on June 12, 2010, 07:49:01 PM

    It is not Word of Jim, but it's close.  The blacked out stuff that folks can discover in the PDFs are 4th wall breaking stuff, mainly an in joke for people who figure out how to read it. Beyond that there are elements of the text that are at least slightly inaccurate or more often incomplete because the rpg as presented is being filtered through Billy -- a version of Billy who was more clued in prior to Turn Coat, so the rpg itself is at least a little alternate universe in its conceit.  But regardless we made it as close to the spruce material as we could manage, because we wanted the setting parts of it to work as a legitimate fan guide too.

[wardenferry419]

As a point of reference, according to Iago (aka Fred Hicks, Keeper of the Boards here but also one of the founders of Evil Hat and a driving force behind the DFRPG):

Thanks, I was very interested in Simon 's letters in Vol. 3.