The Dresden Files Roleplaying Game, Vol. 1: Your Story

This is perhaps one of the most well written, amusing, and well thought out RPG books I've ever encountered in 20+ years of pen-and-paper role playing. The FATE system it is based on is light, yet crunchy where it needs to be. Its easy to learn but there are lots of subtleties to master. The setting is exciting, I started reading the Dresden series AFTER I bought this game. Most impressive to me was how complete this book is. If you had to buy one RPG book to start playing with, I'd recommend this one. It has an amazing setting creation system, excellent characters, and all the rules, gear, powers you need to make all the monsters, NPCs, and players you could want. This is really a gold-standard book here folks.

This book contains the rules for a FATE RPG variation based in the world of the Dresden Files novel series. I have read the books, and this rulebook in particular, and they are all an excellent and interesting read. Your Story takes things a step further by allowing you (and your friends) to step into the world of the Dresden Files and play your way through your own story. The book itself is well-written, with hilarious annotations and notes on almost every page. The illustrations are similarly gorgeous. In short, LOVED IT.

Let me get this out of the way first--I have yet to play this game. Having said that, I think this is a fascinating rules system and I can't wait to try it out. The book itself is set up as the rough draft of an in-universe roleplaying game being put together by Billy Borden (the idea being that it will subtly clue in the vanilla mortals to the supernatural happenings around them, similar to how "Dracula" allowed mortals to recognize Black Court vampires and their weaknesses); assorted comments and clarifications from Billy, Harry, and Bob have been included in the margins. These add to the realism of the system and often help illustrate the intent and/or finer points of some of the rules. Plus, page 61 has a fairly obscure reference that absolutely made my day :) Players are expected to take a more active role than in some other games, suggesting ways that their character's Aspects (phrases that represent distinctive traits) might influence the story. They can also take advantage of other characters' Aspects, utilize Aspects of the scene itself, or even make up such Aspects on the fly when the rules and GM allow it. One possible sticking point is that actions are resolved using special dice, called Fudge dice; if you'd rather not shell out for extra dice, the game suggests a couple of ways to use regular six-sided dice instead. As far as character creation goes, you have a nice selection of archetypes--your "class", if you will--and options; you can make pretty much anything you want, within reason. (Nothing inherently evil, like a Red Court vampire, or powerful beyond mortal understanding, like a Faerie Queen or archangel--but Red Court infected, Sidhe Knights, and Knights of the Cross are among the player options.) Players are also encouraged to work with the GM to create the setting and assorted character hooks; in fact, the rules suggest making Character Creation one of the later steps of group City Creation. All in all, it seems like a solid little game. If you and your friends are fans of the Dresden Files, and want to have your own adventures in the setting, this book is a must. Even if you're not familiar with the setting, it would make for a good modern fantasy game (although the aforementioned commentary probably won't do anything for you).

The Dresden Files RPG is a great game and it uses a great system, however, it is flawed by being way to convoluted in some aspects and the thamaturgy rules are incredibly complex. I played Fate Core first then moved on to the Dresden Files RPG even though I got the DFRPG first because the rules were getting a bit over my head. To be fair, this is because the DFRPG is using an older version of Fate that, by Evil Hats own admission, was a little TOO indepth and complex For example, in Fate Core, you start off with a high concept aspect (what your character is all about), a trouble aspect (a running theme of problems for your character), and a regular aspect (just something about your character flesh them out a little) and you can get up to two more as the game progresses. Aspects are invoked for all kinds of reasons by the player as long as they are relevent in some way to the task at hand. For example, if my high concept was 'Internationally known strong man' I can invoke this aspect to a bonus to get into a crowded bar because I am famous, I can invoke it to perform a feat of strength, or the DM can use it against me by making it difficult me for me to not call attention to myself because so many people know me. With 3 aspects it is great for beginners to learn the basics of how to invoke these aspects and it limits all the stuff the GM has to keep up with for random invoking and such when he is new. 5 is solid for advanced players who are into a pretty epic game with established characters and DM who knows what he doing really well. The DFPRG STARTS with SEVEN aspects per character, NPC, location, and enemy (yes, locations and items have aspects to for example a back alley can be 'slippery when wet' and 'well hidden' with a trouble being 'rats everwhere' and those can come into play during any encounters, investigations, etc that goes on there). It continues until players have a total of NINE aspects. If this is your first outing with Fate, DFRPG is a meaty, meaty game that takes time and patience to learn for the GM and the players, however, if you get the hang of it, understand the rules, and it clicks with all the players you will be hard pressed to find a more rewarding and enjoyable RPG experience.

I've run the game a few times and now feel confident enough to write a review. The first thing I want to note is that this system does a beautiful job of simulating the Dresden file books, which is a real tribute to the designers. I particularly like the remarkably different feel of the game for the different power levels. The game system feels completely different for a character who's just getting their feet wet compared with a Dresden-like power-level. It really is the same very simple system but it feels so completely different you have almost can't believe it. The second thing to note is that this is first and foremost a system for story-tellers. The designers actually urge the GM to assign the duties in creating the city environment. This has two major impacts: it causes the players to become intimately acquainted with their role-playing environment and it reduces the load on the GM, which is a GOOD thing! Th design decision to emphasize story has a very large impact on the system. Luck is removed from the game as much as possible to avoid having it mess up the story. It's also hard to kill characters in this system by design (unexpected deaths might mess up the story). Third, while this game system is REALLY simple to play (it is more like cooperative story-telling than a traditional player group vs. the world game system) and it REALLY keeps the GM and the players on their toes. At any given moment the player may be asked to describe how they were wounded and to assign a penalty to themselves as a result of the injury. On the other hand, the game system encourages the players to go even further afield than they normally do. I would say that this system offers less support to the railroaded, single direction adventure than I've seen in my 30+ years of gaming. Fourth, this is a skeletal system by design. There are great big sections of the system that are literally left up to the GM and players to handle. This leaves very little down-time for the GM and players. You don't have the usual predictable 2-hour long final battle where the players can start swinging their swords and don't have to consider the consequences. Combat in this system is short, nasty, and brutish. There's tons of room for tactical maneuvering (mental and social, the game doesn't stand much on setting up a scene and using lots of mini's, that would just slow things down) but the situation constantly changes and the GM and players have to adapt to the new circumstances very quickly. The only bad experience we've had with the game system so far is when I (as the GM) didn't sleep well the previous night and just wasn't up to the subtleties of the player's requests. We're back on track now and heading for the epic conclusion but it was pretty rough session on everybody. If your group is able to handle the challenges this system presents and are looking for some outstanding Urban Fantasy action, I'd suggest you dump whatever system you're running and jump on this ship. The system is very simple, very smooth, and rather elegant. Very well done!

Being a big fan of the Dresdan Files and Tabletops I had to check out this system when I had the funds. It was already familiar enough since I had already played the FATE system before. Where this book really shines is it's presentation. When I first got the book I spent the first three hours just browing through the pages without even reading the rules or mechanics. The artwork is a treat for anyone familiar with the books as they see the characters they love and scenes that are memorable while three characters from the series write in the margins for flavor text and also clarifications. I really liked that because whenever learning a new system you can get lost in the technicalities and what ifs In short: Good for tabletop fans, tabletop newbs, and just fans of the series in general because of the flavor text and artwork.

Dresden Files RPG Volume One: Your Story is an excellent roleplaying game. It runs off the FATE system, which is a roleplaying game system that focuses more on describing characters than mediating action and therefor places a lot of focus on story interaction. Veterans of the World of Darkness roleplaying game system will find themselves right at home while people tired of the more crunchy roleplaying games like Hackmaster, Dungeons & Dragons, or Pathfinder, might find the cinematic feel of the FATE system to their liking while still being able to bite their teeth into the magic system and character customization. The most interesting aspects of the system is that character generation is done as a group and you first start by creating the city (or state, or realm, or nation) that your characters live in, giving it places and names that make it familiar for the characters. The game is also based off the successful novel series The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. The creators took years scouring over the books (that were out at the time) in order to try and best emulate the action and drama in the various novels. The Dresden Files is about a character named Harry Dresden, who is both a private investigator and a wizard in a modern day world that doesn't believe in magic or monsters. Sadly magic and monsters don't need humanity's permission to exist. This book is titled Volume One because there is a second compendium book called The Dresden Files RPG Volume Two: Our World. You do not need this book in order to play the game but a storyteller might like to have access to it. The second volume focuses primarily on explaining the Dresden Files universe, stating out non-player characters, and such. Volume one has a primer for the world and the types of characters one can play and is more than sufficient for players of the game or lovers of the series, although lovers of the series might find the second volume a treat in and of itself as it has a short story written by Jim Butcher in it. So far I have been in two games of The Dresden Files and I highly recommend trying out the game.

The Dresden files is an enjoyable setting for me. I enjoy the dark modern day fantasy setting, Dresden is an interesting character, with weaknesses and strengths, and his allies and adversaries are both varied, interesting, and rarely two-dimensional. So creating an RPG setting is very fitting. I've only done a few run-throughs of character creation, and one real session. This system works off of the Fate system, (fudge dice, etc), and has a very interesting method in which people can interact with the storyline and surroundings, to make the GM's life a little bit easier. Both this, and the partner book (Vol 2: Our World) are worth getting. This volume is meant for the Players (and GM), and the second volume is more meant for whomever is going to run your game. If you enjoy the Dresden files, and a system that has numbers, but also allows for a good solid sense of roleplaying (and not just roll playing), with a good story element, this will likely be a good system for you. I haven't played enough to notice balance issues at this time.