Dresden Files RPG - First Impressions

Given that I am attempting to stay up a little longer and ignore other pressing responsibilities, I thought I would take a moment to talk about gaming and dust off the ole blog. Just yesterday, I sat down with one of my groups to play my first ever Dresden Files RPG game, as well as my first FATE engine game. Needless to say, I had a marvelous time generating my character and playing a much different system than I'm currently used to, as pretty much, the only offerings at moment are copious amounts of Pathfinder (not a stab against the system, but just a lament on the lack of system diversity). So here goes my horrific review (completely out of practice) of Session 1, from a mostly mechanical standpoint.

Character Generation - Making Ken Doyle
Normally, when I sit down to create a character, I open a Windows sticky note and begin hashing out some basic details. But when sitting down with Dresden, I found myself facing a whole sheet dedicated just to the background. For those unfamiliar with the Dresden Files chargen system, the creation of the background allows the player to establish Phase Aspects, quirks of personality and character history, such as "Lucky at all the wrong moments" and "Ma's Chicken Soup Recipe," that the player can invoke in situations to gain in-game benefits and the GM can compel to complicate your life. My overall inclination rested upon shamelessly ripping off how the designers modeled Harry Dresden as the example for character generation. I essentially took a different approach to Ghost Whisperer and morphed the Jennifer Love Hewitt character into a tough street boxer, who realizes his gift by meeting the ghost of his final boxing opponent, whom he killed in the ring. Both end up working together in order to bring peace to restless souls. In his first adventure off-screen (Round Seven), during one of his "jobs," he takes on a mage bent on inciting a large gang war in Boston. With the additions of some skills, powers, and mortal stunts (special ways to use skills), I fashioned him into a fairly competent boxer just new to investigative work. Through this process, Ken Doyle made his appearance:

• High Concept: Haunted, Grizzled Boxer
• Trouble: Anger and Fists Don't Always Mix Well!
• Aspect 1: These Streets Run Through My Blood.
• Aspect 2: Trust the Dead; You'll Live Longer.
• Aspect 3: Mage-Breaking Uppercut. "Hadouken!"
  
• Great (+4): Fists, Contacts
• Good (+3): Endurance, Intimidation
• Fair (+2): Athletics, Presence, Might
• Average (+1): Conviction, Discipline, Investigation, Resources, Rapport
• Powers: Ghost Speaker
• Stunts: Footwork, I Know Just the Guy, You Don't Want Any of This!

Impression: This system worked out remarkably well. While in most games, I have a fairly solid understanding of the character that I am playing, but ultimately I do not give such considerations too much depth, as they often have little roleplaying or mechanical consequence in the system. However, Dresden provided me with not only the opportunity to flesh the details out as part of character generation, but also the incentive to do so, as I could use them to aid my character. For once in many characters, my grip on this persona was much more tangible than it had been.

Session 1 - Hours 1 & 2
When the group finally amassed at my apartment, we continued the character generation system by adding the last two aspects, which are awesomely derived from how our character impacted the first story of two other characters at the table. Since our table consisted of only three characters, we all showed up in each other's stories. After some negotiation and editing by all players, we finally settled on in how we knew each other. In terms of my relationships:

• Sabine [Changeling] (Player: Em) - I saved her from a bunch of thugs when she arrived in America. Aspect: Never Overlook a Chance to be Heroic
• Kira [White Court Virgin] (Player: Beth) - After she witnessed a murder at a convenience store, I interviewed her while attempting to catch his killer. Aspect: A Case w/ a Supernatural Twist

We concluded this section by getting all players into each other's stories and discussing methods of compelling and invoking each of our aspects, arriving at different situations where they could be used to aid and/or complicated the plot. This transactional affair was quite engaging, as I came out with a host of situations where I could use them during future sessions.

Impression: In terms of the whole process, the collaboration at this stage was impressive, and everyone really worked together to establish relationships and interactions prior to our new adventure. This stage also represented one of the more challenging parts of the game, as it can become difficult to find realistic ways of getting characters into certain First Adventures. With a larger number of players (4+), there will be instances where characters will not be in certain other characters' intro stories, which can be quite helpful when an American native who has never left the country would be hard pressed to find his way into a European tale. However, with just the three of us, a healthy dose of rhetcon was needed to get everything in place. Also, the fact that another character, potentially of supernatural origin, enters into the First Adventure could alter its nature and make it rather difficult to manage. This was not a gamebreaker by any means, but it did create some issues at our first meeting as we got our stories straight.

Session 1 - Hour 3
After chargen was finished, we hit the streets of Boston and found ourselves facing the appearance of the Morgan in artifacts at a museum exhibit. My character caught a glimpse of a fleeing raven-haired woman, but the pursuit turned up nothing. Given the abundance of this visual image and the attitude of undead spirits in their "devotion" to the artifacts, we did what every modern investigative party should do: we went to the library and did some research. After gathering a bit of information, Sabine and I parted company with Kira and had dinner at a local Italian restaurant. Upon our exit, two abnormally sized ravens descended upon us and attempted to kill us for conducting our investigation. However, they stood no chance to my physical prowess and Sabine's quick thinking, as we quickly subdued and restrained them.

Impression: I must say that I love FUDGE dice. Unlike d20s, which give a huge range of success and failures, these four, six-sided dice have three different faces (-, 0, and +) which lend themselves to a range of -4 to +4 for any given roll. As such, it means that stuff you will likely not botch stuff that you are really good at, and you could be competent on stuff that you have no training in due to sheer luck. For example, with my Great (+4) Fists, I will have a range of Mediocre (+0) and Legendary (+8), meaning that I will never truly botch and have a reasonable chance on any roll of still doing quite well. The skills rolls felt fairly balanced under this system.

The invoking and compelling mechanics were quite cool to watch in use. Invoking aspects, which leads to a +2 to a skill check or a reroll, requires the use of Fate points drawn from the character's limited pool, so it made the timed usage of Aspects rather important. When we were doing library research with my Average (+1) Investigation, I spent a Fate point to invoke A Case w/ a Supernatural Twist to temporarily make it Good, and with the subsequent +4 on the roll, I went into full-on search engine mode and found much of what we needed, and it felt really epic. I managed similar stuff during the fight with the ravens. Compelling is also pretty neat, in that the GM can offer you a Fate point to use your Aspects as a means to complicate the scene and compel certain reactions. To avoid this, players can spend a Fate point to ignore the compel action. In the session, the GM used it quite openly to push us into the plot, which worked out nicely for us since we all received that Fate point in return. The mechanic was not really used to complicate the situation, but I am certain that will be in store for us next session.

However, my favorite usage of Fate points in the game came when Sabine was looking for a trashcan during our fight outside the restaurant. By spending one point, she immediately ported the item into the scene and made it available for her use, which was really cool and ended up as a rather nasty way of containing one of the ravens.

I won't go too far into the combat and conflict system, as I am still a little fuzzy on how it all works. It is currently the aspect of the game that I understand least, although future sessions should rectify that.

Parting Thoughts
Having played Pathfinder for so long, jumping into this game was a healthy refresher. While Pathfinder requires characters to be mostly dedicated to a specific party role, this system was much more flexible in terms of allowing players to craft their characters and, especially for mundane characters in a sea of supernaturals, to contribute meaningfully to the story without a huge disparity in power. The character creation and system are simple, yet robust enough to allow a hefty degree of customization without overloading players with too much crunch.

Will this book make its way onto my shelf and into my heart? It is too early to tell, but I can say that it offers a unique approach to modern supernatural fantasy/horror, a genre that is rather hard to get going lately in a sea of Paizo saturation.

Weekly Adventure Write-Up 1 - Smuggler's Shiv

Spoilers will be littered throughout this entry. You have been warned!

The only game currently running within my immediate circle of friends is my Pathfinder campaign running through the Serpent's Skull Adventure Path. This write-up will cover the first session. Our current cast of characters includes:

Bane - N Human Cleric of Pharasma (played by Tito)
Tzaira - CN Elf Witch (played by Captain Crimson)
Zstelian - CN Human Oracle (played by Eelface)
Ddal - LN Dwarf Fighter (played by Kitsukisama)

Two others still wait in the wings.

The Adventure Thus Far
The heroes found themselves on Smuggler's Shiv after being shipwrecked due to unknown circumstances. After some early conflicts involving poisonous crustaceans, they determined that someone had drugged the crew and caused the terrible accident. Our heroes, along with five other NPC castaways began to make their way across the island, headed toward the remenants of a previous civilization, home of the lighthouse that they hoped would lead to their rescue. Some miscellaneous encounters here and there sapped some of their resources, but they endured, finding numerous hauls from unlucky visitors from the past. As they traveled the coast, they came across two terrible discoveries. Some creature in the woods had been stalking them throughout the journey and leaving mangled animals as some sort of warning. One night, as they attempted to locate the creature, it made off with their NPC gnome companion, who ended up worse for wear, requiring Bane's skillful healing hand. They resolved to move on without delay, hoping to outpace the demon who had become fixated on the group.

The second discovery shed some light on their circumstances, as it seemed that one of the passengers had engineered this scenario for some purpose, possibly in collusion with the missing captain. Their resolve to track down these two individuals met with some opposition, as the path had become obscured by a nest of particularly deadly spiders. The group opted to circle around in the hopes of picking the trail back up at a later date.

This skirting led to the major encounter of the night, for which the party was somewhat ill-prepared and the GM a bit heavy-handed in his approach. The NPCs conveniently business (sneeze "quests") for the PCs to complete around the island as a means of forcing the PCs to explore the various corners of the Shiv. The most lucrative "business" by far was the rogue's desire to locate buried treasure. Since he would allow the PCs to take a cut, they agreed to help and once the location had been discovered, they uncovered the underground chamber containing the loot...and 4 Lacedons hoping to splish them across the walls. Given the make-up of the party, 1.5 melee combatants and spell support that would not work on the undead, life got pretty complicated quickly, particularly since my initial full attack splattered the fighter all over the room. What ensued was a clusterfuck of bad roles combined with strong hits against the party. However, I am not above allowing a deus ex every now and again, so after some divine intervention and a slight nod toward completing the quest, they mustered their resolve and continued to kill the lacedons and claim their treasure.

Initial Module Thoughts
It goes without saying that this module is quite fun. It represents my first foray into running published adventures, but I am having a great time each time I sit down. Part of the benefit to module and published campaigns is that I am able to address my two glaring weaknesses as a GM: continuity and pacing. Since the module lays out the scenario from start to finish, I can avoid going off onto moon-jumping tangents and alien invasions (true story). I am a bit taken back by the amount of awesome loot given to the PCs in the module. Without spoiling too much, my part already has some access to +1 weapons and crapload of potions. However, since the PCs are completely isolated and without any support, this approach makes a lot of sense.

I will continue this write-up throughout the next few months, and the next post should be up by the middle of next week. Until then, stay tuned.

Console Sprite Stays Home, Part I - Feel My Module

Yes, this is true...I did stay home instead of heading out to GenCon like everyone else. Personal and professional obligations have tied me down and I could not find a way out. Now, I do not want to spend any time moping about it, as my personal obligations will hopefully turn out to be quite fun over the weekend. In lieu of any talk about GenCon, I will talk mainly about the geeky things that I have been doing that have no relation to the event, so get ready for the first entry: Feel My Module.

When I arrived home from the horrendous August heat, I sat down at my computer to feast my eyes on my latest acquisition: Souls for Smuggler's Shiv, the first module in the Serpent's Skull Adventure Path for Pathfinder. This will represent only the second module that I have ever run in my life, the first of which being The Tomb of Iuchiban for L5R. To summarize that experience, the boxed set should have included the following tagline: "Just tear your PCs' character sheets up at the start. It will make their lives easier." It was quite brutal, even for high-level PCs, but it was a lot of wonky fun. This new module, however, promises to be a fun experience, as it pushes characters from the baby steps of level 1 to the somewhat normal chaos of level 4. Just briefly reading through it has made me quite giddy, as the premise looks entirely pulpy and adventurous. I won't go into details to spoil the fun and ruin any future entries on the subject (which there will be).

Also, I might have talked Kitsuki-sama into pulling out Arkham Horror tomorrow so that we might actually finish a game without dying horribly. With some additional house rules and two characters per player, I am optimistic about our chances to defeat the base game. Our track record is 0-4, but this is mainly due to the lack of investigators on the table. Addressing this problem should make the game easier to complete.

And finally, when poking around the gaming sites, I found this gem: Blood Bowl. This game definitely represents a future investment of funds, but for right now, I am content with simply drooling.

The night grows short and I must be on my way. Stay tuned for the next part tomorrow....

Game Nostalgia - First PC Death

I am thinking back to the first character that I ever lost in an RPG, campaign death not withstanding. The game was Legend of the Five Rings, Second Edition (and yes, I must qualify that) and the character was a young Lion tactician hoping to make his name among an empire emerging from the Scorpion Clan Coup. What followed was a horrific foray into the Clan Wars, a time of great strife and evil as Fu Leng made his move to cast the empire into the 1000 Years of Darkness. The young Ikoma bravely fought alongside his campaigns until that fateful moment: exposure to the Wasting Disease. After much suffering (and 16 failed dice rolls), his life came to an end, as his unsteady hand during his final act of seppukku was met with the honorable duty of his second. The character was burned and buried in a tender bonding moment among the PCs before they had to move on in order to warn the empire of the approaching Crab/Shadowlands army. The back-up character, the Kitsu Shugenja, really never meshed with the group, and eventually, succumbed to the seductive evils of maho.

Lessons
The lessons that I took away from the event were quite simple:

1. When it counts, I will fail the roll that will be needed to save my character...or in this instance, all 16 rolls.
2. Character death can be a wonderful story point to bring the others together, but it is often trivialized in many RPGs.
3. The second character will never have the same impact on the story as the first. He/she will undoubtedly feel out of place and isolated from the rest of the group, possibly because he/she was never part of the bonding moment.

While I have had many characters suffer horrible deaths, none stick in mind more than this young samurai hoping to leave his mark on the empire.

(The second most memorable death resulted in an awesomely gruesome display in Call of Cthulhu, but this story should be saved for another day.

Pathfinder...You and I must mate ideas.

It's true. After much reflection and helping of witty banter from 8bit Emma, I have decided that revisiting my old 3.5 setting through the new Pathfinder system shall be the best way to assist our new recruit into the pen and paper world. This decision does not come without some reservation, for I have not touched the setting, let alone a 3.5 variant in over two years. What's even better is that my old notes are mostly on my previous HP desktop, the victim of a transformer overload critical failure. However, as providence would have it, I located the old website where numerous bits of information had been previously uploaded. I have established the shell of a wiki and should have the migration complete in a matter of weeks.

I must begin preparations immediately...

Game Nostalgia Friday...On Monday

Yes, it has been a few days since the previous posting for this article. When the weekend strikes, shit usually hits the fan and this weekend was no exception, albeit some laziness does apply. Without further delay, I wish to discuss my topic of choice: The Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game

Background
One of my many games attributed to the local college gaming club, Amber represented one of my longest investments in a roleplaying game. While the group was often turbulent and I left halfway through the campaign due to school obligations, I still have some fond memories of the campaign and the motley bunch of misfits causing chaos throughout the realm. For those of you who are unfamiliar with game, it revolves around adventuring through Roger Zelazny's world of Amber, in which godlike beings (Amberites) use their powers of reality manipulation, sorcery, epic strength, and shameless Machiavellian politicking to battle against the forces of Chaos. In this game, you play one of the young neophyte spawned by one of the named characters in the series. You spend much of the time plotting against one another and striving to amass a certain level of power over others.

System
As stated previously, this game is diceless, completely and utterly diceless. Moreover, it also lacks a distinct resource allocation system as well, although the attribute rankings can serve as a crude model. Essentially, you have four major stats (Psyche, Strength, Endurance, and Warfare) into which you sink character creation points and set up a system of rankings against other players. Often, this system is run in a fairly blunt fashion, so the person with the top rank in Strength is simply stronger than all other PCs, and likewise with the other stats. The only way to defeat the top rank is a careful strategy that renders their stat complete useless or hampered. Putting zero points into an attribute still makes a character quite competent against any normal threat, as a zero point Warfare PC could survive most mortal battles with only a few residual scratches. In addition to these four stats, players can also buy numerous other bennies, including powers to manipulate order or chaos, items of true power, personal shadows, which are universes completely modeled to the PCs tastes, and allies to help protect you. Essentially, after spending your allotted points, that is the last you have to deal with the rules. The rest is fairly freeform, allowing a highly narrative experience without relying too heavily on die rolls.

Why I love this game
Since it was one of my first heavily narrative games, I fell in love with the sheer requirement of making my character stand out through well-developed, articulated description. I had the responsibility of making the character jump off the page with my own storytelling abilities rather than rely on die rolls to talk for me. Zelazny's world has a number of strong structures, but the game allows you to explore aspects undiscovered through the ten novel series.

Why I hate this game
This game is an obvious example of early generation attempts at diceless systems, and its age is unmistakable. While the system is simple, it is also quite janky and left entirely up to interpretation. The Power System for example is very loose on its interpretation, and given that Pattern abilities, the set most readily available to the PC, involves reality bending hijinks, it is disheartening to see such poor attention devoted to it. A Google search for rearticulations of the powers system will lead one to multiple interpretations that create a web of confusion. Furthermore, even Wujick's system stipulates that a GM can adapt the system and setting in any conceivable way. While sandbox lovers might rejoice, believe me, given how complex the setting is, such ill-conceived discussion does not help for newer and/or unfamiliar players. Is it possible to play the game without any knowledge of the universe? Yes, but the side effect is that much of the smaller nuances of the setting are often lost in the translation.

Verdict
The system is good for a test run, but be very cautious about investing wholeheartedly into this vintage model without a good look under the hood.