Tommy's Take on Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game

A couple of years ago, I became a big fan of The Dresden Files, in turn turning my wife into a fan of The Dresden Files. I own the RPG (though I have never ran it), but when Evil Hat announced a cooperative card game, I was intrigued.


I was so intrigued, in fact, that I spent almost as much as I'm pledging on the Kickstarter in order to have the Print and Play core game printed up to try it out.

#RPGaDay Day 8: Favorite Depiction of RPGs in Media

Honestly, I don't really pay attention to stuff like that. I don't watch geek-focused comedies just because they pander to me, that sort of thing, so my selection here is pretty simple, as it made me laugh out loud when I read it.

Side Jobs by Jim Butcher starts off, as it usually does, with Harry's narration but something seems notably...off...about his descriptions. Especially when he starts complaining about how the spell someone else cast doesn't act like "real" magic and you find out that he was narrating his RPG character's action just like he does his own, until he felt his GM broke his suspension of disbelief by using magic rules that don't match "reality". Amusing stuff, but then, I'm a Dresden fan.

#RPGaDay Day 23: Coolest Looking RPG Product/Book

I am again going with the books in The Dresden Files RPG due to their depiction as an unfinished manuscript being worked on by Billy, with editing notes from Harry and Bob. Evil Hat did a fantastic job of capturing the voices of the characters, and I may have read this book more completely than I have any other due to the hilarious back and forth between Harry, Billy and Bob.

Well done, Evil Hat. I just hope Accelerated Edition and The Paranet Papers are as entertaining to read.

#RPGaDay Day 22: Best Second Hand Purchase

I picked up the two Dresden Files books and four sets of Fudge dice on eBay last year, as I was working through the Dresden Files books. This is the game that made Fate really "click" for me, as I finally had a context for all the Fate concepts that were eluding me. Unfortunately, I still haven't had a chance to PLAY it, though I've read the books repeatedly...and this purchase ultimately led to me supporting the Fate Core and Tianxia Kickstarters, and preordering Atomic Robo. Can't wait for the Paranet Papers to be released, now!

Tommy's Top Six of 2013 and Birthday Blog Giveaway

As you will recall, my blog very nearly didn't make it through the year after a horrible computer crash last January. Luckily, I was able to acquire a new computer and return to work. Unfortunately, I hit a record low on blog output, though I did have six reviews that particularly stood out to me, and - as is tradition - the first day of the year (and the fourth anniversary of my blog's founding) will be used to recognize those six games.

First, the rules: The Top Six can only feature one product per publisher. Second, my primary exposure, as well as the resulting review, had to have happened over the last year (from December 1st to December 1st). So if I had a product sitting on a my bookshelf that I thumbed through once, put down, and finally realized how great it was later? It qualifies. Actual publication date is irrelevant to me. Finally, I had to have had no involvement in the production of the book.

For those new to the party:
Tommy's Top Six 2010
Tommy's Top Six 2011
Tommy's Top Six 2012

And now, the Top Six, in alphabetical order.

Dragon Age Set 1 (Green Ronin)

Why You should Buy It: A great introductory RPG, I used it for exactly that purpose earlier this year, shortly after watching the now infamous Dragon Age Tabletop video. The boxed set is affordable, with sweet production values and a fast character creation system that provides a good amount of variety in character creation, as well as a cool stunt system that people mention trying to adapt to Savage Worlds about every couple of months. It gets even better when you add in Set 2 (the player aids are a thing of beauty when combined with the stunt system), and set 3 is presumably out later this year (it's been in open playtest for a while, and I kind of imagine that it is being set up now to be released at or near Dragon Age III, for synergy's sake). A fun fantasy RPG with the cinematic swings you get from later versions of D&D, combined with the simplicity on par with Advanced D&D. And if you find that it's been simplified a tad too much, the wonderful blog Dragon Age Oracle has you covered with the Esoterica of Thedas.

Dresden Files: Your Story (Evil Hat Games)

Why You Should Buy It: It is the first Fate RPG that ever SCREAMED "Run me!". This was helped out, noOur World in order to use Your Story, especially if you are going to decouple your game from Dresden's Chicago, though it certainly helps.
doubt, by the fact that I discovered the Dresden Files books last summer and completely and totally fell in love. The magic system covers all of the cool and fun intricacies of Dresden Files magic, and having knowledge of Dresden Files to compare the Fate writeups with did a wonderful job of helping me wrap my head around the intricacies of Fate, which has led to me taking a second look at other Fate books I had dismissed in the past, as well as looking closer at new Fate books. The setting is a great Kitchen Sink urban fantasy setting and, since it's all told from Harry Dresden's perspective, there's a lot of room for flexibility (due to unreliable narrator and lack of knowledge and so forth). The book itself is a thing of beauty, with great production values and the best "informal" writing I've read in an RPG since the Buffy and Angel RPGs. Despite being a two book series, you don't NEED

Heaven's Shadow (Bedroom Wall Press)

Why You Should Buy It: Easily the most unique product in my Top Six, Heaven's Shadow is lean, mean, self-published RPG using a streamlined version of the D6 system to power a game about assassins for Heaven who are waging a war against the demonic Nephilim who are walking amongst humanity. The price has gone up since the game's release, but I still recommend this without reservation...how many RPGs let you play assassins working for God, planning out assassinations against demonic entities wearing human faces...oh, and you can use Faith to enact Miracles (as simple as vanishing from sight, to plunging a building into darkness, to raising the dead). It's cool. Yeah, it's 84 pages, but it's no frills at all, meaning it is all gameable content. As a guy who ISN'T a huge fan of the D6 system (I generally find it to be overrated), this book makes great use of Mini Six. The first two releases on this list are fairly big name items, but products like Heaven's Shadow are a big part of the reason why I keep doing this blog: To make sure you know about the games you are missing out on.

Monster of the Week (Generic Games)

Why You Should Buy It: I have never played or read Apocalypse World, but it brought us tremulus, which
has been a huge hit for me and my group. Monster of the Week is another fruit off of the Apocalypse World tree, emulating things like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hellboy, Blade, Supernatural and even X-Files, all in the Apocalypse World "fiction first" style. The Playbooks cover a LOT of ground in the genre, especially with the additional Playbooks that have been released. We've had fun with the World Engine thus far, and Monster of the Week is a pretty kick-ass rendition of that Engine, geared towards...um...kicking monster butt. It can be set up for one shots, but where it is really going to shine is in a campaign, as your Monster Hunter's Luck runs out and his story comes to an end (maybe he hangs up his Hellfire Shotgun once and for all...or maybe he dives through a portal to another dimension in order to seal it from the other side). Can't you just feel the drama now?

Sentinels of the Multiverse (Greater Than Games)

Why You Should Buy It: I wrestled long and hard with this one, because it would be the first non-RPG to make this list, but at the end of the day, I would be lying if I didn't put it on here. Why? Because I have logged a ton of hours with this game, I have snapped up the expansions for it, and I will continue to log tons of hours with this game. It is the most fun I have ever had with a card game. It is not uncommon for a rough day at work to be followed up by Netflix and Sentinels of the Multiverse for a little combo I like to call "Geek Solitaire". I only bought it because of the hoopla surrounding the DC Deck Building Game and Marvel Legendary, both of which are fine games in their own right, but both of which pale next to Sentinels of the Multiverse. Just a great, great game, and the expansions (Rook City, Infernal Relics and Shattered Timelines) just make it better. I'm not saying it's not possible to make a better superhero board or card game, but I am saying I haven't seen it yet, and Greater Than Games set a pretty big bar to clear.

Volant - Kingdoms of Air and Stone (Flying Mice Games)

Why You Should Buy It: Like fantasy, but you're tired of the same old, same old? Volant has a solution for
you: It places the entire setting on flying stone kingdoms, with characters riding airships and giant birds as their primary methods of transportation. It gets even better as dogfighting rules are included (not surprising, given some of the author's previous games), and no less than four resolution methods are provided, from gritty to cinematic to turning the game into one of player negotiation. It's not really an "out of the box" game, but Volant includes tools for you to customize your own Volant setting for your adventures. It's the best StarCluster game yet, both in concept and implementation, in my opinion, and it's well worth checking out, especially for "Do It Yourself" gamers and folks who like to play around with fun subsystems (like Volant's Alchemy system).


As is customary, I like to give all of you present for my blog's birthday...as we start the fifth year of this blog's existence, let's get on with the Birthday Blog Giveaway!

Five of the selected publishers were kind enough and generous enough to allow me to offer PDFs of their books as prizes this year, as a way to let me once again say THANK YOU to everyone reading this blog!

From now until 12:01 AM, January 15th, if you email me (tommybrownell(a)gmail(dot)com) with the subject "2013 Top Six" and your choice, in order, of the products you would like to win, you will be entered in the random drawing I'll hold. The first person selected will win their first choice, the second person selected will then win THEIR first choice, unless that choice has already been taken, and so on until all four prizes have been awarded. The winners will be notified via email, and the publishers will be contacted to deliver the electronic prizes to the winners! Here are the prizes:

- One (1) PDF of Dragon Age Set 1
- One (1) PDF of Dresden Files: Our Story.
- One (1) PDF of Heaven's Shadow
- One (1) PDF of Monster of the Week
- One (1) PDF of Volant - Kingdoms of Air and Stone

Good luck to anyone that enters, thank you to the wonderful publishers for providing prize support, and thanks again to everyone that is still reading this blog. Hopefully 2014 is a much bigger and better year for The Most Unread Blog on the Internet. Ever.!

Tommy

Tommy's Take on Dresden Files RPG: Our World

Pictured: Ape demons who fling flaming poo.

Dresden Files: Your Story gives you almost everything you need to play...Our World is the "setting guide", focused primarily on Dresden's Chicago, but covering a bit more ground than that.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW: At almost 275 pages, it's a bit leaner than Your Story, and a bit less expensive ($40 in print and $20 in PDF). As with Your Story, it covers the first ten books (and a few short stories), so there will be spoilers for those books within. It's a full color hardcover, written in a very informal style with lots of conversational notes back and forth between Billy, Harry and Bob. This review is of the hardcover version.

Pretty much all the rules you need for the game are in Your Story...this is NPCs, monsters, etc. The first chapter (Old World Order) is an overview of the world, including a broad overview of the Unseelie Accords (because they are so arcane and convoluted that codifying them would be incredibly difficult), and they are contrasted with the Laws of Magic (Letter of the Law versus Spirit of the Law). All of the factions of the world are touched on, including the White Council (who are ostensibly good guys, but can be as big of a pain at times as bad guys), The Knights of the Cross (who are barely a faction, as there are only three of them when they are at full "enlistment"), the Vampire Courts (with sidebars discussing other possible courts), The Order of the Blackened Denarius (crazy powerful Fallen Angels) and The Circle (the mysterious force behind a lot of what's happened in the books to this point).

What Goes Bump is the bestiary, about 70 pages of the books. Each entry includes a Name, Description, First Appearance, What We Know, Powers and Weaknesses. Most entries also include a stat block, though a few do not (Angels wouldn't have a generic stat block, for starters, and rarely get personally involved anyway). A few demons, some magical constructs, Ghouls, Hags, some Ghosts, the various Vampires, warped animals, zombies, etc., are all included with stat blocks. As much details as possible is given for other entities, like Angels, The Fallen, Dragons...stuff that haven't thus far proven encounterable by the average supernatural joe. Other beings, like the Fae, aren't given generic stat blocks, but are given guidelines on how to build your own NPC Fae, with similar treatment given to different wizards and practitioners (like what is liable to separate Wardens and Necromancers, for instance).

The bulk of the book is NPCs, specifically individuals Harry has encountered in his books. Again, as much information as possible is provided for pretty much everyone. Annoyingly, this leads to a lot of "...and we're not really sure about this...Aspects are at least usually provided for everyone. There are even lots of helpful little sidebars, like with Murphy's ex, who has two Aspects that contradict each other, but this is specifically pointed out in the sidebar (and cited as a good thing, as people are sometimes complicated like that). The Harry Dresden write-up is FULL of sidebars...such as how to advance him from the end of Storm Front through each of the books, or running a game without Harry in the world (and how that might affect things)...or even situations in which Harry might have gone bad. Every major character, most minor characters and even a few "Cameo Characters" which should give you, at minimum, a lot of inspiration for your own NPCs.

The last chapter covers Chicago itself, with a little look at its history and a few paragraphs on each neighborhood.

The index covers both books and, as a bonus, includes some early concept art for the book.

WHAT WORKS: A fantastic read for fans of the Dresden Files, as well as a great guide for adapting the creatures and NPCs from the novels as a guide for making your own. Again, the production values are top notch, and the sidebars are very useful and informative, especially when dealing with issues like how to handle Harry in your games (if at all). The index covering both books is also a great thing. Also, it's The Dresden Files.

I'm a fanboy. I admit it.

WHAT DOESN'T WORK: My biggest gripe is the overabundance of "We don't really know, so we're hand waving this" entries...that said, Harry is considered to be an "unreliable narrator", so you can OFFICIALLY take anything in the book with a grain of salt.

CONCLUSION: Not quite as high on the "Must Buy" list as "Your Story", but still a great, well-written and gorgeous resource. I certainly don't regret picking it up, even though my eventual game will probably having nothing to do with Chicago or the inhabitants of the books (at least not directly). Worth buying? Yes. Must have? Maaaaaybe, if only because Your Story lacks a bestiary.

Tommy's Take on Dresden Files RPG: Your Story

Pictured: Three of the most badass characters ever, Harry Dresden,
Karrin Murphy and Michael Carpenter

This summer, I discovered the Dresden Files books by Jim Butcher. A friend of mine was a huge fan and he pushed me to give them a shot...and so I did. I became a huge fan, and I started looking for the RPG (and my first set of Fudge Dice). The RPG is contained inside two impressive tomes, the first of which is the "essential" book: Your Story.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW: Powered by Fate, Dresden Files came after Spirit of the Century but before Fate Core, and Your Story is the Player's Guide/Rulebook for the game. You can get Your Story in PDF for $25, in a bundle with Our World for $40 or in print for a retail price of $50. This review specifically covers the physical version, a stunning, full color, hardcover tome that runs over 400 pages. The Dresden Files RPG covers the first 10 books of the series, through Small Favor.

The Dresden Files is an urban fantasy series centered around Wizard/Private Eye Harry Dresden (he's in the phone book) and his eclectic cast of supporting characters. The series has literally become one of my favorite series ever, beginning with fairly "low key" urban fantasy and getting pretty epic by the most recent book (Cold Days, number 14).

The whole book is written as an "in-universe" experiment by Harry and his friend and ally Billy to alert "normal" people to the things that go bump in the night by using an RPG (it was said that Bram Stoker did something similar in the Dresdenverse when he released Dracula, warning people about the Black Court  Vampires). This means that the book is very informal, if that sort of thing bothers you, and and chock full of humorous asides that may be less effective if you're not a fan of the books. See, the book is presented as an unfinished product, lots and lots of notes and asides from Billy, Harry and Harry's "assistant" Bob.

Chapter One covers the basics of the Dresdenverse, like how the presence of magic can force technology to short out, magic is an expression of the individual, monsters are bound by their nature, etc. This chapter also gives a quick list of the various "types" of characters to play and/or encounter, from mundane mortals (who know nothing about what's going on around them) to infected (folks who have been tainted by vampires but haven't gone all in) to the various vampire courts (each of which is markedly different) to dragons to, of course, wizards. A brief overview of the world as of book 10 is provided as well.

The game is powered by Fate, as noted above, which is pretty well known these days. This particular version uses 4dF (four Fudge dice), which are six sided dice that have two sides marked "+", two sides marked "-" and two sides blank. You roll 4dF, and add the plusses and subtract the minuses from your relevant stat, as the basic mechanic. Characters are defined by Skills, Stunts, Powers and Aspects. Skills are fairly obvious, and Stunts expand your skills. Powers can be all kinds of things, like Shapeshifting or spellcasting, while Aspects are descriptive phrases that define your character. Characters also have Fate Points, which not serve as plot currency, but are a representation of a character's free will.

In a bit of a departure from a lot of RPGs, the group creates the city they operate in before they ever create their characters. Yeah, the group creates the City (complete with its own locations, NPCs and Aspects) before moving on to character generation. Your group is encouraged to change things about the city as necessary (which is probably easier to do the more distantly familiar the city is to the group). This chapter gives a lot of advice, using both Chicago (the home of Harry Dresden) and Baltimore (included as a sample setting in the book) as examples for illustration's sake. Worksheets are provided to help you along, and there's even advice on how to apply "City Creation" to campaigns with a broader scope, like globe hopping campaigns, as well as just creating the whole thing on the fly as you go.

Character creation is also intended to be handled as a group, as each character is meant to be linked to the rest in some manner during creation. There are four different power levels (Feet in the Water, Up to Your Waist, Chest-Deep and Submerged), which determines each character's refresh level and Skill Points. Your Aspects are defined by your High Concept and Trouble, as well as an Aspect for each of your Stories, generally. Your Refresh determines the number of Stunts and Powers you have, with Stunts costing you a point each and Powers varying depending on utility. As with City Creation, the book does provide options for creating your characters on the fly.

Every character has to take a Template, which covers a good range of options (though not all are appropriate for all Power Levels). These include Pure Mortals (who get a boosted Refresh so they can have more Fate Points, generally), Champions of God (who are kinda scary powerful...and awesome in the books), Changelings (part-human, part-fae), Emissaries of Power (kind of a catch-all for someone serving a greater power), Focused Practitioners (low-level spell slingers who generally focus on one thing, like pyromancy), Knights of the Faerie Courts (who have free will, no matter what the Queens might say), Lycanthropes (who are NOT werewolves), Minor Talents (practitioners with One Cool Trick), Red Court Infected (folks infected by Red Court Vampires but who haven't turned yet), Sorcerers (these guys have the power, but not the training and the resources of the White Council), True Believers (God's servants without the terrifying power of the Champions of God), Were-Form (these guys ARE the werewolves...and werebears and so on), White Court Vampires (the only vampire court thus far that has proven remotely capable of good), White Court Virgins (those destined to join the White Court as soon as they give in to temptation) and Wizards (like Harry...and yes, they can be terrifying).

Characters advance at Milestones (Minor, Significant and Major) and can get changes ranging from swapping around skills to adding skill ranks to gaining more Refresh (and thus the possibility of more power without losing your free will). Advancement also includes a couple of interesting options, like advancing in mid-session and even driving yourself to 0 Refresh in order to borrow enough power to go down in a Blaze of Glory. Advancement even covers Cities growing and changing, with the PCs maybe altering fundamental Aspects of it, or even the overall Theme of the City.

Aspects are typically the biggest stumbling blocks for people trying to wrap their heads around Fate, and one of the biggest things that helped me with Aspects is the fact that I was familiar with Dresden Files going in...so I had the context for the Aspects held by the characters. In a nutshell, skills, stunts and powers define what you can do, but Aspects define who you are. Characters have seven Aspects (High Concept, Trouble, and five more that fill out who the character is). Aspects can be invoked to gain +2 or a reroll on a relevant roll, invoked for effect (maybe you use ANGER IS MY CONSTANT COMPANION to shake a mind altering effect, because you're full of rage) or compelled to force a negative result for a character (either accepting the consequence in exchange for a Fate point, or spending a Fate point to avoid it). Aspects also exist in the City, and Temporary Aspects can be created for a scene and then used to your advantage (like using LIGHTS OUT to sneak past a sentry). Epically, high tension scenes can be Escalated, costing (or providing) two or even three Fate points because the stakes are so high (like your High Concept being I AM THE LAW and finding out that your favorite brother, whom you swore to your dying parents that you would protect, is left holding the murder weapon at a violent scene and you have to choose whether to ignore your calling and let him go, or take him down). The book uses lots of examples of "Good" Aspects versus "Bad" (not Positive versus Negative, as most Aspects should have elements of both, but Aspects that are more game ready versus those that are not). Very useful stuff.

The Skills list isn't massive, but it is broad enough to cover a lot of ground, about 25 in all. Combat skills, for instance, are divided into stuff like Fists, Weapons and Guns, instead of Swords, Axes, Martial Arts, Boxing, Shotguns, Pistols, etc. Spellcasters want to make sure they have Conviction, Discipline and Lore covered, as the three Skills cover the various areas of spellcasting. Conviction, Discipline, Endurance and Presence can also affect various Stress Tracks. Any skill a character doesn't have defaults to Mediocre (+0), so everyone's at least kinda competent.

Skills cover the basics, Stunts cover the extra cool stuff. Want to shoot a gun? That's Guns. Want to outgun a crowd of attackers? That's the Target-Rich Environment stunt. The Empathy stunt Won't Get Fooled Again lets you learn a liar's mannerisms so you can avoid lies from them going forward. There are a lot of stunts listed, but it's mostly just a list of examples for each skill, so you can use those and the guidelines in the chapter to build your own stunts.

The Supernatural Powers list is a lot larger, but hardly exhaustive and a little harder to just make new entries for. Definitely not enough variety here to, say, run a supers game with Dresden Files, but it does cover a lot of ground, from superhuman strength to wall walking to vampirism, Evocations and Thaumaturgy (the two main types of magic), the Soulgaze (Wizards don't like to look people in the eyes for very long because of this), The Sight (where wizards open up their Third Eye and see things for what they really are) and even Items of Power (like Swords of the Cross, one of three weapons that have one of the nails used to hang Christ worked into the hilt). The selection in the book pretty well models most everything in the first 10 Dresden Files books, as it should.

The system is fairly straight forward: Every action his a Difficulty, you take a Skill and roll for Effort, and subtract the Difficulty from that to get the number of Shifts, which determines how well you succeed. There are extra tweaks (like Extended Contests, when you want more than one die roll to matter, or forcing losers of Contests to take Consequences as though they were injured). When it comes to Conflicts, Fate uses Zones, which are broadly drawn maps (as opposed to full blown grids or what have you). Initiative is based off of Skills, with the governing skill changing based on the kind of Conflict. If the attacker outrolls the defender, the shifts are applied as Stress on the target's appropriate stress track. A character can opt to take a Consequence instead of filling up their Stress boxes, effectively gaining a temporary, negative Aspect. In EXTREME circumstances, you can take an Extreme Consequence, which is so damaging it fundamentally changes who you are (replacing one of your Aspects). There are other great rules in place, like Spin, which lets you alter the next action in the conflict by rolling really high in defense, or Overflow, which lets you use Extra Shifts from an attack to pull off other non-Conflict actions. Though a lot of the rules apply to Physical Conflicts, extra attention is given to Mental and Social Conflicts, including advice on how your hero can save face in the wake of losing a Social or Mental Conflict (which tends to be a big sticking point in a lot of groups).

Magic gets two whole chapters (above and beyond the Powers chapter), as though The Dresden Files was focused largely around a Wizard or something. Special attention is paid to basically every aspect (no pun intended) of being a Wizard, from their biology (they live longer and heal faster than you) to using The Sight (including the mental effects this can have on a hero) to The Soulgaze (and what the effects of sharing a look into your inner being with another is like, as well as experiencing theirs) to Hexing (the ability of Wizards, whether they like it or not, to short out technology around them...and why your wizard will never own a Blu Ray player...for long, at least). There is also the Seven Laws of Magic, and the consequences and benefits (yes, benefits!) of breaking those laws...it's a good "Dark Side" mechanic: The more you break the Laws, the easier it becomes...but it lowers your Refresh every time, driving you one step closer to losing your free will. Also, the White Council have guys whose job it is to hunt down and behead Wizards who break the Laws. In a nutshell, they are: 1. Never Take A Life. 2. Never Transform Another. 3. Never Invade The Thoughts Of Another. 4. Never Enthrall Another. 5. Never Reach Beyond The Borders of Life. 6. Never Swim Against The Currents Of Time. 7. Never Seek Knowledge And Power From Beyond the Outer Gates.

The Spellcasting chapter gets into the nuts and bolts of it all, actually building spells. There's Evocation, which is the quick and dirty slinging of magic around. This causes you Stress, and if you dig for power beyond your Conviction, it can cause you a lot of stress. This CAN go badly, causing problems for your Wizards or having unexpected effects to others. Your Wizard can learn Rote spells, however, which are spells that you become incredibly used to casting. Thaumaturgy is the more ritualized spellcasting. This is how you track down a missing friend, summon or bind a demon or spirit, create wards, make potions, etc. Lastly, there's Sponsored Magic, which is where you are working very much at the grace of a more powerful being (but certainly not anything from Beyond, because that would violate the Seventh Law, right?). Sponsored Magic examples from the books appear, like Seelie and Unseelie magic, Soulfire and Hellfire, and Kemmlerian Necromancy. 12 pages of sample spells and items are included, to guide you through your own creation.

The GM section covers not only the basics of GMing, but some different points of concern for different Skills and such. Tips are provided for scaling opposition to your PCs (which can get questionable at times, sure), as well as warnings for dealing with Wizards (who are walking Swiss Army Knives) or characters with Super Strength, Speed or Toughness.

A very useful section on Scenario building walks you through assembling all the Aspects present in your game, deciding what the emphasis should be in this scenario, connecting dots between them and creating the scenario. The best scenarios tend to have personal links, after all.

Your Story includes a city setting, Baltimore, fleshed out as an example. It provides Points of Conflict (a power struggle in the White Court, a war brewing between Fae and Ghouls, etc), Themes and Threats (A City Battling Decay), and the important NPCs (all three major known vampire courts being represented, for instance). A number of individual characters are statted up, for use as PCs, NPCs or character creation examples, like a Trollblooded Toll Collector who takes his bridge very seriously.

The book wraps up with a Glossary, Index and blank worksheets for various phases of the game.

WHAT WORKS: A licensed RPG is about perfect for Fate, because it helps put a context to all the rules and moving bits, especially Aspects. The production values are gorgeous and the writing is hilarious, with lots of great asides and bits for fans of the books as Harry, Billy and Bob shoot comments back and forth. While the game is ostensibly a two-book purchase, this book actually gives you everything you need to play (including a sample setting), shy of a bestiary.

WHAT DOESN'T WORK: If you don't already own Fudge Dice or Fate Dice, you'll need a pair. Wizards get an overwhelming amount of focus, which may be a problem if you have a player in the game that isn't a fan of spellcasters (though it is worth noting that Dresdenverse Wizards are MUCH more versatile than the Wizard archetype you're probably used to). Sample monsters would have been nice, for those who don't want to pick up a second book. If you hate informal tones to your books, stay away from this one.

CONCLUSION: I love The Dresden Files. I used to get utterly lost by Fate. Between ICONS acting as a "gateway drug" and the context of the Dresden Files license, Fate becomes a LOT easier to wrap my head around, and I hope this hits my game table in 2014. The only things I wish it had can't be taken as knocks against it, and that would be easier guidelines to expand it beyond Dresden Files (such as covering Buffy the Vampire Slayer or my own comic, The Chronicles of Rachel Strand), but it's not *designed* to do that...it's designed to emulate The Dresden Files (though that does cover a lot of ground, admittedly)...and with a little Fate Core and Fate Toolkit, that may be more than doable. Just a great licensed product that I had a blast reading, trying to match up the various pictures with their relevant scenes from the book series. This would be my immediate pick for an Urban Fantasy game to run, if I had the choice. Top notch product, well worth the price I paid for it (scored both books and four sets of Fudge dice on eBay).