Book 18. The Dresden Files RPG Volume 2 by Evil Hat Productions
Title: The Dresden Files RPG Volume 2: Our Story
Author: Evil Hat Productions
Genre: Role-playing
Pages: 262
Read before? No
Rating: 9.5 out of 10
Next book: Curse of the Spellman’s by Lisa Lutz
Summary: This volume of the The Dresden Files RPG gives you extensive detail on the factions, creatures, foes, and allies of the Dresdenverse. You'll find over 200 creatures and characters complete with all the information you'll need to bring them into your own game, as well as a detailed chapter on modern-day Occult Chicago and an original short story by Jim Butcher.
Together with Volume One: Your Story, The Dresden Files RPG: Our World gives you everything you need to make your own adventures in the thrilling and dangerous world of New York Times best-selling author Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series!
Why I am reading this. Cuz I have been looking forward to playing this game for a while now.
My thoughts. The Dresden Files RPG uses the Fate system and created by Evil Hat Productions. They created my favorite game of all time, Spirit of the Century, and this game uses the same system. Well, the same system on crack. Even if you love the books, but are not a gamer, you may enjoy reading this.
It is hard to be objective. I am a HUGE Jim Butcher fan and the Dresden Files are among my favorite books of all time. I was also lucky enough to get to playtest this game for Evil Hat. So, as I mentioned, I could be a bit biased. But I also tend to be honest as well, and will try to be so for this review.
The first part of the book is a story that was written by Jim Butcher for the game. The story itself was ok, but it was a nice touch and showed how involved Jim Butcher was in the process.
Next came the Old World Order. This was cool because it talks about the factions and the dangers they bring to the world. A bit of history about what is currently going on in the world (at least up to Small Favor). Most of this information is nothing new to anyone that has read the books, but it definitely helpful, especially to someone that hasn’t read the books that is playing the game.
What goes bump is in a word awesome. It lists every single character/monster that was in the books. It took them a long time to get all of it down and correct…and that is an amazing thing by itself. This is cool for a couple of reasons. One the game uses something called Aspects, which is typically a trait of the character. So getting to see traits of your favorite characters from the books is very cool. Especially in how important they are used in the game…which is one of the coolest ideas ever!
But the pure enjoyment of looking skills/aspects for Harry, Murphy, Molly, Thomas, Michael, and the rest…was a very cool thing. Someday I want to talk my group into running an actual Dresden game. That would be interesting if nothing else.
But for someone that is running a campaign of this game, the monsters stats were very helpful. It would be really hard to do that without it.
The art was awesome. I loved to see peoples different versions of what they thought characters looked like. It was very inconsistent, but very cool to see. It was also a very easy book to read, which isn’t always the case depending on the format people decide to use.
The Occult Chicago part did not come off as well as I thought it would. Maybe it is cuz we already know the world of Chicago from the books. I also liked the Baltimore example in the other book much more, and kept trying to compare it to it. It was bad; it just felt a little inconsistent. Loved parts of it, was less interested in some parts, but it is a minor quibble.
Yes, this book is for gamers and fanboy/fangirl types. That is ok, you don’t see this done enough and I for one am glad they split the game into two separate books. If you enjoyed the books, it also is an almost guide to the series. At least up to Small Favor.
The quotes in the book by Harry, Billy, and Bob, were endearing and at bit annoying at the same time. Sometimes they were very funny, but after a while, there were soooooooo many of them.
Overall, I love this book so much. It is well written, and the art was amazing. There is a lot of information here that helps anyone that is going to run the game and that is an amazing thing.
Best thing about book. Getting to see stat/aspects for all of the characters in the books. Good or evil.
Worst thing about book. Not much really.