The Dresden Files > DFRPG

Alternate Locations for Dresden RPGs

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Lanodantheon:
Posted my response in the wrong thread.... Well I feel sheepish... :( :o


--- Quote from: R00kie on March 29, 2008, 07:58:51 AM ---I've just checked though, and the fire is actually mentioned in the Wikipedia entry

--- End quote ---

It is important to note that although I went through public schools in Spokane and had to sit through many lessons on local history....I didn't care about that at the time.... This is the first time I have heard of the 1889 fire. Kinda makes me feels bad.

Anyway, back on topic:

After talking about my setting for a while, I think it's important to talk about more conventional Dresdenified settings.
Although a good number of people will be playing in Dresden Files versions of their hometowns, other will be using more interesting cities. My Dresdenification (Wow, new word) of my hometown is a bit off the beaten path and most people won't do that. Most Gamers want settings that have the potential for a little bit of everything in them. Plus, setting the game somewhere other than your home helps with immersion since playing in your hometown reminds you where you are.

The advantage of running in your hometown is player vs. character knowledge is the same geographically. If I say to my players, "A group of Gremlins drop their veil at the corner of Sprague and Division," my group knows where that is and exactly what it looks like and will laugh hysterically at the revelation. (Sprague and Division has the highest accident rate in the city.)

The advantage of running in another city is that you get to go places you can't go in real life. That is even though part of DF's draw is the fact that it's reality with a twist. Plus, the major cities will already be written up by designers, so your workload as a DM goes down.

I do think, however, that the DFRPG will have its own trends in alternative locales. These trends can't be avoided sometimes, but I'm sure it will greatly depend on the group running. SOme groups will be smart enough to run a game anywhere. SOme groups, will think they know about a place and run a DFRPG there because they have big heads.

For example, I used to run with a group of people who would probably choose to run in Tokyo. Not because they know the geography of Tokyo, are experts in the Japanese lifestyle, or enough Japanese mythology to make a good game, but because they are demented Otaku who think they know those things...

That being said, Dresden Tokyo would be an interesting setting. Why? Not for the history, not for the effects of Nuclear Weapons on the magic world to be explored across the islands, but because of the people. Japan has one of the highest population densities in the world. Tokyo, the largest Japanese cities is crawling with people all the time. Running Dresden Files in a place like that would be interesting because there are people everywhere. Concealment of the magic world be damned. Evocation on a Tokyo Subway.....

But, that may in fact be wrong because I've never been there like so many of us. If I was in a game of Dresden Tokyo, the DM would have to make up a lot (even if they lived there at one time). And let's not forget if it is an Otaku heavy group, you have to brace yourself for gratuitous Highschool dramas, Anime references and Negima! jokes. Granted, I wouldn't even play in a game like that unless they really sold me on it.

There are however, 2 ideas I did have as alternative locations for play locations for DF that could be fun.

1. Globe Trotting. WHy use one city when you could use them all? Would get very hard from week to wekk though.

2. The Nevernever. I think it might be fun if the group was a bunch of people trapped in the Nevernever for some reason and were unable to get out. Screw Lewis Carrol references, this would be a trippy campaign. THe NEvernever can and does look like anything imaginable.

R00kie:

--- Quote from: Lanodantheon on March 30, 2008, 05:30:21 PM ---2. The Nevernever. I think it might be fun if the group was a bunch of people trapped in the Nevernever for some reason and were unable to get out. Screw Lewis Carrol references, this would be a trippy campaign. THe NEvernever can and does look like anything imaginable.
--- End quote ---
Wouldn't you be worried about the campaign turning into something half way between Yellow Submarine and Naked Lunch?  ;)

I don't think as a GM I could run an extended NeverNever campaign without it beginning to feel ordinary - at which point its not really a NeverNever campaign.

Lanodantheon:
Nothing wrong with running a trippy game. Even though it's not my style of game.

MatthewD44:
Well if one had a very imaginative group you MIGHT be able to pull off a good campaign in Nevernever but personally if I were going to try to do that, it would be something found in the frey realms.. 

SQuigley316:
While I don't have the rules for city creation produced for the Dresden Files RPG, I have been eager to run a game in this setting for awhile and have been coming up with my own Dresdenverse Philadelphia. 

The city has Poe influence (although not as much as the Evil Hat chosen city of Baltimore), has a tie to Bram Stoker while he was writing Dracula (could be a nice Black Court storyline) which was in the same hotel that the first Legionnaires outbreak occured in (thinking of tieing that to a Black Court massacre and cover-up as well), tons of Colonial American history obviously, has ethnic-culturally centered areas such as Chinatown (to the OP point of bringing in some Eastern traditioned genre supernaturals such as Jade Court and probably a dragon), Italian Market (had already created an NPC Old god named J. Peter Dieti, Jupiter modelled after the Odin character from Neil Gaiman's American Gods), Fairmount Park (which has been called "one of the largest urban parks in the country", making it an ideal Fey ground), all the hustle and bustle of a major city with some old world feel and a surrounding area that is brimming over with history and penache.

That said I have nothing too concrete overall storywise as I want to get my hands on the official RPG stuff for background and work it in before planning, although I will only be using the Dresden Files RPG as a guide and using the d20 system as it is the only system the group I play with will use.

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