Alternate Worlds for a Dresden RPG

[mythusmage]

Different versions of Earth; different realities entirely. Realms where our nightmares and fantasies are old friends. Earths where magic has never been, until now. How might the system be used effectively in the worlds of The Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire, or Daniel Abraham's The Long Price?

The north-east corner of Seventh and B is fenced off, and most people know better than to enter. But every now and then some damn fool does, which is where I come in.

The victim this time was a boy of fifteen. Handsome in the robust way all teenaged orcs are, but afflicted by the splotchy look of the recently dead. He stared at me with a hunger that gave a noisome light to his eyes, while his one time friend babbled to one of my men. Teenaged boys of all species egged each other on, but I'd thought orcs simply had too much sense for stunts like this.

So there we were, keeping one of the hungry dead warded in downtown San Diego's very own patch of Dead Land, while grilling the suspect in his murder. And the priest assigned to return said corpse to life was down in the South Bay, stuck in traffic.

It's at times like this when I wonder about our virulent antipathy for rendering the undead true dead, then raising the safely still body, when it can't do you harm of its own accord.

[finarvyn]

Based on the playtest docs, there's no reason why DFRPG can't be played in other worlds. There's just not a strong case as to why you would want to do that.

DFRPG has a certain flavor, and it's designed to fit the style of the DF novels. Put the same characters in Middle-earth (for example) and it totally changes the feel. There are plenty of RPGs out there designed to handle Middle-earth (or whereever) and DFRPG would require a lot of conversion.

Spirit of the Century is the same way -- it's built on a "pulp" feel and would handle a cinematic campaign much better than a gritty one, in my opinion. The rules are constructed to allow for characters to be more powerful than many other systems.

DFRPG (or SotC or FATE or whatever) works well for superhero gaming, pulp gaming, cinematic action-movie gaming, and so on. Not so good at handling worlds where characters are more limited in what they can do.

Not saying it can't be done, but the styles would probably have to match somewhat.

[Simon Hogwood]

 But if you pick the right sort of style, you can get some pretty cool ideas. For example: Bram Stoker wrote Dracula as an anti-Black Court handbook, right? So, what do you suppose the White Council - or for that matter, the other Vampire Courts - are like (if they even still exist) in the world of Anno Dracula, when Dracula wins, England is (

(click to show/hide)

briefly

) ruled by the Black Court, and the Masquerade is pretty much shot? The question becomes even more interesting when you take into account the fact that some of Harry's contemporaries, such as Eb and the Merlin, were alive and active at the time . . .