The game is set in the Baltimore/DC area. (Brush up on your Poe, folks. It'll come in handy!)

Just thought I would mention that the "official" non-Chicago city setting for DFRPG is going to be Baltimore. I'm not sure how easy or hard it would be to change yours, but Rob recently revealed this information on the DFRPG main page.

So a question to the Evil Hat guru's.  How open are character types going to be?  You know a wizard, a werewolf and a fairy walk into a McNally's....

I think that this will be a question to your GM, not a question to the Evil Hat gurus. The FATE game system is set up as a universal mechanic that allows for pretty much any type of character you want to have in the campaign. The DFRPG will be more Dresden-specific, but the core rules it is built from are still somewhat universal.

Since there are wizards and werewolfs and fairies (oh, my!) in Harry's world, there will be some rules in the Dresden Files RPG to handle these sorts of characters (at least as NPCs if not PCs). If we use Jim's books as a guide we would see that we have a wizard for a PC (Harry), a Holy Knight (Michael) and perhaps a vampire (Thomas) and otherwise supernaturals seem to be more along the NPC line. Again, that's for Jim's version of Harry's world.

When your GM constructs a world (it may even by you who is the GM) that world deviates somewhat from Jim's version. It's probably not the same characters, may not be the same city. Certainly not the same situations, or we're doing a "group read" rather than an adventure. At this point the GM will have to decide what goes on in this particular variation of Harry's world and what types of characters will be allowed to particiapte. I would guess that some GMs will allow for many supernaturals, others will allow for only a few. The rules should have elements built into them that will allow for either case.

Does that help?

I am actually partial to the Magic Sytem in Shodowrun.  It is based on Fatigue.  IE. every spell has a formula for how tired it makes you.  And their are modifiers for all kinds of stuff.  So you could cast the same spell twice in a row and have totally different levels of tired from it.

Dunno if it's a better system or not, but it certainly sounds more complex. Your description scares me somewhat because I sense the creativity of the spellcaster getting lost in order to create uniformity. Each spell has its own fatigue formula? And that formula changes with use? Sounds great for a computer game, but I’m not so sure in a face-to-face RPG. Of course, I say this without having all of the rules in front of me; it may play better than it sounds. (I’ll have to rummage on my shelves to find that copy of Shadowrun 3E to see how it’s done there.)

I have this "simulation versus playability" discussion on a regular basis with some of my gamer friends and never can understand the allure of extra rules and such in the name of having a more perfect simulation. Frankly, what I like to see in a RPG is a system that is medium to simple in complexity, yet is flexible enough where I can use the game in the situations I encounter. This is the potential problem found in the D&D magic system, where our hero may be overheard saying “I’ve got lots of power left in reserve, but I forgot to memorize that particular spell” or “I’ve got lots of power left in reserve, but I’m out of first level spells” or some such.

Just an opinion.

Could always playtest it on the MUSH

That would require a lot of people to have access to alpha or beta rules sets. My guess is that security will be a tad tighter than that. 

Lemme just second the mention of Eden's Unisystem as found in Witchcraft and in a lighter form in the Buffy and Angel RPGs.  Until the RPG is actually published, there is probably not a closer match in system out there.

-Rob D.

My opinion on this is that Witchcraft has really cool artwork, but that Buffy has a better game system. Eden uses the terms "classic" and "cinematic", where Witchcraft is more "classic" and Buffy more "cinematic".

The difference? Essentially, their "cinematic" rules sets (Buffy, Angel, Army of Darkness) have a faster feel and allow for more on-the-fly stuff. "Cinematic" just seems to flow better to me and is easier to run.

My advice would be to go "cinematic" if you buy one of these.

I will say that there's nothing requiring people to buy "special" Fudge dice. It's pretty easy to just use a standard set of six-sided dice and just read 5 or 6 as "+1" and 1 or 2 as "-1".

No, but the special dice are kind of neat. 

I play RPGs but I'm not familiar with those mentioned. Anybody give me a hint about the game system, basically dice rolls, and what dice are used??

Let me take a shot at this. FATE is a derivative RPG based on another game called FUDGE. Both FUDGE and FATE are designed to simulate a lot of possible situations with a minimum of rules. In other words, while some RPGs crank out sourcebook after sourcebook just full of rules, exceptions, tables and charts, modifiers, etc., these games are designed to be rules-light and more freeform in nature.

In general, the difficulty of an action is compared to the ability of the person attempting that action and some dice are rolled to determine the outcome. Many RPGs are designed on the “roll a dX die and try to roll under Y” sort of system (where various games use different sided dice and complex charts to determine the number needed to succeed), but FATE is more streamlined. Actions and abilities are often defined in terms of verbal descriptors like “superb” or “average” or “cruddy” and the Game Master can determine the number of steps above or below the action is compared to the ability. (For example, an “average” person attempting an “average” difficulty task would be at +0 steps, but a “supurb” person attempting a “cruddy” difficulty task might be at +2.)

FUDGE dice are basic six-sided dice which are numbered -1, -1, 0, 0, +1, +1. They are designed to simply modify the ability up or down when comparing to the difficulty level. The dice probability is a simple bell curve, if anyone is interested.

So… if an “average” person is attempting to perform an “average” difficulty task, that person just needs to roll a zero on the dice rolled (often four dice). One neat aspect of FUDGE dice is that you can ignore all zero rolls and cancel out one +1 and one -1 so that it takes very little brainpower to quickly figure out the number rolled. Again, the point of these games is to make action resolution quick and painless so that the story can flow and the rules consultations are at a minimum.

I looked at FATE. It seems a little too fast and loose for me. Probably not something I'd want to play, especially with the pyramid.

That won't make you too popular here, I suspect, since the official Jim Butcher-endorsed Dresden Files RPG is based on the FATE system.

Which is likely to be a problem for me, as my DM is just about guaranteed to want to play it.

Good luck with that.