Where do people set their games?

[Richard_Chilton]

With some of the threads, I'm just wondering if some of discussions are lacking a common POV.  Please note that I'm not saying that any choices are better than any other ones, I just want us thinking about where we are coming from when we discuss thing.  To better picture each other's games.

Why? The game has been out for about 2 years now, which means that there's been time for game generated material to start to crowd the original novels (similar to what happened with the Amber/ADRP relationship).

Richard

[Silverblaze]

Second choice.  Mostly Dresdenverse.

[ways and means]

I think unless you play in Chicago at the same time as the Dresden files books your going to have to add to the setting as none of the other cities supernatural communities are explored.

[admiralducksauce]

I take canon out back and Old Yeller the crap out of it. I use the DV bestiary (Denarians, vampire subtypes) and some of the NeverNever but I blend in a lot of early Supernatural. I run ghosts more like Supernatural than Ghost Story, for example, but the main reason is I'm okay with players making Declarations on how to stop some beastie, and if those Declarations alter it from the DV, that's okay with me.

[JediDresden]

Yeah, we try to stay as close to the novels as possible, but our campaign is in an area Harry has never been (Hawaii), so we had to extrapolate a lot of things particular to the islands that are not in the books. The books are written from Harry's point of view, and unfortunately he does not know everything.  So when we run across something that is not in the books we chalk it up to something Harry did not know ( or think to include in his case files).

[Mr. Death]

Since me and the other players mostly got into the game via being fans of the Dresden books, we tend to stick to them. Well, mostly we do our best not to outright contradict them, mainly by setting the games well away from where Harry's doing his thing, though he affects the background. The game I'm GMing takes place parallel to the series, and the events of Dead Beat and Proven Guilty are rippling into our game.

[Vargo Teras]

Pretty much the Dresdenverse as it would exist without the events and characters of the books themselves.  All of the core setting assumptions remain in place, but the action isn't dependent on Harry or any of his allies or enemies.

[EdgeOfDreams]

What has worked best for the groups I play with is Dresdenverse in another city, but consciously choosing to leave Canon characters out of our games as much as possible. So Harry, Carlos, Mab, Marcone, etc. all exist and are doing their thing out there somewhere, but our stories rarely, if ever, intersect with them. That, of course, leads to plenty of new inventions in terms of villains, factions, and so on.

We're also ambiguous about the timeline. We kind of assume most of the stuff from the books has already happened, yet we've had things happen or people show up that, if you were TOTALLY in line with current canon, would be impossible, such as (SPOILER)

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Red Court vampires

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[Sanctaphrax]

Alternate future Dresdenverse.

Game started before Ghost Story, so the timeline is diverges at Changes.

That's my PbP game. My RL game has no clear setting really.

[InFerrumVeritas]

Dresdenverse mostly.  But I've added a lot more Greek Mythology to suit a character in our group. We had a player try to summon Dream the Endless and end up with Matthew the Raven, some Supernatural is thrown in too.  I let the players make declarations about setting when appropriate.  So the world started with Dresden, but I let the game, world, and story evolve rather than say no or change things because a new book came out that contradicts them.

[Harboe]

I try to avoid obvious contradictions to canon, but if I have a cool idea, I'll run with it.

Like how a fae manipulated some poor sap into becoming an unwitting chronomancer so that the iron-clad (pun intended) oaths of surrender binding the Spring Court could be circumvented by making him send back some easily-manipulated schm-- err, highly-competent murderhob-- PCs back to release the King of Spring.

In the (newly-started) 12th century Europe campaign we have to make up a lot of things, so I'm going more by history and old fairy tales than the books. And (once we get underway) even history books will end up being wildly inaccurate

So, I picked the second option, even though the first option did also seem to cover my style.

[RevengeofTim]

Playing in a mainly canon setting at the moment, with two very weird characters. (not mine)

A walking semi-dead guy, originally a 3rd law violator warlock, ate a death curse, now rots unless he eats people. Also a scary spirit mage.
A semi-bound demon who suffers from the typical demon problems (limited free will, can't break a circle, etc), with a human guise and a penchant for worldly entertainment.

Although the other party members are:
An apprentice air mage whose master is dead
A former denarian, not really evil, not a lawbreaker or friendly with other denarians, had the coin taken from him by force
A grumpy old wizard.

It's pretty awesome.