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MortonStromgal

The Dresden Files beat up my nWOD

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MortonStromgal
, 12-21-2010 at 11:11 PM (1161 Views)
So I picked up the PDFs and I must say I'm not sure if I'll need nWOD anymore. Now if I'm running Vampire or Dark Ages or something I have oWOD and I have a few houserules that I've borrowed from nWOD to make it better but thats not what I'm talking about. I'm talking a sandbox modern day horror game and thats what the Dresden Files delivers. Don't mistake me for meaning toolkit, its not a toolkit like GURPS. Dresden Files has tropes much like D&D has tropes, things like what makes a wizard or a vampire but what it gives you is a fairly lite set of rules that let you build your own city in the Dresdenverse. This game lends itself to mixed party play allowing wizard, vampire, werewolf, changeling, etc players to all make up the party. All sides are balanced to an extent but don't expect it to be D&D 4ths level of equal. A wizard will be better at certain things a vampire will be good at other things. Each group has one or two play options so you can have a couple werewolves running around without stepping on toes. The FATE rules look good, real good. If your wanting rules that encourage roleplay and get out of the way when it comes to storytelling this system seams to fit the bill. I wouldn't say is a true lite system but its medium-lite system with more emphasis on the lite end than nWOD. I hope you check it out!

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  1. Blond Gamer Girl's Avatar
    Actually, I’m an oWoD fan. IMHO, nWoD was just a new way to make money. Sure I tweaked some oWoD rules and such but I loved the vampire mythos. However, when running a blended game, I found that the balance of power between vampires, werewolves and mages was not there so I would have to balance manually. As a fan of creativity, I don’t like to limit players but instead have some very basics. Briefly, I looked over Dresden (free pdf starter kit) and thought this could be the way to do it based on the mage alone. They have power limitations and use more magical items and such.

    Could oWoD vampires with the clans be blended in (like the clans and disciplines)? How are the werewolves?
  2. MortonStromgal's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Blond Gamer Girl

    Could oWoD vampires with the clans be blended in (like the clans and disciplines)? How are the werewolves?
    It would take work to blend in the clans and disciplines but the answer is yes. There are WODish werewolves to. Understand that while similar to WOD its not a copy of WOD. The Vampires (for example) are divided into 4 types with hints of other types. White Vampires (Psychic daywalkers), Red Vampires (Take all the oWOD Vampires mix them into one and you end up with something similar, maybe) Black Vampires (D&D and Romanian Folklore), Green (Ki-jin/Asian). The player characters can play Red neonates, White neonates, and White regular. The others are reserved for npcs. You could easily divide up the Red into clans or have new factions and even the powers could be fit in easy if you dont care too much about balance. To use more WOD terms, playing a plain human you would have 10 willpower (its called fate but mechanically works like willpower) that refreshes every game, where as your vampire neonate may only have 5 and your mage may only have 3. As you can see this doesn't mean everyone is equal like GURPS but that you get an edge. If you have less than 1 fate rating you are consumed with being monster and become an npc (so no sabbat games, though it doesnt go down from doing bad stuff like humanity). If you read the books or even watch the tv show over on hulu you'll notice Harry doesnt have it easy because hes a wizard, infact life seams a bit harder and the system reflects that being supernatural in a mortal world is rough.

    [edit] I should mention that your cool supernatural powers are bought with fate point rating. So if your a Vampire with say 7 to start and you want 2 dots of protean it may take 2 fate dropping you to 5. That is the balance they have.
    Updated 12-22-2010 at 10:38 PM by MortonStromgal