| Interview with Evil Hat Productions on Virtual Tabletops and their upcoming release, the Dresden Files RPG. Fred Hicks is one of the lead developers on the Dresden Files RPG, Leonard Balsera, aka Landon Darkwood, is an assistant developer for the Dresden Files RPG and Chad Underkoffler is an award-winning RPG author and game designer. Thanks to the team for taking time out to answer these questions. |
When did you start playing your first RPG, and what was it?
FRED: I was on the playground, in third grade, and one of the kids I knew was playing with these fascinating plastic
polyhedra. I asked him what they were and thus my education began. I had a hard time for a lot of years really, truly
playing regularly enough to get it off the ground in more than a "let's you and him fight!" way, that said. So I had this
weird gulf of time between discovering RPGs and getting beyond the character-creation-and-cage-match cycle -- maybe
three or four years later, I actually played a full game.
CHAD: BASIC DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Boxed Set (#1011), 1981. Followed closely by VILLAINS & VIGILANTES.
LENNY: I was 8 years old, and it was one version of original Dungeons and Dragons, but I can't remember which now.
Shortly thereafter, I played the Robotech RPG from Palladium and FASA's Star Trek RPG.
But, I have to say the fever really started with Joe Dever's Lone Wolf books, the first of which I read when I was seven.
For those who are not familiar with them or other solo gamebooks like Fighting Fantasy, they're basically "choose your
own adventure" on crack, with rules to govern combat, what abilities and equipment you have, etc.
What is your favorite RPG System and / or setting?
FRED: I'm gonna take that as "favorite RPG system that I didn't have a hand in making" -- because, honestly, at Evil Hat
we've tended to build the systems we want to play. Hm, hm, hm. Amber and the Amber DRPG loom large in my mind and
in the history of Evil Hat in general. I'm not convinced that it necessarily definitively qualifies as the bar-none favorite
across the board, but it's pretty high up there because it's been so influential in our gaming life. Fudge, obviously,
deserves a system nod there, but while it's a gem, it's an incomplete gem. However you slice it, there's a lot to love out
there. If you limited me to D&D settings, for example, Birthright and Planescape are just hugely fantastic.
CHAD: Unlike Fred, I cannot take the question as "favorite RPG system that I didn't have a hand in making." My absolute
favorite system is PDQ, which I wrote. After that, it has to be UNKNOWN ARMIES (which I wrote for as a freelancer) and
then GURPS, 3rd Ed. (which I wrote for as a freelancer/columnist), tied with ADVANCED MARVEL SUPER HEROS
(despite not having worked on it, and being more of a DC Comics fanboy).
My favorite setting depends on what genre I'm playing in, but pound for pound, I've always enjoyed the twisted urban
fantasy of UNKNOWN ARMIES. (However, SWASHBUCKLERS OF THE 7 SKIES, the RPG I'm working on now, contains
my favorite personally-built setting, in which I've run campaigns on-and-off for over a decade.)
LENNY: I honestly can't name one. I'm a huge omnivore when it comes to RPG systems. But, here are a few that stick
out: Star Wars d6 (which is also the system I've run and played the most), Victory Games' James Bond RPG, Cyberpunk
2020, Over the Edge, Feng Shui, Chill, Primetime Adventures, True20, Dogs in the Vineyard, and just about anything
PDQ. Like Fred, I think it's kind of cheating to include Fate and/or Spirit of the Century on that list, but of course, I have
great love for them.
Settings... man. I think one of my favorite examples of what to do with setting is a|state from Contested Ground Studios.
There's a campaign on every page of that thing. I'm a huge Cthulhu nut, and sensibilities from Lovecraft pretty much
bleed into any game I run in any genre at some point. Planescape and Ravenloft are my favorite D&D settings, but I think
the latter would have been done better justice under another system. There's Star Wars, of course, but we tended to go
so far off the beaten path that I'm not sure that really counts. I was also quite fond of the Battletech universe for a while.
Also, any settings from the games mentioned under systems.
What is your background in the RPG industry?
FRED: In the industry? Practically nonexistent, prior to getting Evil Hat Productions thing going on. I've been a fan for
years, and was active for quite some time on the Fudge mailing list. It was that community that we springboarded the
whole Fate thing from.
CHAD: I've been a freelancer in the game industry since 1998, and wrote a well-regarded column in PYRAMID, that is
currently on hiatus. In 2003, I started Atomic Sock Monkey Press to publish my own work. There have been some award
nominations and wins in there, too.
LENNY: Pretty much nonexistent. I've been a rabid fanboy on a bunch of mailing lists, and posted homebrew stuff to the
Internet just like everybody else.
Have you ever played an RPG on a Virtual Tabletop, if so what did you think of the experience?
FRED: Virtual tabletop, no, but online, yes. Rob and I met each other through an online game called a MUSH -- sort of
like Zork crossed with a chat system -- set in the Amber universe. We met Jim Butcher on that same venue, in fact. This
was back in college, so it's been... well, let's just say "over a decade". As far as "what did I think of the experience..." --
well, man, that's a big, broad question. I think you've got to hide your rules more and focus more on collaborative effort,
at the end of the day. You can have complex systems behind the curtain, but at the end of the day, you're mediating a
situation that relies even more heavily on keeping the social interaction going, so the "interface" presented to the player
has to be smooth and fast and done in a way that respects everyone's authority over their characters as much as
possible.
CHAD: No I haven't, though I've MUD'd and MUSH'd (mostly back in college), and PBeM'd (five or six years ago). It was
an acceptable experience, though scheduling – even time-shifted in the case of PBeMs -- made it challenging.
LENNY: Haven't, but I've been playing on MUSHes since they happened in the 90's.
Which ‘story game’ would you think would work best on a VT?
FRED: Polaris. You can run that in chat and with minimal dice. But honestly, there's a ton of story games that would
adapt to online play very well. The orientation a lot of story games have on collaborative creation and decentralized
GMing actually lends themselves well to the online medium.
CHAD: There are many. I think RISUS or my own PDQ could work well; MARVEL SUPER HEROES could work, as could
earlier editions of GURPS LITE. Anything in the rules-light to rules-medium range could probably work.
LENNY: Primetime Adventures gets my vote, because it resolves conflicts in a single roll, and the main issue with the
online format is that it takes much longer to communicate information than face-to-face contact does. Every "step" of
rules use extends that out - even a relatively simple system like, say, original Storyteller can take hours to resolve a
scene with online if you don't shortcut the process with house rules.
Are there any that wouldn't work too well online, or with current VTs?
FRED: Well, technologically, anything with a strong visual component proposes a bigger hurdle to get over than
something which could be handled solely via an IRC-like text chat system, so that's what leaps to mind for me. I love Seth
Ben-Ezra's Dirty Secrets, but there's a pawn and a story-grid map thing you've got to make work online.
CHAD: THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN, I think. Any game where personal
performance/characterization and/or personal proximity really trumps system mechanics, I think you'll have a challenge
converting to a VT. The question then becomes: "Why not just freeform SIM?"
LENNY: Chad and Fred already said everything I was going to say here, for the most part, except that I'm rooting for
game designs that are specifically tailored to the medium of VT's, much like Code of Unaris was for IRC, and can smooth
out the pacing issues I mentioned above as well as some other things.
Do you think there's a future in the VT market, and would you like to see your products made available to this
market?
FRED: Certainly. I don't know that I'd say they're not already available to that market, though -- sure, custom tools could
be developed, but most of our stuff works fine with a dice roller program and a chat system. But, especially when the
roleplaying hobby is fraught with the "I can't find a local group" problem, you've got to hope that "VTs" will.
CHAD: I think there is, and I would, but I really do think more VR-style telepresence will be a necessity before VT really
takes an equal stance with the tabletop experience of sitting around with friends, purely for the socialization factors. (That
being said, I suspect that even now, VTs can give a more robust RPG experience than the typical MUD or MMORPG,
provided players can schedule time to meet "in VT.")
Now on to the Dresden Files RPG, are there many changes to the Fate system as seen in Spirit of the
Century?
FRED: There are a bunch, yeah. Mainly we have to get magic and other supernatural powers detailed which feel like
they come out of the books, as well as turn the dials away from the gonzo pulp genre and over to a grittier "If that
vampire gets his hands on me I'm dead" dark Dresden reality. So we have to take everything from Spirit of the Century
and put it under a very exacting microscope.
LENNY: Any time you're playing around in someone else's backyard, you have the challenge of capturing the essence
of the setting, and mechanics play a pretty big part in expressing that essence in a tactile way. So, to the degree that
SotC doesn't "feel" like Dresden, changes have to be made. However, if this makes any sense, I think that all of the
changes will be recognizable as coming from a consistent conceptual grounding, the principles that ground the Fate
system, where folks familiar with SotC will be able to look at the new stuff in Dresden and go, "Ah, I see where that's
coming from." At least, that's my hope.
How closely are you working with Jim Butcher?
FRED: Well, like I said earlier, Jim and I go way back. Jim came to us about the idea of us doing the Dresden Files
RPG. Still, he's incredibly busy -- a victim of his own success -- so we're not, like, running things by him on a daily basis.
He'll probably be contributing some material to the game once the rest of it's done, and definitely has approval over the
text we put into it.
CHAD: Not very, though I've exchanged a number of emails with him regarding character and setting issues.
LENNY: Not closely enough to where he can hear me squeal like a 12-year old girl whenever he answers one of my e-
mails. :)
What made you base the Dresden Files RPG setting in Baltimore as opposed to any other city?
FRED: Folks love to ask us this question. The first answer I like to give back to it is: we aren't doing that. Chicago will
get equal time, and the cast of character's from the Harry-centric stories of the Dresden Files will be front and center.
We we are doing is offering up Baltimore as an example non-Chicago city, an illustrative example of how to take
something relatively local or familiar to you and "Dresden-ify" it. Which takes us to the second answer: we chose
Baltimore because it has a fantastically rich and troubled history and it's less than an hour away from us. So it's that bit
of local familiarity in easy reach that makes it a fertile playground for taking the ideas of the Dresden Files and
introducing them to a new location.
CHAD: Me, I was pitching for Eighty-Four, PA, home of Eighty-Four Lumber, not far from my hometown. (Actually, I
wasn't involved in any decisions like this; before my time. Besides, Baltimore is just a "worked example" of a DFRPG city.)
Knowing that you do not want to give release date, at what stage would you say you are now?
FRED: Scrambling to get the Bleeding Edge Alpha Playtest Groups selected out of the 600 or so playtest applicants
we've heard from and getting the messy, messy files put together in something resembling a sink-or-swim playtest packet
for those Bleeding Edgers.
CHAD: Picking up more writing duties of non-rules essential stuff, to aid the rest of the guys in getting the Alpha Draft
done. (I came late to the party.)
LENNY: Alpha playtest will be soon. Alpha people break it. We fix. They break it again. We fix. We beta. Beta people
break it. Maybe we cry a little. We fix. They break it again. We fix. Then we release it.
How soon after Dresden Files RPG will Fate 3.0 be released?
FRED: No idea at all. It's definitely the next major Fate project after the Dresden Files RPG, but if I gave you a time
range, we'd miss it by at least double the amount of time -- it's our curse.
LENNY: Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.
What did you think of the TV series? Do you think it enhanced or damaged the ‘Dresden’ name?
FRED: I'm pretty circumspect about the whole TV series thing. I think the folks who got rabid and upset about the whole
thing are just ... well, funny, at the end of the day. People just found too much nerdfury in their hearts over shit that did
not matter, like Murphy's hair color. It's television, for gods' sake, not the crisis in Darfur. You can get uselessly upset
about a light and airy entertainment, or you can invest energy in something that actually matters, y'know? I enjoyed the
show and took it as something of its own, not something that had a mandate to stick to the details of the books. From a
sales perspective, the TV show absolutely rocked. Traffic at Jim's website tripled, easily, and his fan base grew
drastically -- a lot of folks went and found the series and read it and got hooked because the TV show tipped them off to
its existence. Jim's making it onto more bestseller lists and higher up on those lists, too. There's nothing bad in that,
even if they did cancel the show. Nothing bad at all. And that's what I think the fans should be focusing on -- being
happy for Jim's success, not getting upset over Bob's non-canon medieval love-interest or Detective Carmichael turning
into Detective Kirimani.
CHAD: I came to Dresden Files fandom via the TV show, despite Fred pushing the books onto me. I like both, and am
somewhat sorry that the show got axed far too early. I would have liked to see how that "alternate Dresdenverse" played
out.
LENNY: I think it really didn't get enough time to get its sea legs, and that's a shame. I thought it started out weak but
with potential, and began to realize that potential starting around the fifth or sixth episode. It's a troubling trend nowadays
in television - most of my favorite shows took about a year to find their footing, and a lot of potentially good TV just isn't
being given that chance anymore, it seems.
The art you're showing at www.dresdenfilesrpg.com has a distinct comic book feel to it - are you using any of
the artists associated with the Dabel Brothers upcoming Dresden Files Comic?
FRED: None of those pictured are from the Dabel Brothers, actually. Though that said, it's very likely we'll be using
some of the art and artists from that project. I'm personally acting as one of the "thematic consultants" on that comic
book project, and I've gotta say -- having seen the pencils for issue one, it's going to be incredibly hot.
What do you think would be the best way to introduce new people into the hobby?
FRED: Take some of the geek stink off of it. What I mean is, you've gotta eliminate some of those really hardcore otaku
style behaviors that instantly create a feeling of being an outsider if you aren't a ravening fan of whatever the topic du
jour is. Getting new people into the hobby will only be possible if we manage to behave as inclusively as possible. This
is part of what the "special magic" of a licensed game is supposed to offer, at the end of the day -- appropriating some of
the fans who aren't also gamers. But it's hardly the only way, and may not be the best way, either. This is part of what
excites me about the story games movement -- it's those games and others like them that go outside the red box and try
to change the way the hobby itself functions. When you do that, you make the hobby broader and more diverse, and
that lets you cast a wider net and find the right game for the right people.
CHAD: Play them like normal card- or board-games with people, like you would at a birthday or dinner party, without
excessive house ruling (that's not mentioned up front). Seriously, play it just like you'd play TRIVIAL PURSUIT at a party
with some people you knew and some people you didn't.
Fred, your name has recently been associated with the new Doctor Who RPG – what impact do you think that
game might have? Are there many ‘story game’ aspects to the RPG?
FRED: Couldn't tell you on that latter part -- for that, you'd have to talk to the main developer of the line, David
Chapman. My name's attached to the project strictly as a layout guy who worked with the Cubicle 7 guys on the proposal
they took to the BBC. There's a decent chance I'll have an opportunity to do some of the layout work on the actual
product line, when the time comes, depending on my availability. I can say that they're orienting on making the system
simple, fluid, and flexible -- I don't see how you could create the feel of the show without that, frankly -- with an eye on
keeping it all very approachable. David's done some work for Eden in the past, so I imagine there may be a few
Unisystem influences there.
Where would you say RPGs are going over the next few years?
FRED: I should say up front that I suck at prognostication, but here goes. I think the D&D 4th edition announcement has
really shaken things up -- it certainly looked like it got everyone to take a pause and regroup after 2007's GenCon. Now
WOTC is saying that folks have to spend $5000 for an advance look at the new system's SRD under a more restrictive
"open" game license and for a 5-month head start on getting products to market. That's either a big miscalculation or
brilliant revenue generation disguised as a big miscalculation, from where I stand. So in the next few years, I think it's
going to be time where a number of other publishers start pushing their different-from-d20 systems out there and really
grabbing some market share. The economy means it'll be the struggle it always is, but I'm pretty excited; I think 2008 and
2009's RPGs are going to be more diverse than ever.
CHAD: More small RPG publishers starting up, a number of current publishers both small and large effectively or in truth
closing down, existing publishers either expanding their lines or joining together with other publishers, continued
dwindling of local game stores, and continued increase of the online/Internet games sales sector (ordering physical
games as well as PDFs).
What is Evil Hat up to next?
FRED: Outside of the stuff we've already talked about, the big "nexts" on my radar right now are Swashbucklers of the 7
Skies from Chad Underkoffler (Zorcerer of Zo, Truth & Justice), which is currently in beta testing, and Don't Lose Your
Mind (a Don't Rest Your Head supplement) by Benjamin Baugh (Monsters & Other Childish Things), as well as a slightly
beefed up pay version of the Spirit of the Season supplement we gave away for free back in December. There's plenty
more beyond that leading edge, but that's "next".
CHAD: Working with Atomic Sock Monkey Press (i.e., me) on Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies and a more robust for-pay
version of Spirit of the Season -- that's what I'm currently involved in with EHP.
LENNY: My personal priority is to get rolling on Fate v3 Core immediately after I'm done working on Dresden. Fred and
Chad have already mentioned S7S and the two supplements that are in the works. There's also another game in
development that we recently announced called Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple, by Daniel Solis, which is currently in
early playtest.
Fred’s Bonus Questions
Can you typify Jim Butcher's role in the development of the game? Did he simply 'approve' or did he help in
the development? Can Butcher fans find some foreshadowing in the rules for the RPG?
This question needs to be corrected for past tense. It's as if any involvement by Jim has come & gone. That's not the
case. :)
What will Jim's role be, what has it been, and what is it? He's there to approve the text, to answer our questions about
the setting, to shake his fist at us for wanting to pin down more details about his world than he's willing, and possibly, if he
can find the time for it, to write a little something of his own for the game.
Is the new game constructed so you can play both Evil and Good characters? Do you think it represents the
tension between various factions that Butcher presents in his books. i.e. the 'white' council is not perfect
good and the Mafia boss of Chicago is not simply bad.
Will the new game be constructed so that... ;)
"Evil" and "Good" are a little too black & white. I would say that the game's biased towards playing "good guys" or
"morally ambiguous characters", but there's a point at which certain kinds of characters can't be player-characters,
because they've become too monstrous. There's an element, an actual game rule, that we're building into the game
where the more powerful you get -- whether that's in a mundane sense, like a politician or a mob boss or an assassin, or
in a supernatural sense, like a wizard flush with power or a red court vampire -- the less free will you have. And there's a
breaking point on that; go past it, and all that power you've gained has robbed you of free will. You become a slave to
your nature, rather than keeping the mortal privilege of free will. So out and out evil characters will tend to fall into that
"lacking free will" category -- but not always.
FRED: I was on the playground, in third grade, and one of the kids I knew was playing with these fascinating plastic
polyhedra. I asked him what they were and thus my education began. I had a hard time for a lot of years really, truly
playing regularly enough to get it off the ground in more than a "let's you and him fight!" way, that said. So I had this
weird gulf of time between discovering RPGs and getting beyond the character-creation-and-cage-match cycle -- maybe
three or four years later, I actually played a full game.
CHAD: BASIC DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Boxed Set (#1011), 1981. Followed closely by VILLAINS & VIGILANTES.
LENNY: I was 8 years old, and it was one version of original Dungeons and Dragons, but I can't remember which now.
Shortly thereafter, I played the Robotech RPG from Palladium and FASA's Star Trek RPG.
But, I have to say the fever really started with Joe Dever's Lone Wolf books, the first of which I read when I was seven.
For those who are not familiar with them or other solo gamebooks like Fighting Fantasy, they're basically "choose your
own adventure" on crack, with rules to govern combat, what abilities and equipment you have, etc.
What is your favorite RPG System and / or setting?
FRED: I'm gonna take that as "favorite RPG system that I didn't have a hand in making" -- because, honestly, at Evil Hat
we've tended to build the systems we want to play. Hm, hm, hm. Amber and the Amber DRPG loom large in my mind and
in the history of Evil Hat in general. I'm not convinced that it necessarily definitively qualifies as the bar-none favorite
across the board, but it's pretty high up there because it's been so influential in our gaming life. Fudge, obviously,
deserves a system nod there, but while it's a gem, it's an incomplete gem. However you slice it, there's a lot to love out
there. If you limited me to D&D settings, for example, Birthright and Planescape are just hugely fantastic.
CHAD: Unlike Fred, I cannot take the question as "favorite RPG system that I didn't have a hand in making." My absolute
favorite system is PDQ, which I wrote. After that, it has to be UNKNOWN ARMIES (which I wrote for as a freelancer) and
then GURPS, 3rd Ed. (which I wrote for as a freelancer/columnist), tied with ADVANCED MARVEL SUPER HEROS
(despite not having worked on it, and being more of a DC Comics fanboy).
My favorite setting depends on what genre I'm playing in, but pound for pound, I've always enjoyed the twisted urban
fantasy of UNKNOWN ARMIES. (However, SWASHBUCKLERS OF THE 7 SKIES, the RPG I'm working on now, contains
my favorite personally-built setting, in which I've run campaigns on-and-off for over a decade.)
LENNY: I honestly can't name one. I'm a huge omnivore when it comes to RPG systems. But, here are a few that stick
out: Star Wars d6 (which is also the system I've run and played the most), Victory Games' James Bond RPG, Cyberpunk
2020, Over the Edge, Feng Shui, Chill, Primetime Adventures, True20, Dogs in the Vineyard, and just about anything
PDQ. Like Fred, I think it's kind of cheating to include Fate and/or Spirit of the Century on that list, but of course, I have
great love for them.
Settings... man. I think one of my favorite examples of what to do with setting is a|state from Contested Ground Studios.
There's a campaign on every page of that thing. I'm a huge Cthulhu nut, and sensibilities from Lovecraft pretty much
bleed into any game I run in any genre at some point. Planescape and Ravenloft are my favorite D&D settings, but I think
the latter would have been done better justice under another system. There's Star Wars, of course, but we tended to go
so far off the beaten path that I'm not sure that really counts. I was also quite fond of the Battletech universe for a while.
Also, any settings from the games mentioned under systems.
What is your background in the RPG industry?
FRED: In the industry? Practically nonexistent, prior to getting Evil Hat Productions thing going on. I've been a fan for
years, and was active for quite some time on the Fudge mailing list. It was that community that we springboarded the
whole Fate thing from.
CHAD: I've been a freelancer in the game industry since 1998, and wrote a well-regarded column in PYRAMID, that is
currently on hiatus. In 2003, I started Atomic Sock Monkey Press to publish my own work. There have been some award
nominations and wins in there, too.
LENNY: Pretty much nonexistent. I've been a rabid fanboy on a bunch of mailing lists, and posted homebrew stuff to the
Internet just like everybody else.
Have you ever played an RPG on a Virtual Tabletop, if so what did you think of the experience?
FRED: Virtual tabletop, no, but online, yes. Rob and I met each other through an online game called a MUSH -- sort of
like Zork crossed with a chat system -- set in the Amber universe. We met Jim Butcher on that same venue, in fact. This
was back in college, so it's been... well, let's just say "over a decade". As far as "what did I think of the experience..." --
well, man, that's a big, broad question. I think you've got to hide your rules more and focus more on collaborative effort,
at the end of the day. You can have complex systems behind the curtain, but at the end of the day, you're mediating a
situation that relies even more heavily on keeping the social interaction going, so the "interface" presented to the player
has to be smooth and fast and done in a way that respects everyone's authority over their characters as much as
possible.
CHAD: No I haven't, though I've MUD'd and MUSH'd (mostly back in college), and PBeM'd (five or six years ago). It was
an acceptable experience, though scheduling – even time-shifted in the case of PBeMs -- made it challenging.
LENNY: Haven't, but I've been playing on MUSHes since they happened in the 90's.
Which ‘story game’ would you think would work best on a VT?
FRED: Polaris. You can run that in chat and with minimal dice. But honestly, there's a ton of story games that would
adapt to online play very well. The orientation a lot of story games have on collaborative creation and decentralized
GMing actually lends themselves well to the online medium.
CHAD: There are many. I think RISUS or my own PDQ could work well; MARVEL SUPER HEROES could work, as could
earlier editions of GURPS LITE. Anything in the rules-light to rules-medium range could probably work.
LENNY: Primetime Adventures gets my vote, because it resolves conflicts in a single roll, and the main issue with the
online format is that it takes much longer to communicate information than face-to-face contact does. Every "step" of
rules use extends that out - even a relatively simple system like, say, original Storyteller can take hours to resolve a
scene with online if you don't shortcut the process with house rules.
Are there any that wouldn't work too well online, or with current VTs?
FRED: Well, technologically, anything with a strong visual component proposes a bigger hurdle to get over than
something which could be handled solely via an IRC-like text chat system, so that's what leaps to mind for me. I love Seth
Ben-Ezra's Dirty Secrets, but there's a pawn and a story-grid map thing you've got to make work online.
CHAD: THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN, I think. Any game where personal
performance/characterization and/or personal proximity really trumps system mechanics, I think you'll have a challenge
converting to a VT. The question then becomes: "Why not just freeform SIM?"
LENNY: Chad and Fred already said everything I was going to say here, for the most part, except that I'm rooting for
game designs that are specifically tailored to the medium of VT's, much like Code of Unaris was for IRC, and can smooth
out the pacing issues I mentioned above as well as some other things.
Do you think there's a future in the VT market, and would you like to see your products made available to this
market?
FRED: Certainly. I don't know that I'd say they're not already available to that market, though -- sure, custom tools could
be developed, but most of our stuff works fine with a dice roller program and a chat system. But, especially when the
roleplaying hobby is fraught with the "I can't find a local group" problem, you've got to hope that "VTs" will.
CHAD: I think there is, and I would, but I really do think more VR-style telepresence will be a necessity before VT really
takes an equal stance with the tabletop experience of sitting around with friends, purely for the socialization factors. (That
being said, I suspect that even now, VTs can give a more robust RPG experience than the typical MUD or MMORPG,
provided players can schedule time to meet "in VT.")
Now on to the Dresden Files RPG, are there many changes to the Fate system as seen in Spirit of the
Century?
FRED: There are a bunch, yeah. Mainly we have to get magic and other supernatural powers detailed which feel like
they come out of the books, as well as turn the dials away from the gonzo pulp genre and over to a grittier "If that
vampire gets his hands on me I'm dead" dark Dresden reality. So we have to take everything from Spirit of the Century
and put it under a very exacting microscope.
LENNY: Any time you're playing around in someone else's backyard, you have the challenge of capturing the essence
of the setting, and mechanics play a pretty big part in expressing that essence in a tactile way. So, to the degree that
SotC doesn't "feel" like Dresden, changes have to be made. However, if this makes any sense, I think that all of the
changes will be recognizable as coming from a consistent conceptual grounding, the principles that ground the Fate
system, where folks familiar with SotC will be able to look at the new stuff in Dresden and go, "Ah, I see where that's
coming from." At least, that's my hope.
How closely are you working with Jim Butcher?
FRED: Well, like I said earlier, Jim and I go way back. Jim came to us about the idea of us doing the Dresden Files
RPG. Still, he's incredibly busy -- a victim of his own success -- so we're not, like, running things by him on a daily basis.
He'll probably be contributing some material to the game once the rest of it's done, and definitely has approval over the
text we put into it.
CHAD: Not very, though I've exchanged a number of emails with him regarding character and setting issues.
LENNY: Not closely enough to where he can hear me squeal like a 12-year old girl whenever he answers one of my e-
mails. :)
What made you base the Dresden Files RPG setting in Baltimore as opposed to any other city?
FRED: Folks love to ask us this question. The first answer I like to give back to it is: we aren't doing that. Chicago will
get equal time, and the cast of character's from the Harry-centric stories of the Dresden Files will be front and center.
We we are doing is offering up Baltimore as an example non-Chicago city, an illustrative example of how to take
something relatively local or familiar to you and "Dresden-ify" it. Which takes us to the second answer: we chose
Baltimore because it has a fantastically rich and troubled history and it's less than an hour away from us. So it's that bit
of local familiarity in easy reach that makes it a fertile playground for taking the ideas of the Dresden Files and
introducing them to a new location.
CHAD: Me, I was pitching for Eighty-Four, PA, home of Eighty-Four Lumber, not far from my hometown. (Actually, I
wasn't involved in any decisions like this; before my time. Besides, Baltimore is just a "worked example" of a DFRPG city.)
Knowing that you do not want to give release date, at what stage would you say you are now?
FRED: Scrambling to get the Bleeding Edge Alpha Playtest Groups selected out of the 600 or so playtest applicants
we've heard from and getting the messy, messy files put together in something resembling a sink-or-swim playtest packet
for those Bleeding Edgers.
CHAD: Picking up more writing duties of non-rules essential stuff, to aid the rest of the guys in getting the Alpha Draft
done. (I came late to the party.)
LENNY: Alpha playtest will be soon. Alpha people break it. We fix. They break it again. We fix. We beta. Beta people
break it. Maybe we cry a little. We fix. They break it again. We fix. Then we release it.
How soon after Dresden Files RPG will Fate 3.0 be released?
FRED: No idea at all. It's definitely the next major Fate project after the Dresden Files RPG, but if I gave you a time
range, we'd miss it by at least double the amount of time -- it's our curse.
LENNY: Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.
What did you think of the TV series? Do you think it enhanced or damaged the ‘Dresden’ name?
FRED: I'm pretty circumspect about the whole TV series thing. I think the folks who got rabid and upset about the whole
thing are just ... well, funny, at the end of the day. People just found too much nerdfury in their hearts over shit that did
not matter, like Murphy's hair color. It's television, for gods' sake, not the crisis in Darfur. You can get uselessly upset
about a light and airy entertainment, or you can invest energy in something that actually matters, y'know? I enjoyed the
show and took it as something of its own, not something that had a mandate to stick to the details of the books. From a
sales perspective, the TV show absolutely rocked. Traffic at Jim's website tripled, easily, and his fan base grew
drastically -- a lot of folks went and found the series and read it and got hooked because the TV show tipped them off to
its existence. Jim's making it onto more bestseller lists and higher up on those lists, too. There's nothing bad in that,
even if they did cancel the show. Nothing bad at all. And that's what I think the fans should be focusing on -- being
happy for Jim's success, not getting upset over Bob's non-canon medieval love-interest or Detective Carmichael turning
into Detective Kirimani.
CHAD: I came to Dresden Files fandom via the TV show, despite Fred pushing the books onto me. I like both, and am
somewhat sorry that the show got axed far too early. I would have liked to see how that "alternate Dresdenverse" played
out.
LENNY: I think it really didn't get enough time to get its sea legs, and that's a shame. I thought it started out weak but
with potential, and began to realize that potential starting around the fifth or sixth episode. It's a troubling trend nowadays
in television - most of my favorite shows took about a year to find their footing, and a lot of potentially good TV just isn't
being given that chance anymore, it seems.
The art you're showing at www.dresdenfilesrpg.com has a distinct comic book feel to it - are you using any of
the artists associated with the Dabel Brothers upcoming Dresden Files Comic?
FRED: None of those pictured are from the Dabel Brothers, actually. Though that said, it's very likely we'll be using
some of the art and artists from that project. I'm personally acting as one of the "thematic consultants" on that comic
book project, and I've gotta say -- having seen the pencils for issue one, it's going to be incredibly hot.
What do you think would be the best way to introduce new people into the hobby?
FRED: Take some of the geek stink off of it. What I mean is, you've gotta eliminate some of those really hardcore otaku
style behaviors that instantly create a feeling of being an outsider if you aren't a ravening fan of whatever the topic du
jour is. Getting new people into the hobby will only be possible if we manage to behave as inclusively as possible. This
is part of what the "special magic" of a licensed game is supposed to offer, at the end of the day -- appropriating some of
the fans who aren't also gamers. But it's hardly the only way, and may not be the best way, either. This is part of what
excites me about the story games movement -- it's those games and others like them that go outside the red box and try
to change the way the hobby itself functions. When you do that, you make the hobby broader and more diverse, and
that lets you cast a wider net and find the right game for the right people.
CHAD: Play them like normal card- or board-games with people, like you would at a birthday or dinner party, without
excessive house ruling (that's not mentioned up front). Seriously, play it just like you'd play TRIVIAL PURSUIT at a party
with some people you knew and some people you didn't.
Fred, your name has recently been associated with the new Doctor Who RPG – what impact do you think that
game might have? Are there many ‘story game’ aspects to the RPG?
FRED: Couldn't tell you on that latter part -- for that, you'd have to talk to the main developer of the line, David
Chapman. My name's attached to the project strictly as a layout guy who worked with the Cubicle 7 guys on the proposal
they took to the BBC. There's a decent chance I'll have an opportunity to do some of the layout work on the actual
product line, when the time comes, depending on my availability. I can say that they're orienting on making the system
simple, fluid, and flexible -- I don't see how you could create the feel of the show without that, frankly -- with an eye on
keeping it all very approachable. David's done some work for Eden in the past, so I imagine there may be a few
Unisystem influences there.
Where would you say RPGs are going over the next few years?
FRED: I should say up front that I suck at prognostication, but here goes. I think the D&D 4th edition announcement has
really shaken things up -- it certainly looked like it got everyone to take a pause and regroup after 2007's GenCon. Now
WOTC is saying that folks have to spend $5000 for an advance look at the new system's SRD under a more restrictive
"open" game license and for a 5-month head start on getting products to market. That's either a big miscalculation or
brilliant revenue generation disguised as a big miscalculation, from where I stand. So in the next few years, I think it's
going to be time where a number of other publishers start pushing their different-from-d20 systems out there and really
grabbing some market share. The economy means it'll be the struggle it always is, but I'm pretty excited; I think 2008 and
2009's RPGs are going to be more diverse than ever.
CHAD: More small RPG publishers starting up, a number of current publishers both small and large effectively or in truth
closing down, existing publishers either expanding their lines or joining together with other publishers, continued
dwindling of local game stores, and continued increase of the online/Internet games sales sector (ordering physical
games as well as PDFs).
What is Evil Hat up to next?
FRED: Outside of the stuff we've already talked about, the big "nexts" on my radar right now are Swashbucklers of the 7
Skies from Chad Underkoffler (Zorcerer of Zo, Truth & Justice), which is currently in beta testing, and Don't Lose Your
Mind (a Don't Rest Your Head supplement) by Benjamin Baugh (Monsters & Other Childish Things), as well as a slightly
beefed up pay version of the Spirit of the Season supplement we gave away for free back in December. There's plenty
more beyond that leading edge, but that's "next".
CHAD: Working with Atomic Sock Monkey Press (i.e., me) on Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies and a more robust for-pay
version of Spirit of the Season -- that's what I'm currently involved in with EHP.
LENNY: My personal priority is to get rolling on Fate v3 Core immediately after I'm done working on Dresden. Fred and
Chad have already mentioned S7S and the two supplements that are in the works. There's also another game in
development that we recently announced called Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple, by Daniel Solis, which is currently in
early playtest.
Fred’s Bonus Questions
Can you typify Jim Butcher's role in the development of the game? Did he simply 'approve' or did he help in
the development? Can Butcher fans find some foreshadowing in the rules for the RPG?
This question needs to be corrected for past tense. It's as if any involvement by Jim has come & gone. That's not the
case. :)
What will Jim's role be, what has it been, and what is it? He's there to approve the text, to answer our questions about
the setting, to shake his fist at us for wanting to pin down more details about his world than he's willing, and possibly, if he
can find the time for it, to write a little something of his own for the game.
Is the new game constructed so you can play both Evil and Good characters? Do you think it represents the
tension between various factions that Butcher presents in his books. i.e. the 'white' council is not perfect
good and the Mafia boss of Chicago is not simply bad.
Will the new game be constructed so that... ;)
"Evil" and "Good" are a little too black & white. I would say that the game's biased towards playing "good guys" or
"morally ambiguous characters", but there's a point at which certain kinds of characters can't be player-characters,
because they've become too monstrous. There's an element, an actual game rule, that we're building into the game
where the more powerful you get -- whether that's in a mundane sense, like a politician or a mob boss or an assassin, or
in a supernatural sense, like a wizard flush with power or a red court vampire -- the less free will you have. And there's a
breaking point on that; go past it, and all that power you've gained has robbed you of free will. You become a slave to
your nature, rather than keeping the mortal privilege of free will. So out and out evil characters will tend to fall into that
"lacking free will" category -- but not always.
Once again thanks to Evil Hat Productions for taking time out to speak to RPG VT.
RPG VT Team 11/01/08
RPG Virtual Tabletop
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