Raptus Regaliter

We finished up the city creation playtest last night, and it’s a friggin’ blast. The same player who wrote up the first chunk of material is working on a more detailed writeup, but I thought that I’d give y’all my initial thoughts.

The entire process of city creation for the Dresden Files RPG is fun, especially coming up with the locations. It really makes the players want to play in the city and explore all the cool stuff they’ve come up with. One of the best parts, as far as I’m concerned, is coming up with the characters that inhabit the locations. Since the players invent them, the players care about them, so any time a bad thing happens to them, the PC’s are going to jump to the rescue.

On the other hand, we found that, if you go overboard with the ideas at the beginning, you’ll bind yourself up at the end, when everybody starts tossing out story hooks and whatnot. This was the problem that we ran into - we created slightly more that twice the number of locations that were  recommended - 9 locations between 4 players - which really made the last few steps of the city creation process redundant. You’ll see what I mean when we get the full writeup posted.

Still, overall, the city creation rules are solid enough to make me and all my players incredibly excited to play the DFRPG. It’ll be fun to see what comes out of Portland, OR in the Dresdenverse.

The rumor is that we should be seeing a chapter on conflicts next, but that probably won’t happen until after GenCon, since all of the Evil Hat guys are there and will be incredibly busy. In the meantime, though, my groups have a Shadowrun game to finish, a Burning Wheel game to start, and a Werewolf: The Forsaken game to create a character for. Also, we’ll be doing some collaborative stuff (and hanging out) with the folks from Good Omens again, which is always a blast. Not to mention the monthly one-shots that we play

So, despite the slow progress of the Dresden playtesting, there’s still an awful lot of awesome gaming to talk about, so stay tuned.

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One of the members of our group was kind enough to take the mass of 3×5 index cards that we used to build our Dresdenverse Portland and post the bare bones of our creation session. There isn’t any flavor text added, but all of the Aspects, themes, locations, an personalities are there, or at least the seeds of them. As soon as we have some flavor to add - possibly tomorrow, since we’re finishing up the last couple of steps tonight. In any case, enjoy the rough sketch of Portland, OR.

If you’re interested, you can go and join in the conversation about our Dresden playtest on the This Modern Death forum.

Portland, OR

Aspects:
1. Hard to Drive, Easy to Walk
2. This is Really Two Cities
3. Two Big Rivers

Locations
1. Powell’s World of Books - Giant Bookstore
2. Portlandia - Bronze Statue
3. 40 Mile Loop - Giant Magical Circle
4. Olympus Mons Coffee Co. - Wizard Hangout
5. Rose Garden
6. Oregon State Zoo
7. The Woods - New Money Neighborhood
8. Industrial District - Vampire Territory
9. Oldtown - Downtown Portland

Location Details
1. Powell’s World of Books
Theme: Knowledge for Sale

Aspect: We got that somewhere…

Face: Worldly Archivist - Abernathy “Abby”, human cardfile, female, magical housecat.

Touch of Magic: The Magenta Room, hidden room with arcane knowledge

2. Portlandia
Theme: The Power of Icons

Aspect: The Spirit of Portland

Face: Nobody specific, but there is usually some kind of city employee or other nearby that feels the need to protect the statue from “vandals”.

Touch of Magic: The statue has no real magic itself, but it has power as the symbol of Faith in the city.

3. 40 Mile Loop
Theme: Protection Circle

Aspect: The Circle is Broken

Touch of Magic: It’s a Big Fucking Magic Circle

4. Olympus Mons Coffe Co.
Theme: Wizards’ Hangout & Haven

Aspect: It’s Hot Chocolate on a Cold Day

Face: Francesca “Frankie” Matinopalous, Tall Amazon looking woman, lots of tattoos, Suicide Girl, Master Roaster (all machines in the coffee shop are low tech, hand crafted affairs).

Touch of Magic: Incidentally arranged and equipped in a way to make it a haven for wizards. Somewhat New-Agey.

5. Rose Garden
Theme: True Romance/Date Spot

Aspect: Love and Lust

Face: Cantankerous Head Gardener, Arnold, Old Blood (family has been in Portland since the city was founded), powerful wizard, caretaker & protector (maintains the balance of energies in the Rose Garden), crafty

Touch of Magic: Attractive to the Fae (they want to take control of it). Site of Power from Life and Emotion.

6. Oregon State Zoo
Theme: False Sense of Security

Aspect: I Think This’ll Hold It

Face: Comically Exuberant Zoologist, Haresh Patil (NOT Harry!), biology grad student, uber-skeptic

Touch of Magic: Huge brass containment circle set in the center of a big fountain in the middle of the zoo.

7. The Woods
Theme: Rich New Money Neighborhood on the River

Aspect: Old Land, New Money

Face: Passive Aggressive Homeowners’ Association Chairperson, a total fucking bitch, but perky and “friendly” about it, knows who should and shouldn’t be in The Woods, has a dirty little secret

Touch of Magic: Magically Sterile

8. Industrial District
Theme: Seedy Underbelly

Aspect: Deadly After Dark

Face: Black Court Vampire Union Boss, Jeff “Benny” Benjamin (True Name - White Feather) Native American, predates the American Colonies, controls the Black Court in Portland.

Touch of Magic: Black Court Union

9. Oldtown
Theme: Heart of the City

Aspect: Livingroom of Portland

Face: Old Blues musician street performer, notices everything that goes on in his town, full of anectdotes, he gots the blues

Touch of Magic: Mostly mundane, has access to the Shanghai Tunnels

Who Cares?

Black Court Vampires
White Council, especially Arnold
The Fae, they want the Rose Garden
The Sasquatch, U’Bi’K, HATES White Feather
Coroporate America
The PC’s

Who Keeps the Peace?

The PC’s
The Cops
Sasquatch
The White Council
The Fae

How Do Mortals Cope?

An inneffective group of Wiccans
An underfunded Police precinct

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