What I’m Playing Now

We met up with some local(ish) gamers and decided to give the new Dresden Files game a try. I’m the person with the most FATE experience in the group, but I’m not GMing. That’s OK. I get to play. It is a low-ish powered game, and I’m playing an aspiring wizard/art student. The game is set in Baltimore, which is the setting fleshed out in the book. It also has the advantage of being local. We’re planning a field trip at some point to locations that show up in-game.

So far, the game is fun. There’s a bit more reliance on dice-rolling and a bit less in-character roleplaying than I’m used to in this group – but only a bit… and I am wondering how much of that is a matter of people’s comfort level. Angela and I didn’t know any of the people in the game going into it… and few of them knew each other… but things appear to be working out.

System-wise, I have mixed feelings. I really like a lot of the tweaks to the system that they implemented for DFRPG. On the other hand, there are some places that are vague to the point of being problematic (Thaumaturgy rules – I’m looking at you!). My other big gripe is that the skill list is far too large and has some arbitrary distinctions.

I think that an analysis of the rules will be another post… once I get the hard copy of my books. (I’ve been using the free-with-preorder PDFs).

I’m also playing in a game with my old gaming group in Illinois via Skype. I’ve been a bit wary of this in the past, but I use Skype daily at work now. It seems to be working. The PCs in this game are the employees of a private investigative firm in Sigil. So far, it is a lot of fun. I am playing an Illumian bard/paladin. The character was adopted and had thought himself human (something was surpressing his sigils) until recently. I’m treating bardic music (and spellcasting to some degree) as functions of the Illumian language – which is pretty cool in play.

Angela started to run a sequel to her long-running D&D campaign, but it has stalled due to scheduling issues. We’ve also been in two goofy, low-key 1st ed campaigns – one of which has also had some scheduling issues lately… and the other we haven’t made it to in several weeks… and will likely end up dropping out of due to schedule conflicts.

Kenneth (who is running the Dresden Files game) has been pushing for me to run Shadowrun. It is tempting, though I haven’t come up with a compelling angle yet. I also recently picked up Mutants and Masterminds, which is my current game-system-crush.