Ah, The Dresden Files. None of thiswould have happened if not for The Dresden Files. Thank you, Jim Butcher.
For those who don’t know, TheDresden Files is a series of books written by Jim Butcher (fifteen as of thetime of posting) following Harry Dresden, a wizard private eye working inChicago who goes up against ghosts, vampires, fairies, and the eternal struggleof paying rent on time. They’re great books. Amazing books. You should readthem!
NOW.
(Or, you know, after you’re done with this. You do you, man.)
And hey, they also made a game about it! Running off the Fate RPG system, you can make up your own character in the Dresdenverse, and go up against all sorts of evil baddies in Chicago. I was so hyped when I found out! Only one problem: I didn’t know anybody else who’d read the series or had roll playing experience. I tried getting some coworkers at my old job into the books, but fifteen books is a little intimidating.
So I sighed, went, “Okay, guess this isn’t gonna happen,” and went back to my everyday life of flipping burgers. Bleh…
I knew Draconic Steve from when I first got hired at my old job, and we’d talked a little bit in passing, but then he got transferred to another unit in Roswell and that was kind of that. He was gone for roughly one year before being transferred back. We started working the graveyard shift together, and (for those who don’t know) working graveyard shift at a fast food place basically just means cleaning, cleaning, occasionally making drunk people food, and more cleaning.
So Draconic Steve and I started making conversation.
And realized that we’re both big fucking geeks.
I inevitably started telling him about the Dresden Files RPG and while Draconic Steve hadn’t (and still hasn’t, Goddamnit, Steve) caught up with the Dresden Files series, his two old roommates, Poldaran and Szordorl, had. But most importantly he and they had a ton of roleplaying experience, though mostly through this strange, complicated system called Pathfinder.
(Sigh…So. Much. Math.)
Draconic Steve told me that they hadn’t played in a while since he’d been transferred away, and the few times they’d tried to start up again hadn’t really gone anywhere. I figured that if I was going to try GMing a Dresden RPG, it wouldn’t hurt to get some experience under my belt. So after a night of coming up with a concept for a character (who would inevitably end up becoming the paranoid, sex-confused, twelve-year old gunslinger Terry Guiser who has A LOT of issues) I met up with the guys.
I once took a creative writing class in college, where everybody in the room considered themselves a misunderstood snowflake on the verge of writing the next BIG thing (myself included). I learned one important thing in that class: a lot of writers are suffocating in their own hype and bullshit. I’m sure a lot of that is a defense mechanism brought about by society telling us to get a real job, or grow up. But talking to my classmates, I saw that a lot of them had ideas, but no actual writing done. Most hadn’t even gotten beyond tweaking the first chapter for the twentieth time.
Playing Pathfinder, the Reign of Winter campaign specifically, is more like theater. Beyond quick research on the GM’s part, or a quick scan of the character sheets to see what options or skills are available, the story keeps going at an unpredictable pace. When you have four guys with drastically different play styles, story inclinations, and varying levels of pop culture awareness, shit’s gonna get weird. And we often disagree, make fun of each other, and never fail to call out a leap in “logic” if it’s to the detriment of the story. It’s like having three older brothers who love seeing our magical world burn.
But it’s fun.
And even though we’re probably never gonna play Dresden Files (Goddamnit, Steve) I love being part of this team, and whatever different iterations come after. And for that, thanks again, Jim Butcher.
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