EvilHat is getting ready to ship out the new Dresden Files Accelerated RPG this June. It is no secret that I’m in love with the Fate system for roleplaying, and this game has not dulled that feeling one bit. In fact, I’m stoked. Big time. Here are a few reasons why.
Stress
They made a small, but I think important, change to the stress track. All characters now have 6 stress boxes, but each box is only worth 1 point. However, you can also check as many of those stress boxes as you want to soak up damage.
I’ve been catching up on my Dresden-verse and I’ve noticed something about the books that stand out to me: Combat is brutal and ends quickly. I think having only 1 point stress boxes helps to give you the feeling of being in mortal danger relatively quickly.
Scale
They used the alternate rules for scale from the Fate System Toolkit and I think it goes a long way in allowing characters of vastly different power levels to operate in the game at the same time. It makes the humans feel small but doesn’t mean they can’t be effective given the right circumstances. They even go so far as to allow scale to come into play when you use some stunts, so characters can temporarily increase their scale when it’s appropriate to the narrative. Fuego!
Conditions
I. Love. Conditions. They essentially reskinned consequences and turned them into a much more narratively interesting resource. They are named appropriately to help carry the universe into the characters.
Instead of a Minor Consequence, you are In Peril and when you take a Serious Consequence you are instead Doomed. And they did not forget my favorite condition, Indebted, which they use to account for trading in the currency of favors. Watch out for those tricksy Fae.
Mantles
Mantles are like archetypes and they describe additional conditions that your character has access too. Lest you be too quick to judge though, conditions are not always a bad thing. They can be very good, too. Exhausted, for example, is a common condition for magic-wielding folk who want to push themselves to the limit and gives a nice scene-long bonus. Afterward, however, it’s time to pay the piper.
All in all, this game has me super excited to play in the Dresden-verse and I’m already stealing ideas for my D&D-esque fate game with regard to mantels and conditions.
In the immortal words of Harry Dresden, “Stars and stones!”
Sterling Heibeck 