The second volume in the two Dresden Files RPG books released by Evil Hat, Our World features an incredibly detailed overview of the world, creatures, and characters featured in the Dresden Files universe as established by the series of novels. The authors (and specifically Chad Underkoffler) clearly put in an exhaustive amount of research in detailing every notable character (these are likely to be used as NPCs in the RPG) from the novels up through Small Favor. The book also features an enjoyable short story by Jim Butcher that provides both a window in to the world and provides a fix for the compulsive Dresden-verse addict. The book is available both as a hard cover and a PDF; I’m reviewing the hard cover version here but everything I have to say applies to the PDF as well.
The Physical Product
The book, which is hard covered and weighs in at a very hefty 272-pages is done in full color and, to put it mildly, is beautiful. The writing and editing are simply great – better than many of the products put out by far larger companies – and the layout looks fabulous. The background image, made to look like a faded and torn spiral-notebook is superbly done with the left and right page inside margins lining up so well that they create the illusion that you really are looking at a notebook.
The art is excellent, though it’s style is likely not going to appeal to everyone, showcasing several styles which depict various scenes and characters in the book. The book also uses marginalia and “post-it” stylized commenting written in the voices of various Dresden characters, like in Your Story, which is really nice and somehow both enhances the appearance and the functionality of the book. It’s clear that a lot of thought, effort, and time went in to the creation of the book making it well worth the $39.99 cover price.
Contents
The book has four, very lengthy chapters, plus the aforementioned short story (AAAA Wizardry). It also includes a very comprehensive index that spans both volumes of the Dresden RPG.
What’s in the four chapters?
Chapter one, entitled Our World Order lays out the “canon” of the Dresdenverse, providing details of all of the factions, powers, politics, and conflicts going on, based on the novel series. This section is fairly exhaustive and very interesting but contains a lot of spoilers regarding the novels so readers of the novels will either love or hate, depending on where they are in the series.
Chapter Two, What Goes Bump is at its heart a monster compendium of all of the major creatures that inhabit the Dresdenverse, as detailed in the novels. Even those not interested specifically in playing a Dresdenverse based game will find the section invaluable since it provides more insight and examples on how creatures are constructed. The info provided for each creature, ranging in length from a quarter of a page to a full-page of write-up, is well-written, useful from a game standpoint, and also very informative for those interested in the novels. Like the first chapter though, you need to be prepared for some spoilers since some of the monsters only appear in later volumes of the novel series. One of the nice bits in this section is that many entries include notes on how the the NPC “plays” in the game as well as any specific vulnerabilities they might have which is a nice touch ..read more
Continue reading about Review – Dresden Files RPG: Our World (vol. 2) »
