Your Story

Your Story (the Dresden Files Roleplaying Game, vol. 1). 402 p.

This rpg (role-playing game) uses the FATE system to adapt the Dresden Files novels of Jim Butcher into a playable game setting and system. I was somewhat familiar with FATE before reading this, and I enjoy the DF novels, so I was looking forward to checking out this implementation. I'm impressed; the setting is both very faithful to the books (Butcher was involved with the game design) and eminently playable without having to reproduce the plots of the novels. Particularly elegant was the way the designers used the refresh mechanism as a thematic element and as a way to balance characters against one another. The magic system is complex but looks very flexible, which is the way to go if you don't want to end up with huge spell lists like you have in old-school D&D.

(An aside: yes, this is a rulebook for a game, not a novel. But I read every word, cover to cover, so I get to claim it as a "book read"! Also, if anyone is actually interested in system details, I'd be glad to go into more detail, but I don't think this blog is quite the place to do so.)