Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Tollymain
Jul 9, 2010

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
I don't think I have the Toolkit. Can you elaborate?

E: Hmm yes this does look very useful.

Tollymain fucked around with this message at 11:27 on Nov 4, 2013

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Quadratic_Wizard
Jun 7, 2011

Tollymain posted:

Speaking of superpowered people, I'm thinking of running an FAE supers game, and this is the current approach I have come up with for powers. One major conceit for the game is that powers tend to be, well, powerful. Control tends to be a problem more often than power levels.


Any thoughts?

There are a few problems with that method.

Say that you have a Hercules player who just wants their Super Strength as a forceful effect, and they naturally have Forceful at +3. In combat, that means that they'll roll +6 when they forcefully use their fists to punch their foes. 93% of the time, a +6 is going to get a tie or better against a +3. Not only does this kind of break the math, but you also have the weird side effect that the more powerful a super's power is, the less chance you have for it to cause collateral damage. You also have more of a "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" thing when the gap between their power and their +2 skill is even further off the map, so players are always going to use the one approach over and over.

My suggestion is that rather than picking approaches, you simply define your superpower as two Aspects, the good and the bad, kind of like Wild Blue in Fate Worlds. You might have a Speedster with Faster than a Speeding Bullet that lets them race through the city, but have With No Bullet Time which makes their own reflexes the bottleneck on their power. A vampire might be Creature of the Night that comes in handy in a variety of situations, but All the Weaknesses which makes them have trouble with crosses, garlic, sunlight, etc.

Players can use their powers with any approach that makes sense, and it works just like a normal skill roll. However, when you do use a power, you have the option of giving it a Free Invoke on that action. They might not want to do that though, because if two or more of the fate dice come up negative, then either a new aspect is created with a free invoke for the opposition, or the player/scene takes stress, starting at 1, and increasing by 1 for every instance of blowback that session/scenario, at the GM's choice.

This means a few things. First, a player can use their power and not use the free Invoke. Hercules is generally going to punch/wrestle everything, but he'll also generally roll with +3. If he doesn't get the negatives, he's free to Invoke for that extra +2 without worry. If he does get the negatives--and there is a 40% chance he will--then he has a choice. Does he keep the roll and add a +2 because he really wants to succeed, or does he try to reroll and get a bonus and no blowback?

Since the more you use your powers the more complications it causes for you, players are limited in how many of these free invokes they can take, so that more niche powers can be balanced against broader ones to an extent. It also makes it so that when player do push themselves, they get rewarded with powerful effects, but that the powers can get out of control.

Tollymain
Jul 9, 2010

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
Powers are powerful. It just happens that the less straightforward they are, the more likely they are to slip from the user's control.

Also I really don't like using Aspects alone to model superpowers.


Also, here's my revised version:

You may buy an active power (or powers). Detail them. Choose 1, 2, or 3 approaches. When you use your power along one of these approaches, roll with a bonus of +3, +2, or +1 to your result, respectively.. If you tie, there may be unintended collateral effects on you, your opponent, and/or the environment. If you fail, you will take stress equal to the number of shifts by which you lost the roll. You may divert the stress onto the City’s Collateral Consequences. This costs 2 stunts, and cannot be taken more than once.

quote:

Zezax The Mighty has LASER EYES. When he uses his LASER EYES as part of a Flashy or Forceful approach, he gains a bonus of +2 to his roll.

When he fails a roll by 3 shifts, he chooses to divert the stress to his environment. The City takes the moderate consequence Laser Damage On Broadway. A few sessions later, it is agreed that there has been time for the damage to the buildings on that street to be repaired.

Tollymain fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Nov 4, 2013

Quadratic_Wizard
Jun 7, 2011
Yeah, but using that system, when would you ever want to take a power with three approaches? It's the choice between a minor +1 bonus and a really good chance of failing and screwing up OR you get a massive +3 bonus and you barely ever fail at anything.

Someone with only one approach can paradoxically use their power way, way more than someone with the more versatile powerset. Someone with Clever telekinesis can use their power in just about every situation, while someone with Clever, Flashy, and Forceful telekinesis is better off flatout NEVER using their power, since the cost is greater than the benefit, even though they spent two stunts on it.

Tollymain
Jul 9, 2010

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
You fundamentally do not understand how Approaches work.

Get back to your bbq.

Quadratic_Wizard
Jun 7, 2011
Okay, maybe I'm not explaining this well.

Say you have Mover, the telekinetic wunderkid. His player is trying to stat him up.

His approaches are

+3: Clever
+2: Quick, Flashy
+1: Forceful, Careful, Sneaky.

He thinks about it, and decides to go with three approaches for his power: Clever, Flashy, and Forceful.

Later, Mover is on patrol and sees Brick--a bruiser made entirely out of bricks--running out of a bank with a big bag of money. He decides to attack, rolling with Forceful to throw a car at Brick. Brick is a Brick, and he's going to roll to defend with +4. 73% of the time, not only is Mover going to miss Brick completely, but he's going to take stress just for trying. 12% of the time, he's going to get a tie, which will give him a boost, but there will be unintended consequences. A whopping 14% of the time is throwing that car at Brick going to work.

But what if he'd been a bit more clever? Next round, he thinks to use his TK guide two small stones and strike Brick directly at his weakpoint, his eyes? He rolls with +4 this time, which means that he's only going to fail 41% of the time, he'll hit 41% of the time, and the other 18% will be ties.

Hold up, what if Mover rebuilds his character. This time, he'll only apply TK to one approach, Clever. He isn't strong enough to throw a car at the villain, but he can make up for that with his mastery and precision of the power. He goes for the eyes first thing, because he doesn't really have any other options to stop Brick.

With his +6 bonus, he's only going to miss 14% of the time, and even when he does, it won't be by very much. 12% of the time he'll get a tie with Brick. 73% of the time though, he's going to succeed, even succeed with style.

So to compare, with one character, they have an equal chance of hitting the enemy or themselves whenever they use their power as a best case scenario. Trying to use their power in a less than optimal way is practically guaranteed to fail. With the other, you have a 12% vs 73% chance of their power working when they use it with only one approach.

Do you really not see how that might be a problem?

Tollymain
Jul 9, 2010

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
The entire point for choosing to have a more flexible sort of power is that it will be more applicable in scenarios where one approach might not be appropriate. Using a single scenario to attempt to prove your point doesn't help. Unless you have a boring and inattentive GM, you can't roll the same minmaxed approach for every problem you come across. Neither permutation is superior.

You also are still failing to note that the mechanics here actually support the fluff. I don't think you're paying any attention to what I am trying to say here.

Aspects do not adequately model powers the way that I want for my game.
Aspects do not adequately model powers the way that I want for my game.
Aspects do not adequately model powers the way that I want for my game.
Aspects do not adequately model powers the way that I want for my game.

MadScientistWorking
Jun 23, 2010

"I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Tollymain posted:

Unless you have a boring and inattentive GM, you can't roll the same minmaxed approach for every problem you come across.
Actually you can its just that the GM has to adjust the results in regards to the approached used. I know there is an article where Fred Hicks actually points out that very often characters in fiction have one note approaches to everything which means that it isn't really minmaxing to go with your characters strengths.

MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Nov 4, 2013

Quadratic_Wizard
Jun 7, 2011

Tollymain posted:

The entire point for choosing to have a more flexible sort of power is that it will be more applicable in scenarios where one approach might not be appropriate. Using a single scenario to attempt to prove your point doesn't help. Unless you have a boring and inattentive GM, you can't roll the same minmaxed approach for every problem you come across. Neither permutation is superior.

You also are still failing to note that the mechanics here actually support the fluff. I don't think you're paying any attention to what I am trying to say here.

Aspects do not adequately model powers the way that I want for my game.
Aspects do not adequately model powers the way that I want for my game.
Aspects do not adequately model powers the way that I want for my game.
Aspects do not adequately model powers the way that I want for my game.
My point is that flexible powers don't actually work because in a best case scenario, you're doing more harm than good on every single roll, while one versatile power that uses a single approach is always going to be the solution a player is going to try and finagle.

The idea to model powers as an Aspect was a suggestion. It's definitely not an either/or situation. If you can think of something better, go for it. If you want to use the rules the way you originally propose, go for that too. I was only pointing out that

1. It's not balanced. At all.
2. It punishes players for wanting to sacrifice a little power for versatility by making them fail when they use their power in their approaches at +2 or +1.
3. It makes single approach characters nearly guaranteed success, unless you ramp up the difficulty of their actions, in which case it becomes impossible for those without a single approach power to succeed, unless you ONLY ramp up the difficulty for those rolling at +6, in which case there's really no point to giving a bonus to these power rolls.

Feel free to ignore all of that though.

Transient People
Dec 22, 2011

"When a man thinketh on anything whatsoever, his next thought after is not altogether so casual as it seems to be. Not every thought to every thought succeeds indifferently."
- Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

Tollymain posted:

The entire point for choosing to have a more flexible sort of power is that it will be more applicable in scenarios where one approach might not be appropriate. Using a single scenario to attempt to prove your point doesn't help. Unless you have a boring and inattentive GM, you can't roll the same minmaxed approach for every problem you come across. Neither permutation is superior.

You also are still failing to note that the mechanics here actually support the fluff. I don't think you're paying any attention to what I am trying to say here.

Aspects do not adequately model powers the way that I want for my game.
Aspects do not adequately model powers the way that I want for my game.
Aspects do not adequately model powers the way that I want for my game.
Aspects do not adequately model powers the way that I want for my game.

I think you're missing his point Tolly. Quadratic Wizard is telling you the following: Why would the tech supergenius who makes a gadget for everything (by rolling Clever, because Being The Smart Guy is his schtick) have so much less chance for blowback than the guy who chose Is Batman for his power and took three approaches? One of them will be using +6 Clever for drat near everything, the other one will be rolling with three approaches gaining +1 over baseline and doing less with it.

Gazetteer
Nov 22, 2011

"You're talking to cats."
"And you eat ghosts, so shut the fuck up."
Thinking that a determined player with +6 in Forceful could not go through a game kicking in every door and punching/intimidating every NPC he meets is a little bit naive, I think. Sure, theoretically a Forcefull success would net a worse result in some some situations than another approach would, but with that setup my next best approach is +2. That is four points below, equal to the largest possible penalty I could take from a dice roll. So sure I could try to do something Clever and rewire the control panel, but screw that when I have such a higher chance of success for just punching the loving thing in.

I just think that handing out huge static number bonuses is a bad idea in general. It breaks the math, and incentivises this kind of one-note character. Particularly when loading up on the biggest single bonus I can get is the best way to stop bad things from happening to me. Tolly, would you mind explaining why aspects do not adequately model powers the way you want in your game? All you've said is that you don't like them. I feel like it would help if you would tell us your reasoning there.

Gazetteer fucked around with this message at 00:55 on Nov 5, 2013

Golden Bee
Dec 24, 2009

I came here to chew bubblegum and quote 'They Live', and I'm... at an impasse.
Aspects are always true. So if you have MKUltra Power Armor Mach 3, and you and your GM come to the agreement that it flies and shoots lasers, then you can make a "Shoot" attack with it, a "Pilot" action with it, and be compelled to answer to the FAA.

Tollymain
Jul 9, 2010

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
Aspects tie the "super" portion of powers to fate points, which I don't particularly like. If you aren't spending FP, you're no more effective in a confrontation then somebody without powers. And if they spend FP as well, you're still even. This is valid if you want to run that game, but I don't want to run that game. In the game I want to run, having a power gives you the edge in a situation. It's expected that all player characters will have a power or powers.

I've taken some of your advice Gaz. This is what it looks like now.

quote:

You may buy an active power (or powers). Detail them. Choose 2 or 4 approaches. When you use your power along one of these approaches, roll with a bonus of +2 or +1 to your result, respectively.. If you tie, there may be unintended collateral effects on you, your opponent, and/or the environment. If you fail, you will take stress equal to the number of shifts by which you lost the roll. You may divert the stress onto the City’s Collateral Consequences. This costs 2 stunts, and cannot be taken more than once.

I can't solve the problem of somebody constantly trying to use their one strongest approach for everything in the game. That's a problem endemic to FAE. Adding a +3 exacerbates that problem, but it's not the root.

Lallander
Sep 11, 2001

When a problem comes along,
you must whip it.
I was in a pretty good supers game using Fate Core recently. We had the normal skill list, and used aspects and stunts to flesh out power sets. Two of the aspects pertained to what your powers were, spelled out in a bit more detail in a backstory. As long as it was something that your powers pertained to you could invoke them like normal for a bonus. Since aspects are always true they also granted narrative permission. Flight, ranged attack, being able to attempt to control computers remotely, whatever applied. If you wanted the power to provide a constant mechanical benefit you would just add a stunt. It worked pretty well and was nice and simple.

Quadratic_Wizard
Jun 7, 2011

Tollymain posted:

Aspects tie the "super" portion of powers to fate points, which I don't particularly like. If you aren't spending FP, you're no more effective in a confrontation then somebody without powers. And if they spend FP as well, you're still even. This is valid if you want to run that game, but I don't want to run that game. In the game I want to run, having a power gives you the edge in a situation. It's expected that all player characters will have a power or powers.

Ahhh...okay, here's the thing. My suggestion was two parts. One, you have a superpower aspect.

Two, you can Invoke that aspect for free once per action--ie, without spending a fate point--but if you do and you rolled two negatives on the fate dice, something bad happens. So in 60% of all rolls when you're using a power, you'll have either a free reroll or a +2 bonus, and for that other 40%, you can take the bonus, but run the risk of something happening.

It would always be the case that having a superpower aspect would be much better than not having one.

Quadratic_Wizard fucked around with this message at 10:52 on Nov 5, 2013

petrol blue
Feb 9, 2013

sugar and spice
and
ethanol slammers

I'm starting to think I have a problem.

Jack the Lad
Jan 20, 2009

Feed the Pubs

How does charging (move + attack) work?

From what I'm reading it seems like you can move one zone as part of your attack action if there's nothing stopping you, but what if there is an obstacle, or an enemy in your zone, or if they're more than one zone away?

I found this in the book, which seems to suggest that you just can't do it, but I'm not sure if there's some other method:

quote:

If you want to move more than one zone, a scene aspect suggests that it might be difficult to move freely, or another character is in your way, then you must make an overcome action using Athletics in order to move. This counts as your action for the exchange.
Coming from 4e, I'm finding the combat rules frustratingly 'fuzzy'.

Jack the Lad fucked around with this message at 15:09 on Nov 5, 2013

Quadratic_Wizard
Jun 7, 2011
Speaking with Jack, I realized I've sort of made a system for things like this. Part of it is from older books, part is from the system toolkit's section on barriers, and a part is from the great article on blocks here: http://www.faterpg.com/2013/richards-guide-to-blocks-and-obstacles-in-fate-core/

Multiple Skills, Multiple Opposition

When a character wants to use more than one skill with a single action, they can. When they do, they roll their lowest skill. When a character faces multiple sources of opposition for an action, they only need to roll against the highest source of opposition.

Some examples.

Mid Air Bomb Squad posted:

Batman, the Joker, and a half dozen of his goons are on a rooftop. The Joker knows his goons won't last more than a few seconds against the Batman, so he takes out a time bomb, ticking down to 0 in just a few seconds, and tosses it into the air. The Batman needs to not just catch the bomb, but disarm it before it blows up and takes out the whole block. Once the player decides that that's what they want to do, the GM considers. Disarming the bomb is a Crafts roll, while catching it in this situation is Athletics. Normally, a catch like that would be easy, like a 1. But there's also the fact that the Joker tossed it to a not-so-near rooftop, which is an obstacle with 2 difficulty. And the goons are there too, busting through them to get to the bomb would be a 3. Disarming the bomb itself isn't going to be easy, requiring a +4 difficulty. So what does the Batman do? He rolls his +4 Athletics--with all his gadgets, his Crafts is at +5--and the difficulty for the action is +4, because disarming this bomb is the hardest thing. He gets a 5! The day is saved! Important to remember, the GM can Invoke any relevant aspects to increase the difficulty, and the player can likewise Invoke aspects to increase their effort. Batman can Invoke his Peak Human or Trained in Everything aspects, while GM can Invoke Joker's Mad Tinkerer or the goon's Meatshields aspects.

Charge posted:

Bob the Orc Fighter sees Phil the Elf Wizard and is going to come over there and punch him. Phil doesn't want this, and since he goes first, he throws up a firewall. Bob is two zones away, has a firewall thrown up with Phil's Great (+4) Evocation skill, and with Phil's mage armor, he defends at +3. The player says "I want to punch Phil." So the GM sees the three obstacles to that--the distance, the firewall, and Phil's defense--and sees that the Fire is the highest, so that's what is rolled against. Since Bob is moving and attacking, he needs to roll his +3 athletics, because it's lower than his +4 fight skill. Bob rolls...and gets a 3. As he approaches, the flames roar, and he gets stopped in his tracks. He stops at the flame wall, because that's the logical place to stop, and on his next turn he'll be able to try again, or try something else.

The basic idea is to keep it simple. In every situation, a player should only have to say, "I want to do this." and the GM can reply, "Okay, roll your X skill, and the difficulty is Y.", with a quick explanation for why it's X and Y.

Quadratic_Wizard fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Nov 5, 2013

MadScientistWorking
Jun 23, 2010

"I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Jack the Lad posted:

How does charging (move + attack) work?

From what I'm reading it seems like you can move one zone as part of your attack action if there's nothing stopping you, but what if there is an obstacle, or an enemy in your zone, or if they're more than one zone away?
Honestly the rules are incredibly straightforward. Basically you can freely move between two adjacent zones without any trouble unless the connections between the zones have a hindering effect (ie. Collapsed staircase). If you want to move more than 1 zone you have to make an appropriate athletics check to get there but that counts as your action for your turn. The only way an enemy can actually hinder you is if he creates an obstacle through the overcome action on his turn or has a stunt.

Tollymain
Jul 9, 2010

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
You may buy an active power (or powers). Detail them. Choose 2 or 4 approaches. When you use your power along one of these approaches, roll with a bonus of +2 or +1 to your result, respectively.
When you roll, calculate the result as normal. Then, compare the number of plus signs and minus signs to blanks. If the blank signs tie or outnumber the others, take their number as stress. You may divert this stress onto the City’s Collateral Consequences.
This costs 2 stunts, and cannot be taken more than once.


quote:

Zezax The Mighty has LASER EYES. When he uses his LASER EYES as part of a Flashy or Forceful approach, he gains a bonus of +2 to his roll.

When he gets 3 blanks during a roll to try blast an alien walker, he chooses to divert the stress to his environment. The City takes the moderate consequence Laser Damage On Broadway. A few sessions later, it is agreed that there has been time for the damage to the buildings on that street to be repaired.

Powers getting out of control and causing collateral consequences is now fairly disconnected from success or failure.

Pumpkin Pirate
Feb 2, 2005
???????
You could simplify that to "if there are two or more blanks" without changing the meaning.

Edit: Although, in my mind, ++-- seems like a much more wild result than 0000, so if it were me, I'd trigger the consequences on two or more non-blanks. It would also mean that you'd be more likely to get consequences from the terrible failures and crazy overpowered rolls that blast the enemies to pieces than the ones that went basically as expected, which I think makes more sense story-wise.

Pumpkin Pirate fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Nov 5, 2013

Quadratic_Wizard
Jun 7, 2011
Interesting.

The chances of rolling 4 blanks is 1/81. The chance of rolling 3 blanks or more is 5/81. Chance of getting 2 blanks or more is 15/81, or 18%.

Sounds good.

Tollymain
Jul 9, 2010

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Pumpkin Pirate posted:

You could simplify that to "if there are two or more blanks" without changing the meaning.

Edit: Although, in my mind, ++-- seems like a much more wild result than 0000, so if it were me, I'd trigger the consequences on two or more non-blanks. It would also mean that you'd be more likely to get consequences from the terrible failures and crazy overpowered rolls that blast the enemies to pieces than the ones that went basically as expected, which I think makes more sense story-wise.

The chance of rolling two or more non-blanks is really high though.

Pumpkin Pirate
Feb 2, 2005
???????

Tollymain posted:

The chance of rolling two or more non-blanks is really high though.

Oh, right, I didn't think that through all the way.

Scrape
Apr 10, 2007

i've been sharpening a knife in the bathroom.
I love the "blanks" idea, it's a cool lateral thinking solution and uses the dice in a neat way. Also it fixes some issues with flat penalties/bonuses. Did you come up with that, or is it A Thing? Either way, I'ma steal the poo poo out of it.

Lallander
Sep 11, 2001

When a problem comes along,
you must whip it.

MadScientistWorking posted:

Honestly the rules are incredibly straightforward. Basically you can freely move between two adjacent zones without any trouble unless the connections between the zones have a hindering effect (ie. Collapsed staircase). If you want to move more than 1 zone you have to make an appropriate athletics check to get there but that counts as your action for your turn. The only way an enemy can actually hinder you is if he creates an obstacle through the overcome action on his turn or has a stunt.

In some of our games we allow active opposition if it made sense in the narrative that they could prevent you from taking an action. You're standing right next to a mook fighting him, if you try to run past him to another zone he gets to try to stop you. That sort of thing.

Jack the Lad posted:

Coming from 4e, I'm finding the combat rules frustratingly 'fuzzy'.

If you want a bit more crunch in your games you can always swipe a page from 7th Sea and look into vertical zones. They are kind of interesting. Another option is to just change the rules slightly to use tactical maps. I worked up a system of my own to do it that I think looks neat, but apparently Fred did something similar so I'll just link that.

http://www.deadlyfredly.com/2010/11/hack-use-your-grid-maps-with-fate/

If you think adding something like that will make the game more fun then run with it.

Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?

Ooh, I may need to steal this.

Scrape
Apr 10, 2007

i've been sharpening a knife in the bathroom.
Reminder to the thread that Evil Hat's Street Team promotion is still going on and is pretty cool. Looks like there aren't that many entries so far (unless my raffle app displaying wrong), so errbody might as well jump on it. I think these sort of things are kinda cool, reminds me of touring with various crummy bands.



Anyway, I need advice on specialized equipment. Like, I'm working on a shadowrun-type hack and part of the fun in cyberpunk settings is the crazy tech and gear- at least, it's a big part of the fun for me and mine. I've got cyberware covered, but I'm trying to figure out how I can make specialist gear work. Like, right now there's an Infiltrate skill. In Fate, if you take the skill then it's assumed you have the tools required.

I really hate fiddly item lists but I also enjoy concocting a good plan and outwitting security in espionage games. I'd like to maintain the fun of researching the target's defenses and tailoring your equipment for this specific mission. Not for every little thing, but let's say you decide that a Safecracker is the right tool for the job.

It seems like I have a few options:
Skill Bonus: "a Safecracker gives +1 to Infiltrate when cracking safes" (the Most Boring Thing)
Skill Prerequisite: "you must have a Safecracker to crack a safe using Infiltrate" (kinda gotcha-y)
Skill Penalty: "to crack a safe without a Safecracker, you roll Infiltrate with a -1 penalty" (not so bad maybe?)

How would you guys handle specialized equipment in cases like this?

Spincut
Jan 14, 2008

Oh! OSHA gonna make you serve time!
'Cause you an occupational hazard tonight.

Scrape posted:

Anyway, I need advice on specialized equipment.

This might be too powerful, but you could say that the party (or the Infiltration expert, say) gets to take 3 items with them. If they encounter something they can use their equipment on, they get an auto success (but not with style) and use up the equipment in question.

MadRhetoric
Feb 18, 2011

I POSSESS QUESTIONABLE TASTE IN TOUHOU GAMES

Scrape posted:

Anyway, I need advice on specialized equipment.

Simplest thing would be to make it a Gear Aspect; you have a Safecracker that you get a free invoke on when doing safe cracking things, possibly with the catch that it's Loud or has a Distinctive Burn Pattern.

Second easiest thing to do would be to work with the stunt/aspect is always true idea and be like Safecracker: once per run, you can bypass any one safe or locking mechanism, given enough time.

Third easiest thing would be to adapt FAE Approaches to your infiltration skill, then give your gear stats like a character. That would make certain types of safecrackers being better at certain approaches/situations. Fr'instance, a sophisticated bug-type can burn through any electronic lock but it's not going to do jackshit against a big slab of metal, whereas a powerdrill can crack through said big slab of metal, but if you use it against an electronic lock you might just break the opening mechanism.

Scrape
Apr 10, 2007

i've been sharpening a knife in the bathroom.
I guess they could Invoke equipment for circumstantial bonuses, but I worry that it would increase Fate Point expenditure without providing another source. Still, maybe that's the way to go.

BryanChavez
Sep 13, 2007

Custom: Heroic
Having A Life: Fair
Make it so that when they prepare themselves for a 'run, either a formal or informal one, they can bank free invokes for their equipment. Just a specialized use of the Create an Advantage action.

Qwo
Sep 27, 2011
Is there an example of good ship combat mechanics for Fate? I'm reading Diaspora now and its mechanics aren't exactly what I'm looking for.

petrol blue
Feb 9, 2013

sugar and spice
and
ethanol slammers
I've been working on that one myself. Bulldogs is ok, but my plan is to use the chase rules from the toolkit for ship combat, and have each ship as a list of aspects and skills (which can be used in place of a character's if they want). It's not a major focus of my game, so that should be enough.

Blasphemeral
Jul 26, 2012

Three mongrel men in exchange for a party member? I found that one in the Faustian Bargain Bin.

Qwo posted:

Is there an example of good ship combat mechanics for Fate? I'm reading Diaspora now and its mechanics aren't exactly what I'm looking for.

I'm also currently working on this. It's tied into my mash-up of Fate with Cortex+, however, and will likely not be "finished" until the beginning of next year.

Scrape
Apr 10, 2007

i've been sharpening a knife in the bathroom.

BryanChavez posted:

Make it so that when they prepare themselves for a 'run, either a formal or informal one, they can bank free invokes for their equipment. Just a specialized use of the Create an Advantage action.

So it's like "you are a trained Infiltrator. You can always roll +Infiltrate for related tasks. You carry X pieces of special gear: write them down before each run. You can always pay a FP to invoke them as if they were Aspects. If, before a run, your Intel reveals a particularly necessary piece of gear, write it down and you can invoke it once for free."

I like this. It means you can fly blind and still make use of gear, but it might cost you a FP. If you do your homework first, it pays off mechanically and fictionally. This is cool, right?

Quadratic_Wizard
Jun 7, 2011

Scrape posted:

So it's like "you are a trained Infiltrator. You can always roll +Infiltrate for related tasks. You carry X pieces of special gear: write them down before each run. You can always pay a FP to invoke them as if they were Aspects. If, before a run, your Intel reveals a particularly necessary piece of gear, write it down and you can invoke it once for free."

I like this. It means you can fly blind and still make use of gear, but it might cost you a FP. If you do your homework first, it pays off mechanically and fictionally. This is cool, right?

For the X in "X pieces of Special Gear", I would tie it to the rank of your relevant skill. So someone with Infiltrate +3 comes along with 3 pieces of gear each run. Maybe make the breakpoints for free invokes the same as stress bonuses, at 1, 3, and 5.

MadRhetoric
Feb 18, 2011

I POSSESS QUESTIONABLE TASTE IN TOUHOU GAMES
Someone was asking about how to do mental stress in Cosmic Bumfights earlier, so here's my quickie hack.

First, just one composure/sanity track, but a separate set of mental consequences. When you take a consequence, you get a "make or break" roll (Will vs. Consequence rating or stress, depending). If you make it, you gained a Hardened to X consequence that doesn't wash off without therapy, but gives you mental Armor: Consequence against that type of horror. If you don't, you get some neurosis based on the stressor. Once you cash in your Extreme (if there's no other free consequence you must cash in your extreme), you're either a sociopath or nuts.

MadRhetoric fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Nov 6, 2013

Tollymain
Jul 9, 2010

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
Is it okay to link our recruiting threads in here?

Fake edit: whoops how did that get there :geno:

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

Tollymain posted:

Is it okay to link our recruiting threads in here?

Fake edit: whoops how did that get there :geno:

How dare you try to drum up interest in Fate games in the Fate thread.

How dare you.

Also books have been arriving with a fairly audible THUD

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply