The Fate Core/FAE Megathread: We do our own stunts and fractals

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > The Fate Core/FAE Megathread: We do our own stunts and fractals

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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

Jack the Lad posted:

Just a warning that the magic system in Freeport is absolutely atrocious and completely unbalanced.

You'll want to houserule it extensively enough that making your own might make more sense.

Look at this guy and how wrong he is. There's a couple wonky spells, but the system itself is super solid and if I had to find a base for a new edition of Dresden Files, for instance, I'd give it serious consideration. Stuff like 'once per arc' spells, having to make Aspects to cast stuff, and generally giving players a wide variety of abilities is a wonderful thing. It's even easily adapted into fightman techniques too!

# ? Mar 23, 2014 20:20

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# ? May 18, 2024 00:12

Jack the Lad: Jan 20, 2009; Feed the Pubs

Transient People posted:

Look at this guy and how wrong he is. There's a couple wonky spells, but the system itself is super solid and if I had to find a base for a new edition of Dresden Files, for instance, I'd give it serious consideration. Stuff like 'once per arc' spells, having to make Aspects to cast stuff, and generally giving players a wide variety of abilities is a wonderful thing. It's even easily adapted into fightman techniques too!

On one end of the scale, there's Charm, which lets you roll Charisma to create an advantage on someone, representing you having charmed them! Which... you can just do with Charisma, the skill, anyway.

On the other end of the scale, we have Mass Arcane Shield. Which lets you spend a fate point, take a 1-stress mental hit, OR spend two turns casting to grant yourself and up to two allies the ability to stack up TWO of your skills to defend against physical attacks (Intelligence and whatever else you would defend with), which basically makes you nearly impossible to hit unless the enemy spends entire exchanges creating advantages against you. This lasts for an entire scene, by the way.

Also on the other end of the scale, we have the Boost Mind spell, which lets you spend a fate point, take a 1-stress mental hit, OR spend two turns casting to... boost your Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma by +1 for a scene. This is half of the skills in the entire game, and a +1 bonus is a significant difference in FATE. Because most spells use these mental skills, this spell also makes you better at spellcasting.

Also, Wild Shape.

"Standard" character creation has you distribute ratings across the six skills as +0, +1, +1, +2, +2, and +3, in whichever order you like. Note that your single peak skill is +3.

With Wild Shape (a stunt) you can transform into any of the four following forms, at-will, at no cost:

� Falcon: Your Strength becomes Mediocre (+0), but your Dexterity becomes Superb (+5). You have Wings that allow you to fly and Claws that you can snatch and rake with. You also have Keen Eyesight and are Small.

� Wolf: Your Strength and Dexterity are both Good (+3). You have Fangs with which to rend and tear, and you can fight using Pack Tactics. You have Keen Senses, which you can use to track with Wisdom.

� Bear: Your Strength is Superb (+5) and your Constitution is Great (+4). You get two extra physical stress boxes and an extra minor physical consequence; these go away (and might roll up) when you shed this form. You have Claws and Fangs, but you are also Large and Clumsy.

� Mouse: Your Strength is Terrible (-2) but your Dexterity becomes Superb (+5). You are Tiny enough to escape notice and fit through very small openings, and Fast enough to get away from trouble quickly.

This is how you can jump up from, say, Strength +0 and Constitution +1 all the way to Strength +5 and Constitution +4, gaining a gigantic advantage for a single stunt and also flagrantly disregarding the skill cap.

It's not as overpowered as it sounds, though, because the ability scores are also hugely imbalanced and Constitution is basically useless compared to e.g. Dexterity!

None of these are easily adapted to fightman powers except by saying "this, but fightmans do it", which you can do in any system.

Jack the Lad fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Mar 23, 2014

# ? Mar 23, 2014 22:07

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

In actual positive Fate discussion, the latest Bundle of Holding just added both Fate Worlds books if you beat the average or got the bundle before.

For a little over $15 you get Bulldogs!, Ehdrigohr, Full Moon, Spirit of the Century, both Fate World books, Kerberos Club, Legends of Anglerre, and Starblazer Adventures. The offer expires tomorrow, so get on that.

# ? Mar 25, 2014 18:15

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

Jack the Lad posted:

On one end of the scale, there's Charm, which lets you roll Charisma to create an advantage on someone, representing you having charmed them! Which... you can just do with Charisma, the skill, anyway.

On the other end of the scale, we have Mass Arcane Shield. Which lets you spend a fate point, take a 1-stress mental hit, OR spend two turns casting to grant yourself and up to two allies the ability to stack up TWO of your skills to defend against physical attacks (Intelligence and whatever else you would defend with), which basically makes you nearly impossible to hit unless the enemy spends entire exchanges creating advantages against you. This lasts for an entire scene, by the way.

Also on the other end of the scale, we have the Boost Mind spell, which lets you spend a fate point, take a 1-stress mental hit, OR spend two turns casting to... boost your Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma by +1 for a scene. This is half of the skills in the entire game, and a +1 bonus is a significant difference in FATE. Because most spells use these mental skills, this spell also makes you better at spellcasting.

Also, Wild Shape.

"Standard" character creation has you distribute ratings across the six skills as +0, +1, +1, +2, +2, and +3, in whichever order you like. Note that your single peak skill is +3.

With Wild Shape (a stunt) you can transform into any of the four following forms, at-will, at no cost:

� Falcon: Your Strength becomes Mediocre (+0), but your Dexterity becomes Superb (+5). You have Wings that allow you to fly and Claws that you can snatch and rake with. You also have Keen Eyesight and are Small.

� Wolf: Your Strength and Dexterity are both Good (+3). You have Fangs with which to rend and tear, and you can fight using Pack Tactics. You have Keen Senses, which you can use to track with Wisdom.

� Bear: Your Strength is Superb (+5) and your Constitution is Great (+4). You get two extra physical stress boxes and an extra minor physical consequence; these go away (and might roll up) when you shed this form. You have Claws and Fangs, but you are also Large and Clumsy.

� Mouse: Your Strength is Terrible (-2) but your Dexterity becomes Superb (+5). You are Tiny enough to escape notice and fit through very small openings, and Fast enough to get away from trouble quickly.

This is how you can jump up from, say, Strength +0 and Constitution +1 all the way to Strength +5 and Constitution +4, gaining a gigantic advantage for a single stunt and also flagrantly disregarding the skill cap.

It's not as overpowered as it sounds, though, because the ability scores are also hugely imbalanced and Constitution is basically useless compared to e.g. Dexterity!

None of these are easily adapted to fightman powers except by saying "this, but fightmans do it", which you can do in any system.

First off, Wildshape costs you a fate point to assume. Let's get that out of the way first because I know you didn't read that. It's OK, apparently nobody else did. Everybody who bitches about Wildshape being overpowered forgot about that fact and how much of a pain in the rear end it is, even without going into the problems with playing creatures with no fine manipulators. Beats me why, considering it's spelled out in the page preceding wildshape, but there you go.

Now for the rest, you're forgetting permissions. You wanna know why you use Charm instead of simple Charisma? Charm is unnatural mental influence, and can get you to do things that Charisma cannot. You can, in *all* situations, place down the Aspect I'm Your Best Friend on a Charmee, but the same does not apply to simple Charisma. This is something that comes from playing a ton of FATE - two seemingly identical abilities can be wildly different in power when you realize that one of them can do more than the other because the fiction says so. Likewise, I refuse to believe anybody would bitch about Boost Mind. I mean...so I can spend a Fate Point for a benefit that requires three actions to be better than just invoking an Aspect, or I can burn a turn (worthless), or I can take mental stress (dangerous in any situation where you might need mentals)? Gee, that sure is a deal right there over just spending the Fate Point when I actually need it to succeed!

...Wait, no. It's not. Same thing with Mass Arcane Shield, which is easily overcome by physical advantages, mental attacks, magic breakers, environmental hazards, and a dozen other things. Is it powerful? Yes. Is it broken? Hell naw, what do you think this is, D&D? The numbers game is almost irrelevant in the face of how clever thinking can allow you to attack defenses at 0 or get a permission to bypass effects. Get creative! Fundamentally, I think this is why a lot of people dislike Freeport: They look at it and shift into 'D&D with FATE elements' mode instead of 'FATE with D&D elements', which, as fellow goon ProfessorCirno would say, causes brain damage. If you can keep your brain locked into FATE mode, it's an absolutely fantastic addition to the basic FAE rules.

PS: As for your point about fightman adaptations, do I need to post that sheet with two 'fighting schools' I posted way back when Freeport discussions first arose? The one that had like fifteen different abilities that used the Freeport model to cover everything from Warlord-style masterplans, to John McClane-style true-grit being used to soak blows or perform vicious counterattacks, to wuxia-style special techniques and rains of blades? It's seriously super easy to get fun 'techs' out of the Freeport system. It's just meaty enough to allow for massive variation, while being simple enough that it still feels like FAE.

Transient People fucked around with this message at 08:17 on Mar 26, 2014

# ? Mar 26, 2014 08:14

Quadratic_Wizard: Jun 7, 2011

Transient People posted:

First off, Wildshape costs you a fate point to assume. Let's get that out of the way first because I know you didn't read that. It's OK, apparently nobody else did. Everybody who bitches about Wildshape being overpowered forgot about that fact and how much of a pain in the rear end it is, even without going into the problems with playing creatures with no fine manipulators. Beats me why, considering it's spelled out in the page preceding wildshape, but there you go.

Care to highlight where the stunt says you have to pay a fate point each time you use it? And since you can shift back and forth at a whim, what exactly is the problem with the lack of thumbs?

quote:

Now for the rest, you're forgetting permissions. You wanna know why you use Charm instead of simple Charisma? Charm is unnatural mental influence, and can get you to do things that Charisma cannot. You can, in *all* situations, place down the Aspect I'm Your Best Friend on a Charmee, but the same does not apply to simple Charisma. This is something that comes from playing a ton of FATE - two seemingly identical abilities can be wildly different in power when you realize that one of them can do more than the other because the fiction says so.

All situations? Time to fight the BBEG, wizard can simply declare "Oh, he thinks he's my best friend, so he's going to surrender." No? The stunt works entirely on gm fiat, and the ONLY time it makes a difference is when the GM wants to make it super clear that wizards are more persuasive than dashing rogues.

quote:

Likewise, I refuse to believe anybody would bitch about Boost Mind. I mean...so I can spend a Fate Point for a benefit that requires three actions to be better than just invoking an Aspect, or I can burn a turn (worthless), or I can take mental stress (dangerous in any situation where you might need mentals)? Gee, that sure is a deal right there over just spending the Fate Point when I actually need it to succeed!

...Wait, no. It's not. Same thing with Mass Arcane Shield, which is easily overcome by physical advantages, mental attacks, magic breakers, environmental hazards, and a dozen other things. Is it powerful? Yes. Is it broken? Hell naw, what do you think this is, D&D? The numbers game is almost irrelevant in the face of how clever thinking can allow you to attack defenses at 0 or get a permission to bypass effects. Get creative! Fundamentally, I think this is why a lot of people dislike Freeport: They look at it and shift into 'D&D with FATE elements' mode instead of 'FATE with D&D elements', which, as fellow goon ProfessorCirno would say, causes brain damage. If you can keep your brain locked into FATE mode, it's an absolutely fantastic addition to the basic FAE rules.

What exactly makes burning a turn worthless? GM sets the scene, wizard says, "I spend a minute with a mind ritual that boosts half the party's stats, and a few seconds casting a mass arcane shield." Does it every scene. Same way that a wizard says "I cast mage armor" at the start of scene in dnd. Look at this.

The book is pretty clear that a wizard can keep up multiple persistent spells and there is no cost at all to doing so. Fate has numbers too. And it has a much tighter curve with the dice than dnd does, so every single number has a lot more significance to it. Boosting your defense against everything the orcs and goblins can throw at you from +2 to +5 means that an attack that was hitting you 61% of the time is now only hitting you 6% of the time. And all for the cost of 1/3rd of a stunt. And take a look at persistent. The only advice the book gives for getting around these effects...is with another wizard counterspelling it. Even so, you're now putting pressure on the GM to balance encounters around the wizard, not the party. Stealing the wizard's spellbook doesn't work in dnd, doesn't work in freeport.

quote:

PS: As for your point about fightman adaptations, do I need to post that sheet with two 'fighting schools' I posted way back when Freeport discussions first arose? The one that had like fifteen different abilities that used the Freeport model to cover everything from Warlord-style masterplans, to John McClane-style true-grit being used to soak blows or perform vicious counterattacks, to wuxia-style special techniques and rains of blades? It's seriously super easy to get fun 'techs' out of the Freeport system. It's just meaty enough to allow for massive variation, while being simple enough that it still feels like FAE.

The problem with doing fightman spells is that you still having loving ridiculous "spells" that are all over the place in effect, because the spellcasting system is hosed and doesn't work alongside stunts.

# ? Mar 26, 2014 12:03

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Hey, guys?

Can we please not turn this thread into another loving nerd slapfight where people try to convince other people that a game they like is actually bad?

Thanks.

# ? Mar 26, 2014 15:10

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

More Animal Forms, Page 30 posted:

More Animal Forms
The four forms presented with the Wild Shape spell are not the only forms available. It�s pretty easy to re-skin any of the four forms by changing some of the aspects; a falcon becomes a bat by exchanging its Keen Eyesight for Echolocation, for example. You can also make your own forms if the ones presented don�t quite fit. It�s okay for them to be a little on the powerful side; after all, it costs a fate point to assume your wild shape, you can�t use any of your gear or speak, and the powerful forms listed in the spell tend to have drawbacks. The bear is a combat monster, for example, but it�s easy to overextend yourself and wind up hurting pretty bad when you assume your natural form again.

Like I said, I don't blame anyone for missing this in particular, since everybody did. The rule IS there though.

And yes, you could perfectly use Charm in a fight against the BBEG to try and convince him you're his best friend. Of course, whether that's going to last as you try to stick a shiv in his gut or convince him to drop the plan he's sacrificed much of his life, friends and good health for is a different story, but that's something you can do easily.

As for Perisstnet Spells, remember that you start the scene already in the middle of the action. If the GM lets you start the scene earlier with time to prep, it's perfectly fine to spend a while casting spells, since he's waiving away the risk of being noticed or interrupted. If, by contrast, you start a scene just as a fight breaks out (this is actually part of a GMing school that treats each conflict as its own scene, so it's not really surprising), then that's not so easy at all. There's also the fact that the spell is obvious and says something about your mage when you cast it. If you open every scene casting powerful defensive spells and taking your sweet time on it, odds are, you're pretty paranoid. If that matches your Aspects, then that's good, but if not, the GM is in his right to demand that you change your Aspects so what you want to do falls under the purview of your Aspect's permissions, and then you've given him lots of holes to exploit because of that paranoia. It's a pretty self-balancing mechanism, even if the player wants to be a dick and try for the Freeport equivalent of 'I'm going to take three stunts that all give me a +2 to attack rolls!'.

Lastly, as for the finshing bit...

quote:

The problem with doing fightman spells is that you still having loving ridiculous "spells" that are all over the place in effect, because the spellcasting system is hosed and doesn't work alongside stunts.

And that is wrong how...? The Spells or Techniques ARE meant to cover everything from everyday maneuvers and cantrips to those fancy tricks that burn out your very lifeforce in exchange for a shot of glory. They're meant to provide more granularity by allowing you to introduce new codified actions to the game at the cost of stunts. I don't see anything wrong with that, really.

# ? Mar 26, 2014 16:18

InfiniteJesters: Jan 26, 2012

Is Nova Praxis any good? I'm happy to see a post-cyberpunk RPG done in Fate, but it seems awfully pricey.

# ? Mar 26, 2014 16:49

Lymond: May 30, 2013; Dark Lord in training

Is Tianxia any good in practice? I'm looking into a combat system for playing Exalted over IRC and some of the things I've read in the manual give me a mixed impression, like the fact that it tries to go for long fights.

# ? Mar 26, 2014 16:50

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

InfiniteJesters posted:

Is Nova Praxis any good? I'm happy to see a post-cyberpunk RPG done in Fate, but it seems awfully pricey.

I haven't looked through it yet, but I've heard a lot of good things about it and Mindjammer. They're such huge books, though, it's a bit of a slog to get through them.

I should probably start going through my Fate books and PDFs and at least posting impressions or something.

# ? Mar 26, 2014 16:58

TheDemon: Dec 11, 2006; _{...on the plus side I'm feeling much more angry now than I expected so this totally helps me get in character.}

InfiniteJesters posted:

Is Nova Praxis any good? I'm happy to see a post-cyberpunk RPG done in Fate, but it seems awfully pricey.

Nova Praxis is a solid if somewhat crunchy system. I especially like their vehicle-building and drone-building subsystems. They have good ego/body rules, and I like the list of stunts quite a lot. FATE works wonders for the rep system.

The ruleset suffers a bit from being married to the awful lore; it uses in-lore terms without explanation constantly, like "apotheosis" for the conversion of mind to electronic form. It's not difficult to understand, just very difficult to read and find the mechanical bits quickly. Additionally, tying mechanics to lore means it's difficult to reskin and run something else. For example, during char creation you pick a faction which gives you rep bonuses, but those factions are all Shadowrun-style megacorporations. Another example, the rep system is "official" (as in officially endorsed by the government) and, mechanically, single-score, while the currency system is "unofficial". Any setting where the rep system in "unofficial" or where you require multiple rep scores would have to make major house rules to deal with this.

This wouldn't be a problem, except the Nova Praxis setting is extremely generic and bland and frankly quite awful. It's like they couldn't decide what themes they wanted from all their favorite RPGs and literature, so they just picked "ALL OF THEM" and then failed to write the result interestingly. There was an Earth-ending apocalypse, but it was because of an out-of-control nanoswarm that turned the world into grey goop rather than anything interesting. The singularity happened, but it didn't cause any problems. We have FTL travel, but no one uses it to explore the stars. I feel like the system works best when your GM writes their own setting.

The rules however work and are a good take on a complicated FATE-based transhumanist game system. That at least I can recommend.

# ? Mar 26, 2014 21:13

Scrape: Apr 10, 2007; i've been sharpening a knife in the bathroom.

I agree with some of that (the rules being tied to the setting, the overuse of jargon), but I didn't find the setting all that bad. I thought it was neat, and if it's a little "kitchen-sink"-y, that just leaves room to explore whatever your table thinks is most interesting. Admittedly, Eclipse Phase seems to have a more solid setting (and I love the Uplifts). If you're familiar with Eclipse Phase but don't like those rules, you could easily port it into Nova Praxis. I found the book to be well worth it.

# ? Mar 27, 2014 01:21

Golden Bee: Dec 24, 2009; I came here to chew bubblegum and quote 'They Live', and I'm... at an impasse.

Lymond posted:

Is Tianxia any good in practice? I'm looking into a combat system for playing Exalted over IRC and some of the things I've read in the manual give me a mixed impression, like the fact that it tries to go for long fights.

The playtest was a lot of fun and the fights didn't seem overly long...except one on one duels, which can last ungodly long. (It didn't help that the player dueling the NPC wasn't strategizing enough).

# ? Mar 27, 2014 07:56

Kerzoro: Jun 26, 2010

Evil Mastermind posted:

In actual positive Fate discussion, the latest Bundle of Holding just added both Fate Worlds books if you beat the average or got the bundle before.

For a little over $15 you get Bulldogs!, Ehdrigohr, Full Moon, Spirit of the Century, both Fate World books, Kerberos Club, Legends of Anglerre, and Starblazer Adventures. The offer expires tomorrow, so get on that.

Aagh I missed this... is Ehdrigohr available elsewhere?

# ? Mar 28, 2014 17:52

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Kerzoro posted:

Aagh I missed this... is Ehdrigohr available elsewhere?

Yeah, it's PDF/POD on DriveThru.

# ? Mar 28, 2014 18:04

Kwyndig: Sep 23, 2006; Heeeeeey

So I was reading Venture City today and it seems pretty decent, has anyone actually run it or used the super powers rules though?

# ? Mar 28, 2014 23:10

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

The Atomic Robo RPG is available for preorder!

# ? Apr 22, 2014 00:48

rantmo: Jul 30, 2003; A smile better suits a hero

Evil Mastermind posted:

The Atomic Robo RPG is available for preorder!

And the Twitter campaign that was part of the launch was loving ridiculous in the best way. Every Hatter was in on it and the main account, well it must be read: https://twitter.com/EvilHatOfficial

# ? Apr 22, 2014 01:08

Kwyndig: Sep 23, 2006; Heeeeeey

So is the PDF actually available for that now and if so, how is it?

# ? Apr 22, 2014 02:13

Lallander: Sep 11, 2001; When a problem comes along,
you must whip it.

Kwyndig posted:

So is the PDF actually available for that now and if so, how is it?

If you preorder now you get to download the PDF immediately. People are saying good things so far, but I don't own a copy yet sadly.

# ? Apr 22, 2014 02:15

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

The PDF is really impressive. They use actual panels and pages from the comic as examples of how the mechanics work, which is a brilliant idea and something I wish more games would start doing.

They even use part of the "Ghost of Station X" storyline to demonstrate Brainstorming, and show how to create adventures by recreating "Deadly Art of Science".

# ? Apr 22, 2014 02:41

Mitama: Feb 28, 2011

Hopefully it won't take until June for a PDF-only option. Not really keen on those overseas shipping fees.

e: I'm just really excited to get this.

Mitama fucked around with this message at 02:59 on Apr 22, 2014

# ? Apr 22, 2014 02:55

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

TurninTrix posted:

Hopefully it won't take until June for a PDF-only option. Not really keen on those overseas shipping fees.

I'm just really excited to get this, ok?

Unfortunately, it will. Fred said as much on G+.

quote:

With our preorders, we typically release the PDF-only when or near to when the physical book ships. (It's in our best interests to encourage folks to help reduce our inventory!)

# ? Apr 22, 2014 03:04

Mitama: Feb 28, 2011

Aw.

I guess that makes sense, though.

# ? Apr 22, 2014 03:11

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

TurninTrix posted:

Aw. I guess that makes sense, though.

It looks like Leisure Games is going to participate in the Bits & Mortar intiative later this week, so keep an eye out for that I guess?

# ? Apr 22, 2014 15:59

Druggeddwarf: Nov 9, 2011; My first attack must ALWAYS be a charge!

Evil Mastermind posted:

It looks like Leisure Games is going to participate in the Bits & Mortar intiative later this week, so keep an eye out for that I guess?

May I ask what this is? I use Leisure Games a lot as it's my local, so I might pop in and see.

# ? Apr 22, 2014 20:46

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Druggeddwarf posted:

May I ask what this is? I use Leisure Games a lot as it's my local, so I might pop in and see.

Bits & Mortar is a service a lot of indie publishers use to help support local gaming stores. Basically, if you buy (or preorder) a physical game from a participating store, the store can hook you up with the PDF for free as well. It's basically so you can take advantage of Print&PDF bundles (like the Atomic Robo one) and support your FLGS at the same time.

# ? Apr 22, 2014 20:54

Druggeddwarf: Nov 9, 2011; My first attack must ALWAYS be a charge!

Oh cool. I'll pop in there saturday and get the book then.

# ? Apr 22, 2014 21:23

Mitama: Feb 28, 2011

Evil Mastermind posted:

It looks like Leisure Games is going to participate in the Bits & Mortar intiative later this week, so keep an eye out for that I guess?

Doesn't seem like there's a participating store in my side of the world though.

How do they implement Skill Modes in the book? I've been curious about the idea ever since they introduced it in the Toolkit and it sounds like some folks in G+ really like it (Fred Hicks included).

# ? Apr 28, 2014 06:04

Swags: Dec 9, 2006

Hi nerds.

I've got this idea for a superhero game and I don't know what system to do it in, but I'm looking at Fate since it seems pretty fun and narrative and my group is on a narrative kick lately. Here's the setup: The players create Justice League/Avengers level superheroes, the true superheroes of the age, with the knowledge that three-to-five sessions in, in a climactic battle with the villains of the world, basically everyone is going to die. Then we discuss what happens over the next two or three years with no League around. Then everyone makes a sidekick level hero based on someone else's original super powered dude. Essentially someone that has taken up the mantle, etc.

Can Fate accurately model this sort of power differential and such? I want to be kind of bleak for the sidekicks at the beginning when they still don't know all the tricks of the trade, when they're not League powerful yet. I know M&M and HERO can do this, since they're more of a point buy sort of thing, but I haven't seen anything about truly epic Fate games with world shaking superheroes/etc anywhere.

# ? Apr 28, 2014 11:57

Lemon-Lime: Aug 6, 2009

Is there any reason why you can't model the power differential in terms of number of stunts/number of skill points or of points they can spend on approaches?

If doing it that way is okay, then Fate can do that, no problem, and it's also fairly easy to do (as mentioned, it's just a question of giving them more/less refresh and more/less skill/approach points). Beyond that, it's just a matter of how you stat enemies and set TNs.

Also, pick up Venture City Stories, it's PWYW and has some guidelines on how to model superpowers using stunts.

Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 14:10 on Apr 28, 2014

# ? Apr 28, 2014 14:07

Lallander: Sep 11, 2001; When a problem comes along,
you must whip it.

Swags posted:

I've got this idea for a superhero game and I don't know what system to do it in, but I'm looking at Fate since it seems pretty fun and narrative and my group is on a narrative kick lately.

I would be tempted to bust out the new Atomic Robo RPG for that. Fate Core based. There have been a few conversations of doing exactly that on the Fate Core community on Google Plus. Skill modes, megastunts, action science, and a whole lot more.

# ? Apr 28, 2014 15:49

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

TurninTrix posted:

Doesn't seem like there's a participating store in my side of the world though.

How do they implement Skill Modes in the book? I've been curious about the idea ever since they introduced it in the Toolkit and it sounds like some folks in G+ really like it (Fred Hicks included).

Basically there are four Modes: Action, Banter, Intrigue, and Science. Each Mode contains a bunch of skills; Action has Athletics, Combat, Provoke, Notice, Physique, and Vehicles, while Intrigue has Athletics, Burglary, Contacts, Deceive, Notice, and Stealth.

When you make your character, you pick one Mode at +3, a second at +2, and one at +1. You get all the skills in an Mode at the level you take the Mode at; so if I take Action as my +3 Mode, I get all those skills it contains at +3.

Now here's the thing; there are overlaps between the Modes. Action and Intrigue both have the Athletics skill, for instance. When that happens, then the skill in the higher Mode gets bumped up one level for every Mode you have that it appears in. (There's a handy chart that shows you what skills are in multiple Modes.)

So to go with the Action/Intrigue deal above, if I take Action at +3 and Intrigue at +2, then I get all the Action skills at +3 and all the Intrigue skills at +2. Because Athletics appears in both, it goes up one level from the highest Mode, so it goes from +3 to +4. Notice is in both Modes too, so that gets the same treatment.

Looking at it from a normal skill list point of view:
Great (+4): Athletics, Notice
Good (+3): Combat, Provoke, Physique, Vehicles
Fair (+2): Burglary, Contacts, Deceive, Stealth

Now, if I take Science as my third Mode, it contains only two skills: Will and Notice (it also contains every "science" skill, but that's a different topic). Notice is in all three Modes, so it gets boosted again to +5.

Superb (+5): Notice
Great (+4): Athletics
Good (+3): Combat, Provoke, Notice, Physique, Vehicles
Fair (+2): Burglary, Contacts, Deceive, Stealth
Average (+1): Will, Science(s)

All I have to do is make an aspect for each of my Modes, pick stunts, and boom, done. That's the "No-Math" character creation method, but there's more complex methods there if you want to make more non-standard characters (like a super-intelligent ape or dinosaur).

The cool thing about Modes is that you can make your own by just naming them and determining which skills are in each one. I saw a "Star Trek" hack that had the Modes of Command, Operations, Security, and Science.

# ? Apr 28, 2014 16:48

Lemon-Lime: Aug 6, 2009

That honestly reads like it really just ought to have been an FAE game with Action/Banter/Intrigue/Science being the approaches. Why complicate it with skills?

# ? Apr 28, 2014 16:53

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Lemon Curdistan posted:

That honestly reads like it really just ought to have been an FAE game with Action/Banter/Intrigue/Science being the approaches. Why complicate it with skills?

It's really barely a complication. FAE is nice, but sometimes you want a little more granularity.

# ? Apr 28, 2014 17:03

petrol blue: Feb 9, 2013; sugar and spice
and
ethanol slammers

Has anyone come across Omegazone? It looks awesome, but with international shipping costing more than the cards, I'd like to know if someone's tried it before I shell out.

E: this review seems pretty glowing.

petrol blue fucked around with this message at 01:22 on Apr 29, 2014

# ? Apr 29, 2014 01:13

TheDemon: Dec 11, 2006; _{...on the plus side I'm feeling much more angry now than I expected so this totally helps me get in character.}

Swags posted:

Hi nerds.

I've got this idea for a superhero game and I don't know what system to do it in, but I'm looking at Fate since it seems pretty fun and narrative and my group is on a narrative kick lately. Here's the setup: The players create Justice League/Avengers level superheroes, the true superheroes of the age, with the knowledge that three-to-five sessions in, in a climactic battle with the villains of the world, basically everyone is going to die. Then we discuss what happens over the next two or three years with no League around. Then everyone makes a sidekick level hero based on someone else's original super powered dude. Essentially someone that has taken up the mantle, etc.

Can Fate accurately model this sort of power differential and such? I want to be kind of bleak for the sidekicks at the beginning when they still don't know all the tricks of the trade, when they're not League powerful yet. I know M&M and HERO can do this, since they're more of a point buy sort of thing, but I haven't seen anything about truly epic Fate games with world shaking superheroes/etc anywhere.

Seems pretty simple. Just set the skill pyramid / refresh / number of stunts differently for each era. So for example for the League-level guys they might get a 4/33/222/1111 skill pyramid and 3 refresh and 4 stunts, while the sidekicks might get 3/222/11111, 2 refresh and 3 stunts. Have it be a bigger difference (start the super super guys skills at 5 for example) if you really want it to be comparatively bleak for the sidekicks, when the difference between skills in FATE is like +/-2 that's absolutely massive. If your players are into it, they'll also help you along by having aspects that are at different scales too.

When you try to do this, a lot will depend on building and playing the enemies right.

TheDemon fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Apr 29, 2014

# ? Apr 29, 2014 03:49

Hyperactive: Mar 10, 2004; RICHARDS!

Lemon Curdistan posted:

That honestly reads like it really just ought to have been an FAE game with Action/Banter/Intrigue/Science being the approaches. Why complicate it with skills?

In addition to Evil Mastermind's post...

That is just the Super Quick char gen rules for slapping together a new character or new iteration of a character when hopping through the timeline to best mirror how the comic is able tackle narratives nonlinearly. Also useful for getting folks new to the hobby to go from Zero to Play in record time without byzantine subsystems. This was a huge priority for the team since we wanted the game to have as few barriers to entry as the comic.

The real meat of character generation starts with the above and then involves a more detailed and slightly mathy process to get yourself more interesting tricks. It's like a simpler and better balanced iteration of Strange Fate -- partly because improvements from Core made it easier to pull that off and partly because this could be Mike's 2.0 take on a Strange Fate system.

I want to say that part of the Robo RPG's development of a super quick char gen at least helped to inform the shape of FAE, so it's not unusual to find a similarity between them.

# ? Apr 29, 2014 05:10

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

petrol blue posted:

Has anyone come across Omegazone? It looks awesome, but with international shipping costing more than the cards, I'd like to know if someone's tried it before I shell out.

E: this review seems pretty glowing.

It looks interesting, but I feel like just having 13 "background" cards kind of...limiting? I'm not sure why I feel that way since the 4e Gamma World base set (which they're clearly using as a baseline) had 20, which isn't that many more when you think about it.

Still I'm probably going to grab a set since I'm a sucker for card-based stuff like this. I do like the idea of drawing cards to get your base stats and a stunt or two.

e: Man, I'm looking at the sample cards and now I want to make cards like these for the 4e Gamma World origins. I'm even looking at the online character creator stuff to get ideas.

Evil Mastermind fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Apr 29, 2014

# ? Apr 29, 2014 15:59

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# ? May 18, 2024 00:12

petrol blue: Feb 9, 2013; sugar and spice
and
ethanol slammers

Yeah, honestly I'm as much thinking "Nice idea, I'll make my own!" as "I must have this". Now I just need a good look at a set...

# ? Apr 29, 2014 23:35

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > The Fate Core/FAE Megathread: We do our own stunts and fractals

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