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Galaga Galaxian posted:So work is boring and I'm listening to a mix of 80s action movie themes and sound clips. I'm now musing on what portions of Fate Core or FAE would be best for running an action movie style game (be it martial arts, guns blazing, or both) or even go whole-hog and run Feng Shui in Fate/FAE. Your first instinct is a right instinct. Steal schticks from Feng Shui for stunts.
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Mar 18, 2014 21:59
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| # ? Jun 7, 2024 03:51 |
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Is it okay for interest/advertising posts for games to be posted in the threads for the system they're being run in? I'm running a game here and I'm looking to drum up interest. If anybody is interested in fantasy, bumbling Discworld-esque gods and being able to play as whatever weird race you want, then take a look. If not then I apologise! 
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Mar 18, 2014 22:12
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MadRhetoric posted:Your first instinct is a right instinct. Steal schticks from Feng Shui for stunts. Yeah. I'd be tempted to give them more than one stunt to start with as well. Also weapons are definitely just window dressing unless you tie it to a stunt. EG: "Because I have a freaking huge .44 magnum, I get a +2 when I forcefully attack by using it to intimidate punks."  Though boosts/advatanges could be used to represent temporary windfalls in firepower, such as a elaborate weapons gearup montage.
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Mar 19, 2014 00:04
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The Atomic Robo RPG got a release date of June today!  Man, it's gonna be so pretty. 
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Mar 19, 2014 00:14
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Using pictures along with the examples is basically the best idea
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Mar 19, 2014 03:33
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Question about a system kludge I'm thinking about. I want to build a setup that tempts players with immediate success in exchange for lasting consequences. I'm thinking of making it a kind of reverse stress track, where you start at empty and voluntarily fill up your boxes. You fill it all the way up, that's it for you. But in exchange, you spend a box to get an automatic success. The problem I'm having is whether I should leave it as a normal damage track, and so the players will accumulate consequences or plain damage at their own rate, or if I should replace consequences with an unpleasant aspect I can pick on. The treat-as-normal option seems easiest to get a handle on, but I like the idea of giving players another aspect like a mental disorder that they can earn FP on. On the gripping hand, if there are consequences all the way up the track, then there's less of an issue getting a player to push themselves over the limit, because if they're that bad off in the first place, they're already beset by problems they created for themselves. What should I do? And hell, did that even make sense?
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Mar 19, 2014 10:58
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You might consider checking out the Dresden Files magic system, which has something similar to what you seem to be thinking of. Basically it allows you to give yourself a consequence in exchange for a bonus to a roll. They do it just for magic, but there's no reason the same principle couldn't be applied to any action.
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Mar 19, 2014 13:58
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Technically Desty, they're the same thing. Consequences are a nasty aspect or aspects you can play upon. So it's up to you if you want to introduce the Bad Ideas track with separate consequences like an Extra or if you just want to have it take up a regular consequence slot. Random thought about FAE/Fate Core: I wonder why aspects don't work up front like the Superpower stunts in Wild Blue. I.E., because of {aspect}, I get {bonus}. You get freebie stunts equal to your starting aspects before guest starring, so it's not a difficult leap of logic. I think if you did that, you could make the stunts you pay for more interesting with abilities like I Read That In A Book or the Sherlock Holmes investigation one or Armor of Fear.
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Mar 19, 2014 18:49
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MadRhetoric posted:Technically Desty, they're the same thing.
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Mar 19, 2014 19:08
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MadRhetoric posted:Technically Desty, they're the same thing. Consequences are a nasty aspect or aspects you can play upon. So it's up to you if you want to introduce the Bad Ideas track with separate consequences like an Extra or if you just want to have it take up a regular consequence slot. I think this is why I like stunts more in FAE because they work like that.
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Mar 19, 2014 19:45
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MadScientistWorking posted:Mechanics wise they don't even remotely have to be the same exact thing. The problem is that thematics wise what type of genre you are emulating would help in this case as I doubt something like No Exit's autosuccess mechanic would be appropriate for some games. What? A consequence is a negative aspect that occurs when a condition is met. Desty's talking about a system that hands out a negative aspect when a condition is met. But yeah, No Exit's autosuccess at the cost of a thing would work too. That's a function of the consequence system in No Exit though.
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Mar 19, 2014 19:46
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Thanks, guys. Thinking about it a little more, I'll go with consequences for buying a success. In the abstract, anything to keep aspect bloat down is probably a good idea.Fenarisk posted:I think this is why I like stunts more in FAE because they work like that. Man, there are just fewer and fewer reasons to pick Core over FAE every day. I really shoulda gotten the print edition for that too.
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Mar 20, 2014 05:15
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Would a lot of tweaking be necessary to use Venture City's superpowers system for Exalted? I'm speaking as someone more familiar with the setting than the joy of actually playing 2e. I figure it needs a few more extra stunts for more demigod-like abilities and it's good to go, but I could be missing something. ...Though now that Mad mentioned Wild Blue, I'm now wondering why I never considered using Gifts.
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Mar 20, 2014 05:17
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Desty posted:Man, there are just fewer and fewer reasons to pick Core over FAE every day. I really shoulda gotten the print edition for that too. My only real issue with FAE is handling equipment, I have no clue how to do that beyond "it lets you do a thing", but maybe that's what I should leave it at, with swanky or rare stuff giving modifiers.
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Mar 20, 2014 05:19
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Fenarisk posted:My only real issue with FAE is handling equipment, I have no clue how to do that beyond "it lets you do a thing", but maybe that's what I should leave it at, with swanky or rare stuff giving modifiers. Anything more interesting becomes a stunt! One of the two forms is Because I have this fancy bit of tech blank.
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Mar 20, 2014 05:31
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Thats pretty much how I see it. Gear is just set dressing. If you're laying an action movie game, the players are assumed to be armed and dangerous in whatever way they prefer unless they're not, in which case there is probably a situation modifier to be overcome. It doesn't matter if the player is carrying an M16 or an AK-47, it only matters if that gun is something special. In that case its probably tied to an aspect or a stunt. For example, Deckard of Blade Runner. The guy isn't very strong, more detective focused, so he's got a low Forceful approach in FAE. However he wants to be able to take on Replicants in a straight up fight, so he takes a stunt. "Because I have a high-powered blaster, I get a +2 to attack when forcefully terminating a Replicant." or something. The advantage of tying your weapon to a stunt or aspect (this requires a really special weapon IMO) is it also makes it a lot harder to take away from you. Its like the Signature Weapon Schtick of Feng Shui, you may temporarily be deprived of it, but you'll always get it back somehow. Ok, maybe thats not a great example, I just love Deckard's gun. 
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Mar 20, 2014 05:31
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TurninTrix posted:Would a lot of tweaking be necessary to use Venture City's superpowers system for Exalted? I'm speaking as someone more familiar with the setting than the joy of actually playing 2e. I figure it needs a few more extra stunts for more demigod-like abilities and it's good to go, but I could be missing something. I like how you're like the third person I've seen ask this question in various places. I think it'd be tricky to use VCC for Exalted simply be cause the characters have a lot more powers. Gifts are probably the way to go.
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Mar 20, 2014 12:19
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That's what I figured on items. I might be starting Eclipse Phase FATE soon, and while I have most things figured out it's trying to work the vast equipment options from EP into FAE that's giving me trouble. I think the best route is just equipment letting you do stuff (this vac suit means you don't die when the hull is breached, this sniper rifle means you can shoot at long distance, etc). I just know I will have players that will want weapon mods so that's the part tripping me up.
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Mar 20, 2014 13:30
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Nova Praxis is pretty much Eclipse Phase: Fate Edition. It's got a lot of crunch, I think maybe it's based on Strands of Fate? Anyway, they've written up all kinds of biosleeves and tech with surprisingly crunchy rules for Fate. I've only read it, not played, so I dunno how it works at the table. Some if it is neat but some of it had me scratching my head. Worth checking out, maybe.
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Mar 20, 2014 21:13
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Fenarisk posted:That's what I figured on items. I might be starting Eclipse Phase FATE soon, and while I have most things figured out it's trying to work the vast equipment options from EP into FAE that's giving me trouble. I think the best route is just equipment letting you do stuff (this vac suit means you don't die when the hull is breached, this sniper rifle means you can shoot at long distance, etc). I just know I will have players that will want weapon mods so that's the part tripping me up. Normally I'd just handle fancy equipment as a stunt. Stunts can be changed out at minor milestones, which can be seen as them changing the mods on their gun. FAE really comes with three stunts, I hate the way that part is written. They're trying to make character creation easy, so they say pick one stunt. Then later they say write two more stunts when you're up to it. Also they can trade in Fate Points for stunts, so an equipment heavy guy might have 3 gadgets and a fancier gun, but it costs him in narrative powers. If you want to get heavier and make equipment differences matter I'd use a simple weapons and armor system, like from Dresden Files. Improvised weapons are +1 to stress when they hit. Concealable weapons are +2. Huge gently caress off weapons are +3. Enormous temporary situational things like hitting someone with a collapsed roof are +4. Armor is balanced the same way, with +1 - +4. That way the balance only changes when someone has a clear equipment advantage, otherwise the tech just cancels each other out. Really, there are reasons to use Fate over FAE, and the biggest one is when you're trying to model something a bit grittier and the players like mods and numbers. That isn't necessarily bad, half the fun of RPGs come from making the characters. I would always choose FAE for adventuring hijinks, action movie stuff, or swashbuckling. But I'd choose FATE for Sci-Fi like Eclipse Phase, Superheros, or Modern Supernatural stuff. It's all about taste and how much you and the players want to obsess over the powers and equipment and all that.
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Mar 20, 2014 22:14
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Mr. Prokosch posted:Normally I'd just handle fancy equipment as a stunt. Stunts can be changed out at minor milestones, which can be seen as them changing the mods on their gun. FAE really comes with three stunts, I hate the way that part is written. They're trying to make character creation easy, so they say pick one stunt. Then later they say write two more stunts when you're up to it. Also they can trade in Fate Points for stunts, so an equipment heavy guy might have 3 gadgets and a fancier gun, but it costs him in narrative powers. The Dresden Files way of doing it is actually terrible and makes weapon way too good. Use something like the Red/Blue dice concept or damage floors, don't just add stress.
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Mar 21, 2014 07:17
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Piell posted:The Dresden Files way of doing it is actually terrible and makes weapon way too good. Use something like the Red/Blue dice concept or damage floors, don't just add stress. Eh, Dresden Files magic system was TERRIBLE. Also the bonuses got way too high with some supernatural powers. But when my group used a similar system for a sword and sorcery kind of thing it worked great. One problem with how it was in Dresden Files was about the setting, not the weapons. No one wears full body armor all the time in the modern day. But in other settings, when anyone prepared to a fight comes with their +2 bonus and get cancelled out, it worked fine. It was basically just a global boost for taking someone by surprise and being better equipped. But you could also do it FAE style and use the aspect and advantage systems already available. If I was doing Eclipse Phase I'd probably actually push the deadliness way up though, like Dresden Files did. I hate how long Fate fights can take sometimes. When death doesn't matter so much I'd like to see most fights ending in a pretty quick exchange.
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Mar 21, 2014 08:36
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FATE really needs a shorter combat resolution option. Something like an alternative to the stress box/consequence system and possibly doing away with initiative. Just doing away with stress boxes would make combat a lot more lethal. Though that might require ditching the free invokes for the one who inflicts the Consequences. I know for a swashbuckling game someone tried replacing stress boxes with a need to create an advantage. That apparently worked pretty well for them.
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Mar 21, 2014 08:56
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Kaja Rainbow posted:I know for a swashbuckling game someone tried replacing stress boxes with a need to create an advantage. That apparently worked pretty well for them. Yep! You can find an example of that right here in the Fate Toolkit. I haven't tried it myself, but it looks interesting.
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Mar 21, 2014 09:04
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Having actually used it, it's a great way to set up properly long and eventful duels in FATE, a terrible loving way of running every combat, and generally pretty closely replicated by just not bothering to make weapons add any bonuses with the side effect of not having to use two combat subsystems. With Stress, less is truly more.
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Mar 21, 2014 12:08
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While we're (sorta) on the subject, what's a good guideline to building encounters? I've run quite a few combat scenes that drag out longer than they should, and a few that ended way too quickly for my tastes. I'm not sure if it's just I put too many mooks in play, or too many stress boxes for each of them, since if I set them either of those too low my players just wipe the opposition off the floor with enough invokes.
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Mar 21, 2014 12:20
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MadRhetoric posted:What? A consequence is a negative aspect that occurs when a condition is met. Desty's talking about a system that hands out a negative aspect when a condition is met.
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Mar 21, 2014 13:42
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Kaja Rainbow posted:FATE really needs a shorter combat resolution option. Something like an alternative to the stress box/consequence system and possibly doing away with initiative. Just doing away with stress boxes would make combat a lot more lethal. Though that might require ditching the free invokes for the one who inflicts the Consequences. Not every combat needs to be a conflict. If you have interesting stakes besides "Side A kills Side B", you can run it as a contest and cut your time by 40-50%. Objectives like "Can we defend the caravan through the pass, or will the brigands get the scrolls", "Can we fight our way down to the planet, or will we lose a wing?" or "Can we beat up the tea-house bullies without embarrassing the Daimyo's Commission" are all valid contests that use Fight.
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Mar 21, 2014 17:05
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e: ^^ also good adviceTurninTrix posted:While we're (sorta) on the subject, what's a good guideline to building encounters? I've run quite a few combat scenes that drag out longer than they should, and a few that ended way too quickly for my tastes. I'm not sure if it's just I put too many mooks in play, or too many stress boxes for each of them, since if I set them either of those too low my players just wipe the opposition off the floor with enough invokes. My experience GMing is pretty similar. I usually let my players do one or two moves of pre-combat prep (unless they're being surprised) to lay down some aspects on the scene or enemy before starting initiative. In combat, it all boils down to how focused the players are. If they know their goal and act on it specifically, then they can usually blow up their goal in one or two rounds using free invokes and fate points. If they either don't really know their goal, or they fail to act on it and instead start wailing on mooks or something (I have a player who's really bad for this unfortunately), then it'll take them literally forever to get anything done as they end up blowing their free invokes and fp on defending themselves. I guess what I'm saying is it if you love big combat scenes, you need to have some smaller (as in subset of the scene, not as in less important) goal in them, and you need to make sure both the players and the characters are clear on what exactly they're after in a fight. A massive straight fight never really goes over well, unfortunately. Even in ambush scenes I usually have someone cut in after a round or so to give some direction. "Defend the engines for 2 rounds while we charge the hyperdrive" or "Kill the leader and the bandits will be easy to mop up" kind of thing.
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Mar 21, 2014 20:15
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TurninTrix posted:While we're (sorta) on the subject, what's a good guideline to building encounters? I've run quite a few combat scenes that drag out longer than they should, and a few that ended way too quickly for my tastes. I'm not sure if it's just I put too many mooks in play, or too many stress boxes for each of them, since if I set them either of those too low my players just wipe the opposition off the floor with enough invokes. I can't look at right now since I'm at work, but there is a pretty good set of guidelines in the book itself. I think it's 1 mook per player plus 1, then lieutenants count as 2 mooks and the big bads count as 3 or something like that? Adjust up or down for difficulty.
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Mar 21, 2014 21:02
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Yeah, Fate isn't the kind of game that is designed around the idea of playing out every little conflict as a fight. There's nothing wrong with doing a contest or maybe giving everyone a chance to create and pass advantage to one person to deal with a simple threat like impressing a local lord or getting around a roadblock. Also, remember that there are other ways to take someone out in a conflict besides punching through their physical stress. Social/mental stress can be easier to take out through means of intimidation, for instance.
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Mar 21, 2014 21:24
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I just wanna say that when I was running a Pokemon Fate game, there was an encounter I expected to be a straight up fight that the party spontaneously turned into a dance party. I shrugged and rolled with it. Also I think a thing a lot of people forget to realize is that enemies, and even players, can withdraw from combat at any moment. You don't have to make every fight to the death. You don't need for a pack of wolves to fight to the last consequence. After they take a mild or a few good hits they realize "Yeah, we're never gonna beat these guys" and just scurry away.
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Mar 21, 2014 21:38
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Yeah, I think it's a mindset we get ingrained into as gamers that every conflict a) has to be dealt with a full-blown Thing that we have to map out and roll and deal with on a granular level, and b) has to be fought to the death where one side or the other has to be wiped out completely to "win". I've been in games where fights were huge affairs with lots of full-blown PC-power-level enemies who would never run or surrender no matter how powerful or intimidating the PCs were, and it turns the whole campaign into a huge slog really fast. You really are better off leaving full-blown conflicts as major events rather than a thing you have because "we need to have a fight each session".
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Mar 21, 2014 21:59
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Tell me about giant robots. I'm looking at starting a stonepunk campaign where tribal chieftains ride into battle on elemental giants. Think Avatar the Last Airbender, but instead of shooting fire from your fists, you raise a fire-spirit as your twin and name it George. Then use it to break mountains. I'd like to reskin an existing giant robot package into more primitive and mystical elements, while maintaining a strong focus on the pilot-robot relationships and mythic feats. Do any of the existing rulesets lend themselves to anything like that? The OP mentions Apotheosis Drive X, but the reviews seem mixed.
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Mar 22, 2014 00:27
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That sounds like it'd be right up Iron Edda's alley, but I'm not sure if it's out/available for any non-backers yet. (Or even -for- backers beyond the backer preview.) But the premise is basically "Viking warriors bonded to giant robots made from the bones of actual giants" so.
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Mar 22, 2014 01:51
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unseenlibrarian posted:That sounds like it'd be right up Iron Edda's alley, but I'm not sure if it's out/available for any non-backers yet. (Or even -for- backers beyond the backer preview.) But the premise is basically "Viking warriors bonded to giant robots made from the bones of actual giants" so.
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Mar 22, 2014 02:04
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Found the Fate Freeport Companion in the wild. Looks pretty sweet, a wee bit slimmer than I had expected, but this is my first Freeport product so I don't know what the rest of the books are like.
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Mar 22, 2014 03:31
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jivjov posted:Found the Fate Freeport Companion in the wild. Looks pretty sweet, a wee bit slimmer than I had expected, but this is my first Freeport product so I don't know what the rest of the books are like. The Freeport books are really good. It's a mostly city-based setting that can be easily slotted into an existing campaign, and it has a lot of different things quite well: pirates, freebooters, agents of the various city lords, ancient cults, and such. It gives a good amount of detail on the city, the locations, and the inhabitants. They do a good job of making everything interesting without going overboard, and still give you enough space to personalize. Plus there's a couple of hundred plot hooks. The Pirate's Guide to Freeport is the "core" setting book and is presented without any stats. The Companion books are the system-specific rules for Fate, 3.Pathfinder, 4e, Savage Worlds, and so on.
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Mar 22, 2014 03:52
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Evil Mastermind posted:Yeah, I think it's a mindset we get ingrained into as gamers that every conflict a) has to be dealt with a full-blown Thing that we have to map out and roll and deal with on a granular level, and b) has to be fought to the death where one side or the other has to be wiped out completely to "win". Yeah, I guess it doesn't help that I take my game ideas off JRPGs like TWEWY, Sakura Taisen, and Devil Survivor where fighting is the only way forward. I'm trying to introduce stakes to make it meaningful (characters the PCs care about will be in danger, if they don't step up), but it's still a matter of trading stress until one side falls. I'll have to figure out other ways to introduce conflict. Fate is not a good combat engine, but I love it all the same. EDIT: Will also read the Core book again on those enemy guidelines, thanks. Mitama fucked around with this message at 05:14 on Mar 22, 2014 |
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Mar 22, 2014 05:12
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| # ? Jun 7, 2024 03:51 |
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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.
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Mar 23, 2014 16:45
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