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I'll be honest; the idea of talking someone into defeat at the end of a gunfight because of how Stress and Consequences work has never occurred to me. And it fits perfectly with the cinematic/story-driven style of the game.Scrape posted:2. I want survival to be a big deal, of course. Is it worth making a Stress Track for it, or is that too much? I'm thinking it would be the fun sort of bookkeeping. Like, desert travel can deal Survival Stress, which clears out when you rest and restock at a settlement. If it fills up, you get a Consequence like Dehydrated, Exhausted, or Starving. quote:3. How do I handle Defiling magic? This has me a little stumped. quote:4. Lastly,character generation. Currently, players choose a Race and archetype (Class) and write an Aspect based on each, then do the whole "write down your first adventure" to finish. Cool, or unneccessary? I want to maintain that D&D feel of classes and roles.
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Oct 8, 2013 20:31
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It seems to me that just using the normal stress tracks might be fine for survival, rather than needing a specific one, especially if you are fractalizing the desert. You preparations for the journey are Create Advantage with survival or lore for things like Scavenged Supplies, Local Guide, I Know This Land, etc. You can use those to defend against physical/mental attacks by the desert that would lead to consequences like Dehydrated, Sun-mad, etc.
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Oct 8, 2013 20:51
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Evil Mastermind posted:Any Defiling magic automatically creates permanent scene Aspects. I mean, the only real "effect" of Defiling magic is that plants nearby die, right? Or can you steal life from nearby creatures?
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Oct 8, 2013 21:00
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SavageMessiah posted:It seems to me that just using the normal stress tracks might be fine for survival, rather than needing a specific one, especially if you are fractalizing the desert. You preparations for the journey are Create Advantage with survival or lore for things like Scavenged Supplies, Local Guide, I Know This Land, etc. You can use those to defend against physical/mental attacks by the desert that would lead to consequences like Dehydrated, Sun-mad, etc. I'd do this, but also have a shared, singular Provisions stress track that you could shunt damage off to, letting it absorb stress and consequences that would otherwise hit your party. It gives a presence to the looming danger of being caught out in the desert with limited supplies. Heal the track by trading, taking, or finding. Honestly, I'd probably do this with any FATE D&D game, because the logistics of being crazy people in the wilderness (or the desert, or in Ravenloft, or traveling the planes) is part of the appeal to me.
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Oct 8, 2013 21:01
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SavageMessiah posted:It seems to me that just using the normal stress tracks might be fine for survival, rather than needing a specific one, especially if you are fractalizing the desert. You preparations for the journey are Create Advantage with survival or lore for things like Scavenged Supplies, Local Guide, I Know This Land, etc. You can use those to defend against physical/mental attacks by the desert that would lead to consequences like Dehydrated, Sun-mad, etc. I thought about this, but didn't like that Stress refreshes every scene. I wanted the Survival track to be this looming background threat. Like, you fight off bandits, find a safe camping spot, keep traveling, maybe fight another encounter... and all the while, your supplies are dwindling and that Survival track is filling up even between encounters. It only refreshes when your party re-supplies. (Edit: what BryanChavez said, basically) Thanks for the input guys! I'll mess around with Psionics. Maybe they're not all Stunts, I guess I should go all-outand make them Extras with different costs and stuff. Some are Stunts, some cost skill points, etc. There's a good framework in one of the Fate Worlds books that I might steal (it's the post-apoc one, Burn Shift or something)
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Oct 8, 2013 21:38
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Anyone try running Unknown Armies' setting with FATE? I got a group of people that are real interested in UA's concept but don't like the system as much, so thinking of doing a UA conversion in FATE.
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Oct 8, 2013 21:42
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MadScientistWorking posted:Defiling pretty much sucks the life force out of everything. I'm trying to remember but I did actually have an idea for what would work as defiling magic and preserver. How about this: if you cast Defiling magic, every living thing in the zone takes 1 physical stress. They don't get a defense or resistance roll, but can take consequences to reduce it.
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Oct 8, 2013 21:52
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Scrape posted:I thought about this, but didn't like that Stress refreshes every scene. Oh yeah, forgot about that part 
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Oct 8, 2013 22:01
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I think scene aspects is a better way to handle that really, especially when things like environmental features don't necessarily have their stress tracked, and FATE isn't much for tracking trivial details like that.
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Oct 8, 2013 22:02
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Well, there's nothing wrong with saying "this special stress track doesn't refresh at the end of a scene, you have to use skills to clear boxes". Something like a survival or sanity track wouldn't clear out, but they wouldn't come into play as often. I think Bulldogs uses a Wealth stress track, but I'll have to double-check.
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Oct 8, 2013 22:07
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Golden Bee posted:Actually, rapport is for creating advantages. Only Provoke is used for social attacks (just like Empathy is used for social defense). That's one of the first things people recommend houseruling for the most part, though. Dresden Files had it right with allowing all three of the core talky stats (Provoke, Persuade, Deceive) to be used to attack instead of just creating advantages.
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Oct 8, 2013 22:11
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Evil Mastermind posted:Well, there's nothing wrong with saying "this special stress track doesn't refresh at the end of a scene, you have to use skills to clear boxes". Something like a survival or sanity track wouldn't clear out, but they wouldn't come into play as often. Probably best to have the survival stress track not refresh at all except when you can rest and resupply properly. Your skills serve to avoid taking survival stress by eking out a subsistence across hostile terrain. Lesser resupply points might let you use your skills to scavenge something useful from an oasis or trade successfully with other travelers to justify healing survival consequences or reduce stress.
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Oct 8, 2013 22:17
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Zerilan posted:Anyone try running Unknown Armies' setting with FATE? I got a group of people that are real interested in UA's concept but don't like the system as much, so thinking of doing a UA conversion in FATE. This is actually what my group is running right now. It's awesome! The new Fate System Toolkit has rules for magic called The Subtle Art, and they're pretty spot-on. I could write up more when I'm at home and off this mobile device if you want, but I talked about it over at the Story Games forum (my handle there is also Scrape): http://www.story-games.com/forums/discussion/18868/do-i-want-unknown-armies#Item_23 I love that magick schools can become Aspects that you compel for crazy magickal coincidence and side effects. It actually matches all the short fiction in the UA books, and how magick is always screwing with its practitioners. Scrape fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Oct 8, 2013 |
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Oct 8, 2013 22:52
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Thanks. If you could write up more when you get the chance that would be great, but checking your posts in the link was really helpful. Trying to figure how I want to handle charges/taboos and stuff for Adepts since I think we're going to have a global level campaign.
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Oct 8, 2013 23:09
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Zerilan posted:Thanks. If you could write up more when you get the chance that would be great, but checking your posts in the link was really helpful. Trying to figure how I want to handle charges/taboos and stuff for Adepts since I think we're going to have a global level campaign. Cool. We're definitely street-level with aspirations of working our way up to actual magick-using PCs eventually. We use the rules for The Subtle Art (pg 101 in the Fate System Toolkit) for everyday magick stuff, as I mentioned in that link, and otherwise handwave powerful NPC effects. My admittedly-newbie instinct is to say that all Adepts take their school as an Aspect, like Greedy Plutomancer or whatever, and maybe there's a skill called Magick or something (we call it Belief). Charges are definitely the biggest thing I'm worried about, for sure. It seems like tracking them would be such a pain in the rear end and not particularly in the spirit of Fate. I'd like to handle it by saying a PC is Slightly Charged, Significantly Charged, or Dangerously Charged. On a success, your charge level drops but the spell goes off. On a success with style, your charge level doesn't drop at all. Maybe you can spend a FP to keep your charge level from dropping, though? "Here is an example" posted:So, like, this Slightly-Charged Entropomancer rolls her Magick skill to make this scratch-off lottery ticket a winner. The GM decides this is an Overcome roll with Good (+3) opposition. She succeeds with a +4 result and her charge would drop to nothing at all, unless she's willing to spend the FP and keep it. Had she rolled a +6 success-with-style, her spell would work, she keeps her FP, and she's still Slightly-Charged. The benefit to a simple system like this is that instead of tracking individual charges, it's rolled into the Fate Point economy. When your Adept school Aspect gets compelled, you get FP, and this is basically you charging up: the Entropomancer runs through traffic and the Videomancer misses something important because they're at home watching their soap operas. But they get that Fate Point, and therefore can stay charged up longer. A particularly dangerous or demanding compel would increase your charge level. The drawback would be that there's no easy way to get a charge, I guess. The Videomancer that watches her soaps while nothing important is happening doesn't get anything out of it; it's gotta be a compel for the FP to arrive. Personally I'm fine with this, it makes magick a dangerous sacrifice always, but it's definitely not what UA envisions, exactly.
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Oct 9, 2013 03:14
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Transient People posted:That's one of the first things people recommend houseruling for the most part, though. Dresden Files had it right with allowing all three of the core talky stats (Provoke, Persuade, Deceive) to be used to attack instead of just creating advantages. Yeah, this is what we did instinctively. We made a custom skill list for the campaign, too, and rolled Rapport and Empathy together into one skill because it seemed right for the situation. Cyphoderus posted:4. I think the vanilla single High Concept aspect works wonderfully well for race+class combinations. If you go for race and class as separate aspects, what you're doing in my opinion is giving race a much stronger role to play in the character's life than before (since class tends to dominate High Concepts, in my experience). I'm not too experienced in Dark Sun, but if I recall correctly, racial cultures are much more important in the setting than regular old D&D, right? If so, this could work really well thematically. It depends, really. In the AD&D2ed version (which rules hard), there are some fun things like Half-Giants having to change their alignment every day and Dwarves having a Focus that changes every so often. I wanna keep those; they're neat. On the other hand, you're right in that there are city elves and desert nomad elves and all shades in-between. Being an elf doesn't necessarily mean as much as being a Half-Giant. That instantly says something about the PC, right there. In any case, I think you might be right and I should roll Race+Class into one High Concept, like Crafty Half-Elf Minstrel or Savage Mul Gladiator. I worry that there'd be little mechanical benefit to choosing a human or elf over something like the Mul: if you're a Mul, it's a given that you are extra strong and you barely need to sleep. But a human... what does that say about you? Maybe humans and elves get an Extra based on their cultural upbringing, like Citizen of Balic or Nomad Clan Member or whatever. So, like, in the Human entry there's a couple options to choose from; Stunts or other abilities, and some are pure fictional bonuses like Friend of a Templar or something. That'd work, right?
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Oct 9, 2013 03:30
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Hey Evil Mastermind you're in both threads - what's the difference between AW's countdown clocks and Fate's stress tracks? I get the feeling they're very similar but I'm not too familiar with Fate.
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Oct 9, 2013 06:24
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Bigup DJ posted:Hey Evil Mastermind you're in both threads - what's the difference between AW's countdown clocks and Fate's stress tracks? I get the feeling they're very similar but I'm not too familiar with Fate. I'm in both threads! ...am I in both threads? Well, I am now. Fate's stress track is roughly equivalent to the first two segments of the AW countdown clock. It's temporary damage that will heal on its own - FATE stress clears out after every scene. Fate's minor, major, and severe consequences are roughly equivalent to the next three segments of the AW countdown clock, in that they take progressively greater amounts of time and effort to undo. And NPC mooks are down without tapping into any of them. Where things differ is that even if you take consequences in FATE, you still clear your stress track, whereas you can only clear the first two segments of your AW countdown clock if it hasn't advanced any farther. Also, FATE Core doesn't have a linear progression of damage to stress/consequences - your stress boxes will take 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. hits of stress, and your consequences will absorb 2, 4, and 6. You have to account for all your incoming stress, even if you have to mark off more than you need.
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Oct 9, 2013 09:15
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Glazius posted:I'm in both threads! That's a more how the Harm countdown clocks work; the countdown clocks used to abstract and track threats work a little differently. You use them to keep track of how close a threat is to coming to pass. Here's a basic breakdown of how they work: Before 9:00, the threat is approaching, but you can head it off. You note down some clues to what's coming, and triggers that'll advance it. Between 9:00 and 12:00, it's inevitable but there's time to prepare. At 12:00 the threat comes to pass in full. A key idea is that the clock is both descriptive and prescriptive; when something you've listed happens, you advance the clock to the right point, and conversely if the clock is advanced to that point the associated thing happens. So to give the example from the book, if your threat is a disease, below 9:00 the Quarantine's secure, at 10:00 it's breached, 11:00 is a growing infection, and 12:00 is an epidemic.
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Oct 9, 2013 09:59
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Woah! I'm such a big AW fan and I never made that connection. The Stress track is totally Countdown to Consequences. I'ma pitch that to my GM, I think that'll make it click. We'd been thinking of the Stress track as HP that refilled every scene and it didn't sit right. Cool.
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Oct 9, 2013 16:19
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Scrape posted:Yeah, this is what we did instinctively. We made a custom skill list for the campaign, too, and rolled Rapport and Empathy together into one skill because it seemed right for the situation. Yeah, it sounds like what you're looking for is something like the templates in Dresden Files. Essentially, you add some amount of Stunts together to represent a particularly advantage granted by being a Vampire or Wizard or whatever. Like, a full Wizard is pretty ball-bustingly powerful, but he or she spends 7 Refresh to get there. Meanwhile, a normal human who is especially non-magical gets +2 Refresh. So all things being equal, the Mul has a Toughness Stunt, but the Human and Elf get more FPs to toss around. Another, non-DFRPG Extra I've seen is letting a race have a custom skill. So while anybody could pick up Resources or Crafts, Dwarfs could have a skill called Minecraft that lets them specialize in digging for mythril and making mythril armor. You could obviously do the same for members of a particular Miner's Guild, regardless of race. HitTheTargets fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Oct 9, 2013 |
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Oct 9, 2013 16:46
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"HitTheTargets" posted:excellent ideas Good call. I actually own the Dresden Files Fate books but never finished reading 'em. That sounds like exactly what I want: Muls will have an Extras package that includes strength, combat training, and that "barely needing sleep" thing, and it costs a chunk of refresh and maybe some Stunt slots. So humans end up more varied but less specialized, which is a very D&D concept. Cool cool.
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Oct 9, 2013 17:20
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Side note: coming up with Aspects for all the city-states is a total blast. Way more evocative than long paragraphs of background info.
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Oct 9, 2013 17:21
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Scrape posted:Good call. I actually own the Dresden Files Fate books but never finished reading 'em. That sounds like exactly what I want: Muls will have an Extras package that includes strength, combat training, and that "barely needing sleep" thing, and it costs a chunk of refresh and maybe some Stunt slots. So humans end up more varied but less specialized, which is a very D&D concept. Cool cool. You might want to check out the species section of Bulldogs! as well. It might be a bit closer to what you are looking for. It has an interesting way of handling wealth and gear as well.
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Oct 9, 2013 17:33
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The Fate Freeport Companion is now available for non-backers. It uses a modified version of FAE where the approaches are the D&D stats. It's also a really cool setting.
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Oct 10, 2013 16:56
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Evil Mastermind posted:The Fate Freeport Companion is now available for non-backers. It uses a modified version of FAE where the approaches are the D&D stats. It's also a really cool setting. I actually ignored the Freeport Companion 'cause I thought it was just a setting book I was uninterested in. But this sounds neat, what other stuff will I find in there? It's a free download for backers, yeah?
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Oct 10, 2013 17:04
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Scrape posted:I actually ignored the Freeport Companion 'cause I thought it was just a setting book I was uninterested in. But this sounds neat, what other stuff will I find in there? It's a free download for backers, yeah? It's got a magic system that's the closest FATE gets to a traditional one (i.e. it's very D&D-ish). If I recall correctly it's divided in magic schools, with the character buying stunts that grant access to something like 3 individual spells each. Folks are always after magic subsystems for FATE, so this can interest a lot of people.
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Oct 10, 2013 17:15
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Evil Mastermind posted:The Fate Freeport Companion is now available for non-backers. It uses a modified version of FAE where the approaches are the D&D stats. It's also a really cool setting. Of note though, the NPCs are TERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRIBLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. Way too many of them have one or two (!) ranks of Sneak Attack, which means that their main method of attack is catching you unawares (possibly with the consequent Mediocre defense roll you get instead of your normal +skill roll) and then hitting you with a default roll of Epic (+7) or higher. Freeport's rules are cool but for the love of god make your own NPCs using them.
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Oct 10, 2013 17:17
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Cyphoderus posted:It's got a magic system that's the closest FATE gets to a traditional one (i.e. it's very D&D-ish). If I recall correctly it's divided in magic schools, with the character buying stunts that grant access to something like 3 individual spells each. Folks are always after magic subsystems for FATE, so this can interest a lot of people.
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Oct 10, 2013 17:52
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I will check it out for sure. I'm actually less interested in the D&D aspect and more interested inDark Sun specifically, though. I don't actually think D&D is optimal for "hellish desert survival." I'm always interested in more Fate Extras and subsystems, just for new ideas.
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Oct 10, 2013 21:43
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Cyphoderus posted:It's got a magic system that's the closest FATE gets to a traditional one (i.e. it's very D&D-ish). If I recall correctly it's divided in magic schools, with the character buying stunts that grant access to something like 3 individual spells each. Folks are always after magic subsystems for FATE, so this can interest a lot of people. The spellcaster stunts are two schools/two spells or one school/three spells (and there's an additional stunt to take three more spells).
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Oct 10, 2013 23:48
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Hey me and some buddies are gonna be streaming some FAE in about half an hour, come on in if you want to tell us how great we are. http://www.twitch.tv/madcapmachinations
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Oct 12, 2013 01:23
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I absolutely love how easy it is to write adventures in this game. My group runs long (~8 hour) sessions, and I can make a full adventures worth on content in like an hour and a half, with breaks. It's so great.
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Oct 16, 2013 14:47
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Loki_XLII posted:I absolutely love how easy it is to write adventures in this game. My group runs long (~8 hour) sessions, and I can make a full adventures worth on content in like an hour and a half, with breaks. It's so great. I cant even picture what all you could get up to in 8 hours with this system. Our group generally only runs 2-3 hour games and we get through a shitload of content each time.
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Oct 16, 2013 15:09
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Lallander posted:I cant even picture what all you could get up to in 8 hours with this system. Our group generally only runs 2-3 hour games and we get through a shitload of content each time. We maybe don't spend all 8 hours playing, I was being a bit generous. That 8 hours includes breaks for food and other distractions from the game. Still a lot longer than most groups, though, maybe 6 hours? And we certainly could run shorter sessions, we just have nothing better to do, so why not keep it going?
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Oct 16, 2013 15:43
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Long sessions are pretty easy in Fate though, it's easy enough to come up with new enemies or plot. You just need a few short phrases for core aspects, note which 3 skills should be high and then wing the rest. Makes adhoc work simple.
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Oct 16, 2013 18:28
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Mental Conflicts seem kind of nebulous to me. I've had situations where one group wants something from another and uses social skills to get it, but I've been running those with Contests, because that situation sounds like two mutually exclusive goals, and I'm not sure exactly when somebody is trying to harm another. I guess torture would definitely count, but that seems both limited, and extremely niche for heroic adventure games. When do social/mental skills become harmful?
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Oct 17, 2013 14:58
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Some examples off the top of my head: - Player A has confronted the Arch Bishop in the middle of the town square, and she is attempting to expose him as a vampire in front of a crowd -- Player A might hurl an accusation as an Attack, and the Arch Bishop could make excuses to defend. If the Arch Bishop fills out his mental stress track entirely, he might lose control and say something incriminating. - Player B has been wrestling with his evil twin, and is now being held at gunpoint by the captain of the guard -- Player B and the evil twin must each try to convince the captain that they are the real Player B. Player B might attack the evil twin's credibility by insisting that the captain will have to shoot them both, whereas the evil twin would be forced to defend by insisting that that is only a trick to defend against it. - Rita the barmaid has been framed for a crime she didn't commit -- Player C has agreed to step up and speak for her at the trial. He attacks the accuser's evidence in front of the judge. - Player A is attempting to save the captain of the guard's life, and must defeat Death in a board game to do so. You could run these things as Contests if you really wanted. You could also say the same for physical fights, though; both parties could just roll their Fight, best two out of three exactly as if they were running a race or whatever. That doesn't seem quite as engaging, though, does it? The Conflict rules try to emulate a more active struggle -- a heated argument with high stakes is going to be more exciting as a Conflict than it might be as a Contest.
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Oct 17, 2013 15:36
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Loki_XLII posted:When do social/mental skills become harmful? 
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Oct 17, 2013 15:40
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Loki_XLII posted:Mental Conflicts seem kind of nebulous to me. I've had situations where one group wants something from another and uses social skills to get it, but I've been running those with Contests, because that situation sounds like two mutually exclusive goals, and I'm not sure exactly when somebody is trying to harm another. I guess torture would definitely count, but that seems both limited, and extremely niche for heroic adventure games. If you're trying to get something, it's a mental contest. If you're trying to wreck something or there's real danger of harm, it's a mental combat. It's a matter of stakes. For example: When Riggs and Murtaugh are having their little dickwaving contest at the shooting range in the first Lethal Weapon, that would be a Contest. When Riggs is trying to trick the potential jumper or Murtaugh is trying to see if Riggs is suicidally insane or faking it, there are real stakes of someone getting hurt and multiple tete a tetes. That's a Combat.
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Oct 17, 2013 15:47
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