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We're three sessions deep in a new campaign, and I'm loving it so far. Fate makes it really easy to pitch high-concept games like "hardboiled detective occult noir: Unknown Armies meets Raymond Chandler in 1950s St. Louis." And the system can handle it with minimal tweaking, the Aspects do all the heavy lifting when it comes to setting and tone. I highly recommend the Fate Toolkit for other new Fate players, it has a bunch of great ideas and examples for expanding the game. The only issue we've had is balancing conflicts. Our GM has no idea how tough PCs are and how much hurt they can soak up. I keep pushing for more difficult encounters, 'cause we can always Concede if it's too tough, right? Most of our conflicts only last two rounds, Max. The book is not very clear on what an "average encounter" looks like. It tells us that NPCs are statted up according to their story role and not by objective ability, but that's about it.
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Sep 30, 2013 15:23
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Yeah, it's been hard for our GM to break out of statting NPCs realistically instead of narratively. Like, we were tracked down by some thugs while investigating an occult murderer, a "stay away from this one" deal, and those dudes lasted two rounds max. I blame myself; I made an NPC stat sheet for the GM because it's our first FATE campaign and I listed stats for a Thug as one-hit takedowns. I made a new sheet and renamed Thug, Trained Killer, and Assassin as Mooks, Challenging Fight, and Boss Fight instead. Hopefully this makes it clear that enemies should be statted by their purpose, not with any verisimilitude in mind. Any more conflict advice? These are useful system/math info so far.
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Sep 30, 2013 17:55
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I think we seriously misunderstood the damage system, so can someone check me here? I was under the impression that Stress boxes were there to prevent Consequences. But it sounds like the other way around: once the Stress boxes are filled, you're out of the fight. So you use Consequences to save your Stress boxes, even though Stress refilled after each fight? Also, can you check multiple Stress boxes? If I take a five point hit, I can check the 3 and 2 box, right? Should I instead take a 2-point Consequence and then check the 3 box? Or do I only do that of I expect the fight to last a while? Basically, we treated Consequences as last-resort options. How are we supposed to work this? So far, it's not a combat-heavy game but I think that's gonna change tonight...
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Sep 30, 2013 18:50
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Oh my god, you're a lifesaver. Thanks. I understood that the boxes were increasing in value. Like, I knew three boxes was not worth 3 shifts, but rather 1+2+3= 6 shifts total... but somehow totally misinterpreted the rest of the system. To clarify: my Totally Awesome Snowflake PC has four Physical Stress boxes. Are the following statements correct? 1. If he takes a single 3point hit, I could fill in the 3rd box, or a 2point Consequence and the 1st box. 2. If he gets hit for 1 "damage" three times in a row, I just check the boxes off one at a time, in order. So the third time I take 1 dmg, I'm forced to check off a 3-point box even though it's just 1 Stress. At that point, it makes more sense for me to fill in a 2point Consequence, because the 3-point Stress box is more valuable, right? 3. If I'm rolling really poorly but still don't expect this battle to last long, I'm better off filling in Stress before Consequences. Because Stress resets after the battle. Say, in the example above, if I somehow know for a fact that this fight is going to end after the third 1point hit, I should just suck it up and use the 3point box for it because they'll reset (but the Consequence would stick around) 4. Conversely, if this is the Big Final Battle of the adventure, I should take Consequences earlier because I need those high-value Stress boxes to win the encounter. A 4-point box is hella valuable for taking a big hit and staying in the fight, and a 4-point Consequence is worth taking because it's the Final Showdown and I gotta win it. 5. There are no mechanical penalties from Consequences, right? They're just negative Aspects that the GM can use against me as long as they're around?
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Sep 30, 2013 20:04
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Oh oh oh, and: 6. NPCs work the same way. Doing multiple 1Stress hits to an NPC can take her down. Obviously a single 8point hit might knock her out immediately, but doing like six 1point hits will get me there eventually. Yeah?
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Sep 30, 2013 20:08
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This is great stuff, thanks. Next question: my current campaign is mostly social, not a lot of combat (it's like, 1950s gumshoe stuff). There's some confusion about the Overcome action. It can be used, but not must be used, to place or discover an NPC Aspect. Like, we're interrogating the mobster's wife. I can roll Rapport to get the whole story out of her, and if I succeed with style I get a Boost. So maybe we put the Convinced Aspect on her and get one free Invoke to use for follow-up questioning. Or we could flat-out state "I want her to trust us, can I place the I Trust These Guys Aspect on her?" And it's the same Rapport Overcome roll? Is that right? Like sometimes you'd want to place an Aspect so it sticks around, but sometimes you just want to make an opposed Negotiation roll or whatever to just get what you want, and it has nothing to do with naming an Aspect or Boost? There's some confusion over when we have to use Aspects. Only when we care enough for it to matter, right? Also, is it a harder DC to place an Aspect (versus just getting answers) or is it basically the same roll/difficulty, just with situational results? Scrape fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Sep 30, 2013 |
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Sep 30, 2013 21:14
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Transient People posted:Except in a few rare, extremely uncommon circumstances, you never want to take a Consequence if you can help it. Hmmmm, this is what I assumed originally, but it seems kinda weird to me. Like, is that extremely uncommon? If you know a fight is going to last for a while and you're facing a 4-point hit, wouldn't you want to save your 4-point Stress Box to stay in the fight, and instead take a Consequence? Or should you pretty much always wait until your Stress track is full before moving on to Consequences? With four Stress boxes, it just feels like I'll practically never need to take Consequences. I don't want combat to be lethal, far from it, but I really like the idea of lasting damage being modeled as negative Aspects and was really looking forward to some Bruised and Battered Consequences, but those four Stress boxes just soak up everything. I just returned from my fifth game session, and tonight was the first time I've ever gotten a Consequence: a 4-point Shot in the Shoulder, and it was the result of some massively skewed rolls. Is the GM just pitching us softballs? Or are PCs really this invincible? I hardly even use my fourth Stress box!
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Oct 1, 2013 04:56
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OmanyteJackson posted:For the life of me, I'm having a hard time rapping my head around aspects. Are there other ways to invoke aspects other than spending fate points? and do aspects do other things then give you a +2 to a roll? Oooh, this I can help with. Mechanically, character Aspects are pretty much "pay a Fate Point for a +2 or a reroll," but FP should be slung around the table frequently so it's not much of a price. It allows a character to be good at something without all the fiddly feat-taking or whatever. Like, an Aspect One-Man Army means that every time you try to be a badass, you will probably succeed, regardless of your "build." If you can use a related Aspect, you're a FP away from a hefty +2 or reroll. I think of it as a mechanical shorthand. Like, my detective has +4 Contacts skill, but also the Aspect I Know Everyone...And They Know Me. He will always, always know someone that can help. There's just no way I cannot nail that roll, if I'm willing to spend a FP. Edit: then there's the fun double-edged part of it. You earn those Fate Points by having your GM Compel the same Aspects, using them to your disadvantage. In this case, I disguised myself as a reporter and snuck into a newsroom to get some info. Of course, the GM slid a FP toward me, like "So... Everyone Knows You, right? I bet someone walks up and blows your cover: 'Rourke! What are you doing here?'" And of course I took the point and got thrown out before I got everything I wanted. So that's how Aspects fuel the Fate Point economy. It's cool. Scrape fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Oct 1, 2013 |
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Oct 1, 2013 16:19
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In regards to Aspects and anyone having trouble with them: The rulebook (and a lot of enthusiasts) get really caught up in the fact that pretty much everything can be an Aspect. They talk about scene aspects, character aspects, situation aspects... it can seem really confusing. And, like, how are you supposed to keep track of Slippery Floor, Stacked Boxes, You'll Never Take Me Alive, plus seven other npc and scene aspects along with the campaign aspects and the fact that every player has at least four of their own aaaahghghgh Anyway, they confused me too, until I realized that just because almost anything can be, doesn't mean it has to be. An Aspect is just a descriptive phrase given mechanical weight. You don't have to describe everything that way, like sometimes a person is just friendly and isn't Friendly., y'know? It only matters if its compelling enough to use. It's also a really useful mechanical shorthand. Some systems come up with modifiers or rules for every little situation, but in Fate you're just pinpointing the most useful or interesting things and calling them out. Like, last night we started a gun fight in a crowded theatre (because we are awesome). In other systems, there might be penalties for the low lighting and the innocent bystanders and the seats in the way. But we just wrote down Panicked Crowd and Dark Theater and if anyone wants to utilize those details to give themselves an advantage, then they are able to engage them mechanically. If they're not engaging them mechanically, those are still just descriptions that reinforce what's going on. If you're making a Defend roll, you could probably use either one of those Aspects to help you. But using Panicked Crowd to defend yourself is fictionally totally different than using Dark Theater, and it says something about what you're doing. I really, really like this part of Fate. Still not 100% sold on the combat mechanics, but Aspects are so awesome it hurts.
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Oct 1, 2013 17:27
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Anyway, my GM has expressed some dislike for the combat system. He was like "it's kinda in-between tactical combat and storygaming stuff. I don't wanna have to stat out all the enemies, but I want them to be more than just mooks." He said it felt somewhere between AW's one-roll conflict resolution and typical blow-by-blow combat. In a way, he seems correct. Is there a middle ground for this? Can we balance the desire for tactical and engaging fights with the preference for little or no statblocks? How do you guys normally handle conflicts?
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Oct 1, 2013 17:45
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Yeah, fighting for a goal is so much more interesting. After so much ApocWorld, I have trouble caring about combat for its own sake. In AW, there's not even really a combat move for just hurting someone, though people try to use Aggro for it sometimes. Seize and Aggro are both about getting what you want from someone and being willing to hurt them to get it. Anyway, with the rules for conceding conflicts (which are great), Fate does seem to reinforce fighting-to-get-what-you-want, which I'm pretty into.
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Oct 1, 2013 20:27
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I had a great FATE session last night and felt like sharing something I just figured out. So you've got a Mental Stress Track and a Physical Stress Track, but only one set of Consequences. They point this out in the book, but most of their examples are like "you can run a debate as a Mental conflict," so I never realized that you can mix the two. You can switch up Physical and Mental attacks in the same conflict! (This is probably old hat to FATE experts, but it's new to me) So we're in this boss fight and we're getting creamed. Our characters are detectives without a lot of combat skills. The minions are down but the "boss," she's kicking our asses. We're almost out of resources and clearly overmatched. She's taken one Consequence, a gunshot, but her defenses are so high... so my talkative partner decides to play to his strengths: he pulls out the "it's over, you've lost, give it up" line and rolls Rapport. He nails his roll, she blows her defense, it's a six shift hit and she can't soak it because of the earlier gunshot. She gets one-shotted by a mental "attack." We win the fight. We totally softened her up with violence and took her down with words. I love this system!
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Oct 8, 2013 17:27
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Yeah, definitely. It's such a great system for genre emulation because of it. It really felt like the climax of a movie, more so than any rpg battle I've played. I was really happy that we figured out that trick and won the battle with some bluffing and fast-talk. It was just perfect for the campaign and the established characters. Anyway, some questions for the thread: I'm fiddling with a Dark Sun conversion for FATE (it should be obvious by now, but I'm pretty enamoured of this game). What do you guys think: 1. Psionics are Stunts, this makes sense right? 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. 3. How do I handle Defiling magic? This has me a little stumped. 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 19:45
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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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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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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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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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"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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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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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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If your goal is to crush your opponent into submission or wreck their fighting spirit, and not just convince others that you are right, it's probably a conflict instead of a contest. Also, as I mentioned before, you can mix physical and mental attacks within the same conflict. Like, using intimidation and scare tactics to soften up your enemy and then taking them out physically. Or beating them up a little and going "had enough yet? Give it up" for your final blow. It's pretty rad.
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Oct 17, 2013 16:27
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You could design a Stunt that allows the hero to make a physical attack with Provoke or something. But also, even with separate Stress tracks there's still only one set of Consequences. My social character uses Provoke to hit hard and apply Consequences, then invoke them for the final big physical blow. It works pretty well and feels right. Having just one Stress track means takedowns that are too easy, I think.
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Oct 17, 2013 16:50
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Quadratic_Wizard posted:Why not just use the Create Advantage rules? Spider-man quips gets the Rhino fuming mad, so that when he charges Spidey on his next turn, Spidey Invokes that "Seeing Red" aspect and increases the shifts of the miss by 2, which triggers his Spider Sense stunt that let's him give up his next action to inflict the shifts of a missed melee attack as damage when he succeeds with style. Rhino charges, gets a face full of web, and crashes right into a brick wall, bringing the whole thing down on top of him. Yeah, you can totally make it worth without needing to hack anything. My group mixes physical/social attacks all the time now, to great effect, no hacks necessary. - create a Stunt that lets you deal physical damage with X skill - use create advantage as written above - just use the rules as written, which give you two stress tracks and one consequence track. They perfectly emulate this already. I'm not super experienced with FATE, but it seems to me that if everyone had just one stress track it would get a little "same-y" after a while. As written, it's an interesting balance between Will and Physique, how much you're willing to invest in each, where your priorities are and where you're opponent's weak spot is. I like that, it's nuanced without being complex.
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Oct 18, 2013 15:46
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Isn't that how it works in Fate Core?
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Oct 18, 2013 18:13
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I guess there's no mechanical reason you couldn't squash the two Stress tracks together, but I wouldn't do it at my table. I really like keeping the two defenses separate, while keeping the Consequences universal. It feels right to me: use Provoke to destroy your enemy's willpower and give him the Broken Will aspect or whatever, then tag it for your big final physical assault. To me, it feels like there's more synergy, planning, and interaction using both Stress tracks, rather than just "make a Physical attack if you're good at it, or make a Mental attack if that's your best skill, it's all coming off the same stress track anyway." Like, in my campaign, my terrible-at-combat partner needed to make a physical attack because we knew it'd fill up the enemy's physical stress and give her a consequence, which I could then invoke on my follow up to take her out. It leads to neat stuff like that, playing against your strengths sometimes so you can set up a situation that plays right into your strengths later. I like having Physique and Will affect their corresponding Stress Tracks and only offer more Consequences at really high levels. Consequences seem like they should be Big Deal things that you don't wanna be able to accumulate lots of. (keep in mind I'm still a Fate newbie and could totally be wrong about this, but I've experienced a lot of satisfying "hero's quip totally takes down the villain" moments without changing the rules at all)
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Oct 18, 2013 18:25
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"Dodge Charms" posted:stuff You've got good points. I'm admittedly a Fate newbie, but my group has found that it's easy to use your stronger skill set (Physical or social) to inflict Consequences to set you up for an easier one-shot attack with your weaker skill. That's the synergy I'm talking about. I would worry that a single Stress track would negate a lot of potential defenses you've built up. As for Big Deal things, a Mild Consequence is a Big Deal compared to, say, just some Stress hits. That's all. Even a Minor Mental Consequence can be tagged for a bigger Physical hit. Works well for us. Also, we barely use weapon bonuses. Only guns add Shifts, and even then only a +1 or so. But we're playing a low-combat campaign right now. I'm super interested in this conversation so I can up my game. Thanks! I'm a bit confused about how many Consequences NPCs get in general. Mooks are taken out after their Stress is filled, right? No Consequences at all, right? Named NPCs get. Mild or ModeratenConsequence and only Boss Fight type guys get Serious ones. Is that correct?
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Oct 19, 2013 18:36
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What genres are covered by Fate so far? What's missing? I know we've got high and low fantasy, steampunk/Victorian, supers, pulp, post-apoc pulp, hard and soft sci-fi... what else? There's some cyberware ideas in the toolkit but is there a fleshed out cyberpunk setting? What about gritty apocalypse? Mystery/ detective? Horror? (Kinda hard, I know) What's are we lacking?
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Oct 19, 2013 21:16
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Hard postapocalyptic was one thought I had. I thought Legends of Anglerre and Ehdrigor were both non-tolkien fantasy but maybe I'm wrong; I know little of either. What about cyberpunk espionage? Like "not" Shadowrun, has that been done?
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Oct 19, 2013 22:19
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I guess I'm really asking " what do you want to see done in Fate?" I want gritty noir, hi-tech espionage, and shadowrun-style crime thriller's (which is just a mix of those two, I guess). What do YOU wanna see?
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Oct 20, 2013 05:31
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I understood the Bronze rule to mean that you can but not must represent anything as a character. Evading the Maze of Traps could be a conflict of attacks and defenses whittling down the Maze's Stress track until you're free. But it could also be a a Contest or whatever, it could even be a single Overcome roll if no one is interested. It's a tool, not a straitjacket, right? Horror often means enemies that are difficult to directly fight. This can be modeled in many ways using Fate, as I understand it. I'm quite smitten with this system.
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Oct 20, 2013 22:09
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There's a cool zombie survival hack for Spirit of the Century. I think it's called After The Rise and I remember it being neat.
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Oct 21, 2013 03:53
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These rules arguments are actually pretty helpful to me. Fate seems like a fast and loose system where different groups can handle the same situation in whatever way makes sense to them. If your group is full of rule-exploiting "powergamers" or whatever, then you can make very strict requirements for combat actions. If it's all loosey-goosey "that sounds cool" types, then you don't have to worry. My group totally allows some crazy overpowered maneuvers on occasion, with the mutual understanding that trying to pull the same exploit over and over is boring and cheesy, so we don't worry about it. It's all playstyle, which I really like.
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Oct 30, 2013 20:06
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Quadratic_Wizard posted:So, I've been thinking about using the fate fractal and applying it to dungeon crawling. At this level of abstraction, this sounds more like a board game, or a minigame system within an rpg, than an rpg of its own. Like, social interaction is what the campaign focuses on and the dungeon delves are handled by this minigame. Or you could flesh it out and make it a fully fledged board game-style thing with cards and counters and stuff, maybe? It seems kinda in-between to me and I'm not sure that the Fate combat system is robust enough to basically just play it for a couple hours, at least not for me. It's a neat exercise in the Fate fractal for sure. Edit: if you went the "this is a board game without a board" route, then you could make Gold be some kind of competitive points thing. Or else a resource to buy more cards/abilities/whatever Extras there are) Scrape fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Nov 1, 2013 |
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Nov 1, 2013 17:50
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Quadratic_Wizard posted:Board Game and Normal Dungeon are both what I'm going for. Dungeon crawling to me is the ultimate "beer and pretzels" experience, and I was thinking of how to capture that super old school feeling with Fate. The biggest inspiration for the idea was Stonesoup Dungeoncrawl, the idea being that tweak the rules to make characters fast, level up fast, get lots of loot fast, and die fast. That makes sense, then. I was kinda thinking that you were after a normal campaign experience, but with this ultra-abstracted dungeoncrawl mechanic. Loot should be a big factor in the game, though, and Fate doesn't seem to do equipment bonuses much. What if loot, like, duplicated Stunts? Like you find the Sword of Sweet Bonuses and it gives you a combat Stunt, or the Lantern of Discovery gives you an exploration-based Stunt. It would sort of emulate that "leveling up feeling" if the PCs started as crummy no-stunt nobodies and started getting more badass as they gained items and therefore access to these abilities.
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Nov 1, 2013 20:00
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I love the "blanks" idea, it's a cool lateral thinking solution and uses the dice in a neat way. Also it fixes some issues with flat penalties/bonuses. Did you come up with that, or is it A Thing? Either way, I'ma steal the poo poo out of it.
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Nov 5, 2013 20:47
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Reminder to the thread that Evil Hat's Street Team promotion is still going on and is pretty cool. Looks like there aren't that many entries so far (unless my raffle app displaying wrong), so errbody might as well jump on it. I think these sort of things are kinda cool, reminds me of touring with various crummy bands. Anyway, I need advice on specialized equipment. Like, I'm working on a shadowrun-type hack and part of the fun in cyberpunk settings is the crazy tech and gear- at least, it's a big part of the fun for me and mine. I've got cyberware covered, but I'm trying to figure out how I can make specialist gear work. Like, right now there's an Infiltrate skill. In Fate, if you take the skill then it's assumed you have the tools required. I really hate fiddly item lists but I also enjoy concocting a good plan and outwitting security in espionage games. I'd like to maintain the fun of researching the target's defenses and tailoring your equipment for this specific mission. Not for every little thing, but let's say you decide that a Safecracker is the right tool for the job. It seems like I have a few options: Skill Bonus: "a Safecracker gives +1 to Infiltrate when cracking safes" (the Most Boring Thing) Skill Prerequisite: "you must have a Safecracker to crack a safe using Infiltrate" (kinda gotcha-y) Skill Penalty: "to crack a safe without a Safecracker, you roll Infiltrate with a -1 penalty" (not so bad maybe?) How would you guys handle specialized equipment in cases like this?
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Nov 6, 2013 00:17
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I guess they could Invoke equipment for circumstantial bonuses, but I worry that it would increase Fate Point expenditure without providing another source. Still, maybe that's the way to go.
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Nov 6, 2013 16:07
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BryanChavez posted:Make it so that when they prepare themselves for a 'run, either a formal or informal one, they can bank free invokes for their equipment. Just a specialized use of the Create an Advantage action. So it's like "you are a trained Infiltrator. You can always roll +Infiltrate for related tasks. You carry X pieces of special gear: write them down before each run. You can always pay a FP to invoke them as if they were Aspects. If, before a run, your Intel reveals a particularly necessary piece of gear, write it down and you can invoke it once for free." I like this. It means you can fly blind and still make use of gear, but it might cost you a FP. If you do your homework first, it pays off mechanically and fictionally. This is cool, right?
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Nov 6, 2013 19:53
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