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

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

Dodge Charms: May 30, 2013

I've always wanted a game with witty repartee as an optional component to combat.

Could be Spider Man's annoying quips, or some kind of trash-talking intimidation tactic, or something else, but in my ideal mental vision it could add another dimension to combat.

I think that kind of thing is only doable if the mental Stress (or social or emotional or whatever) track is the same as the physical Stress track. Otherwise, you get the problem that your quips are hitting a whole 'nother silo of ablative defense, and you'd contribute better by hitting the same silo as everyone else (the Physical one).

Luckily Consequences are already unified, so if you can inflict a Consequence, you're helping.

Are there any FATE games which unify Stress tracks into a single track?

# ¿ Oct 17, 2013 16:43

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# ¿ May 4, 2024 07:27

Dodge Charms: May 30, 2013

TurninTrix posted:

FAE does exactly that! It is rad.

Awesome, I've got that from the Kickstarter, so I'll bump it up in my to-read queue.
Thanks!

Gazetteer posted:

It would also be really easy to do in Core. You'd just take away one of the tracks and use the remaining one for both.

... unless that would imbalance something.

Would it?

# ¿ Oct 17, 2013 17:48

Dodge Charms: May 30, 2013

TurninTrix posted:

Also, the number of boxes for physical and mental stress tracks still depend on Physique and Will respectively, but you can get around that by just giving everyone three stress boxes flat or however much you like it. Maybe add another mild consequence slot at Good (+3) Physique/Will to keep those skills appealing, and you're good to go.

That's a really interesting idea.

IIRC the 2-box mild Consequences go away at the same time Stress would go away (the end of a scene), right?

# ¿ Oct 17, 2013 18:50

Dodge Charms: May 30, 2013

Loki_XLII posted:

I think with the discussion on using quips and verbal attacks alongside physical damage in conflicts, instead of just relying on the non-unified stress tracks and eventually causing consequences, you could also model things well by creating advantages with social skills.

That relegates social skills to ONLY doing support, while physical skills can do support AND cash in on the support.

I'd like it to be possible to have a situation where you gain some kind of info which will be a shocking revelation to some NPC, but you know he won't want to hear it, so you need to punch him for a while before pulling out your (social) trump card.

Then he's Taken Out by the revelation as the fight climax, rather than by a punch as the climax.

_{(An implicit part of the goal here is to reward non-murderhobo builds with spotlight capability.)}

# ¿ Oct 17, 2013 19:18

Dodge Charms: May 30, 2013

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.

Dodge Charms posted:

That relegates social skills to ONLY doing support, while physical skills can do support AND cash in on the support.

I'd like it to be possible to have a situation where you gain some kind of info which will be a shocking revelation to some NPC, but you know he won't want to hear it, so you need to punch him for a while before pulling out your (social) trump card.

Then he's Taken Out by the revelation as the fight climax, rather than by a punch as the climax.

_{(An implicit part of the goal here is to reward non-murderhobo builds with spotlight capability.)}

---

Scrape posted:

(...) 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.

Have high Will and Physique grant extra mild mental and physical Consequence boxes, like how supernatural toughness works in Dresden Files RPG.

That gives you the nuance you want: a high-Physique guy will be walking around with an extra Mild Consequence or two, which makes him able to suck up more of a specific kind of Stress than the low-Physique guy.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2013 16:33

Dodge Charms: May 30, 2013

Spincut posted:

Uh, isn't that how it works already?

Which version of FATE do you mean by "it"?

Because the answer ranges from "no" to "almost but not quite".

# ¿ Oct 18, 2013 18:09

Dodge Charms: May 30, 2013

Scrape posted:

Isn't that how it works in Fate Core?

Not with the merged stress tracks, no.
Fate Core is an "almost but not quite".

Scrape posted:

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.

Allowing non-physical "attacks" to work as finishers is a thing I do want. Might not work for you, if you want pure physical finishers: that's fine, games differ.

Scrape posted:

To me, it feels like there's more synergy, planning, and interaction using both Stress tracks

Two stress tracks which never interact is less interaction.
Getting to Consequences faster is more synergy.

Scrape posted:

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.

You feel that Mild Consequences are ... not mild? They're "Big Deal" things?

# ¿ Oct 18, 2013 19:03

Dodge Charms: May 30, 2013

BryanChavez posted:

Yup. Depending on how much stress you inflict, you inflict a different consequence. It's mechanically just like starting with no stress boxes. In compensation for not having the buffer of a track, you first have to create an advantage on someone before you can inflict Stress - 'Backed into a Corner', 'Off Balance', 'Got The Jump On Them', etc. Works pretty well for my group.

Sounds very cool!

Also sounds pretty similar to the Savage World's "Shaken" thing... in that, you inflict a box of damage only if the target is already Shaken, and Shaken resets every turn.

Do you have any "critical hit" provision, where someone can inflict such an awesome hit that it goes straight to Consequences? Like a damage threshold?

Do you give extra Consequence boxes for high Physique / Will / etc.?

(Do Mooks just have normal stress boxes?)

# ¿ Oct 18, 2013 23:54

Dodge Charms: May 30, 2013

For the zombie survival scenario, maybe something like...

- The horde of zombies milling around outside and trying to break in are a "Bronze Rule" threat. You can interact with them as an environmental character when dealing with them as a whole: nailing boards over windows, blocking doors, piling up heavy obstacles, etc.

- When the "horde" character succeeds, it doesn't inflict any specific penalties on the PCs, nor does it necessarily create aspects. On success, it creates Zombie NPCs -- success for the horde means getting a few individual zombies inside. Once a zombie gets inside, the PCs must deal with it as a specific threat.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2013 03:17

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# ¿ May 4, 2024 07:27

Dodge Charms: May 30, 2013

I remember back in D&D 1e there was stuff like... one guy would calculate the full volume of a Fireball spell, figure out that it would probably clear a dungeon if he could cast it without being in the affected volume, and "win" the dungeon that way.

Even in D&D 3.x, one could use items like an Endless Decanter or spells like Rock to Mud to flood a dungeon, or Pyrotechnics to "smoke out" a large volume of enemies.

Maybe this abstract dungeon mechanic would be good for stuff like that?

# ¿ Nov 1, 2013 20:17

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