Sunday, January 3, 2010

OrcCon 2010: Gimme a Genre

So OrcCon's coming up, and I've actually gotten a request to run something FATE-based. But... uh... I don't know what to run. Anyone have a suggestion? My brain isn't screaming to run any particular genre, so a nudge in one direction or another would be helpful.

Sci-fi's out; if I were going to do that, I'd run Diaspora, but by the time OrcCon rolls around in February I won't have had enough experience to be comfortable enough to run it. Heck, if I have any experience with it by then I'll consider myself lucky. I still haven't really cracked supers -- I feel like I'm close enough to get something together by the end of the month, but I just don't have any supers inspiration right now. Western? It's okay as-is, but it really wants some sort of code-of-honor mechanic to make it sing. I have a little idea for a '60s-style James-Bondesque espionage hack, but that one little idea (though cool) does not a conversion make -- and besides, I just don't know what I'd do with a spy game. Just not in the right frame of mind, or something.

So I don't know. Inspire me, Internet.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Spies? Hmm, something's on the tip of my tongue. Maybe do some kind of "Mission Impossible" team-oriented thing where people's skills/stunts work well together? Leveraging Fate's coop skill rules, perhaps. In other words, the sum is greater than the parts and makes one mega-spy? (Spy Voltron!)

However, if you want something inspiring from the internet: here's something that inspired me today...

http://www.brikwars.com/downloads/epic_1280.jpg

This is TOTALLY how I remember "the awesome" with Lego's.

Maybe there's some cross-genre, Time Bandits or "Torg-ish possibility" (Get it? Oh, I crack myself up!)

Unknown said...

That "Time Bandits" reminded me of this:

http://www.fudgefactor.org/2004/06/chronos-academy.html

That's a forgotten jewel of fudgeness and I've always wanted to run a setting like that but never found time in between my other games. Something wacky like that perhaps?

Department13 (also in fudgefactor) is another fun bet.

And if all else fails... ZOMBIES! You can never go wrong with zombies. The first FATE game I ever run (back in 2.0) was an introductory zombie game with pre-gens. With no previous advice, their little town was overun with zombies and they had to get out. Characters sported a rare mix of archetypes: Town Granny, Tatooed Biker, High School Cheerleader, Greasy Coook, Corrupt Doctor, Little Jerk Kid, and other colorful and obnoxious characters.

Their Aspects made them particulary ill mannered, so there were very funny moments as all were trying to escape together and hinder their partners at the same time. Good times.

anarco_rata said...

I'd love to see your take on a FATE based zombie horror game. I've been bouncing the idea around in my head for a couple months, but haven't got the chance to give it a try.

Be it a serious survival horror, or a zombieland-ish tongue in cheek zombie killing game, I think zombies are always cool.

Mike Olson said...

Y'know, I saw a really great FATE horror conversion somewhere not too long ago. I should try to find it again. Or maybe I have it as a PDF? I dunno -- I have a lot of PDFs.

Anyway, the gist of it was that taking violent actions self-inflicted Composure stress, and... some other stuff. It was neat.

Anyone know what I'm talking about?