Spirit of the Blank

[Atomic Robo] Action. Science. Podcast.

2012-01-24T10:37:00.000-08:00

More shameless self-promotion! Mike Lafferty interviewed Fred Hicks, Brian Clevinger, and myself about ARRPG for the BAMF! podcast, which you can check out here.

We covered some interesting stuff, including some of our core design goals for ARRPG (many of which I'm pretty sure I've mentioned here on the ol' blog), and extracted from Brian what I'm going to interpret as an ironclad guarantee that the She-Devils (coming up in Atomic Robo volume 8) will receive a detailed treatment in the book. And naturally we talked about Carl Sagan, because... c'mon. Who doesn't want to play Carl Sagan?

Brian also had some incredibly kind words about The Kerberos Club (FATE Edition). I mean, I already knew he liked it, but now it's on the record.

I listen to a ton of podcasts on a regular basis -- mostly comedy podcasts like Comedy Bang Bang, Superego, and Mike and Tom Eat Snacks -- so it was pretty cool to get to be on one for once. Hopefully I didn't make too much of an ass of myself, but I'll leave that judgment up to you, the viewer (I know you're not a viewer).

[Atomic Robo] It's Sagan-tastic!

2012-01-23T08:37:00.000-08:00

Dave Chalker over at Critical Hits interviewed Fred Hicks, Brian Clevinger, and me about ARRPG. In amongst the banter, there's some actual information about the game to be had, so check it out.

We're very excited about Carl Sagan. (And crystals.)

Speaking of Dave, does anyone else out there own the Well of Souls RPG? A friend of mine in junior high was absolutely fanatical about the Well of Souls series and waged a near-ceaseless campaign to get the rest of us in our D&D group to read it. (At least, that's how it seemed at the time. He probably just read it and said, "Hey, I really like these books. You guys should read them." Then we blew it all out of proportion.) When I saw the RPG on eBay a few years ago, I had to get it.

[Atomic Robo] Paper. Plastic. Dice.

2012-01-19T07:55:00.000-08:00

I visited Italy with my family when I was about 10 years old -- i.e., too young to really appreciate it -- but the only phrases I still know how to say in Italian are "What does it cost?" and "fried brains," which means I'm in very good shape if I ever need to know the going rate of fried brains in Milan. (So far it hasn't come up.)

Fortunately, Italian person Paolo Cecchetto of Paper and Plastic speaks English just fine, so I had no trouble answering his questions about ARRPG. Pretty sure I didn't stick my foot in my mouth in there anywhere. Still new to being interviewed, y'know. Anyway, check it out.

(While you're at it, also check out his electronically cataloged RPG collection. S'pretty impressive.)

[Atomic Robo] Suddenly I'm Fame-ish

2012-01-13T17:46:00.000-08:00

Evil Hat's announcement of the Atomic Robo RPG has made quite a splash in sort-of mainstream online media outlets' geek-oriented sub-sections (because geek culture's such a thing right now we should probably cover it or something). This has the side effect of exposing strangers' eyes to my name, or something quite like it.

First there's this MTV Geek article from yesterday, wherein my Norwegian twin (need I even specify he's an evil twin?) receives the credit rightfully due to me:

At the helm, Evil Hat will be placing Atomic Robo Brian Clevinger himself alongside Fate system veteran Mike Olsen.

Look, I know I make too much of the "-en"/"-on" thing. It's a peeve of mine. It happens all the time. If Matt Morgan misspelling my last name in an article is the worst thing that happens to me this year, I'll consider myself a lucky man.

Then today there's this mention of ARRPG in CNN.com's Geek Out! section, in which my name appears not once, but twice. Concurrently! (EDIT: No, not concurrently -- consecutively. "Concurrently" would be, like... impossible.)

Evil Hat Productions announced an agreement to produce, publish, and distribute an RPG based on the Eisner-nominated "Atomic Robo" comic book. It will be co-written by "Atomic Robo" scribe Brian Clevinger and "Kerberos Club: Fate Edition" author Mike Olson. Olson also created the "Strange Fate" version of the Fate engine. (via Deadly Fredly)

True story: Shortly after Brian approached me about ARRPG and Fred and Evil Hat got involved, I found myself in a ridiculously hip little comic book store in Silver Lake called Secret Headquarters. Did they have Atomic Robo TPBs? They did! I'd never actually seen one before. "Holy crap!" I said to myself upon perusing vol. 1's back cover. "This thing was nominated for Eisners!" That's how unfortunately in-the-dark I was about Atomic Robo when this began.

I mention that because I feel so lucky to be a part of this thing, and I think it's so awesome to see enthusiasm for it from people like Matt Morgan and whoever it was who decided the ARRPG press release deserved a mention on Geek Out! In fact, that same Geek Out! piece also mentions WotC's announcement of the next iteration of D&D (and the subsequent "geek rage" that followed), but what's the graphic for the story? Not the D&D logo or the WotC logo. Nope. It's this:

How rad is that?

Anyway -- point is, thanks to Atomic Robo, I'm kinda fame-ish now.

[Anglerre] The Companion Is Out!

2012-01-12T12:58:00.000-08:00

You've surely heard about this by now, but The Legends of Anglerre Companion is now available! Print version coming soon! Check out this sweet cover!

Wait, let me zoom in a little so you can see this cool detail.

Hmm... still not quite getting it. Let me try this:

Pretty sweet, huh?

[Atomic Robo] Action. Science. Dice.

2012-01-10T09:40:00.000-08:00

Woke up this morning to about 20 Twitter notifications in my inbox. "Ah. Fred must've announced Atomic Robo."

So: some backstory on this extremely awesome project about which I have been bursting with excitement on a daily basis for several weeks.

Back in November, Robo writer Brian Clevinger contacted me about turning his and artist Scott Wegener's creation into an RPG. Seems he'd just gotten The Kerberos Club (FATE Edition) and thought it'd be a good fit. Now, I should mention that at that point, embarrassing as it is to admit, I wasn't actually familiar with Atomic Robo, despite having a fairly varied pull list at my FLCS. (This is chiefly because Morgan Ellis, who's been a fan of the book from the beginning, never once bothered to mention it over the past few years I've known him. Seriously, what is up with that?)

Fortunately, Brian sent me a PDF of Vol. 6 #1. My reply: "How can I be involved in this? You had me by page 2."

In the midst of talking about what form that involvement might take and what kind of sandwiches it'd pay --sandwich negotiations are a key part of being an RPG freelancer -- Fred Hicks and Evil Hat got involved, and the Atomic Robo RPG went from being a really cool consulting gig to "OMG am I actually going to be designing a FATE game for Evil Hat?"

Apparently... yes!

If you've read this blog for a while -- or even just read the name of it -- you know I'm a big fan of Evil Hat. Spirit of the Century was a revelation for me. Playing and reading it not only changed the way I thought about RPGs, but also led pretty directly to my first freelance work on Legends of Anglerre. And now I get to design a game for Evil Hat that's a combination of Buckaroo Banzai, Indiana Jones, Ghostbusters, and Planetary.

There'll be more to talk about later, but I can at least say this right off the bat: It's not going to use Strange FATE. Instead, it's going to use the in-development Fate Core rules to accomplish some of Strange FATE's design goals in terms of custom-built skills. The goal is to make ARRPG a true pick-up-and-play RPG, in which on-the-fly character creation is the default.

So attune your crystals to the blog here, follow me on Twitter, and circle me on Google+ for updates. Excitement!

[Kerberos] The Royal Dinosaurs (and others)

2012-01-09T03:07:00.000-08:00

(Cross-posted on ArcDream.com.)

Well! It certainly took longer to follow up that last post than I'd intended. I can blame the holidays, right?

In any event, below is a sampling of dinosaurs that ought to cover nearly every dinosaur-related need for your Kerberos Club (FATE Edition) game. I've included a selection of what are, to me, archetypal dinosaurs. When I think "Dinosaur!" I think of these guys. However, with a little tweaking here and there, they can easily represent a much wider variety of dinosaur species (and/or kaiju, if you want to go that way).

I'm pretty accustomed to building skills in Strange FATE by now, but you know what made this even easier (and more fun) for me? Dustin Swede's totally amazing Custom Skill Generator. Go check that out, because it's awesome.

Anyway -- on to the dinosaurs!

Iguanodon (Adversary)
Biped:

Aspects:

Bulky Herbivore
Toothy Beak
Thick Scaly Hide
Ungainly Run

Skills:

Superb (+5): Brawn (E)
Great (+4): Prodigious Size (E)
Good: (+3): Beak and Claws (E), Alertness
Fair (+2): Powerful Legs

Unique Skills:

Prodigious Size (Resist Damage, Stress Capacity [Health], Resolve; Minor Snag: Resolve trapping only applies to obviously physical threats)
Beak and Claws (Strike)
Powerful Legs (Move)

Tier Benefits:

Weapon 1 [Health]
Armor 1 [Health]

Gifts:

Thumb Spike (Deadly x2: Weapon 2 [Health], Aspect: “Thumb Spike”)

Stress and Consequences:

Health OOO OOO (Armor 1)
Composure OOO

Quadruped:

Aspects:

Gigantic Herbivore
Toothy Beak
Thick Scaly Hide
Slow and Strong

Skills:

Superb (+5): Brawn (S)
Great (+4): Prodigious Size (S)
Good: (+3): Beak and Claws (E), Alertness

Unique Skills:

Prodigious Size (Resist Damage, Stress Capacity [Health], Resolve; Minor Snag: Resolve trapping only applies to obviously physical threats)
Beak and Claws (Strike)
Powerful Legs (Move)

Tier Benefits:

Weapon 2 [Health]
Armor 2 [Health]

Gifts:

Thumb Spike (Deadly x2: Weapon 2 [Health], Aspect: “Thumb Spike”)

Stress and Consequences:

Health OOO OOO (Armor 2)
Composure OOO
Trifling (P):

Notes: The paleontological record includes several species of Iguanodon, at least one of which, i. bernissartensis, was native to England, and discovered in the 19th century. The Royal Dinosaurs, many (if not all) of which were brought over from the Brazilian Empire, also include a few Iguanodons. Relatively speaking, it’s one of the more common species of dinosaur a Kerberan might encounter. Two different stats are given here, one for young bipedal Iguanodons, and one for adult quadrupeds. Despite being bipeds, young Iguanodons could only run about as fast as the average adult human, which makes that Fair (+2) Powerful Legs skill a bit of an exaggeration. And adults were even slower (note the lack of a rated skill for movement), albeit stronger and larger -- probably between 30 to 45 meters long, and weighing in at about 3.5 tons. The thumb spike is an interesting case. Odds are pretty good that Iguanodon used it for self-defense, which is why it gets weaponized here. Victorian reconstructions of the species, however, located the spike on the nose, so if you want a more period-authentic (though scientifically inaccurate) version of Iguanodon, feel free to change that Thumb Spike to a Nose Spike. As an herbivore, an Iguanodon won’t hunt down Londoners in the street, but the panic-driven property damage would likely be... significant.

Tyrannosaurus (Adversary)

Aspects:

Ravenous Thunder Lizard
Dagger-Like Teeth
Apex Predator
Terrifying Roar
Keen Eyesight

Skills:

Fantastic (+6): Thunder Lizard (S)
Superb (+5): Apex Predator (E)
Great (+4): Powerful Legs
Good (+3): Alertness

Unique Skills:

Thunder Lizard (Resist Damage, Stress Capacity [Health], Physical Force)
Apex Predator (Strike, Notice, Stress Capacity [Composure], Menace + Zone, Willpower; Major Snag: Willpower only applies against obviously physical threats, Major Snag: Armor [Composure] only applies against obviously physical sources of Composure stress)
Powerful Legs (Move)

Gifts:

Impact: Thunder Lizard

Tier Benefits:

Weapon 2 [Health]
Armor 2 [Health]
Armor 2 [Composure]

Stress and Consequences:

Health OOO OOO (Armor 2)
Composure OOO OOO (Armor 2)
Trifling (P):
Trifling (M):

Notes: What collection of dinosaurs would be complete without a T. Rex? These same stats can be used to represent any large theropod predator, including Giganotosaurus, Allosaurus, Megalosaurus, and Spinosaurus, without little (or no) variation. The Victorians thought Megalosaurus was a quadruped, so for a little period authenticity, downgrade Powerful Legs to Fair (+2) or below. Despite not being able to run faster than a human (an athletic one, anyway), T. Rex is obviously an attractive candidate species for the Royal Dinosaur Cavalry. If you like your T. Rexes (Rices?) a bit on the faster side -- say, able to keep pace with a horse or automotive -- simply up the Power tier on Powerful Legs from Mundane to Extraordinary. Everyone loves a good chase, right?

Triceratops (Adversary)

Aspects:

Sturdy Build
Deadly Horns
Protective Armor Frill
Crushing Jaws

Skills:

Superb (+5): Thunder Lizard (S)
Great (+4): Three-Horned Face (E)
Good (+3): Alertness
Fair (+2): Gallop (E)

Unique Skills:

Thunder Lizard (Resist Damage, Stress Capacity [Health], Physical Force)
Three-Horned Face (Strike, Parry)
Gallop (Move; Minor Snag: No free movement unless charging or chasing)

Gifts:

Head Frill (Protective x2: Armor 2 [Health], Rugged: +1 Health stress box, Deadly: Weapon 2 [Health]; Minor Snag: Armor only applies to attacks defended against with Three-Horned Face)
Theme: +1 to Three-Horned Face after moving at least 1 zone, Ignore penalties to movement from physical zone borders, Use Thunder Lizard instead of Resolve to defend against fear and intimidation

Tier Benefits:

Weapon 2 [Health]
Armor 2 [Health]
Move 1 zone for free when charging or chasing

Stress and Consequences:

Health OOO OOO O (Armor 2)
Composure OOO OOO (Armor 2)
Trifling (P):

Notes: And you can’t have T. Rex without Triceratops horridus. (I can't, anyway.) Nearly 30 feet long, 10 feet tall at the shoulder, and a hefty 13 tons, Triceratops is a living tank. Plus, it can run as fast as a racehorse (making it another excellent unit for the Royal Dinosaur Cavalry). The paleontological record indicates that those sweet-looking head horns and armored frill were probably used more for dominance displays than for combat, but it’s hard to imagine including Triceratops in a game without someone getting gored. With a slight alteration, this can also serve as a rhinoceros -- just rename Three-Horned Face and eliminate that Head Frill Gift, and you’re good to go.

Ornithomimus (Fair Minion)

Fair (+2): Physical (E)
Average (+1): Mental

Aspects:

Speedy Theropod
Desperate Sprint
Toothless Beak

Gifts:

Swift Legs (Well-Made: +1 Physical when covering ground, Well-Made: +1 Physical when rolling initiative, +1 Physical when dodging)

Fate Point Cost: 2

Notes: Ornithomimus (“bird mimic,” so named for its birdlike footprints) is a relatively small theropod, in that it’s the size of a horse. (Which might also make it suitable for riding....) Think of it like a big, prehistoric road runner.

Apatosaurus (Adversary)

Aspects:

Earth-Shaking Sauropod of the Jurassic
Long, Flexible Neck
Whip-Like Tail
Complication: Lumbering Beast

Skills:

Fantastic (+6): Thunder Lizard (A)
Superb (+5): Stampede (S)
Great (+4): Tail Whip
Good (+3): Alertness
Fair (+2): Powerful Legs

Unique Skills:

Thunder Lizard (Resist Damage, Stress Capacity [Health], Physical Force)
Stampede (Strike + Zone; Minor Snag: Must follow movement)
Tail Whip (Strike + Zone + Ranged [1 zone], Menace + Zone + Ranged [1 zone])
Powerful Legs (Move, Minor Complication: Lumbering Beast)

Tier Benefits:

Weapon 3 [Health]
Armor 3 [Health]
Remove one Trifling Physical consequence per scene

Gifts:

Impact: Stampede
Theme: +1 to Stampede when moving as a supplementary action, Ignore penalties to Powerful Legs from zone borders, Use Thunder Lizard instead of Resolve to defend against fear/intimidation

Stress and Consequences:

Health OOO OOO (Armor 3)
Composure OOO
Trifling (P):
Trifling (P):

Notes: You may know it as Brontosaurus, but its real name is Apatosaurus. (I know this because my toddler watches Dinosaur Train.) At an average length of 75 feet and weighing some 25 tons, it was one of the largest land animals known to Man. Amazingly -- to me, anyway -- young Apatosaurusi were able to stand up and run on their hind legs; you can easily reflect that mechanically by boosting Powerful Legs from Fair (+2) to Good (+3). These numbers are also good for any similarly sized sauropod, like Diplodicus and Brachiosaurus (or the even-huger Supersaurus). Computer simulations run by modern-day Renaissance man Nathan Myhrvold suggest that Apatosaurus could snap its tail like a whip to create a sound as loud as a cannon -- or, possibly, a sonic boom. Now, there’s some uncertainty about this in the scientific community, but cool trumps science here, so I say let’s use it. Like other large herbivores, the main danger a rampaging Apatosaurus would pose to Victorian London would be its sheer destructive size.

Plesiosaurus (Adversary)

Aspects:

Long Neck
Dagger-Like Teeth
Cunning Marine Predator
Powerful Flippers
Keen Eyesight

Skills:

Fantastic (+6): Gigantic Reptile (S)
Superb (+5): Marine Predator (E)
Great (+4): Powerful Flippers (E)
Good (+3): Alertness

Unique Skills:

Gigantic Reptile (Resist Damage, Stress Capacity [Health], Physical Force)
Marine Predator (Strike, Notice, Stress Capacity [Composure], Willpower; Major Snag: Willpower only applies against obviously physical threats, Major Snag: Armor [Composure] only applies against obviously physical sources of Composure stress)
Powerful Flippers (Move + Unusual: Swimming; Minor Snag: Only in water)

Gifts:

Impact: Powerful Flippers

Tier Benefits:

Weapon 2 [Health]
Armor 2 [Health]
Armor 2 [Composure]

Stress and Consequences:

Health OOO OOO (Armor 2)
Composure OOO OOO (Armor 2)
Trifling (P):
Trifling (M):

Notes: While Theropods like T. Rex are the apex predators of the land, marine carnivores like Plesiosaurus rule the ocean. The classic Plesiosaur has four flippers, a short body, no tail fin, and a long, flexible neck. The most likely place to find one of these creatures, of course, is just outside Inverness, Scotland, but no doubt the Atlanteans have some means of taming or controlling them. The prospect of a submarine armada of Atlantean-controlled Plesiosaurs ought to put the fear of God into any right-thinking Kerberan. Not all members of Plesiosaurae have that characteristic long neck, but if you really want to differentiate between Elasmosaurus and Pliosaurus, simply drop the “Long Neck” aspect, and you’re good to go.

Pteranodon (Fair Minion)

Fair (+2): Physical (E)
Average (+1): Mental

Aspects:

Sharp Beak
Power Dive!
Burst of Speed
Wide Wingspan

Gifts:

Theme: Skyborn Predator (Well-Made: +1 Physical with flight, Well-Made: +1 Physical with beak, Deadly x2: Weapon 2 [Health] with beak)

Fate Point Cost: 2

Notes: Technically, Pteranodon is a pterasaur, not a dinosaur. Whatever -- your players won’t have time to worry about that when one of these beasts is coming at them like an earth-bound rocket. Pteranodon (or, as the Victorians probably would’ve called it, Ornithochirus) is among the largest flying reptiles, with a wingspan of nearly 20 feet, but its North American cousin Quetzacoatlus dwarfs it at over twice that size, with a wingspan measuring more than 50 feet from tip to tip. On the ground, Pteranodon is a quadruped, and some speculate it could swim, as well. There’s a bit of controversy within the scientific community over just how Pteranodon was able to fly -- the general consensus is that it launched itself into the air with its forelimbs -- but the same can be said of no small number of Kerberans, so it should fit right in.

[Greyhawk] Weapons & Armor

2011-12-19T14:22:00.001-08:00

So from my last post, I wrote about looking for a way to address Weapons and Armor in a High Fantasy “old school gameworld” implementation of Fate.

It’s currently looking like this cut of Spirit of Greyhawk will leverage Strange Fate’s tiering, so I felt there was a need to leave the basic 4dF dice mechanic alone.

The other reason I want to leave 4dF intact was because I wanted to have the possibility of a -4 dice roll still be a real danger. Additionally, I wanted weapon damage to have a degree of randomness also.

So given that Spirit of Greyhawk is meant to be “old school” (in case the name didn’t make it clear), this seemed an interesting opportunity to make use of the old school dice (d4, d6, d8, d12, d20).

This means that for weapons that do more damage, use dice with higher maximums. You can also use the d6 and get a 1d2 or 1d3.

So I currently am working with the following progression:
(No bonus), d2, d3, d4, d6, d8, d12, and so on…

Next, you’d need to determine how much granularity you want in weapon damage. For example, DFRPG has 4 levels of weapon damage to cover everything from a pen-knife to dynamite. The Weapons Table in the PHB reflects 9 different combinations of damage dice, so 9 levels of weapon damage before you even got into things like explosives, dragon breath and ballista. I sided more closely with the Fate-y portion of the spectrum an currently have mundane melee and missile weapons using 5 levels of damage bonuses, from a Sling Bullet (no weapon bonus) up to the Halberd and Two-Handed Sword (1d6).

Example: A Fighter with Melee +2, wielding a Two-Handed Sword (1d6), would have the following range:

4dF (dice) + 1d6 (weapon) + 2 (skill) = range of -1 (minimum) to +12 (maximum), with an average of 6.

By setting the damage modifier as it’s own die which is visually separate from the Fudge dice, I think it becomes easier to distinguish between the hit and the damage, if you decide you want to do that.

Since most old-school d6’s use numbers on the die face instead of pips, you can separate Strange Fate tiering d6s from a SoG damage d6 by having the tiering use pips and damage armor use numbers.

Armor

Armor works in a consistent fashion to weapons, with the armor die increasing the defender’s shifts specific to receiving damage. The source material has 9 ranks of mundane armor, from Unarmored at AC 10, down to Plate Mail + Shield at AC 2.

Working from a subjective assumption that the best armor could conceivably negate the most damaging weapon (more from a game balance perspective than any basis in reality), that puts the highest mundane armor die as a d6. So then that means you’d have 4 ranks of armor bonus dice (d2, d3, d4, d6) to divide among 8 ranks of armor classes that are actual armor (AC 9 to AC 2). Rather than just have a die increase every two ranks, I prefer to reserve the best armor of AC 2 as being the only one at the d6. Your mileage may vary.

Example: Given the same fighter above, but with Plate Mail (no shield, due to the two handed sword), places her at AC 3. This means that in SoG she would roll an additional d4 for her defense rolls.

Statted out with the same assumptions in the original example, you would have the following range:

4dF (dice) + 1d4 (armor) + 2 (skill) = -1 (minimum) to +10 (maximum), with an average of 5.

Enchanted Weapons & Armor

SoG’s source material references basic magic improvements as a +1, +2, and so on. Rather than add just straight shift increases (+1 stress box for a +1 enchantment is too much bonus for this gameworld), I chose to just modify the die being used for the mundane (base) Weapon / Armor enhancement.

If you consider the weapon/armor damage-die progression as a ladder (something all Fate types should be familiar with), then the bonus would represent the number of shifts up the damage ladder.

This would mean that a weapon/armor ladder could look like this:

(...progressing on upwards...)
d12
d8
d6
d4
d3
d2
(No bonus die)

Example: A dagger has a base (mundane) damage of 1d2. A dagger +1 would instead roll 1d3 (one shift up the ladder from a 1d2) for the weapon bonus. A dagger +2 would instead roll two shifts up from a 1d2, and be a 1d4.

The other reason I don’t want to get into a lot of +1 / -1 manipulations, is that I don’t want to dilute the idea that the most valuable currency in the resolution process is a character’s skill, more than the magical bonuses. Skills are what allows for straight shifts (no die roll) in the min/max range range, and I believe that’s an important distinction that should be retained.

Also, by shifting the damage dice up and down, you also leave open the possibility for more powerful enchanted weapons to grant tiering-type bonuses in addition to shifts up the weapons ladder.

[Greyhawk] NaGa DeMon Post-Mortem

2011-12-09T13:58:00.000-08:00

Working on getting Spirit of Greyhawk ready in a state to complete the NaGa DeMon contest in the month of November more or less precluded any real posting in November. In the final analysis, I would have to say it was a great learning experience. While I’m not a professional writer like Mike, if you’re an amateur like me and you have hopes of someday getting a Fate implementation to a playable state, you owe it to yourself to find something like this contest to motivate you to make that extra push.

So, lessons learned:

You’re Doing it Wrong

I’ve said it in previous posts, but I discovered roadblocks will come up if a design wasn’t “right”. Of course the definition of “right” is subjective, but I believe you’re on the right track with a piece of design when roadblocks vanish and at the same time you get a burst of creative energy to push through other parts of design.

So when I got stuck, almost every time it was because what I was trying to do wasn’t “right”.

Example: Weapon and Armor damage modifiers. Quite a few variations were attempted within SoG...

No weapon damage modifiers (a la SotC RAW)
No weapon damage modifiers but weapon-specific maneuvers (the previous frontrunner)
“Standard Issue” positive or negative shifts associated with weapon/armor selections.
Different colored dice (see this post for white/blue/red dice having different potential for +1 shifts)

...and while there’s nothing wrong with any of those options in and of themselves, nothing was hitting the sweet-spot between crunchy enough for a Fantasy game in the world of Greyhawk, and still be streamlined enough for a Fate implementation.

Every time I looked at Weapons and Armor I would just sigh and wonder if it was “close enough”. Plus whenever I considered related design issues I kept running into the same-old question marks in addition to finding new ones: handling enchanted items with straight adds, other combat-related effects from enchantments (ye olde Vorpal sword effect) and so forth. In other words, it wasn’t “right”.

Necessity is the Mother of Translation

Before the contest, I would hit roadblocks and set them aside to fix at the generic designation of “later”. My thinking was that I could work around the roadblock and by the time I circled back to it, I would be able to have enough work done in other areas that the solution to the roadblock would become obvious (like playing “Minesweeper”). Prior to NaGa DeMon, I hadn’t come back to address my “later” list too often...

However once I had a serious deadline, I didn’t have time to set anything aside, especially an important part of the game. So I had to circle back around to any roadblocks I had pretty quickly.

This was when I realized the real danger of the “circling back around” method... Typically the design pieces you try to work on first are pretty important to the game. So if you wait too long to solve the roadblock in an important section of the game, you may find yourself painted into a corner by the time you get back around to the it. I still had to solve the original problem, and at the same time ended up having to rip out a lot of work that I had done while working around the roadblock.

Example: Continuing on from the above example, I was certain I needed damage variations for Spirit of Greyhawk, I couldn’t figure out how to do it within the constraints of the scale in which Greyhawk considered weapons.

Specifically the source material’s weapon listing showed something like 9 different variations in weapon damage, but the very high end of the damage scale (halberd, two-handed sword) would only result in what translated to a SINGLE box on the physical stress track (at best). Now of course skill and luck (and Aspects/Fate Points) are the main currencies of stress in Fate, so how do you add gradients of (perceived?) crunch into weapons and armor without blowing them out of proportion with how they work in the gameworld?

Additionally, everything I was trying didn’t seem to fit so well with the dice mechanic I was using for Wizardry (2dF+2). So far, playtesting has shown that people kept having to remind themselves which dice mechanic to use for which type of thing was being tried.

When In Doubt, Go Back to the Gameworld

Perhaps even more frustrating than the “I have no idea how to design this” type of roadblock, were those situations where I had too many choices. Specifically when I had made the decision to design a piece of the game in one way, only to discover that a very similar piece of the world had previously been designed in a different way. Leaving those differences in place wouldn’t work and would feel pretty arbitrary and patchwork.

Specificially, I hit plenty of design disconnects that had to be reconciled when I tried to stitch together portions of the game from which I only had “initial notes” that had been worked on at different times.

During the course of the month, I learned that the answer was almost always to be found by looking at how those different designs work within the gameworld. Specifically the design that feels most “right” is the one that supported player expectations of the gameworld and at the same time supports the Fate “fractal design theory”--which for me meant that if the design also got me excited for designing other areas of the game, it’s probably the “right” answer.

Example, cont.: Despite the fact that all my initial tests on different colored dice mechanics during NaGa DeMon appeared to be okay, but it didn’t really feel “right” and didn’t provide the excitement I hoped it would. Specifically my playtesting showed that it slowed down skill contests “just enough” that it didn’t feel Fate-like anymore. (Not a criticism on the concept of the mechanic, just reporting my results)

Additionally, while I felt I could statistically justify the entire removal of weapon damage (instead having the only weapon distinctions be focused on manuevers), that didn’t feel “right” either for a high fantasy campaign, what with all the tropes that center on weapons. To say nothing of what that decision might mean for magic weapon bonuses, etc...

So I went back to the gameworld and came away with the rather obvious assumption that if you had two fighters of the same skill and armor, the one with the better weapon had the upper hand.

This confirmed my feeling that weapons needed some degree of variation, but how to accomplish this without breaking the existing dice mechanics, and doesn’t slow down play pacing past counting up the dice you throw?

...To Be Continued?

Well, I did come up with the current “right” answer. I feel it’s “right” because this new (latest?) method for handling weapon damage also addresses (or plays nicely with)...

Enchanted weapon bonuses
Pointing to opportunities for different types of weapon damage other than “just” +1, +2, along with potential to deal with high-powered artifacts
Doesn’t appear to slow down combat resolution
Effects of armor and enchanted armor
Provides different grades of weapon damage (not 9 different ones, but still)
Doesn’t appear to blow up the current 1 stress = 10hp conversion scale
Gives players a sense of “ohhh, this is gonna be GOOOD” or “ohhhh, this is gonna be BAAAD” when the dice are picked up

So, anyone interested in hearing specifics?

[Anglerre] Gettin' Medieval

2011-12-06T15:18:00.001-08:00

So! Because I just listened to this Yog-Sothoth podcast recording of the Cubicle 7 panel from Dragonmeet and my name was mentioned, I figure I can go ahead and talk about this thing I'm working on.

It's a supplement for Legends of Anglerre focused on France in the early-ish Middle Ages, from the crowning of Charlemagne in 768 to the crowning of William the Conqueror (or "the Bastard," depending on your political affiliations) in 1066. There's a lot going on in those 300-ish years, and I don't know if I've ever seen an RPG product that's really tried to cover it.

We're going for a mostly historical version of France, but with mythical and otherwise supernatural elements included as easily integrated options. Magic will be handled as the people of the time would've understood it -- i.e., largely concerned with demons, and the consorting therewith. The alchemy fad hadn't really hit Europe yet, but contact with the East was pretty common, so we'll likely include some material on that, too. Of course, the LOA magic system makes this a pretty simple thing to do, so whatever your magic preferences, it probably won't take up much of the book (because it won't need to).

Some things you can expect to do with this material:

Fight off Saracens as Charlemagne's paladins
Investigate injustice as members of the missi dominici
Defend Paris from Vikings (or try, anyway)
Take up arms in one of many civil wars
Hunt down long-lost (or stolen!) relics
Battle the Tarasque
Betray Roland!
And much, much more which isn't so combat-oriented, honest

Anyway, I'm super-excited about it and neck-deep in research, which accounts for my long periods of silence on the ol' blog(s) here. That high-school French is really paying off!

[Kerberos] A Small Menagerie

2011-11-17T08:41:00.001-08:00

(Cross-posted on ArcDream.com.)

You may be aware of an incredible event that took place recently. If you were there, one day you will tell your grandchildren about it. If you weren't, you've no doubt heard about it by now. I'm speaking, of course, about the live Q&A chat-thingie Benjamin Baugh and I participated in last week on the RPG.net IRC channel. The topic, of course, was The Kerberos Club (FATE Edition).

(Incidentally, there's a sweet sale going on through December 15th -- $10 off on the print-and-PDF bundle, or, if you already own it, trade in your first printing for the second printing for only $10+s/h. Click on the link up there for more details.)

Going in, I'd fully expected to just sit back and watch the questions for Ben roll by, but to my surprise, I had to do a lot of typing. A lot of fast typing. Moderator Dan Davenport had a bunch of questions to keep me busy, and there were plenty flying at me from everyone else. So yeah -- good times. It's always gratifying to see other people's enthusiasm for the book.

One thing that came up was that people wanted to see some write-ups for animals. There's already a horse write-up in there (on page 98) -- something of a "hero" horse, complete with skills, stress tracks, and consequences. But unless you count Archibald Monroe, Kemnebi Meti, or the Pre-Human Horror, that's the only animal in there. And I don't know about you, but I have entirely too much respect for Dr. Archibald (and fear of the other two) to think that.

So here is the first of at least two posts of statted-out animals. Season to taste, as always.

Sewer Rat (Average Minion)
The bane of civilized society

Average (+1): Physical
Aspects:

Ravenous Vermin
Swarm! Swarm!
Swimming in Disease

Gifts:

Impact: Physical scope

Notes: Individually, of course, rats aren't a big deal. It's when there's a whole swarm of them that they pose a danger. Terrifyingly so, in fact. To reflect this, put more than five of them in a group. Their Impact Gift can give them a reliable advantage in combat. The consequences they deal should involve disease more often than not, although the specifics, of course, are up to the GM.

Wolf (Fair Minion)
Savage forest hunter

Fair (+2): Physical (E)
Average (+1): Mental
Aspects:

Pack Mentality
Dogged Pursuit
Keen Senses

Notes: Is it really so unreasonable to find wolves in London? Not werewolves, mind you -- just regular ones. Hyde Park is huge, for one thing. Who knows what's in there? And I saw a fox once by St. Paul's, so it seems likely enough to me.

Gorilla (Adversary)
Imported from the Dark Continent

Great (+4): Brawn (E)
Good (+3): Athletics (E), Intimidation
Fair (+2): Endurance (E), Alertness, Survival
Aspects:

Powerful Arms and Jaws
Daunting Displays of Dominance
Fearsome Teeth

Gifts:

Theme: +1 Survival in native environment, Use Intimidation instead of Resolve to defend against fear/intimidation, Use Brawn instead of Fists when fighting unarmed
Equipment: Teeth (Deadly x2: Weapon 2 [Health], Aspect: Ripping and Tearing)
Impact: Brawn

Tier Benefits

Weapon 1 [Health] (Weapon 3 [Health] with Teeth)
Armor 1 [Health]
Move 1 zone as a free action (run/leap/climb)

Stress and Consequences:

Health: OOO OO [Armor 1]
Mental: OOO

Notes: An adult silverback is going to be a challenge for a great many Strangers; the average Londoner, of course, doesn't stand much of a chance. You'll notice that the Equipment Gift has been used here to quantify something that's most definitely not mere Equipment -- the gorilla's teeth. Using Equipment like this is a good way to give your animals a little more fine-grain detail. If you want to get a little more Howardian about it, give it an aspect of "Albino Man-Eater."

Great Cat (Adversary)
Suitable for all manner of lions and tigers

Great (+4): King of the Jungle (E)
Good (+3): Alertness (E), Stealth
Fair (+2): Brawn (E), Endurance, Survival
Unique and Strange Skills:

King of the Jungle (Strike, Dodge, Move, Leap, Climb, Menace + Zone)

Aspects:

The Incomparable Grace of a Jungle Cat
Claw/Claw/Bite
Intimidating Roar
Majestic Beast

Gifts:

Theme: Use King of the Jungle instead of Resolve to defend against fear/intimidation, +1 Survival in native environment, +2 Stealth with maneuvers
Equipment: Teeth and Claws (Deadly: Weapon 1 [Health], Well-Made: +1 King of the Jungle with Strike)
Impact: King of the Jungle
Signature Aspect: Majestic Beast

Tier Benefits

Weapon 1 [Health] (Weapon 2 [Health] with Teeth and Claws)
Move 1 zone as a free action (run/leap)

Stress and Consequences:

Health OOO OO
Composure OOO

Notes: If you're a purist, you'll want to make some adjustments to differentiate between lions and tigers (tigers are generally larger and fiercer), but unless you're having a lion-vs.-tiger cage match, this write-up should do fine for either of them.

Anaconda (Fair Minion)
Sinister serpent of the Amazon

Fair (+2): Physical (E)
Average (+1): Mental
Aspects:

Huge Aquatic Snake
Tightening Coils
Strong as Steel Cable

Gifts:

Equipment: Constricting Coils (Deadly x1: Weapon 1 [Health], Well-Made: +1 Physical)

Notes: While this anaconda is a Minion, it's pretty easy to turn it into an Adversary if you want something more like a giant anaconda (which probably doesn't exist, but whatever). Keep the same aspects, use the gorilla's skill pyramid (I realize this sounds crazy, but it works) and Theme Gift, and give it a Minor Invulnerability to physical strength. This is a weird one, I know, and not how we usually use Invulnerability, but it means that whenever it has someone in its coils, its Brawn defense against that person's escape attempts is two Power Tiers higher. Because it is a giant anaconda.

Elephant (Adversary)
Asiatic or African, as you please

Superb (+5): Tough Hide (E)
Great (+4): Stampede (E)
Good (+3): Resolve, Alertness
Fair (+2): Brawn (S), Survival
Aspects:

Prehensile Trunk
Tough Hide
Ivory Tusks
Massive Size
Stampede!

Unique and Strange Skills:

Tough Hide (Resist Damage, Stress Capacity [Health])
Stampede (Move, Strike + Zone; Minor Snag: No free movement unless using also Stampede to attack in the same round)
Minor Invulnerability: Bludgeons

Gifts:

Equipment: Tusks (Deadly: Weapon 2 [Health], Alternate Use: Use Brawn instead of Fists for unarmed combat)
Theme: +2 Brawn with maneuvers, +1 Survival in native environment, Ignore penalties to movement from barriers/physical obstructions equal to or less than Great (+4) Stampede

Tier Benefits:

Weapon 2 [Health] (Weapon 4 [Health] with Tusks)
Armor 1 [Health]
Move 1 zone as a free action when attacking with Stampede

Stress and Consequences:

Health: OOO OO [Armor 1]
Composure: OOO O

Notes: If you have a rampaging elephant in the streets of London, you pretty much need a Kerberan if you want something done about it. (Preferably, not the Kerberan who was responsible for putting it there in the first place.) Its Theme Gift basically lets it charge wherever it wants without much regard for walls or anything else that might be in its way.

Next time: dinosaurs!

[Fantasy] Another Magic Idea

2011-11-12T23:19:00.001-08:00

Sometimes -- on a pretty regular basis, even -- a post will appear on RPG.net to the effect of "I'm interested in FATE, but is there a good, simple, easy magic system for it?" I'm not sure why FATE in particular seems to attract this kind of inquiry so often. Occasionally, someone will ask something similar about Savage Worlds, but rarely does it come up with regards to most other generic systems.

Sure as the changing of the seasons, one such thread popped up a couple days ago, prompting myself and others to chime in with the usual round of responses. Specifically, the poster, disturbingly named irate fetus, was looking for "preferably something along the lines of DnD levels/spells per day." Fair enough.

Many responded to the call, including me, because I'm a sucker for that (and because it was pretty easy to plug Guy's Spirit of Greyhawk stuff on this very blog, which goes after AD&D-style "levels/spells per day" as a point of design). Building on something TheUnshaven suggested, and with helpful advice from TheMouse, I came up with something that also incorporated some of my own long-neglected, half-formed ideas. I think it's worth exploring here on the blog.

Suppose there is a magic-oriented skill called, I dunno, Magic. What you can do with this skill is determined by a magic-related aspect you have, like "Druid" or "Fire Mage" or something.

Give yourself a second skill pyramid that peaks at your Magic skill rating. So if you have Good (+3) Magic, your pyramid's apex is Good (+3). This is your spell pyramid. It has one Good (+3) slot, two Fair (+2) slots, and three Average (+1) slots. So far, they're all blank.

Every time you cast a spell, you claim one of the spell pyramid's slots, and use its rating as a bonus to your roll, just as if it were a skill. When you're out of blank slots, you're out of spells to cast for the day.

You know a number of spells equal to your Magic skill rating. Again, if it's Good (+3), you know three spells. Write 'em down. They only have to be names, and you only have to have a general idea about what they do -- don't sweat the details. So if your magic aspect is "Fire Mage," for example, your spells might be Fireball, Wall of Fire, and Flaming Bolt.

When you cast a spell, pick one of your spells and say what it's doing. It can Attack, Defend, Maneuver, Assess, or Block -- the standard FATE stuff. Whatever it is, it has to make sense within the confines of your general idea of what the spell does. You'll have a hard time Assessing with Fireball, for example, but an easy time Blocking with Wall of Fire. However, if you want to Attack with Wall of Fire, go ahead. It makes sense, after all, seeing as how it's on fire. You just won't be able to Block with it as well.

(Could you work in two effects, like Attacking and Blocking? Probably, if you spend a Fate Point. That seems reasonable. Still has to make sense, though.)

If you manage to get more than one magic aspect, like "Pyromancy" and "Divination," you get to write down another batch of spells befitting the new aspect, which means more types of things to do with your spell pyramid. How do you get magic aspects? Maybe with a stunt. That also seems reasonable.

You might prefer to have multiple magic-related skills instead, like a Pyromancy skill and a Divination skill, with attached aspects. This is perfectly natural and nothing to be ashamed of. In that case, the spell pyramid's apex is equal to the highest magic skill you have, but the rating of the spell pyramid slot for a given spell can't exceed its related skill rating. So if you have Good (+3) Pyromancy and Average (+1) Divination, you can use any slot for Pyromancy, but only the Average (+1) slots for Divination.

There is still the question of how these spell slots work, in terms of their ratings. Is that the only bonus you add to your roll, or do you add it and your Magic (or Pyromancy or etc.) skill? The latter seems a little unbalanced, although if you have a different skill for each sphere of magic, it also seems kinda necessary. Otherwise, those skills are just taking up real estate in your skill pyramid, and that's no fun. With a singular Magic skill, though, that skill could be used as a sort of magical Academics -- knowing about magic, as opposed to applying it. I suppose the same could be done with more specialized skills, but you probably wouldn't get as much use out of them.

The last piece of the puzzle is how to clear those spell slots so they can be reused. There needs to be a way. Obviously, sleeping for the night should do it, especially if we're kinda trying to emulate D&D, but I also want you to be able to clear them on the fly, in the heat of the moment. My initial ideas for that bordered on punitive -- that's our me! -- but TheMouse quickly set me straight by mixing together two of them.

The more mathematically sound way seems to be that you can clear up a spell slot with a rank equal to or less than the number of shifts your sacrificed Consequences are worth, +2 for each fate point expenditure. So if you do a Minor (2) and a single fate point, you can clear out a spell slot worth up to +4.

That sounds pretty good.

So that's the gist of it. If I have a more concrete application for it at some point, I'll do more with it, but for now it's something for you to fold, spindle, or mutilate, as you will. Comments welcome, of course.

[Anglerre] Update on the Companion

2011-11-10T11:44:00.001-08:00

Hey hey, folks. A number of people have been asking me about the Anglerre Companion, and both of them wanted to know when it'd be available. So here's an update from Sarah Newton (by way of RPG.net) on that very issue:

The Legends of Anglerre Companion is in layout at the moment. I saw the first couple of chapters on Monday, and they were looking great. I'm hoping we'll be going to the printer in a couple of weeks; we *may* make before Christmas, but with the vagaries of publishing and shipping over the Christmas period, to be honest my guess is that we'll just be the other side, so very early January.

It's a bumper beast with a cracking Ralph Horsley cover and stuffed with all kinds of fantasy Fate goodness, new critters, scenarios, rules, maps, cities... Thanks for waiting for it - we hope you'll like what you see!

Bumper beast! Cracking! She is an English person.

So there you go. I'm really looking forward to it.

[Greyhawk] A Question of Granularity…

2011-11-07T15:36:00.001-08:00

NOTE: This is gonna be a bit unpolished, as NaGa DeMon is eating into the other 98% of my waking moments. (Day-job? What day-job? Family? What family?)

In my previous article of SoG magic and spell translation, I made the following statement…

“A single hit die is a D8, so technically each stress box counts as 2 hit dice. Which also means that the average hit points from 2HD would be about 9 or 10. Which would also place the average damage per missile at 4 points (3 + 1), which would then mean 2 missiles would be needed to do enough damage to take out 1 stress box. Rather than worry about the exact number of missiles in the description, I would rather just simplify to 1 missile equal 1 stress box.”

…so 10 hit points = 1 stress box. Which then leads to some interesting observations (at least to me it does)…

SotC characters would translate somewhere in the range of around 50 hit points.
In the source material, a magic weapon with a whompin’ +5 bonus counts as HALF of one stress box in SoG.
There are only 2 mundane weapons in the entire source material’s Weapon Table that could score enough damage to equal 1 physical stress box. This on the high-end of the dice roll spectrum, though it doesn’t include magic or strength-related bonuses.
All the other mundane weapons then fall into one of 8 “less damaging” categories.
I believe DFRPG has a maximum Weapons rating of 4 before you get into dropping anvils on people, which means that the most damaging hand-held weapon in the world of DFRPG could translate to the equivalent of 30 to 40 hp of damage per shot. (So Evil Hat wasn’t kidding when they said DFRPG combat is brutal and short!)

This poses some interesting design considerations for Spirit of Greyhawk…

It’s not the size of the weapon, it’s how you use it

Dealing with mundane weapons of the world of Greyhawk’s technology, this means Skills are the source of real damage when it comes to Melee combat, not the Weapon. This appeals to me for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which that it supports the assumption that a skilled combatant with a dagger is far more dangerous than a non-skilled combatant with a two-handed sword.

(Not that other things can’t be a crucial factor, but that’s what aspects are for)

Taking this to a logical conclusion, would it make sense to have SoG fall into line with Spirit of the Century and just NOT consider a weapon damage bonus? This is not to say weapons would be meaningless—the tactical advantages of picking the right weapon for the right engagement are still worthwhile. But given the level of granularity that SoG uses to translate the world of Greyhawk, it’s still pretty reasonable.

If you believe that a player’s expectations for play in SoG tends to require that weapon selection DOES need to make some sort of difference in damage, then I think that Mike’s recent posting about different colored dice and damage is a valid way to go.

Impact of Magic on Melee

Anyone who has played AD&D knows that accumulating your magic weapons and armor becomes pretty critical, pretty quickly. Which means that in SoG, enchanted gear would still be important, the real benefit to those enchantments is not “just” in the damage (remember, the actual damage of a +5 magic bonus is only half a stress box in SoG), but rather to allow someone to actually hit certain creatures who could not otherwise be damaged by mundane (or only minimally enchanted) weapons.

So again, it’s the TACTICAL advantage granted by the weapon, and then it comes down to a player’s skill in using it.

…and I think that’s sort of interesting.

[Greyhawk] NaGa DeMon = A Month of Late Nights

2011-11-01T09:51:00.000-07:00

So, Nathan Russell has created NaGa DeMon (National Gaming Design Month) the gaming version of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).
Basically NaGa DeMon comes down to this:

Create the game in November
Finish the game in November
Play the game in November
Blab about the experience

A few things have lined up the right way for me, so I’m going to use this opportunity and get serious about taking Spirit of Greyhawk from a series of sporadic posts into an actual useable rule set.
Now, the definition of “finish the game in November” might need to be clarified somewhat for SoG—probably closer to "Blue Book Boxed Set” than the full PHB/DMG/MM.
Wish me luck and a light workload on the day-job!

Revisiting Damage

2011-10-26T01:38:00.000-07:00

So a while ago -- almost two months ago -- Fred Hicks posted about his and Rob Donoghue's ideas on damage rolls in FATE. Lenny Balsera and Ryan Macklin chimed in in the comments with some interesting related ideas. Cool stuff all around.

A while back, in February of last year, I posted on the same topic, albeit from a different angle (in a post titled, appropriately enough, "Hey, Let's Overcomplicate Weapons!"). And now, prompted by Fred's post and long after the fact, I'm going to post about it again.

Part of Rob's idea involves using different-colored dice on the damage roll, with results (+, -, or 0) varying depending on each die's color. I dig that a lot, probably because, like a lot of people who own Fudge Dice, I own several colors' worth of Fudge Dice, and the prospect of making use of them -- beyond "Okay, the blue dice are mine" -- is attractive.

But I figure if I'm already going to be making use of different dice colors, there's no real reason to have a separate damage roll. Just take the 4dF I'm already rolling for my attack and swap in the right colors for the weapon I'm using. The total stress I deal is equal to the shifts I get on the attack roll, plus modifiers from those dice of mine.

Fred posits three degrees of weapons: Bruising (fists), Wounding (blunt weapons), and Killing (edged/stabbing weapons). Let's keep those distinctions. They're good distinctions, plus it's a group of three, and that's hard not to like.

If I'm attacking with a Bruising weapon, all of my dFs are White (WdF). Wounding weapons replace some or all of those White dice with Blue (BdF). Killing weapons replace some or all White or Blue dice with Red dice (RdF).

For example:

Fists: 4WdF
Brass Knuckles: 3WdF + 1BdF
Club: 2WdF + 2BdF
Knife: 2WdF + 1BdF + 1RdF
Sword: 1WdF + 1BdF + 2RdF
Pistol: 2BdF + 2RdF
Frickin' Big Explosion: 4RdF

Admittedly, this can get pretty complicated pretty quickly. An easier way to do it would be to replace WdFs with BdFs, then BdFs with RdFs. You're never rolling more than two colors of dice. But that's a refinement -- we're still just talking about the idea.

What do all of these colors mean?

White dice are just regular dice. They don't do anything special. FATE as we know it.
Each + rolled on a Blue die yields +1 stress.
Each + or 0 rolled on a Red die yields +1 stress.

You still have to hit with the attack, of course, and even hitting with a weapon that's rolling 4BdF or 4RdF isn't necessarily going to do any bonus stress. (Especially tough to pull off that trick with 4RdF, but theoretically possible.)

So I'm swingin' atcha with a sword and rolling 1WdF + 1BdF + 2RdF. I get 2 shifts on my roll. My Blue die is a zero, so no bonus there, but my Red dice come up 0 and +, so I'm doing another +2 stress on top of my shifts, for a total of 4 stress.

Seems to me like it'd work.

The corollary: Armor could work like this too, yes? If you're wearing armor, you replace some WdFs with BdFs or RdFs. You get the idea.

[Anglerre] Such A Deal!

2011-10-17T20:44:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the radio silence lately -- real-life and all that -- but I wanted to post here to let people know about this great deal on Legends of Anglerre over at Loot! Over-half off. Not bad. But it ends at 11:30 pm EST tomorrow (the 18th), so if you're interested I advise you to get while the getting's good.

[Greyhawk] Translating Spells into Fate

2011-09-28T16:31:00.001-07:00

In an earlier post, I laid out three possible approaches to translating the source material’s spells into the Fate mechanic. I had also stated that SoG would be closer to the “faithful recreation” end of the spectrum with respect to translating spells.

Specifically, spell layouts and the general expectations of what spells did were to stay consistent, while the properties and the implementation of those magical effects were what was translated into Fate mechanics.

Rather than just throw out translated spells, I’d rather share SoG’s translation guidelines and “teach a man to fish.”

Translating Time and Distances

The source material looks at distances and time differently depending upon where the party is located (PHB, p. 102). SoG will apply only one standard, based on “city” or “dungeon” environments.

Both “Time” and “Distance” could be posts by themselves, so the information here is limited only to what is necessary to translating spells.

Translating Time

The source material’s most granular unit of time is 6 seconds (1 Segment) and SoG will consider that the equivalent of a single Fate “exchange” (or Full Action). While I think that 6 seconds to cover only a single combat exchange is a bit long, it’s not bad enough to warrant trying to make a more complicated translation.

There’s also a translation challenge associated with the Time Ladder—it’s story-centric. In other words, each rung of the ladder does not reflect the same amount of time. I’m not going to cover the entire Time Ladder in this post, but here are guidelines dealing with the lower end of the ladder, where each line is another “rung.”

Source Material Casting	SoG Time Ladder	“Actual” Time in Game
Instant	Action (not full action)	Maybe 3 seconds or less
1 Segment	Full Action (1 Exchange)	6 seconds
2 Segments	2 Exchanges	12 seconds
3 Segments to 1 round	3 Exchanges	18 seconds to 1 minute
1 round to 1 turn	Full Conflict	1 - 10 minutes
1 turn to 2 turns	Entire Scene	10 - 20 minutes

(The ladder goes further than this, but again this is enough for translation purposes.)

Translating Distance

Distance is used when considering both Area of Effect and Range.

Fred Hicks posted a great guideline about how to adapt Fate to 4e D&D maps (1 map square = 5 feet of game distance) that serves as the basis for SoG distance assumptions (which use older AD&D scales). SoG works with both zones and maps, but here’s the bottom line for purposes of SoG spell translation:

Most source material dungeon maps scale at 1 map square = 10 feet of game distance.
The source material expresses distance for spells (within a dungeon) as 1 inch = 10 feet of game distance.
1 zone in SoG = 30 feet long & 30 feet wide, which is 3 map squares on each side.
When placing characters on a map (should your game choose to do that) the caster stands at the middle of a 3x3 square that represents the Fate “zone” currently occupied.

This means that melee attacks (range “Touch”) can only be executed on adjacent squares or a target occupying the same square as the caster.

Anything further than that requires either the caster to move or a Missile-type of attack. In other words, outside of the caster’s zone.

This means that in order for a spell to affect someone in the next zone, the spell must have a range of at least 2” (using the measure of distance as shown in the source material). In order to affect an entire zone of targets, the spell must have an Area of Effect of at least 3” square or radius (again, as shown in the source material).

Spell Components

Components in SoG represent requirements placed upon the spell caster in order to generate a spell’s effect. If one of those requirements cannot be met, the spell cannot be cast as Wizardry. Remember, trying to modify a formula on the fly turns the casting into sorcery.

Each category of component places a temporary aspect on the caster for the duration of the spell casting that could result in an additional difficulty.

These temporary aspects could be tagged by opponents seeking to attack the caster (while otherwise engaged) or to interrupt the spell. Relying on party members to provide blocks against such attempts would be important! It’s possible that they could even be compelled by the GM (see Material Components, below). Once the casting is completed, those aspects are no longer present.

As with other aspects, the frequency of compelling tends to be more according to dramatic opportunity rather than standard gaming procedure. For example, a GM would probably not compel a Wizard’s Material Component temporary aspect every time a spell is cast.

The source material states there are three categories of spell components, any or all of which could be required for the Wizard to cast a particular spell:

Verbal Components

The caster must speak certain magical words in order to cast the spell. SoG’s assumption is that the caster would likely have to speak at a normal tone or louder. This places a temporary aspect on the caster for the entire time the spell is being cast.

Example: A party is trying to hide from sentries, and the Wizard casts a spell with a Verbal component. The GM can then tag that aspect to give the sentries a +2 to Alertness.

Somatic Components

The caster must use certain gestures or movements in order to cast the spell. SoG’s assumption is that freedom of movement for both hands is required. This places a temporary aspect on the caster for the entire time the spell is being cast. Bear in mind that if the caster is forced to move during casting (for example, dives for cover), the Somatic Component is interrupted.

You could liken this to the experienced gunslinger stopping and standing still to reload his six-shooter, while an opponent's bullets are hitting all around him.

Example: A Wizard is being attacked while casting a spell with a Somatic component. For the duration of the casting the attacker could have access to the normal free tag of +2 to an attack, or pay Fate points after the free tag.

Material Components

The caster must expend certain magical reagents (Material Components) in order to cast the spell. The caster must be able to access these components during the casting, and this places a temporary aspect on the caster for the entire time the spell is being cast.

Rather than worry about specific material components, consider the collective rarity of the material components relative to the situation.

Currently SoG only uses three categories:

Common materials are something that would be readily available to the Wizard under normal circumstances.
- Examples: Dirt, grease, chalk
Rare materials require effort on the part of the Wizard to obtain or require some sort of processing to manufacture/distill/etc.
- Examples: Crystal, sulfur, mercury
Very Rare materials reflect something beyond the ability of most Wizards to create for themselves, or require an extreme effort to obtain.
- Examples: Hair from the target, a True Name, gems of 10,000 gp value

This also serves as a guide as to how often this aspect might be compelled:

Example: If a Wizard has the aspect of “Impoverished”, and is attempting to cast a spell with “Very Rare” components, the GM could compel the Impoverished aspect and essentially block the casting by declaring the Wizard does not have the resources available to have those components at the time (and credit the Wizard a Fate Point).

Rarity also helps to determine the impact to the spell difficulty if a casting is attempted without their use:

Common material components will give a -1 decrease to difficulty if not available.
Rare material components will give a -2 decrease to difficulty if not available.
Very Rare material components will give a -3 decrease to difficulty if not available.

It's possible material components could venture in to the "Unique" realm for a greater decrease, but I would consider these sorts of things as high level treasure, seeking them out as the focus of one or more adventures.

The GM is ultimate arbiter for determining the relative benefit / rarity of components, but this post I wrote about treasure might be of use.

Translating Positive Shifts

Many spells have a variable (damage, duration, etc.). The measure of this variable will be dependent upon the number of positive shifts generated from casting the spell. Some spells have no variables based upon the roll of the dice. In that event, any positive shifts during casting are discarded.

Translating Effects

Obviously this is something of a case-by-case basis, but the general effect translation process for SoG goes something like this:

Translate the spell effect into “reality”. In other words, assume the spell exists in the World of Greyhawk, and try to get something resembling a real-world understanding of it.
From there, translate it into the Fate mechanic, keeping in mind the typical 2 levels (or 2 HD) equal an extra +1 on the Fate ladder.

I have found this process helps to keep the “feel” of the spell right.

Spell Translation Examples

Spell “Tenser’s Floating Disc”

Source Material Original

Level: 1
Range: 2"
Duration: 3 turns + I turn/level
Area of Effect: Special
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: I segment
Saving Throw: None

Explanation/Description: With this spell, the caster creates the circular plane of null-gravity known as Tenser's Floating Disc after the famed wizard of that appellation (whose ability to locate treasure and his greed to recover every copper found ore was well known). The disc is concave, 3' in diameter, and holds 1,000 g.p. weight per level of the magic-user casting the spell. The disc floats at approximately 3' above the ground at all times and remains level likewise. It maintains a constant interval of 6' between itself and the magic-user if unbidden. It will otherwise move within its range, as well as along with him at a rate of 6", at the command of the magic-user. If the spell caster moves beyond range, or if the spell duration expires, the floating disc winks out of existence and whatever it was supporting is precipitated to the surface beneath it. The material component of the spell is a drop of mercury.

SoG Translation

Skill: +1 Difficulty
Range: 20 feet (2 squares)
Duration: 30 mins + (20 mins * Skill level)
Area of Effect: See below
Components: V, S, M (Rare: drop of mercury)
Casting Time: Action (3 seconds or less)
Opposed by: n/a

Effect: Create a magical construct in the shape of a concave disc 3' in diameter that holds an amount of weight that can be expressed as either:

2,000 gp x Caster’s Skill Level
200 lbs x Caster’s Skill Level
Might Skill of -1 (Poor) + (Caster’s Skill Level * 2)

All three represent the same weight, just expressed by 3 different standards.

It maintains a constant 6 foot distance (adjacent map square) to the caster unless otherwise stated by the caster's command, but the disc itself cannot push anything out of the way. It will remain at 3 feet off the ground, and stays level. If it is blocked from the caster and more than 20 feet (2 map squares) is put between them, the spell is broken.

If the spell is broken or expires, the disc construct dissipates and what ever was being carried by the disc falls as normal.

No positive shifts are considered for this spell, and unless in combat or otherwise challenged during casting, there is not a need to roll dice to cast this spell.

Example: Someone with a Wizard Skill +2, casts this spell and creates a floating disc that will last for 70 minutes (30 + (20 x 2)), and can carry 400 lbs (200 x 2) or has a Might of +3 (-1 + (2 x 2))

Example: Using Wizard Skill +7, this spell would create a floating disc that will last for 170 minutes (30 + (20 x 7)), and can carry 1,400 lbs (200 x 7) or has a Might of +13 (-1 + (7 x 2)). Or 14,000 gp, if there was a way to stack the gold pieces on the 3' diameter disc!

Design Notes:

One definition of weight (DMG, p.225) is that 10 gp = 1 pound. That means 1,000 gp = 100 lbs. The SotC Weight Factor table (SotC, p.258) reflects that a Might skill of "Poor" (-1) means being able to hold and move (slowly) with 100 lbs, which is the “base” capacity of the disc.
The variable in this spell is based upon the skill level of the Wizard, which then is used for both the "strength" of the spell's effect, as well as for the duration. Unless otherwise stated, when looking at a factor of "(something) per level" you don't just consider the Wizard's skill level, but rather the net result of the Wizard's skill level, the dice roll, and the impact of any aspects or other casting modifiers.
For this particular spell, any positive shifts during this casting are discarded. For game play purposes, unless someone was trying to interrupt the wizard this casting wouldn't require a dice roll.
Also remember that when dealing with a "per level" factor, every +1 of Wizard skill counts as two experience levels in the source material.

Spell “Magic Missile”

Source Material Original

Level: 1
Components: V, S
Range: 6" + 1"/level
Duration: Special
Saving Throw: None
Area of Effect: One or more creatures in a 10 square foot area
Casting Time: 1 segment

Explanation/Description: Use of the magic missile spell creates one or more magical missiles which dart forth from the magic-user's fingertip and unerringly strike their target. Each missile does 2 to 5 hit points (d4+1) of damage. If the magic-user has multiple missile capability, he or she can have them strike a single target creature or several creatures, as desired.

For each level of experience of the magic-user, the range of his or her magic missile extends 1" beyond the 6" base range. For every 2 positive shifts levels of experience, the magic-user gains an additional missile, i.e. 2 at 3rd level, 3 at 5th level, 4 at 7th level, etc.

SoG Translation

Skill: +1 Difficulty
Range: 60 feet + 20 feet / skill level
Components: Verbal, Somatic
Duration: Special
Area of Effect: One or more creatures in a 10 foot square area (1 map square)
Casting Time: Action (3 seconds or less)
Opposed by: n/a

Effect: The spell creates a magical missile (with an additional missile for every two positive shifts generated by the caster--in other words you divide by two and round down) which dart forth from the caster's fingertips and unerringly strike their target with no chance for the target to dodge or defend. Mundane armor does not count for protection.

The caster can determine at will how many missiles will strike each target within the 10' area of effect.

Each individual missile counts as +1 physical stress. Because each missile counts as a separate attack, when multiple missiles are aimed at a single target, the cumulative “rollup” effect can be devastating.

Example: Trevare (Wizardry +5) is duelling against a sorceror. He casts Magic Missile in the hopes of getting in the first blow. The Wizard rolls 2dF+2 and gets +2 for a result of +6 (+5 skill + 2 shifts - 1 difficulty = +6). This creates 4 missiles (1 + (6/2) = 4) that streak toward the unfortunate rival.

Unable to dodge and having no other defenses already in place, the sorceror receives 4 separate missiles each of 1 stress, wiping out the first 4 physical stress boxes.

Example: The wizard Morgeaux (Wizardry +3) is beset by a group of 3 foul bugbears. An earlier fireball by Morgeaux has left many of them damaged, and she knows that even a simple spell might finish them off. Casting Magic Missile, she rolls 2dF+2 and gets a result of 1. This means she has generated (3 skill + 1 shifts - 1 difficulty) 3 positive shifts, for a total of two missiles (1 + (3/2)). Margeaux chooses to aim one missile at two of the three bugbears and deals one physical stress to each, leaving her to deal with a single remaining bugbear rushing her…

Design Notes

A single hit die is a D8, so technically each stress box counts as 2 hit dice. Which also means that the average hit points from 2HD would be about 9 or 10. Which would also place the average damage per missile at 4 points (3 + 1), which would then mean 2 missiles would be needed to do enough damage to take out 1 stress box. Rather than worry about the exact number of missiles in the description, I would rather just simplify to 1 missile equal 1 stress box.
Because the variability in the original spell (the dice roll) was about the damage and in translation the damage roll was too granular for Fate, the variability in the spell has now changed to be a modifier to the number of missiles. This was how the shifts-to-missiles formula was created.
I believe there needed to be a variable, given that this is a combat spell. The idea of a combat spell having no variable power of any kind seemed inappropriate.
This is a rare combat spell in that it has no opportunity for target to oppose the spell (no Dodge, etc). The casting could be interrupted, if someone has saved their action.
Later versions of this spell required line-of-sight to the target / targets, but this original listing did not. So the implication here is that the Wizard just has to “know” the target is there (around the corner, invisible, behind cover, etc). This might need review for game balance.

[Kerberos] Conviction Aspects

2011-09-27T01:45:00.000-07:00

(Crossposted on ArcDream.com.)

When I think about the original Wild Talents version of The Kerberos Club, I tend to think of Benjamin Baugh's fantastic treatment of the setting. This is probably because it is, as I may have mentioned, fantastic. But over and above that, it's important to remember that Ben also introduced some cool new mechanics for WT, not the least of which is Convictions.

In WT, Convictions make a character's beliefs, goals, and the like mechanically significant. Every Conviction has a numerical rating. When you act in accordance with a Conviction, especially if doing so puts you at some sort of disadvantage, you earn Willpower equal to the Conviction's value. And if you defy a Conviction, even by accident, you lose a like amount of Willpower.

Any of this sound familiar, FATE fans?

So obviously, for the FATE conversion, Convictions had to be aspects. I mean, they were practically aspects to begin with. But they had to be "bigger" aspects than all the others, seeing as how they represent what's nearest and dearest to the character's heart. All Convictions are aspects, but not all aspects are Convictions.

Fortunately, an easy way to handle this is already implied in standard FATE rules, if not outright stated in some implementations. Compels on Conviction aspects start at two Fate Points instead of one. The aspect is a bigger deal for the character, so the incentive to go along with it is greater too. Likewise, refusing a compel on a Conviction aspect costs just as much. And the GM can escalate to three Fate Points from there, if it comes to that.

Needless to say, I'm a firm believer in making players pay for refusing compels. For me, if refusing doesn't come with a cost, the whole Fate Point economy suffers for it. Conviction aspects illustrate that perfectly. In the fiction, a character should follow his convictions more often than not. And when they don't, it should be a difficult decision. The beauty part of the whole pay-to-refuse thing is that the mechanics nicely reflect the fiction: The character doesn't want to violate her most firmly held beliefs, and the player doesn't want to part with two or three Fate Points if at all possible.

There are some differences between how WT's Convictions and FATE's Conviction aspects shake out in play. The most notable, though, and certainly the most emblematic of the differences between the two systems, may be one mentioned above. The fact that a Conviction can cost you Willpower if it's violated even by accident -- like if you have a Conviction against killing and then happen to roll, say, 7x10 on an attack -- is something that just doesn't happen in FATE. Something similar crops up when comparing the WT Unrest mechanic, which determines unfavorable public reaction to Strangeness with a dice roll, and Strange FATE's Collateral consequences, which does the same through a conscious choice on behalf of the players. But that's another topic for another time.

[Greyhawk] The Unified Theory of Magic (Part 3) - Clerical Magic

2011-09-16T09:26:00.000-07:00

Clerical Magic Effects Overview

A continuing concern while working through the SoG Magic system was how clerics fit into the mechanic. While the source material treats clerical prayers and magic-user spells as being practically identical with respect to mechanics, the underlying principles by which magic-users and clerics generate magical effects are very different.

The source material states that clerics don’t actually harness magical forces. Clerics pray to their deity (singular/plural/whatever) with the desire for a particular prayer’s magical effect to occur. The deity’s power structure (for lack of a better term) then determines whether or not the cleric’s prayer will be fulfilled or not and then entities within the cleric’s faith system actually generate the magical effects on behalf of the cleric.

So to apply another metaphor (a prior post mentioned Wizardry and Sorcery were like sailing), clerical magic could be considered like “calling in an airstrike”.

To flesh out the metaphor, a cleric’s Faith (the Resolve skill, see below) is the communicator upon which an airstrike is called. Remember that classic line from the character Rene Belloq in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”?

“It's a transmitter, a radio for speaking to God!”

..and we all remember what happens when you try to use that particular radio without Faith…

But anyway, the cleric’s specific prayer / spell would be the effect requested and the “casting” is the act of calling in the airstrike.

When calling in that accurate airstrike, the cleric would need to provide fairly specific information given the “right way” to the correct party “on the other end of the line”, so the prayer (spell) has some pretty specific requirements. This also assumes that the cleric is also “the right person to call in the desired effect”.

Despite these distinctions, to keep terminology consistent, SoG still considers magical effects generated by a cleric’s prayer as “spells” and the cleric as being the caster.

Skill “Resolve (Faith trapping)”

The basic skill of the cleric to cast spells is the cleric’s Resolve skill expressed with the trapping of “Faith”.

The cleric’s Resolve skill represents the maximum spell difficulty the cleric can cast. A Resolve skill of +3 means that only spells of +3 difficulty (3rd level) and below can be completed.

What About the Magic Stunt?

Because the cleric is not actually generating the magical effect, there is no requirement for a cleric to have the Magic stunt. There are upsides and downsides to this:

Clerics have no concerns about magical recoil.
The reliance on their deity’s power structure to generate magical effects does tend to mean that things like the cleric’s Faith, and Aspects that affect that faith (in both the positive and the negative) become especially important to the cleric’s ability to create miracles.
There is no currently no opportunity for the cleric to modify any spells or otherwise generate effects on the fly without some story-related mechanism being involved. A cleric’s spell must be followed “rote” or it just doesn’t work.

SIDE NOTE: While the above is SoG’s current general position, I have wondered about the situation where a clerical spell requiring a cleric’s holy symbol as a component of that spell--should the GM consider that the spell is not possible without the symbol, or just less effective (with chances of possible failure)?
Not allowing the spell places it closer to source material canon (I think), but further distances clerical spell use from magical spell use in SoG. Specifically in that a Wizard can modify the spell requirements and then deal with the potential for things like spell failure, magical recoil and a generally less effective result.
On the other hand, allowing the spell but making it harder (less effective) means that you have to deal with idea that a clerical spell could fail (due to 4dF and increased difficulty) but wouldn’t result in magical recoil, which taken in combination with no requirement for the Magic stunt might present balance issues.

There is no restriction against a Cleric character possessing the Magic stunt, but there would be no benefit with respect to the clerical spells that are cast. That cleric COULD however generate magical effects by themselves the same as any other sorcerous effort (see prior post for more). In fact certain faiths might actually promote their clerics being magic-users or even Wizards in their own right (Boccob seems like a good possibility) to say nothing of the whole split-class/multi-class situation. However any sort of sorcery or wizardry done by clerics would follow normal magic use rules.

Mechanics of Clerical Casting

The actual game mechanics of a cleric’s casting are similar to Wizardry:

The cleric commits a Fate point (doesn’t spend it) that will be returned at the end of the current scene.
Player rolls 2dF+2 and applies the result to the cleric’s Resolve skill and applies it against the desired spell’s difficulty. Remember that the spell must be less than or equal to the cleric’s Resolve skill.
Aspects are compelled or tagged as normal.
If the cleric succeeds in the casting, any positive shifts count towards the effectiveness of the spell.
- Side Note: Positive shifts generated with respect to the cleric’s player doing the dice rolling might be questioned, since the cleric is not generating the actual magical effect. The source material allows for the variability and sets the expectation so it is being left in SoG. This “bonus” could be explained within the game by considering that appropriate Aspects being tagged could have resulted in the deity granting extra spell power, variability in the entity actually casting the spell on behalf of the cleric, etc.

Aspects and Clerical Spells

Compelling or tagging an aspect when praying for a magical effect would reflect the situation where the deity’s power structure might grant a more (or less) effective result based upon the Aspect.

Example of Negative Aspects for Clerics

A cleric with the aspect of something like “A Shadow of Doubt”, or “Lawful Questionable” might be compelled to deal with a –2 effect due to possible impacts to alignment or faith.

Example of Positive Aspects for Clerics

Aspects of “Smite the Wicked!” or “A Friend in Deed” could easily be tagged to increase a spell’s effectiveness.

Casting Failure & Clerics

Because Clerics don’t actually harness the magical forces of the spell, there is generally no magical recoil associated with a casting failure by clerics.

Like Wizardry, if for some reason the cleric fails a spell casting, then the general rule is nothing happens other than the loss of the spell.

While it’s possible that some sort of faith-related recoil might be possible in certain situations…

A cleric of one faith profaning another faith’s holy areas/symbols/etc.
A Lawful Good cleric trying to cast “Cause Wounds” instead of “Cure Wounds” a little TOO often.

…I think that would reflect more of a “smiting” attitude, as opposed to an actual prayer / spell going wrong. Any stress taken due to something like this would have to be considered carefully by the cleric, as negative Aspects that might arise from matters of faith could get pretty nasty.

Druids and Clerical Spellcasting

With respect to Druids, at this point SoG maintains the source material’s assumption that they are a sub-class of clerics and generate magical effects in a similar manner, but their faith is not so much a deity but rather in “Nature”. Additionally the source material provides them with a different spell list than other clerics.

More playtesting will be needed to determine if that needs to be more closely considered.

What’s In the Pipeline

Okay, that’s quite a lot of information this week. Unless things take a different turn, the next series of posts will be something along the lines of:

The on-the-fly “Magic Economy”
Translating existing spell lists
The Fate system and Magical Topics (Sorcerous Covens, anyone?)
Crafting Magic Items

If anyone’s got a preference as to which gets posted next, I’d be curious to hear.

[Greyhawk] The Unified Theory of Magic (Part 2)

2011-09-14T13:05:00.000-07:00

Continuing on from the prior posting…

Generating a Magical Effect

A magical effect may be generated by someone or something either “on the fly” or via a predefined spell (formula, recipe, etc).

On the Fly Magic Effects

On the Fly magical effects occur when the sorceror states the intention to generate a desired magical effect. The player and the GM then determine the difficulty of the spell by costing out the magical effect using a “magic economy” by defining the benefits (increase difficulty) and costs (decrease difficulty).

The caster compares the skill level used with the Magic stunt against the effect’s difficulty, spends a Fate point and then rolls 4dF as per normal.

If successful, the effect is generated as desired by the caster. Positive shifts count towards a greater effect as per normal.
If the caster fails the difficulty, then the magical effect does not occur as desired and bad things happen (see “Casting Failure” below).

Side Note: This is a significant departure from the source material in that there were only predefined spells and that the caster never failed to successfully cast the spell. However that same spell could fail to fully or partially affect the target (due to saving throws). Also a predefined spell’s casting could generally be interrupted with little if any negative impact to the caster (beyond the loss of the spell).

A conceit of SoG is that casting failure and negative effects were always present in the game world but as long as a Wizard followed a pre-defined spell that was within the proscribed limits of his Wizardry skill level, there were sufficient fail-safes built into the spells to prevent any sort of negative impact to the caster or those around them and there was no failure to cast the spell.

Spells might fail to have the desired effect on targets, but that was due to some property of the target, not because the spell “failed”.

Even if the spell was interrupted during the casting there was no generally negative impact (past the loss of the spell).

Another design assumption was that if casting failure was possible but never mentioned, then it must be pretty bad… (mwa-ha-ha)

Predefined Spells

This is the situation where someone uses the Wizardry skill to cast a pre-defined spell, following the spell’s recipe (adhering to the restrictions) in order to generate the magical effect.

The Wizard then commits a Fate point (doesn’t spend it), rolls 2dF+2 (not 4dF) and determines if there were any positive shifts.

The 2dF+2 roll produces a result between 0 and +4, so unless there is some outside factor (aspects, some sort of attempted interruption) increasing the spell difficulty, there would be no chance for spell failure (consistent with the source material).

The benefits of the Fate point commit and the 2dF+2 are only in force so long as the following occurs:

The difficulty of the spell is LESS THAN OR EQUAL to the caster’s Wizardry skill.
The caster can fulfill all the requirements of the spell (components, etc.).

If these cannot be met, than the caster may still attempt the pre-defined spell, but must now actually spend a Fate point, and roll 4dF instead, risking a casting failure.

Question: Why be a Wizard?

In reading this material without looking at the actual spell table, it might appear that Wizards are so restricted with the magical effects they can generate why would anyone be a Wizard when they can do Sorcery?

It is true that in SoG the magical effects of pre-defined spells are less flexible than the option to generate magic on the fly, however pre-defined spells typically have effects that are quite often more powerful than what could be generated on the fly.

I consider that this exists in the game world due to the heavily researched and optimized nature of pre-defined spells that have been around for decades if not centuries.

Example: Compare a magical effect that makes a continual light. In the source material, the predefined spell that generates a permanent magical light is a 2nd level spell for Magic-Users, so it’s only a +2 difficulty for Wizards in SoG.

Using the SoG magic economy to create such an effect on the fly would require a duration that maxes out the Fate Time Ladder (“A Lifetime”) and would require an additional 12 shifts (+12 difficulty!) when attempted by a Sorceror.

My plan is to translate pre-defined spells into SoG pretty closely to how the source material originally listed them. So if a spell says says “Duration: Permanent” at 2nd level… then it’s permanent!

So even though the variety of effects a Wizard might be capable of generating would be much less flexible than Sorcerors, a Wizard who kept his wits about him and was smart about the use of Declarations and Aspects could be EXTREMELY powerful within the “less flexible” nature of pre-defined spells. Consider also: a screwdriver is “only” a screwdriver but how many ways can you use a screwdriver?

On top of all that, Sorcery has the added negative of casting failures!

Additionally, there’s nothing saying that a Wizard can’t indulge in sorcery anyway if desired or the situation was dire enough. The Wizard would just apply his Wizardry skill against the adjusted spell difficulty, expend a Fate point and roll 4dF and hope for no failure.

NOTE FOR FUTURE:
A Wizard modifying an existing spell (eg., deciding not to speak on a spell that has a verbal component) takes the existing predefined difficulty and increases it (in this case +1), loses a Fate point and rolls 4dF and risks potential recoil.

A Sorceror attempting the same effect on the fly would still have to cost out the magical effect which could end up still being more difficult than the Wizard trying to modify a tried-and-true formula that did the same thing.

This is another distinction between Wizardry and Sorcery that might need reconsidering, but given the following…

A Soceror can leverage an apex skill (for example, Craft/Performance skill for Bards) for both his chosen path in life AND generating Magic effects with no more “cost” than the use of a Stunt slot.

…it doesn't seem overly generous at this point to give a Wizard the benefit of indulging in modifications to existing formulas without having to consider the difficulty in the same way as "on the fly" magical effects.

Casting Failures

If the casting results in a failure then no effect generated--at least not under the control of the caster. But there is a magical recoil to contend with!

The magical power that was harnessed or focused in the attempt to create the effect has to go "somewhere". So the base magical recoil would be the effect’s original difficulty, increased by the number of shifts by which the caster failed the roll.

Example: If a Sorceror attempts a +4 spell difficulty and fails by +1, a Superb (+5) magical recoil is generated.

Example 2: If a Sorceror’s apprentice (I couldn’t resist) with a +1 Skill attempted to cast a magical effect of +5 difficulty and then rolled –4 on the dice, then he would end up with a (+5 – 1 +4 = +8) magical recoil! This would also tend to indicate why you would keep a close eye on apprentices… Or why sorcerors tend to live alone…

Dealing with Magical Recoil

I like the roleplaying potential inherent in allowing the caster to determine if the recoil impacts only them or if they reflect some or all of it out into the world.

With respect to the impact upon a Sorceror’s alignment, projecting magical recoil into the world represents something of a chaotic, or evil, or selfish act. The caster electing to take the stress of magical recoil represents more of a lawful, or good or selfless act.

In SoG, magical recoil of any kind is assigned to the stress track of the GM's choosing and is usually based upon the nature of the casting or the desired effect, or what sorts (if any) Aspects were leveraged during the casting.

Which also brings up an interesting thought…

While a compel could occur during a casting to make a casting difficulty higher, could it be used after the failure to make it worse? I think I like the possibilities…

Example: A Sorceror generated a +2 recoil that was projected out into the world, and the GM decided to have it be expressed as physical stress (heat) on a party member wearing metal armor that had some Aspect attached to it--could you compel a +2 increase on that party member for a total of +4 physical stress? (*evil laugh*)

Wizardry and Casting Failure

Under normal circumstances a Wizard cannot fail to cast a spell equal or less than his difficulty, though it is possible to increase the difficulty of a casting via Aspects being compelled, or some party attempting to interrupt the Wizard.

If the Wizard is considered to be “casting a spell” and is successfully interrupted (i.e., fails the difficulty), there is no magical recoil and no negative impact, beyond the loss of the memorized spell (or the loss of the scroll being read).

SoG's assumption is that Wizard spells’ are considered to have integrated various fail-safes so that if a spell was interrupted, the focused energy would be safely dispersed.

Side Note: It is possible to consider that it’s not the spell that has the fail-safes within it, but rather that the Wizard possesses the skill and knowledge of how to safely disperse the energies.
Problem with this assumption is that you might need to state that non-wizards using scrolls could experience casting failure, which was not in the source material.

NEXT: Clerical Magic and the Tragic Case of Rene Belloq…

[Greyhawk] The Unified Theory of Magic (Part 1)

2011-09-13T11:15:00.000-07:00

So yeah, it's been a while (okay a long while) since there was a Spirit of Greyhawk (SoG) posting. In the meantime, I had been doing a lot of thinking about High Fantasy Magic and have managed to re-work things into a more coherent single system of Magic that still retained a lot of the things I liked from the previous iterations.

Magic Overview

How Magic Exists in Spirit of Greyhawk

Magic exists as a "force of nature", like magnetism or wind. But while people may understand the principles of Magic, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are able to generate magical effects. Conversely, someone may have the ability to generate magical effects but have no knowledge of the underlying principles that they are using.

Generating magical effects in SoG could be compared to being able to make a sailboat go where you want it go. You need a sailboat and you need wind. You also need a degree of knowledge to be able to use the sailboat to harness the wind to get where you want to do.

Depending upon where you’d want to go (or how big a sailboat you use), you need different degrees of knowledge: consider the difference in knowledge and type of ship needed to sail across the ocean versus sailing across a lake.

Why Care “How” Magic Works Within the Game World

Besides being an interesting thought exercise, I believe that you need to provide players an internally consistent framework for understanding something about what they are doing. Without that framework, I think you make Magic less “useable” or less fun especially with respect to harnessing Aspects. Similar to dealing with combat: a player who has actual knowledge of fighting can be much more effective in his use of Aspects (or have a more rewarding play experience) than someone using the same character who has no first-hand knowledge of combat.

SoG elaborates somewhat on the source materials’ implication that magical effects are not made “just” by casting the spells as listed in the source material. So the SoG implementation makes a clear distinction between actually casting spells and generating magical effects.

The distinction is this:

Casting spells is but one way of generating magical effects.
Magical effects can be generated by other means than just casting spells.

Requirements for Generating Magical Effects

Elaborating on the sailing metaphor above, this means that in order to generate magical effects (not necessarily casting spells), there must exist all of the following:

Magic must exist as a force within the game world that is harnessed in order to generate magical effects (the “Wind”)
Having the Magic stunt to harness the world’s Magical forces (the “sailboat”)
A Skill tied to the Magic stunt (the knowledge of how to use and steer the ship)

Required: Stunt “Magic”

Within a High Fantasy environment (or this one at least), anyone with the Magic stunt can create magical effects.

Like many other stunts, Magic is tied to a skill. The caster can determine what skill is used to generate magical effects. That connection is typically established when the stunt is acquired and the connection is generally permanent unless circumstances within the game call for a possible change. The particular skill that is tied to the Magic stunt would then play a big part in the “trappings” of the magic effects.

Here’s some examples:

Bards generating magic effects might have Magic tied to their Craft/Performance skill.
Rangers generating magical effects might have Magic tied to their Survival skill.
Monks generating magic effects might have Magic tied to their Discipline skill.

Aspects are tagged or compelled as normal in the course of generating magical effects.

Like other powerful stunts, every invocation of the Magic stunt requires the allocation of a Fate Point. I use the term “allocation” because SoG contains an important distinction between casting spells and generating a magical effect on the fly:

Generating an “on the fly” magical effect requires the expenditure of a Fate point. The point is expended and the caster doesn’t get this Fate point back.
Casting a predefined spell requires only the commitment of a Fate point. The distinction here is that the caster gets the Fate point back at the end of the scene (similar to stress). More on this distinction later.

Optional: Skill “Wizardry”

This skill represents the study, research and understanding of the underlying principles of Magic. Attaching the Magic stunt to the Wizardry Skill is what establishes someone as a Wizard and allows them to use (cast) predefined spells. Using any other skill with the Magic stunt constitutes Sorcery.

Think of Wizards as “ivory tower scientists” of magic, whereas Sorcerors are typically closer to garage tinkerers. This is not to say Sorcerors are not effective, but they can be just as dangerous to themselves and their allies as well as their enemies. Often the term “sorcery” can have a negative connotation, at least among Wizards.

Someone could elect to learn the Wizardry skill without having the stunt, but would not be able to actually cast spells or otherwise generate magical effects. This would be more like a Magic researcher, rather than a Wizard.

While this distinction between wizardry and sorcery was not laid out in the source material, I like it for a number of reasons:

Enables players who want to leverage the more flexible nature of Fate mechanic with respect to magic, but still leave the “predefined” nature of source material intact.
Distinguishes Wizards from other types of people that generate magic effects (more on this later).
The source material appears (to me at least) to contain assumptions that the use of actual spells within the world was a relatively rare currency but yet almost every class of character at varying levels of achievement could either cast spells or generate magical effects (to say nothing of the frequency of crafted magical items appearing within the game).
This seemed a nice way to reconcile that assumption and leave intact a player’s assumptions for what their characters would be able to achieve.

It is possible that someone could elect to learn the Wizardry Skill without the stunt, but would not be able to cast spells or generate magical effects. This would be more like a Magic researcher instead of a Wizard.

NEXT: How to generate magical effects and the heartbreak of magical failure.

Gateway 2011 Wrap-Up: FATE Edition

2011-09-12T14:21:00.000-07:00

(I'll be doing a non-FATE version of this over on Roll Some Dice!)

This year's Gateway was pretty great, take it all around, but light on the FATE, at least for me. One Seth Halbeisen ran a couple, including a high-concept-sounding game called "Bataan Smurf March." And I'm kicking myself that I missed Morgan Ellis's two '90s tribute games, one for Torg and one for Shadowrun. But it was just too jam-packed a con for me to play everything I would've wanted to. So the only FATE game I managed to squeeze in was Colin Jessup's Bulldogs! game Sunday night.

I was a backer for Bulldogs!'s Kickstarter campaign, so I was eager to see it in action. Overall, it's "mainstream" FATE. If you're familiar with SotC or DFRPG, you're pretty fmiliar with Bulldogs! There are a few notable tweaks that caught my eye right away. There's only one stress track, for one thing, which I like, but both Endurance and Resolve add boxes to it, which... I'm not sure what I think about that. On the other hand, character aspects have categories, like Homeworld and Job, which I like.

Colin's one of my favorite GMs, and the other players at the table -- Andrew Linstrom, Vernon Lingley, Josh Roby, and Will Huggins -- were likewise of the highest caliber. And yet, for reasons mostly unrelated to any of that, and certainly unrelated to anything specific to Bulldogs!, it didn't completely, y'know, work. Which was weird, because I'm pretty accustomed to Colin's games not just working, but kicking a significant amount of ass. The issue was that the scenario pretty much mandated that at least a few of the PCs were put in direct conflict with one another, and FATE doesn't handle that sort of thing all that well.

For example, I played a Saldrallan who'd been a decorated commando until he was drummed out of the service. He had aspects like "Empire First" and "I'm in charge!" This last aspect in particular put me in pretty direct conflict with everyone else in the crew, who maybe didn't have anything against me personally, but weren't really down with anyone claiming authority over them. Will was a bitter Templar, Josh was an ornery Hacragorkan, Vernon (decided he) was an HK-47-style biological-life-form-hating robot... not exactly a willing crew of subordinates.

Putting pressure on all this was a McGuffin in our cargo hold -- something ridiculously valuable and desired by the entire galaxy. Colin told us to give ourselves an aspect about what we'd do with the proceeds from selling the McGuffin, or what we'd do with the McGuffin itself. It was that latter option that really nutured the seeds of conflict. Me, I wanted to give it to the Saldrallan Empire and return to a place of prominence in the military. I already had, like, two aspects pointing that direction, and gave myself a third because it seemed to make sense.

Basically, I'm not sure I ever had a civil conversation with another PC, which meant I was almost always on the losing end of something. You know that aphorism about poker, where if you look around the table and don't know who the sucker is, it's you? Yeah. Something like that.

My Saldrallan was a big intimidating snake-thing who could riddle you with holes with his mag rifle, but Josh's Hacragorkan was muder incarnate in melee, so attempting to assert my authority over her in a face-to-face conversation was pretty much going to be the death of me. And Josh knew this, which was kind of a bummer for both of us, because it meant that she could quite easily negate my character's shtick of wanting to be "in charge." I kept pushing that conflict, though, because it was more straightforward than trying to outmaneuver Andrew's telepath or Vernon's ship-taking-over homicidal robot. I knew I'd lose in the end, both because of the character and player I was pitted against, but I was willing to take one for the team for the sake of drama.

Anyway. I don't want it to sound like I didn't have fun, because I did. But we all walked away from it kinda unhappy with the basic set-up and an ending that wasn't entirely satisfying.

The game, though, is a cool implementation of FATE, so... go get it and/or play it.

[Kerberos] Skill Trapping Diagram

2011-09-08T23:43:00.000-07:00

(Crossposted from ArcDream.com.)

Making skills from scratch using individual trappings as building-blocks was central to Strange FATE from the beginning, and, by extension, The Kerberos Club (FATE Edition). The process by which those trappings would be put together, though, went through some pretty significant changes.

From the top, I took my cues from Spirit of the Century and Dresden Files. Specifically, I liked the niche protection inherent in the separation of certain skills. Fists and Might, for example. The fact that they're not the same skill (as they essentially are in many other games) implicitly asks the question "Do you want to be Fighty Guy or Strong Guy?"

Sure, Fighty Guy and Strong Guy are probably going to have a lot in common just out of sheer logic. But this isn't about logic -- or rather, it isn't about "physical" logic. It's about narrative logic. In terms of narrative, it's more interesting to have one guy who's great at fighting and another guy who's great at being strong.

Initially, this mean that in Strange FATE, some trappings just couldn't go together in the same skill. You couldn't have one skill that measured both your physical strength (Physical Force) and your facility with punching guys in the face (Strike). Physical Force and Strike were Prohibited trappings! Oil and water! The very idea of pairing them made kittens cry.

As early as the first character-building playtest I oversaw, when Morgan Ellis tried to make a perfectly viable and cool character (one, incidentally, who both of us used in our GenCon scenarios), it became clear that this Prohibited trappings nonsense was just that: nonsense. It was getting in the way of a plausible character instead of facilitating it. Morgan literally shook his fist in frustration, Monarch-style.

So I weakened the Prohibited thing so that instead of it being impossible to pair them, it just made doing so prohibitively expensive. But I didn't much like that, either.

Soon enough, I dropped that bit altogether. Instead, nearly every trapping had a list, some quite long, of Restricted trappings that doubled the trapping's cost if they shared the same skill. This persisted throughout the end of playtesting. I wasn't happy with it for a number of reasons -- the math, the multiple charts, the small print, the page-flipping -- but I couldn't think of a better way to mix trappings while maintaining a sense that some were more compatible than others.

A month or two afterward, I'm embarrassed to say, I was watching the Science Channel one night. Whatever the show was about (not robots or punkin-chunkin', apparently), part of it involved a big diagram of a molecule. You know the kind: black and white and red circles connected by lines in a sort-of linear pattern. For whatever reason, something clicked, and I said aloud "That's how trappings and skills should work." A diagram of trappings connected by lines, with trappings grouped in terms of how much they have in common! The greater the distance between two trappings, the more expensive it is!

Then I realized I'd seen this before in the form of the Quade Diagram from Robin Laws' excellent Mutant City Blues. But this wasn't discouraging -- on the contrary. It was proof that the thing I wanted to do would work. MCB does something a bit different (and very, very cool) with its diagram of super powers, but the basic idea was close enough that I knew I was on the right track.

It's pretty simple, really. Start with a trapping you want the skill to have. If it has a thin solid border, it costs one point; if it has a thick dashed border, it costs two points. Then follow the pathways from that trapping to another one you want for the same skill. Thin solid pathways cost one point, thick dashed pathways cost two, and thick solid pathways are free. You can skip trappings (and not pay for them) but not pathways.

Here's an example:

Leap and Move are pretty closely related -- if you can do one, odds are good you can do the other. It's no guarantee, though; if you want to be the Incredible Frogman, your ability to jump will probably be unrelated to your ability to walk. Move and Dodge are another story, though. If you can walk or run, you can walk or run out of the way; the thick-lined connection between is an indicator of that. However, Dodge is a valuable combat-related trapping, because it lets you use the skill to defend against all kinds of physical combat, assuming you aren't tied down or something. Thus, it costs two points to buy for a skill.

(Yes, the cost is the same to buy both Leap and Move as it is to buy both Move and Dodge, but Dodge has the two-point border because you might not come to Dodge from Move, nor go from Dodge to Move. One's ability to avoid any attack of which one is aware can be flavored a million different ways in a supers game.)

The diagram solved every problem I had with the way I'd been doing skills. It's graphic and intuitive, plus everything fits on one page. The less page-flipping during chargen, the better.

[Kerberos] Power Tiers

2011-08-27T12:56:00.000-07:00

If you followed the development of the FATE supers hack on this blog that eventually found its way into The Kerberos Club (FATE Edition) (hereinafter KFC, for "Kerberos FATE Conversion"), you'll already be familiar with much of how Strange FATE, the version of FATE used in KFC, came to be. However, if you're new to the blog, perhaps because you recently purchased KFC and found your way here somehow, or if you just want more information on what makes Strange FATE different from its esteemed predecessors, this series of posts (crossposted with the Arc Dream site) should be highly informative.

I'm going to start with one of the system's most dramatic additions to the FATE Toolbox: Power Tiers.

In brief, Power Tiers are a way to make super-strong, super-fast, or super-whatever characters in FATE without resorting to super-big numbers. Generally speaking, skill bonuses above +6 or +7 don't sit right with me. Part of what I don't like is that it means the dice matter less and less, but part of it's also because all we really care about with skill bonuses is the margin between yours and mine. I mean, Fair (+2) vs. Good (+3) is really no different than Epic (+7) vs. Legendary (+8) -- they're both one point apart, so all that matters is that one guy's skill rating is one higher than the other guy's, but they're still adding +7 and +8 to their rolls. The upshot is that they end up with big numbers when small numbers would do equally well.

I don't like that.

Personally, I cap the skill pyramid (or tower, or whatever) at Great (+4). I like the symmetry there with four Fudge Dice, which also top out at +4.

So what Power Tiers do is let you keep skill ratings low while still accounting for wildly different levels of ability. There are five Tiers in total, from Mundane on up to Godlike. Mundane Tier skills are just regular FATE -- characters in Spirit of the Century or Legends of Anglerre all have Mundane Tier skills, by this method. It's the realm of real-world human effort. Every Tier higher than Mundane means a proportionately higher increase in effectiveness over what ordinary humans can do.

Note that I said "effectiveness" there, and not "ability." Mundane Tier skills can cover abilities that ordinary humans don't have, like flight or telepathy laser-beam eyes. It just means that your Mundane Tier flight won't let you travel any faster than a human could run (although it will let you fly over obstacles). Likewise, Mundane Tier telepathy will get you the same level of information as a simple Empathy roll (although you probably won't have to engage in conversation to get it). If those laser beams you're shooting from your eyes are a Mundane Tier attack, they're no more dangerous than a fist or a sword or a gun (which is to say they're still pretty dangerous in FATE terms). We're talking degrees of effectiveness.

When two characters face each other using skills in different Power Tiers, the one with the higher-Tier skill replaces one Fudge Die with 1d6 for each degree of difference. The one with the lower-Tier skill always rolls 4dF.

So if I'm using a Mundane Tier skill against your Extraordinary Tier skill (that's one degree of difference), I'll roll 4dF and you'll roll 3dF+1d6. If you're two Tiers higher than me, you'll roll 2dF+2d6, and I'll still roll 4dF. And yes, if you're using a Godlike Tier skill against me, and I'm still using a Mundane Tier skill, you'll roll 4d6 and I'll roll -- as always -- 4dF. But if both our skills are in the same Tier, whether that's Mundane or Extraordinary or Godlike, we'll both roll 4dF, like normal. We're on even footing, whether we're smashing faces or smashing mountains.

A difference of a single Tier is definitely going to favor whoever's on top, but it's hardly a guarantee. The range of dice results changes from -4 to +4 to -2 to +9 -- a big leap on the high end, certainly, but a less likely result than +4 on 4dF. Besides, if I had a nickel for every time I've seen someone roll -2 on 3dF+1d6, I could buy a sandwich (and not a little one, either). Once you're two or more Tiers higher than your opponent, though, it's almost always a blowout. As it should be, if you ask me.

The "almost" is key, though. Even if my skill is Mundane and yours is Godlike, there's still a chance I'll roll +4 and you'll roll +4. Not much of one, but it's there. I like that.

Back when the beginnings of the Power Tier idea first started coming to me, it was basically a binary system. Is your Tier higher than your opponent's? Then you win. You're only rolling dice to add something to the narrative. The Hulk will always be stronger than Captain America, Cap will always be stronger than Mockingbird, and Mockingbird will always be stronger than Jarvis. Boom, done. But, as was pointed out and soon became obvious, there's the matter of what came to be known as Iron Man's Resolve, or the Defense Dilemma. Should Iron Man really always lose a mental battle against a psychic opponent? Is that fun? The answer to both questions was "No."

The concept, though, was sound. I'd already been using a die-replacement mechanic in other genre hacks, but powered by a second player resource pool (variously called Chi, Will, Elan, etc., according to the genre), so it was a relatively short leap to adapt it.

And it's been working great. Even if they're already familiar with FATE, nearly all the players in the games I run at conventions have been new to Strange FATE, and nobody's had a real problem picking it up. It's been called "crazily intuitive" by one of them, which seems like a pretty solid endorsement. From a player-satisfaction perspective, I love seeing the gleam in a player's eye when they realize they get to swap out a Fudge Die or two for some sweet, sweet d6s. The power of Power Tiers!

[Kerberos] Errata

2011-08-16T21:35:00.000-07:00

Hey, so here's a thing I never wanted to have to write on the Internet.

There's a good chunk of errata for The Kerberos Club: FATE Edition. Like... a good chunk. It's almost all small calculation errors that change the cost of Unique or Strange skills as statted up in the book -- sometimes by a point or two, sometimes by five points or more. So we're working on getting a complete list together. The PDF will be updated. The second printing will have the corrections.

For those of you who bought the book at GenCon, Shane's in the midst of working something out so you can get the second printing at a discount.

Honestly, like, 90% of the corrections are just crossing out a skill's cost and writing in a new number. That's it. So that's something of a consolation. An even bigger consolation is that the errata don't interfere with the actual gameplay at all. The problem isn't in the rules -- it's in the examples. Somehow a bunch of calculation errors (by me) made it through the whole proofreading process (and me) and ended up in the book. But no joke, fixing them is as easy as going from this:

Wolf Form (15)

to this:

Wolf Form (14)

This whole thing is extremely embarrassing to me for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that I normally pride myself on catching this stuff. I'm not really sure what went wrong. But you have my apologies, those of you who paid good money for the book (especially a hard copy). We'll make it right.

[Kerberos] Now Available!

2011-08-11T09:34:00.000-07:00

A number of readers have written to me about The Kerberos Club: FATE Edition, and both of them have asked me, "When will I be able to buy The Kerberos Club: FATE Edition?"

Well, good news, friends: It's available now as a print-and-PDF bundle from Arc Dream or as an all-by-itself PDF from RPGNow. For the price indicated on those websites, you get Benjamin Baugh's complete and completely awesome ENnie-winning Kerberos Club setting, plus a complete FATE ruleset suitable for playing a Kerberos Club game or whatever else you can think of to do with it, plus it's a FATE book that's under 400 pages.

To quote a three-year-old Tim and Eric commercial, "It's a perfect three-disc set!" Except, like, without discs. Or the number three.

[Kerberos] FATE Kerberos... on MTV Geek?

2011-08-09T15:45:00.000-07:00

Yeah, it's just a fairly brief mention in an interview with Shane Ivey and Benjamin Baugh about Arc Dream, but they do have a shot of the cover, which I think means I can say I've been mentioned -- sort of -- on MTV Geek.

First we covered their newest release. Making its premiere at GenCon, The Kerberos Club: FATE edition is just that. Originally designed to be used with Greg Stolze's One Roll Engine (ORE), The Kerberos Club has seen two additional versions – one for Savage Worlds and the most recent of which is FATE. FATE is a dynamic narrative system that uses evocative catch phrases called Aspects that players “tag” during play to generate dramatic story twists and otherwise bring the awesome. This is the same base system used in Evil Hat's award-winning Dresden Files RPG and Spirit of the Century.

MTV, if you'd let me know in advance, I would've made time in my busy con schedule to make myself available for an interview! Ah well. Maybe next year.

Or tomorrow. I'm available tomorrow.

[Kerberos] GenCon Kerberos Kraziness

2011-08-07T08:03:00.000-07:00

In the immortal words of Morgan Ellis, "So!"

It's been a good GenCon for FATE Kerberos, I must say. The two games I ran were good and great, respectively, and when my GM was a no-show on Friday, I got to play in a scenario run by Andy Blanchard, which was cool -- I don't get to actually play FATE Kerberos all that often, and I got to play my favorite character of the ones we made together, so bonus.

Meanwhile, over on RPG.net, TheMouse and Killer GM have stepped up to answer questions about (and explain) the system in my necessary absence. They've been doing a great job, but even better is that they've been doing that job at all. It's just really gratifying to see someone else breaking FATE Kerberos down, explaining the quirks of Strange FATE, and clearing up any confusion. Thanks guys!

Plus, the Arc Dream booth had a big banner-like poster of The Kerberos Club: FATE Edition cover. I've never had my name on a poster before, so that was pretty cool.

However, I am exhausted, but I guess that's the way of these things. Absolutely worth it.

[Kerberos] KFC Quickstart

2011-08-01T11:19:00.000-07:00

Another neat little tidbit on the Kerberos front: A free FATE Kerberos quickstart will (should) be available at GenCon, so come by the Arc Dream booth and get one, if you're going to be there. If you're not going to be there, it'll be available online in the usual places. The quickstart includes an expurgated timeline of Victoria's Century, four cool Kerberan PCs (whom I'd never seen prior to this past weekend), and some helpful notes to explain some of the special rules variants that make FATE Kerberos tick. If you're eager to get a glimpse of what The Kerberos Club: FATE Edition has to offer, this is a good opportunity.

EDIT: And now I'm perusing the finished PDF of the quickstart, and it looks great. Shane made a form-fillable PDF character sheet, too, which is sweet. I've never seen FATE Kerberos characters look so... official.

[Kerberos] Mark Your Calendars!

2011-07-30T13:18:00.000-07:00

As revealed here, The Kerberos Club: FATE Edition will definitely make its debut at GenCon on Friday, August 5th. Check out this sweet cover:

Admittedly, this looks a lot like the cover to the Wild Talents edition, but with an important difference:

I think it'll be a while before I get over the novelty of seeing my name on the cover of a book.

And dig that crazy old-timey FATE logo! I love it.

If you're going to be at GenCon, come on by the Arc Dream booth and say hi. If I'm not there, might I suggest buying this book?

Good FATE Things in the Works

2011-07-26T23:01:00.000-07:00

First, FATE Core is happening, and Leonard Balsera is writing it. This is good news. I can't wait for this product to be released. I think it's what a lot of us have been wanting in a FATE product ever since SotC first came out.

Second, and more important to yours truly, FATE Kerberos is getting a final going-over by a small army of generous playtester-proofreaders for whom I am truly grateful. Thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen, for upping the odds that we'll see physical copies at GenCon. Cross all the things you normally cross when you're trying to be lucky, because it may come down to that.

The book is looking fantastic, I must say, thanks to layout artist Jessica Hopkins and Arc Dream commander Shane Ivey. They've both really given it their all on this book, so if you like the way it looks, thank them!

[Kerberos] Editing and Layout

2011-07-14T10:46:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note here: I'm currently dividing my attention between making sure my son doesn't walk headlong into the bookshelf while blinded by my hat (again) and going over a laid-out version of The Kerberos Club (FATE Edition). No doubt the latter is of more interest to you.

It's pretty great to see it laid-out like this. I mean, it's not done by any means -- there are still a bunch of little fixes and adjustments to make here and there before I can sign off on it -- but still. Satisfying. More news on this story as it develops.

[Anglerre] ENnie Nominations!

2011-07-08T11:51:00.000-07:00

Forgive me for repeating myself across multiple social-media platforms, but: Legends of Anglerre is up for two ENnie Awards in the Best Game and Best Rules categories! And honorably mentioned for Product of the Year! Pretty cool. It's an honor merely to be mentioned.

Of course, our competition is, y'know, Dresden Files and Happy Birthday, Robot! and the D&D Rules Compendium and other such heavy-hitters, so that's pretty bleak if you're into "winning" things, but it's great to see so many cool games and products getting the recognition they deserve. We'll see how things shake out mere weeks from now! Excitement!

[Kerberos] ETA and Possible Future Developments

2011-07-05T03:24:00.000-07:00

Two tidbits of note dropped by Shane Ivey in this thread on RPG.net:

Arc Dream's planning to release FATE Kerberos at GenCon, but it's not 100%. (Shane uses the words "hope" and "not sure" in describing this plan, so... grain of salt.)
If FATE Kerberos does well, Arc Dream's open to doing FATE conversions for other Wild Talents settings, like This Favored Land. This would be very cool.

So keep your fingers crossed for FATE Kerberos at GenCon, and if you see it for sale there, buy several copies of it.

Luke Martinez and The FATE of the Galaxy

2011-07-03T19:44:00.000-07:00

As a self-described 1337 FATE hAXx0R, I always appreciate a good FATE hack. And who doesn't love Star Wars? Certainly I am not a person who does not love Star Wars! So I'm happy to direct your attention to a fine Star Wars FATE hack by Luke Martinez called The FATE of the Galaxy. Not only is is pretty extensive -- 154 pages! -- but it also has a skill called Chicanery, and how many games have that? Not many, let me tell you. So that scores bonus points with me.

Anyway, Luke is clearly strong in the Star Wars, and this is a good straight-up, "mainline FATE" take on that venerable intellectual property. Skill pyramid, stress-reducing consequences, phased character creation, a mostly standard line-up of skills... if you discovered FATE via Spirit of the Century or the Dresden Files RPG, it'll feel very familiar.

As an oft-repeated aside, my first contact with Spirit of the Century was a Star Wars hack about five years ago (I think -- 2006 or 2007) run by Colin Jessup, who crammed a very entertaining Clone Wars-era game down our throats as only Colin can do. Since then, though I've played and run FATE a whole bunch, I can count the number of SotC-as-written experiences on one hand. That first game really drove home just how flexible FATE could be and got me hooked. Hopefully The FATE of the Galaxy's combo of FATE and Star Wars will have that same effect on others.

FATE Triangle

2011-06-10T18:52:00.000-07:00

So RPG.net user Gullerbutry, known in real life as David S. Goodwin, has created a pretty nifty randomizer using only Fudge Dice -- notoriously not especially well-suited to random tables. It's called the FATE Triangle, and you can find a form-fillable PDF of it here.

It works like this: Normally, when you roll Fudge Dice, you're only concerned with the total, from -4 to +4. What makes the Triangle work is that it cares about the actual results of those dice, not their total. So 0000 is not the same as ++--, and 00-- is a different result than +---. This gives you 15 possible results and a bell curve with more variation than what Fudge Dice normally deliver.

I'll let Mr. Goodwin explain it a little more:

I've had two insights into this table concept since I wrote it up.

The first is that the main difference between it and a regular 2-dimensional range of results (from -4 to +4) is that it opens up the middle of the bell curve. That is, on a normal 4dF, you roll a 0 about a quarter of the time (or something like that). On this table, you expand that single result into three results (0000, 00+-, and ++--). Which is handy, and adds variation, even though it only actually adds 6 new results (15 total, instead of 9).

The other interesting thing about this tale is that it's actually an equilateral triangle - the three corners being ++++, ----, and 0000. I didn't realize that at first because of how I laid it out, and because FATE trains us to ignore blank side of the die - but it means we've got a chart with three different axis. There are probably a lot of triads you could use that would give you a neat table: crown, church, and guild; social, mental, and physical; heaven, hell, and mundane...

Here's an example he did to illustrate how he intends to use it:

You get the idea. Like I said, nifty.

But it doesn't stop there. In that same RPG.net thread, he shows how you can use this to establish elements of a character's background, intra-party relationships, or the politics of a setting. It's a campaign-in-a-box, basically. It's also awesome.

As I said in that thread, if you combine this with the Random Adventure Generator in the Legends of Anglerre Companion, you can throw a pretty cool game together in no time. Which is probably exactly what I'll do when the Companion comes out, if not sooner.

Or match it up with Diaspora's cluster creation and figure out some more stuff with those clusters. Really, the possibilities are fairly limitless. Thanks, David S. Goodwin!

(My enthusiasm for random tables is in an especially high gear these days; I just bought the original three Traveller LBBs at DiceHouse the other day, and I've rolled up a dozen or so characters since then, many of whom survived the character generation process.)

PS: Sorry about the weird formatting on this post. It's Blogspot's fault.

[Kerberos] Kerberans! Come Out And Play!

2011-06-06T20:01:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to say I'll be running a FATE Kerberos scenario, "The Pyramids of Atlantis," on June 26th at DiceHouse in Fullerton, CA. It's part of a Dead Gamers Society game day; they do one every few months, and even though the DGS is ostensibly a World of Darkness-oriented Meetup, all kinds of games get run at these things. Last time I played in a Dogs in the Vineyard game, f'rinstance.

As it happens, the scenario I'm running there is also the one I'm running at GenCon in August. Here's the blurb:

When unexpected violence shatters the secret peace between the British Empire and the Atlantean Nations, Her Majesty the Queen covertly sees to it that a number of Strange operatives from the Kerberos Club join Her Naval expedition to "investigate." But after two weeks of deep-sea bombardment and demands for surrender, the Atlanteans remain curiously silent. Just what are they up to down there? A sneak preview of The Kerberos Club: FATE Edition!

Note the gratuitous plugging of the forthcoming book! If you're going to be around, come on by and play a couple games. I know someone's running Dungeon Crawl Classics, but other than that I have no idea what'll be on offer. I believe the DGS will be announcing everything later this week.

Gamex 2011 Wrap-Up: FATE Edition

2011-06-01T21:16:00.000-07:00

(For my non-FATE Gamex experience, see Roll Some Dice.)

First, an overview: This was a good Gamex. From 2:00 on Friday through midnight on Sunday, I ran two games (three if you count the one off-the-books non-convention game I ran that just happened to occur during the weekend) and played in four (five if you count an overlong game of Descent). Every GM was great, and only two or three players were annoying, so that's a pretty good percentage. Of course, part of this is that I hardly ever play or run games for people I don't know -- I've been attending Strategicons long enough that just about everyone I end up sharing my time with in four-hour chunks is someone I've gamed with before. This is theoretically bad in the sense that I'm not meeting new people (and/or they're not meeting me), but practically good in the sense that everyone at my tables bathes regularly.

So! Saturday morning was Morgan's DFRPG game, "Showdown at Camp Kaboom." We played recent Warden-school graduates who'd just gotten their cloaks and swords, and were then [spoiler alert?] framed for an attack on the very training facility (the aforesaid Camp Kaboom) that we'd been attending for God knows how long. It should be said again that I don't really know the Dresdenverse very well, or at all -- apart from stuff I've learned playing in a handful of Dresden Files games, I've had no exposure to it -- but that doesn't stop me from enjoying Morgan's games nonetheless. I played a snooty rich-kid type with the aspect "Born with a Silver Wand in my Hand," which you're not going to beat in an aspect-coming-up-with contest, so don't even try. The early game was marked by a lot of people trying to figure out or even just understand spellcasting in DFRPG. I'll admit, it's crunchier than I'd realized. I've never played a proper wizard before, so in the interest of not slowing things down I stuck with my rotes -- a defensive tornado-type-thing and a full-on Lightning Bolt! -- and kicked a fair amount of ass.

(Morgan, if you're reading this, it's probably not news to you that you seemed a bit flustered or something. That doesn't change the fact that you're still my platonic FATE-mate.)

In the end, we were all screwed not by crafty South American Red Court vampires, but by the hotel's fire alarm, which some jackass pulled in the course of being a jackass. The entire hall's worth of conference rooms cleared out into the lobby -- all except ours, because c'mon, it's obviously not real. This happened at about 12:30, effectively robbing us of the game's perfectly timed climax. Ah well. Morgan described to us what would've happened, and we all agreed that it would've been good. You're running it at GenCon, right?

Sunday morning I finally ran the long thought-about, only-recently-realized Agents of F.A.T.E. game I've been talking about here lately. Despite a full roster of six players and two alternates signed up, we only had five players for the actual game. Fine by me, says I -- I only wanted five PCs anyway. So Lars Thorsson went unplayed. No matter.

I'll split this into what worked and what didn't.

What worked:

The +XdF Areas of Experience. Change nothing. Predictably, this roll-and-keep dice mechanic worked fine, because I'd already used it for the swashbuckling game, so no surprise there. Denys almost engaged the table in a discussion of its mathematical rigor, but I shut him down, because let's go.
Player-contributed locations. Earlier, I'd planned to rip off Morgan's Spirit of the Shattered Earth and have the players come up with a bunch of details for me, including various cities the story would visit, what the badguy was up to, and so forth. In the end, I cut all of that except for the locations. Each player wrote a location down on an index card; these told us the basic geography of the story and where it would go. In our case, we had Hong Kong, Paris, Hoover Dam, Lincoln Memorial, and Volcano. Three of those were explicitly used (as in "Now we're in Paris"), while two of them were only obliquely referenced. Unfortunately, Volcano was in the latter category, but that's down to me (see below). Regardless, it gave things an appropriately globe-trotting feel, I think.
Cool Points. Likewise, I've used this mechanic plenty, and it worked fine here, too. No complaints. Morgan pulled out a classic 4d6 roll, spending all his Cool at once to crush the opposition, who was, indeed, duly crushed.
The Challenge Point thing. The only thing wrong with this was that I didn't have the foresight to assign each scene a Challenge Point rating from the start. This meant that I quickly racked up four Challenge Points in the early game before the players had earned Cool, but had almost none later once they'd gotten some momentum. In future -- because I'll probably use this again somewhere -- I'll keep that in mind. Every scene has a Challenge Rating from one to four. The players totally picked up on the introduction of complications, though; as expected, this took some of the burden off me to come up with stuff on the fly, but it also lulled me into a sense of complacency, such that I was forgetting to introduce scene aspects, or even spend Fate Points for my NPCs. (Running Dungeon Patrol the night before didn't help. That thing runs itself.)
Gadgets. They didn't get used as much as I'd expected, but that's fine. When they were used, they were used well. Nobody did anything too insane with their gadgets. The craziest thing was probably Laura turning her briefcase into a laptop with wireless access to reroute an important bank transfer without anyone noticing. This wouldn't be so crazy if the game weren't set in, like, 1965. But later seasons of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. were like ten times crazier than that before even getting out of bed in the morning, so I have no objections.
The players getting the tone of the game. Nailed it. I mean, my Platonic Ideal of it would've been more serious, but I am physically incapable of pulling that off, so it was pretty jokey all around. Again, no objections.

What didn't work:

My ability to communicate vital information without resorting to heavy-handed OOC exposition. Seriously, I don't know what's wrong with me lately, but at some point, after Morgan fairly begged for something concrete to hang onto, I just had to come out and say, "Look, I don't know how to smoothly couch this in the narrative, but here's what you discover is going on." They'd made plenty of investigation-type rolls and so forth, so they'd earned the details, but it irritates me that I wasn't able to deliver them in a prettier package. On the plus side, we had a lot of cool espionage-type non-combat scenes in which clues were dropped and gathered, and that was great, but it was helping them put everything together that stymied me. Hrm.
The end. True to form, I wasn't happy with the rather anti-climactic ending I forced on them. I mean, we could've ended up in a volcano; instead, the last scene took place in the basement of a rather non-descript house in Hong Kong. Boo. I even wrote down in advance what that final scene would entail, but almost none of it was there. I incorrectly assumed things would work themselves out and we'd just get there somehow. Let me tell you about things: They often don't work themselves out.

At any rate, it's a pretty good hack, and I may run something with it again. Of course, it didn't hurt that everyone at the table was a FATE veteran, so there was no need to set anything up or explain what aspects were or any of that. We just got into it and went.

So that's another Gamex in the can. And now I take a break from all of this game planning oh no wait GenCon.

[Espionage] Sample Characters

2011-05-27T10:56:00.000-07:00

Real quick, because I have to get going to Gamex pretty soon: Here are a few agent dossiers for the Agents of F.A.T.E. game I'm running on Sunday morning. Unfortunately, the Agency has pretty heavily redacted their personal information, but you get the idea. We'll be using whatever's still visible as aspects.

Violette Bonnuit, French ass-kicker in the Emma Peel vein
Connor Pierce, reserved British secret agent
Lars Thorsson, a more psychotic and Swedish Brock Samson

If you're going to be around this weekend, come on by on Sunday morning and check it out!

Challenge Points

2011-05-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

The other day, a regular reader (I assume!), in the course of an email exchange about something else other than FATE, mentioned how much he dug this whole Doom Points idea I posted a while back. If you don't feel like reading that old post from 2008, it concerned demons bound into artifacts in a fantasy setting. These demonbound items have one or more demonbound aspects that use Doom Points rather than Fate Points. You can invoke the aspect by accepting a Doom Point from the GM; in turn, if you accept a compel on that aspect, you lose a Doom Point. Accumulating Doom Points is bad -- every now and then, you have to make a Resolve roll against a difficulty equal to your current number of Doom Points, and failure means taking a consequence.

That's the basic idea. It worked well in play, the one time I used it in a one-shot, but I'd never really found another venue for it (although I mention in the comments of that post that it'd be pretty good for the Dark Side in a Star Wars game). Prompted by that email, I had a vague idea of using it to model heat buildup in a mecha FATE game, but I don't know anything about mecha, really, so that's all conjecture.

The pressing thing-that's-still-coming-together, though, is Agents of F.A.T.E., so as I lay in bed last night dealing with the tail end (I hope) of a cold, I passed the time trying to think of a way to apply this to the game I'm running next weekend. I like what I have so far for it, but it does feel to me like it's missing just a little something, and maybe this is it.

Here's the idea. See, in Agents of F.A.T.E., when your roll gets spin, you get a point of Cool, which you can spend later to replace a Fudge die with a d6. That's what players get -- but what of poor little me? Do I want to keep track of Cool Point totals for several NPCs at once? No, I do not. When I roll and get spin, I put a Challenge Point in front of me. All of my NPCs get a bonus to all of their rolls equal to the number of Challenge Points I have.

"Crazy!" you say. But you, the player, can get rid of those Challenge Points anytime by introducing additional challenges, complications, or twists into the story. This could be something like "He has a pool full of sharks" or "When I come back with the martinis, she's pointing a gun at me -- turns out she's working for Prometheus" or "He's accompanied by a mountain of a man with metal teeth" or whatever. As long as it's something that's making things worse for you by introducing a new element, it's worth a Challenge Point (if not more than one).

Of course, I don't have a good sense yet of how this will balance out. If I don't roll enough spin, then the players and their Cool Points are going to walk all over my guys. If they're constantly inserting new twists into the story, that's awesome -- but if they do that, will I end up with just a huge mess of a story and nothing to show for it?

Could be. There are ways to mitigate that, like giving myself a set number of starting Challenge Points each scene, possibly as a replacement for Fate Points, or limiting how many complications can be introduced at once, or on a per-scene basis. These feel a little... arbitrary, to be honest, but there's a solution lurking in there somewhere. Plus, as a GM, you really have to be willing to turn a fair amount of control over to your players for this to work. I mean, if you've planned for the PC to later rescue that scientist he's been canoodling with and then the player tells you that she's with the badguys, that could really throw a monkey wrench into things. (The lesson there, obviously, is simple: If you can at all help it, don't plan.)

Regardless, I'm encouraged by a couple things. One, it's common practice with Morgan and me these days (I've cribbed it from Morgan, in fact) to bump up all of an important NPC's skills by a point or two -- if the PCs' skills top out at Great (+4), the big bad's might go up to Fantastic (+6). This theoretically makes them more powerful, but the PCs often have numbers on their side, so in the end it really just achieves parity without having to spend Fate Points all the time. This Challenge Point idea builds that bit right into itself... if the players aren't regularly introducing complications, of course.

Two, it obviously and strongly encourages players to introduce complications. I think that, as a collective, we could pretty quickly turn an ordinary action scene into a trope-laden super-spy barn-burner, which is good. I love anything that gives the players incentive to add to the narrative like that, and this feels more fun (to me) than just giving the player a Fate Point.

It could conceivably go a little farther than that, even. Could a player invoke an aspect by giving me a Challenge Point? I can see that. It's probably more than I'd want to do at Gamex, but it's worth thinking about later.

Anyway, I'm framing this with espionage in mind, because that's what I'm preparing to run, but this could absolutely apply to any genre.

[Espionage] Agents of F.A.T.E. at Gamex 2011

2011-05-13T22:18:00.000-07:00

If you find yourself in the LA area over this Memorial Day Weekend, come check out Agents of F.A.T.E. on Sunday the 29th at Gamex.

The following vague blurb is actually a coded message for your eyes only:

Agents of F.A.T.E.: License to Kill
Sunday, 9:00 am
Diamonds may be forever, but in the Cold War of the 1960s, world peace hangs by a thread - easy pickings for wealthy megalomaniacs, splinter groups, and shady multinational corporations. Who will protect the interests of the West against the forces of economic instability? Enter the F.A.T.E. Agency. Grab your Walther PPK, strap on your laser watch, and shake that martini. Time to be a super-spy.

Four agents have already chosen to accept this mission, but two more volunteers are still needed. Your contact at Gamex will be disguised as a lowly convention staffer working the RPG sign-up table.

This message will self-destruct... um... eventually.

Escalating Aspects

2011-05-09T09:57:00.000-07:00

So my friend John Armstrong, down San Diego way, has plans to hack Strange FATE (the brand of FATE used in The Kerberos Club: FATE Edition) to run Scion. The premise of Scion has always interested me, but I haven't actually played it. I just don't have a lot of experience with the Storyteller system, and I've always heard that mechanically it's a little... problematic. Thus, never played it, but the idea of taking the premise and transplanting it into another system is attractive.

Anyway, in the course of trying to figure out how to model Legend, we talked about having a character aspect dedicated to how you're perceived by mortals. One idea was that when you use a power related to that Legend and your roll obtains spin, that aspect can change if you weren't acting in accordance with it. I.e., if your actions don't reflect your Legend, your Legend may change to match your actions.

Something else spun out of that, though, that got me thinking. What if accepting an aspect compel made it harder to refuse future compels? The more you establish a pattern of behavior for yourself, the more difficult it is to break that pattern.

So, resolved. But before we get into how it works, a tweak: You can't just spend a Fate Point for an aspect-free +1 bonus (I don't think I've ever seen anyone do that anyway), and invoking an aspect only yields a +1 bonus by default, Diaspora-style. This isn't necessary, per se, but it does make it feel "cleaner" to me. Oh, and there are no more escalating compels, at least not for the aspect in question. All right.

First, the aspect has a row of three boxes. Every time you accept a compel on the aspect, check a box. I guess we could call it a stress track if we wanted to, and say that accepting a compel means taking a point of "aspect stress" or something, but I don't know if that really does anything apart from making this a bit more jargon-intensive.

Second, there's the stick. When the first box is checked, nothing happens. When the second box is checked, the GM has to offer two Fate Points to compel the aspect, and two Fate Points are required to refuse the compel. When the third box is checked, it's three Fate Points instead of two.

Third, the carrot. Every box that's checked on the aspect increases the invocation bonus by +1 -- invoking it yields +2 for one checked box, +3 for two, and +4 for all three.

Fourth, back to ones. When all three of the aspect's boxes are checked and you refuse a compel on it, clear the boxes.

Now, look. I know I haven't thought this all the way through yet. I know that always getting three Fate Point for a compel on that aspect is going to mean building up quite a store of Fate Points, especially since most players tend to accept compels about 90% of the time (in my experience), and that getting a consistent +4 bonus from a single aspect might be a big deal. One word: details. Maybe the payout from a compel stays as-written; the increasing bonus is probably incentive enough. Whatever. We can work it out. Regardless, it's a neat idea worth exploring.

[Espionage] Agency Evaluations

2011-05-06T01:06:00.000-07:00

For some reason, as I alluded to in a previous post, I'm reluctant to give these spy characters for Gamex aspects in the conventional manner (i.e., a list of aspects). I'm pretty enamored with the idea of making the character sheets look like agent dossiers -- which, BTW, is a really productive mini-obsession when you know nothing about graphic design and try to do everything with Word -- and a straight-up list of aspects just doesn't mesh with that. It'd wreck it, in other words. I mean, I'm not deluding myself into thinking that nothing on the sheet will break the illusion, but anywhere I can avoid that sort of thing, I will.

To that end, I'm thinking of couching aspects in one or more brief paragraphs of "Agency Evaluation." Actually, it'd be one paragraph for an Agency Evaluation -- relatively objective facts about the agent -- and an Agent Self-Evaluation, which would be more subjective, qualitative statements. And maybe a third for Background/Affiliations.

But as flavorful as that is, it's not really doing the trick, aspect-wise. So to bridge the gap, I'd take a page from HeroQuest and underline, say, five or six phrases. Those are your aspects. Then I'd let the player underline another two phrases during play to add more aspects from the paragraphs provided, as they wish. Or maybe I won't underline anything, and they can underline stuff themselves -- but in that case, the embedded aspects would be pretty obvious, but the players would at least get the joy (joy!) of deciding which ones they'd pick.

Of course, this means that I'd have to write enough excess material in those evaluations to allow for some genuine choice in terms of finding new aspect fodder, but that seems like a small price to pay for something that could be pretty cool for the player. My only real fear is that the aspects will end up serving the needs of the paragraph rather than being bang-zoom aspects in their own right. Y'know?

Lemme see if I can illustrate what I'm talking about here:

Background/Affiliations

Attained the rank of Major in the British Army Special Air Service, then recruited into MI6 where he quickly advanced to Special Agent status, codename 7777. Oxford-educated with advanced degrees in Political Science, International Studies, and Psychology.

Agency Evaluation

Agent Pierce possesses an impressive variety of skills, including excellent focus and self-discipline in high-stress environments, mechanical aptitude, and fluency in nine languages. Pierce has a range of combat training, as would be expected: A world-class marksman, he's also studied aikido under Minoru Mochizuki and distinguished himself as a national fencing champion at Oxford. Despite his education and background, in the field Pierce is best used as a blunt object, and consistently favors brute-force solutions over lateral thinking when left to his own devices. Psych profile indicates a degree of disassociation from others that nevertheless lends him a willingness to make tough mission-critical decisions. Recommended assignments: Surveillance, Elimination.

Agent Self-Evaluation

Let it be said of me that I am at all times a consummate professional. Whether fighting for England as a loyal Briton in the SAS or in British Intelligence or fighting for the world as an agent of F.A.T.E., the mission comes first and foremost.

Hrm... it's a little clunky, but I'm not sure that means it can't work. I'll continue to massage it. I actually think Agent Connor Pierce here is a rather tricky one to start with; he's all business, and rather devoid of some of the quirks and personality edges that the other PCs have. It might be fun to have each agent do a "Peer Evaluation" of another agent, to get some more out-there aspects in the mix.

UPDATE: Wait! In the shower today I thought of something totally better. (It's where I usually get my totally better ideas.) It'll let me list aspects without wrecking the agent-dossier aesthetic. And it will immediately look cool as soon as the sheets are presented to the players. When I have character sheets together, I'll post them here.

[Kerberos] GenCon Events Full!

2011-05-01T11:36:00.000-07:00

GenCon event pre-registration opened this morning. If you, like me, have never been to GenCon before and aren't familiar with its pre-reg process, you may have missed the boat on getting into a few games you were dying to play (seriously, how did Top Secret S.I. sell out so quickly?). If this subset of games included The Kerberos Club: FATE Edition, well... yeah, they're all sold out.

But fear not! Bring your generic tickets and optimism to any of these four events:

The Pyramids of Atlantis
Thursday, 8/4, 2:00 PM
GM: Me
When unexpected violence shatters the secret peace between the British Empire and the Atlantean Nations, Her Majesty the Queen covertly sees to it that a number of Strange operatives from the Kerberos Club join Her Naval expedition to "investigate." But after two weeks of deep-sea bombardment and demands for surrender, the Atlanteans remain curiously silent. Just what are they up to down there? Hosted by FATE Edition developer Mike Olson.

The Case of Professor Phobos and his Mechanical Men
Friday, 8/5, 10:00 AM
GM: Andy Blanchard
Why is Professor Phobos, renowned scientist, physician and Kerberan, making seemingly random attacks against other members of Kerberos Club? And what evil lurks in the crypts of an old abandoned church-yard in Whitechapel? Unravel the Strange mystery as only a member of Kerberos Club can!

In For a Penny Dreadful
Saturday, 8/6, 2:00 PM
GM: Morgan Ellis
Stories of the Strange members of the Kerberos Club thrill and astound the readers who follow their tales in the lurid pages of popular penny dreadfuls. But now the even stranger truth behind the fiction is revealed as the Queen's Terriers do battle with the truly bizarre and sinister forces that would bring down the British Empire.

The Pyramids of Atlantis

Saturday, 8/6, 4:00 PM

GM: Me

(See above)

I'm very fortunate to have Andy and Morgan running FATE Kerberos as well; they're both great GMs, and anyone who gets into their games will have a great time. (Andy's also running his Lady Blackbird hack, Operation: Blackbird, and Morgan's running a couple DFRPG games, so try to squeeze into those if you can, too.)

Also of note: Someone's actually running what looks like a straight-up Spirit of the Century game! I haven't seen one of those in years.

[Espionage] "Now pay attention, Bond..."

2011-04-28T23:25:00.000-07:00

Initially, as I've said, an idea for how to do super-spy gadgets was the thing that got me thinking of a FATE espionage hack in the first place, but as it stands now I could leave this part out entirely and still have a version of FATE that looks rather different from most others out there. That's good -- it means that the gadget rules won't feel like an espionage-heartbreaker gimmick, but just another alteration.

So the original idea was this: Before play begins, each player writes down a number of mundane items in their character's possession. Stuff like Belt, Shoes, Tie, Watch, Briefcase, Sportscar -- that kind of thing. They'd then have a pool of points, which we'll call Gadget Points for lack of anything better right now, that they'd spend to "reveal" those items as the super-spy gadgets they really are. First declare a flashback scene wherein some Q equivalent gives your character the gadget and explains how it works, then spend the points to put numbers to that idea. Once the item has been gadgetized, it's that gadget for good -- it can be altered again later.

How each character's number of items, or the Gadget Points required to make use of them, would be determined was a grey area at best. Enter Agents of F.A.T.E.'s skill list, which has two skills that seem ideal for these purposes: Access and Systems. Access is a Resources analogue. It measures rank or status within the organization (in this case, F.A.T.E.), and thus "access" to things it can provide. Systems, on the other hand, is your tech ability, measuring your knowledge of and facility with technological devices. It therefore seems a no-brainer to me that Access controls how many gadgets you have (the higher your standing, the more options are probably available to you) while the complexity of those gadgets is governed by Systems (complicated gadgets are more likely to be reserved for those with the know-how to make the best use of them).

At first, it was going to be as simple as Number of Gadgets = Access Rating, with a Systems roll vs. Mediocre (+0) to determine the number of Gadget Points (and certain other benefits accruing from a Mediocre or worse effort). But now I'm thinking there are other ways to go about it -- like everyone writing down, say, three items on index cards, shuffling those cards, and handing out two cards to each player. Then make a Systems roll to determine the number of Gadget Points you have. What about the excess cards? If you visit a well-equipped safehouse or a foreign office of F.A.T.E., make an Access roll vs. a target of some kind (probably dependent on how remote the safehouse or office is), with success meaning you get to draw an additional card. If you don't have any Gadget Points, also roll Systems, with your margin of success from your Access roll adding to your effort, which would hopefully up your odds of getting at least one Gadget Point. (And if Access happens to be your apex skill and your roll obtains spin, you can declare a free aspect on the scene, like "Well-Equipped Safehouse," then immediately tag it to improve your Systems roll even further. Handy!)

Anyway -- that seems neat to me, because it more closely resembles James Bond's complete lack of agency in determining what gadgets he's given for a particular mission. Heck, MI6 wouldn't even let him keep his Beretta. Plus I think it'd be fun to get handed two items -- "Socks and a Lipstick?" -- and have to figure out how to gadgetize them into something useful. Of course, when even a ballpoint pen can go from writing implement to grenade in three clicks (Goldeneye is never far from my thoughts), that shouldn't be too hard.

The only thing left to determine, then, is what those Gadget Points buy. This is obviously important not just in terms of bang for your buck (often literally), but also hitting that sweet spot between "Enough Options" and "Too Many Options!" for a player to consider. Remember, you're making up what these items do in the moment. We can't stop the action for 10 minutes while you tinker with your laser watch, especially in a convention one-shot.

These gadgets are also essentially taking the place of stunts as they're traditionally used in FATE, so the options have to be robust enough to be useful without overshadowing the agents themselves. Right now I'm thinking something like this:

For 1 Gadget Point, the gadget gets...

+1 to a non-combat application of a skill.
Use one skill in place of another under narrow circumstances.
+2 to non-combat maneuvers with one skill.
Use a skill in an alternate, non-standard way, such as a mini jetpack that lets you use Conditioning to fly short distances.
+1 Health stress with one application of the Combat skill (maximum of +3 Health stress).

For 2 Gadget points, the gadget gets...

+1 to a combat application of a skill.
+2 to combat-related maneuvers with a skill.
Affect all targets in a zone.
Armor 1 vs. Health stress (maximum of Armor 3).

All of the above are for disposable gadgets. After one use, the gadget can't be used again... unless it makes sense that it could somehow be used again, in which case you can spend a Fate Point to do that later. For example, a pen grenade is disposable because once you use it, it's gone. It done blowed up. But a laser watch could conceivably come back into play. It can still only do what it can do, but maybe it can do it again. Who's the judge of that? The GM, I guess, although I can also see a guideline that says, "If you could've had the same effect by making the gadget blow up and cause an explosion but decided not to do so, then you can't use it again." That may be a little... what's the word... dickish.

To have a reliable gadget -- one that's designed to be used again and again -- double the Gadget Point costs above. So if you want to make your Belt Buckle into a throwing star that gives you +1 Combat and does +2 Health stress, that'll cost 4 Gadget Points. But if you want, say, a hidden extendable rapier in your Belt Buckle that gives you the same benefits ad infinitum, that'll be 8 Gadget Points.

The idea here isn't to screw people over out of some sense of balance or something. I just want to see a variety of gadgets instead of having people use the same one or two the whole time. I also like the idea that the agents' gadgets are useful but ephemeral. That happens with Bond a lot.

[Espionage] Agents of F.A.T.E.

2011-04-24T01:58:00.000-07:00

Greetings programs! It's been a while -- and many thanks to Guy for the continued Greyhawk posts to keep things active around here -- so I'll just get into it already.

There's one genre I've long thought about doing with FATE but haven't gotten around to putting on paper, and that's espionage. Specifically, '60s Bond-style espionage, with super-spy gadgets, suave secret agents, international locations, and all the rest. The tone would be pretty serious, but with about as much humor as a typical Sean Connery Bond film. So plenty of humor, in other words, but without descending into Roger Moore-esque camp -- all apologies to Alan Partridge. (I grew up on Roger Moore as Bond in movies like Octopussy and Moonraker, which were awesome when I was 10 or whenever they finally made it to Z Channel and I could watch them.) The main mechanical idea I'd had for this particular hack involved on-the-fly gadget creation, but other than that I didn't have anything concrete other than a title: Agents of F.A.T.E., which I came up with in a vacuum but have subsequently seen at least once on the Internet, so I'm not the only one to have had that idea.

Anyway, I've decided I'm going to run this for Gamex this year over Memorial Day Weekend.

Since getting the spy itch (see your physician) a while ago, I since stumbled upon Get Smart Now!, an excellent treatment of the old Get Smart TV show using a cleverly stripped-down skill list that boils everything down to just 10 skills. Ten skills plus a standard skill pyramid peaking at Great means that every character can have every skill rated, which makes them all as super-competent as they should be. (Get Smart Now! actually gives characters just five skills, rated from Average to Superb, but I can't ignore how perfectly they all fit into a four-tier pyramid.) So I'm using that as my skill list, more or less (Special Skills doesn't really fit what I'm doing, and I don't like lumping in Alertness, Resolve, and Drive into a single skill, so sorting both of those out still leaves me with 10 skills. Convenient!)

Lately I've become very enamored of games like Lady Blackbird, Danger Patrol, and Old-School Hack, where characters basically have just a few focused special abilities that tend to be variations on a theme, so I'm aping that here. Every Agent of F.A.T.E. has one notable feature -- their F.A.T.E. Training -- that lets them spend a Fate Point to do something remarkable. For the most part, these are taken right from SotC's list of stunts, like Master of Disguise. In addition, each PC has a Specialty in their highest-ranked skill. When the a roll using that skill obtains spin, the player can declare a fragile aspect for free. (I love that mechanic, so why not let everyone do it and see what happens?)

Each of them also has two Areas of Expertise that let them roll extra Fudge Dice when using a particular skill in a particular way, and keep the best four for their result. For example, one of them rolls +2dF when using Combat unarmed, so when she's kicking some jumpsuited minion in the face she gets to roll 6dF and keep the best 4dF. I've used this before in Spirit of the Fist and Spirit of the 17th Century, and it's always worked well. I like how it increases the odds of performing at peak capability without veering into big-number territory.

That's what Cool is for. This is another mechanic I haven't used in a while. When you obtain spin on a roll, you get a point of Cool. Spend a point of Cool before a roll to replace one Fudge Die with a d6. (Yes, this means that with your Specialty you can get a free aspect and a point of Cool all in one roll. I'm fine with that.) This greatly increases your odds of pulling off something truly incredible when you need to the most. Max Cool -- great character name, BTW -- is four, and you start with zero, but I'm thinking about knocking off a point of unused Cool every scene (down to a minimum of one) to discourage hoarding. We'll see where that thought goes.

What I like about this setup is that there are only two passive bonuses for the players to keep track of, and neither of them is just a +1 or +2 to a roll. The characters feel very streamlined to me, but still complete. I get a sense of who they are and what they can do from their skills and those four special features (Specialty, F.A.T.E. Training, and two Areas of Expertise) -- and that's before aspects even enter into the picture. I'm doing a very dossier-like character sheet, as is de rigeur for these sorts of endeavors, and thinking about heavily classifying aspects as things like Notable Affiliations, Special Training, and so on, but I'm afraid that might end up being too constraining.

So I mentioned gadgets, which is what started all of this. These effectively take the place of standard stunts -- little rules-benders -- but are usually one-use things. Plus, since the players make them up on the fly, they're more inclined to focus on them for that one roll or scene without having to keep track of them over time. I'm still working out the details on how this works, but I'll post about it next week. I think it'll be fun. (The gadget-making, not the posting. The posting is obviously sheer drudgery.)

What strikes me about all of this is how I unwittingly ended up changing nearly everything about how characters are put together, from skills to stunts to little abilities with no real precedence in published FATE games (but with plenty of it in other hacks of mine I've fooled around with). I hadn't expected that, but after getting so detail-oriented with FATE Kerberos -- because it demanded it -- it's been a breath of fresh air to just make some stuff up and say "Let's see if this works!" It's like old times, I tell you.

[Greyhawk] Approaches for Magic Translations

2011-04-18T09:38:00.000-07:00

So after working out some of the low-level infrastructure issues in the Spirit of Greyhawk ruleset, I've finally started to get some traction with translating the source material's spells into their Fate equivalents.

However in doing so, I've run across an issue that I wanted to think out on paper (albeit digital paper).

When translating spells, it's a given that that not everything in the source material's spell listings is going to translate out nice and tidy into a Fate implementation.

So how would you resolve conflicts with the translation?

Example 1: If the source material lists "Fireball" as a 3rd level spell, and if after translation it turns out to be +4 difficulty spell (i.e., in Fate the same effect would net out as a 4th level spell), what do you do?

Example 2: Conversely if a 5th level spell translated into a 3rd level spell under the SoG ruleset, should it be left as +5 difficulty? Or be a +3 difficulty to cast correctly?

I've been thinking through a few approaches and each one has it's costs and benefits...

Approach One - Err on the Side of the Source Material
This means that if the spell had a specific series of effects and was originally at "X" level, then that spell would have those effects at that level regardless of the Spell "economy".

Benefits:

Translation time is quicker--less fuss about balance
Most consistent with the source material and original gameplay expectations

Costs:

Possible balance issues
Most inconsistent with the "fractal design" approach

Approach Two - Err on the Side of the Fate Mechanic
One of the reasons the Lord of the Rings movies were as satisfying as they were for most viewers, is that the writers understood that they were not trying to do a page-by-page recreation of the books, but rather used the books as the source from which the movies were taken and then put that into an effective structure for presentation within the movies.

In other words, spells would be accurately translated, and whatever the Fate spell difficulty would be, that's where it would appear in the spell lists. Using the example above, the Fireball spell would be considered a 4th level spell, instead of a 3rd level spell.

Benefits:

Translation time is quick, as it is what it is.
Most consistent with the "fractal design" approach
Wizardry effect powers have better balance with on-the-fly magic (stunt-based magic or Sorcery)

Costs:

Less consistent with the source material

Approach Three - Change the Spell to Stay Within the Same Level
This resolution means that you modify or redefine the spell effects to change the net difficulty to stay within the pre-determined level.

So in the example above, the spell might be changed (hopefully in a minimal fashion) to have the net difficulty now be +3, instead of +4. Perhaps an additional cost could be associated with the spell, or a reduced effect.

This could also be a situation where perhaps a spell turns out to be LESS difficult than source material would imply.

Benefits:

Spell Lists consistent with the source material.

Costs:

Expectations of what a spell does will need to be modified.
Translation time increased having due to having to "balance the budget".

My Campaign's Personal Preference
I've had the opportunity to pose the question to my players and I got a very interesting answer from them--they don't care about the accuracy or balance right now. Third level is third level is third level. I find this really interesting for a couple reasons:

The campaign's magic use right now is typically Sorcery or on-the-fly magical effects. So the decision would not impact their abilities with Magic.
My intention was to use Wizardry more in the form of their opponents and monsters that use magic, so it would be their opponents who are impacted.

Most interesting, this lack of concern on the players' part indicates to me that they appear really have embraced the cooperative story-telling mechanics of Fate and have ceased to get concerned about things like this in the first place. Very interesting!

So What Might This Mean for SoG?
I will probably end up doing something along the lines of Approach One (Translate the spells, leave the difficulty ratings in place) with the occasional dip in to Approach Three (Modifiy the spell) if something translates to being WAY out of whack.

So that's just for my SoG campaign--if/when the compiled SoG material ever becomes available, I may end up doing some sort of dual-table layout, where there's the "traditional" spell list, and another one with an alternative spell listing that groups spells by their translated difficulty.

[Greyhawk] Weapon Proficiencies

2011-04-01T13:42:00.000-07:00

Spirit of Greyhawk has characters define themselves according to a Class, consistent with the source material. A character's "level" is then determined as the skill level of what the character has selected as his apex skill--the skill at the top of the pyramid.

The source material places an importance upon the selection of what weapons the character is considered "proficient". Early on, I hadn't intended to bring Weapon Proficiencies over into SoG, but I've realized that by keeping them, it avoids a few problems / concerns:

Weapon Proficiencies are one way to address the concern of how do you keep EVERYONE from wanting to take Melee or Missile as their Apex Skill, to increase chances of survival at low levels.

By allowing Weapon Proficiency at the character's Class Inception, a +1 in combat skill rolls is granted, when using only that weapon.

This would then remove a certain amount of temptation to take Melee / Missile as the Apex skill. Especially for clerics/druids! Also, it gives fighter sub-classes the opportunity to take something else as their Apex Skill (notably, a Ranger could now take Survival as his Apex skill).

Additionally, Weapon Proficiencies also tend to address the question, "Why would anyone choose to be a 'pure' Fighter?" Now, we have a currency with which express a Fighter's ability to use a wide variety of weapons in an effective manner.

Implementing Weapon Proficiencies
I currently consider that a Weapon Proficiency is a Stunt--because it offers a broad +1 benefit (combat) for a weapon you probably already have.

By considering it a Stunt, a player could also elect to expend one of their open Stunt slots on a Weapon Proficiency.

While Weapon Proficiencies stack with skills and aspects, I am uncertain as to whether allow a character to take multiple proficiencies of the same weapon:

This is in conflict with the source material.
But if a character really wants to become a true specialist in one weapon only (see below about proficiency "granularity"), and wants to spend multiple stunt slots to do it, I don't know that it's really breaking the Fate mechanic. In other words if someone wants to spend 3 Stunt slots to achieve a +3 in "just" the Dagger, I don't know that it's really wrong.

Weapon Proficiency Variables
When considering how many Proficiencies are "granted" (i.e., freebies just for achieving particular apex skill level), there are the following variables:

How Many At Character Creation
Translating the PHB "as is", each class would start with a distinct number of proficiencies the character has at its creation (being defined as your Apex skill at +1):

Cleric: 2
Druid: 2
Fighter: 4
Paladin: 3
Ranger: 3
Wizard: 1
Thief: 2
Assassin: 3
Monk: 1

OPTION: It might be simpler to also do something like: non-Fighters get 1 at inception, Fighter sub-class get 2, and the "pure" Fighter class gets 3, but this tends to flatten things out a bit.

How Often Classes Earn New Proficiencies
Again, translating the PHB "as is", and with the assumption that each Skill level of the Apex skill counts as 2 levels in the source material, we can determine New Proficiencies earned by each class. These proficiencies granted do not count against Stunt slots earned due to regular advancement.

Every class gains a single extra proficiency at the following Apex Skill values:

Cleric: (+2, +4, +6, +8)
Druid: (+3, +5, +7, +9)
Fighter: (+2, +3, +4, +6, +7, +9)
Paladin: (+2, +3, +4, +6, +7, +9)
Ranger: (+2, +3, +4, +6, +7, +9)
Wizard: (+3, +6, +9)
Thief: (+2, +4, +6, +8, +9)
Assassin: (+2, +4, +6, +8, +9)
Monk: (+2, +3, +4, +5, +6, +7, +8, +9)

Proficiency Granularity
Consistent with the source material, SoG takes a very granular (focused) definition of what a proficiency allows. In other words, there is not just a "Sword" proficiency. "Long Sword", "Short Sword", "Broad Sword", "Bastard Sword" are all separate proficiency selections.

[Greyhawk] Clerical Turning

2011-03-28T21:24:00.000-07:00

The effect of a Cleric (or Paladin) turning Undead is implemented as a Social Combat attack by a Cleric versus a one or more Undead, opposed by the Resolve skill.

A turning is accomplished by a cleric using the "Turn Undead" stunt, where the cleric's Resolve skill (with a trapping of Faith) is substituted for Intimidation.

Use of the Turning Undead stunt counts as an Action by the cleric as per normal.

Upon resolution of the Turning attack, there are the following possible outcomes:

Successful:

The cleric has done sufficient stress to generate a Consequence, which could then force the undead to offer a Concession or be Taken Out.

Partial Success:

Social stress was generated, but not enough to generate a Consequence. The undead cannot attack the cleric physically and is now considered "held at bay" and the Intimidation battle can continue. Note that if the undead chooses to disengage from the Intimidation battle and try to attack someone else, it can still be Intimidated by the cleric.

There's been the suggestion that a fragile aspect could be placed on an undead trying to disengage from a Turning, "trying to tear his eyes away from the Cleric", but playtesting will determine if that holds up.

Failure:

No stress shifts were generated, and the cleric can no longer attempt to Turn any undead present in that scene.

Epic Failure:

No stress shifts were generated, and the Undead generates Spin. The cleric cannot attempt any further Turning in that scene to any Undead present and the Undead with Spin gets the +1 as per normal. Have something appropriately nasty happen to the cleric! The cinematic idea of the undead grasping the cleric's holy symbol and having it burst into flames might be fun!

Requirements for Turning

A Turning requires that the following:

Stunt "Turn Undead" (only available to the Cleric or Paladin class)
A material component (the cleric's holy symbol)
Somatic component (the cleric actively brandishing the holy symbol)

(See below for an option to add a verbal component.)

Consequences from Being Turned

If an undead can accept a social Consequence, it can then choose to either:

Accept A Turning Consequence

Something like "Cowering", "Driven to its Knees", "Covering its Eyes", "Shrieking in Agony" or even a physical consequence like "Blistering Skin" would be appropriate. The consequence could then be tagged as per normal.

NOTE: Use of Grit Rules (or Undead "Grit"):

Certain NPCs or monsters can potentially have Grit, a number usually at 1 or 2. The number represents how committed the entity is to the conflict. That value represents the number of Consequences the character will elect to take before offering a Concession.

Grit is contextual as most monsters "will not go to the mat over trivial matters."

EXAMPLE: A vampire out wandering around may have no Grit, whereas when protecting their coffin, they could have a Grit of 2 (very committed).

Remember that Grit is not a matter of how many Consequences are available, but rather how many Consequences they will accept before offering a Concession.

Offer a Concession

In the event that the Undead chooses not to accept a Consequence it can offer a Concession to the cleric. If an undead CANNOT accept a Consequence, there's no opportunity to offer a Concession and you go right to "Taken Out".

The nature of the concession offered by the undead depends somewhat upon the alignment of the cleric:

Undead Concession Offered to a Good-aligned Cleric:

Undead who offer a Concession to a cleric of Good alignment will compel the creature to move directly away from the cleric and stay as far away as possible for the rest of the scene, moving at full speed for the duration if at all possible. After the scene, the turned undead will be able to come back again, but they are subject to further turning by the cleric. Any Consequences on the undead in later scenes could be tagged for an improved Turning.

Undead Concession Offered to an Evil-aligned Cleric:

Undead who offer a Concession to a cleric of Evil alignment will cause the creatures to take a neutral attitude to the party and the cleric for the rest of the scene.

Neutral undead will ignore the cleric and his or her party. This Concession is only valid as long as the Undead are not the subject of a hostile act by the party or the cleric. Examples of hostile acts are:

Entry into an area which the undead were created to guard.
Attempts to remove guarded items or treasure which the undead were created to guard.
Preventing the undead from carrying out commands from which they were created to guard.
Outright attacks (physical or magical).

Taken Out Result from Turning

In the event that a Concession is not offered or is refused by a cleric, the Turning continues. Note that a refusal of a Concession should be taken into further consideration later on (see below). In the event that a Consequence CANNOT be absorbed by the undead, it is considered "Taken Out". While the exact circumstances of the Taken Out result are up to the cleric, they should obey the following guidelines:

Taken Out by a Good-aligned Cleric:

Undead who are Taken Out by clerics of Good alignment, are then considered destroyed.

Taken Out by an Evil-aligned Cleric:

Undead who are Taken Out by clerics of Evil alignment, are then at the mercy of the cleric's discretion--they can be destroyed or are automatically considered Minions for a period of time that depends on "how bad" they were taken out.

The rest of the Scene (overflow of 0-1)
The rest of the Day (overflow of 2)
The rest of the Adventure (overflow of 3)

Once that period of time passes, the undead will either need to be re-controlled, destroyed, or otherwise turned. The GM should keep in mind that undead that have a degree of free will likely keep in mind their treatment for purposes of assigning any grit.

Turning-related Attack Modifiers

"Powerless before my Faith!"

In the event that a Cleric's Resolve / Faith skill (without any modifiers) is greater than the target's Social stress track (without regard to any existing damage) by 3 or better, no die roll is needed--they are automatically Turned, and the cleric receives a Concession.

If a Cleric's Resolve / Faith skill (without any modifiers) is greater than the target's Social stress track (without regard to any existing damage) by 5 or better, no die roll is needed--they are automatically Taken Out (as described above).

Adding a Verbal Component

In addition to the Material and Somatic components, a cleric can choose to add a Verbal component. If the cleric chooses to (and is capable of) speaking holy names, etc in a strong projecting voice, allow the cleric a +1 modifier.

Diametrically Opposed Alignment

It is possible to tag a target's diametrically opposed alignment (Law vs Chaos and Good vs Evil) to gain a +2 on the turning. This tag cannot be used for defensive purposes.

A Cleric with Skill of Intimidation

Having the skill of Intimidation might qualify as a bonus (complementary skill) on the Turning, but it cannot be substituted in place of Resolve / Faith.

Undead Tagging an Environment Aspect

If there is some aspect of Evil within the location or the Scene, the undead will be able to utilize a free tag for their opposed skill. However an evil cleric within the same area could tag that Aspect and earn the +2 for purposes of Control, instead of the Undead using it to resist. Similarly, an aspect of Good upon the environment or scene could be tagged by a Good cleric for use in Turning.

Repeated Turning

When dealing with multiple undead in a group, as long as a clerical turning is successful against ANY of those undead, the cleric may attempt to Turn any remaining undead as his next action until such time as the group is entirely turned, or he fails to turn any.

Note that undead minions under an undead leader, may use their leader's resistance to Intimidation.

Cleric Incapacitation

Any clerical compulsion (Turned or Controlled via "Taken Out" result) will be nullified in the event that the cleric who did the turning is killed or otherwise rendered unconscious (except for normal sleep). If this occurs the GM will consider the following factors when determining the actions of the freed undead:

Are the undead mindless or do they have a certain amount of free will?
What was their treatment at the hands of the cleric?
How much risk were the undead subjected to?
Possible reactions could range from mindless undead simply doing nothing, losing all animation and direction to vengeful undead attacking an incapacitated cleric and/or his party.

"Duelling Clerics"

Any clerical Turning or Taken Out result could be countered by another cleric (evil or good). However as stated previously, controlled undead would then be using their leader's Resolve / Faith as their opposed skill instead of their own.

EXAMPLE: A good cleric turned a group of undead and they began to flee. An evil cleric gaining control of those turned undead would then have countered the good cleric's prior turning and could use them as minions within that same scene.

EXAMPLE: An evil cleric with undead minions are being Turned by a good cleric. The undead will resist the turning based upon their leader's (the evil cleric) resistance to the good cleric's Intimidation.

[FATE Core] Skills, Trappings, and Stunts

2011-03-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

Interesting post by Lenny Balsera the other day about the importance of skill trappings in FATE -- and one that aligns very nicely with the importance of trappings in FATE Kerberos, which is, let's say, encouraging. I'm confident about it, of course, but part of me is always wondering, "Yeah, but what will so-and-so think of it?" Replace "so-and-so" with any pre-existing FATE author, lather, rinse, repeat. It's more than just that, though: It's looking to those people and asking myself if what I am doing/have done with my own version of FATE is in the conceptual ballpark of what they've done with FATE. I'm not afraid to -- pompous as this will sound -- break new ground, or go exploring on my own, but I feel... more confident (?) about it if it seems like I'm extending or enhancing a portion of a map that's already been drawn rather than trying to erase and redraw it. Does that make sense?

So while while what Lenny posted is far from a one-to-one with FATE Kerberos, the emphasis on trappings -- FATE's red-headed stepchild, IMO, taken for granted compared to aspects -- is extra reassurance (on top of a successful playtest and development process) that the way FATE Kerberos puts trappings front and center is just a logical outgrowth of what's come before and not some crazy, left-field idea.

Anyway. I'm talking this to death. But the development process was, for me, dominated by a single dilemma: doing something different with FATE without alienating current FATE gamers. And Lenny's post confirms some of the thought process that went along with that "something different." So... good!

[Kerberos] And With That...

2011-03-21T01:46:00.000-07:00

...it's finished.

About twenty or so minutes ago I sent off all of my FATE Kerberos materials to Shane Ivey for his perusal, so... it seems that, for the time being at least, I'm actually done. Having trouble processing that, but I can't deny the facts. However will I adjust to not going to bed every night at four in the morning?

[Kerberos] Playtest Packet #7 Away!

2011-03-04T23:53:00.000-08:00

The seventh Playtest Packet for The Kerberos Club: FATE Edition has just been sent out to the playtesters. If you're on that list but you're like, "Hey, I didn't get anything!" -- well, first give it a minute. I mean, I know it's the Internet, but it's a 1.7Mb document, and sometimes the tubes get clogged. If you feel you've given it sufficient time and it's still not dinging your inbox (if you know what I mean), drop me a line and we'll get it sorted out.

(Yes, I'm as surprised as you are that I'm posting about this before posting a wrap-up of last month's OrcCon. It's coming soon.)

[Greyhawk] Fantasy Race Packages

2011-03-01T16:23:00.000-08:00

As part of writing up Spirit of Greyhawk's Class Packages (Fighter, Thief, et al) I thought it made sense to do some proof-of-concept writeups on Fantasy Race Packages first.

This turned out to be a good decision (for once!) because it did highlight a few things that the Class Packages are going to need to keep in mind.

Here's some highlights on those "few things":

Skills Starting at Different Places on the Ladder

There's a general assumption in Fate that the default level for any unimproved skill is Mediocre (+0). Scattered throughout But there's a caveat that certain skills can only be learned with very specialized training and might default to a number lower than (+0). Expanding upon that, fantasy race packages will have certain starting skill levels that default to a number other than zero, whether negative or positive.

For a while, I thought this posed a problem to the Skill Pyramid and Class Advancement. If you recall from my last article, the level of characters' classes is determined by their Apex Skill. Once you start throwing in the potential for skills starting at levels other than zero, this can pose some confusion to the pyramid.

In other words, if you have an "2nd Level" Elf Fighter that has an Apex Skill of Missile at +2, along with race package skills of Agility (+1), Endurance (-1), Stealth (+1), what does that do for the pyramid?

The traditional (SotC) view of the Pyramid with respect to the example mentioned above might look like this for a 2nd Level Elven Fighter:

Missile (+2)
Melee (+1), Alertness (+1), Stealth (+1), Agility (+1)
Endurance (-1)

So Missile, Melee and Alertness skills were purchased via normal Skill point acquisition during the course of advancing to 2nd level Fighter, but Stealth, Endurance and Agility were received as part of the Race Package.

While on the surface there's nothing really wrong with this view of skills, once you get into advancement, I think there's a couple issues to be dealt with:

The character wouldn't really gain any credit in his pyramid for using acquired Skill Points to buy off negative skills.
At lower levels, there can be some confusion as to what a player's Apex Skill is going to be.

One way to resolve this issue is by looking at the Pyramid and what it represents in a slightly different manner. Rather than consider the Skill Pyramid as showing the net skill LEVEL, the pyramid could instead reflect skill INCREASES that have been purchased for that character.

Restated: you have the same net skill levels, but the skill pyramid would now look like this...

Missile (+2 levels purchased)
Melee (+1 level purchased), Alertness (+1 level purchased)
Stealth (+0 level purchased), Agility (+0 level purchased), Endurance (+0 level purchased)

...and the pyramid becomes clearer with respect to Class Advancement.

This change in focus also helps when addressing situations where a player would instead chose to instead buy off the negative Endurance skill level (instead of increasing Alertness).

Using the new example, the pyramid would go from this (under SotC)...

Missile (+2)
Melee (+1), Stealth (+1), Agility (+1)
Endurance (+0)

To now look like this...

Missile (+2 levels purchased)
Melee (+1 level purchased), Endurance (+1 level purchased)
Stealth (+0 level purchased), Agility (+0 level purchased)

This is one way to address that +1 skill level on Endurance the character purchased (to get it out of the negative part of the ladder) goes toward supporting the Pyramid.

So now the Pyramid becomes more a matter of what the character's advancement and keeps the accounting on advancement clear and consistent without having to get too fiddly. For future reference: this may have an impact on what a SoG character sheet might look like. :)

Aspects with Stated Benefits / Limitations

Note also that certain fantasy race aspects come with listings of what the potential benefits/limitations of the aspect might be, consistent with the source material. They are listed for those who might not be entirely familiar with how they were originally written in the source material. Consistent with other Aspects, their application in a particular situation is subjective and open to interpretation. However with respect to a character's race, these aspects cannot be bought off using Experience and don't count towards a character's maximum aspects.

With that out of the way, here's a couple Race Packages--I've included the two that have the most moving parts.

Fantasy Race Package "Elf"

(Net Cost to Character Fate Point Refresh: -5)

Class Restrictions (+1 to Refresh)
An elf cannot select the following class packages: Druid, Paladin, Ranger, Illusionist, Monk

Class Limitations (+1 to Refresh)
For the following Classes, an elf has these maximums for that class' Apex Skill:
Cleric (+4), Fighter (+4), Wizard (+6), Assassin (+5)

Skill Modifications (-1 to Refresh)
Agility (+1), Endurance (-1), Stealth (+1)

Race Stunt "A State of Grace" (-1 to Refresh)
Elves take no penalty to Magic Skills when wearing armor or wielding weapons. Keep in mind that the restriction on Magic when combined with weapons / armor as it exists in this particular gameworld is tied to the cumbersome nature of those things, not an aversion to metal by magical forces.

Race Stunt "A Mind Apart" (-1 to Refresh)
When dealing with Sleep and Charm magic effects, elves have two significant benefits:

+2 to the elf's opposed skill roll. This is a passive effect.
If the casting is successful and the elf is affected by either a Sleep or Charm spell, the effect lasts 2 shifts less on the time chart, if the elf spends a Fate Point.

Race Stunt "Race Weapon Proficiencies" (-1 to Refresh)
When wielding the following weapons, elves are considered as having one skill level higher than their normal Melee or Missile Skill:

Short Sword (i.e., +1 to Melee Skill)
Long Sword (i.e., +1 to Melee Skill)
Any Bow but a Crossbow (i.e., +1 to Missle Skill)

This is a stackable bonus, but for game purposes consider this advantage as being due to the benefit of accuracy/dexterity, not strength.

Race Stunt "Infravision" (-1 Refresh)
This race can see in the dark and take no penalties to Alertness when in mundane (non-magical) darkness.

Race Stunt "To See the Way" (-1 to Refresh)
Elves have a +1 skill bonus to passive Alertness for purposes of detecting secret doors. This can be upgraded to +2 to active Alertness for the cost of a Fate Point, and the elf is considered to be actively seeking for such things.

Extra Languages (6 Languages, -1 Refresh)
Elvish (native), gnome, halfling, goblin, hobgoblin, orcish, Common

Race Aspect "Interaction with other Races"

Tagged for positive social reaction against: Elf, Gnome, Half-Elf, Halfling
Compelled for negative social reaction against: Dwarf, Half-orc

There is no cost for the Aspect and the character can neither "buy off" this aspect nor does it count any against any maximum number of aspects.

Dealing with a Negative Refresh Total

The elf package is definitely the race package with the highest cost to a character's Net Refresh Total and would imply that most elven characters will have a negative Refresh until they are significantly advanced where their class-based Refresh would increase to offset the Race negative.

This means that SoG will have to allow for characters playing with a Negative Refresh. In practice, the player of that character is going to have to rely entirely upon free tags or compels in order to accumulate/use Fate Points.

Upon getting to a Refresh, a character with a negative refresh is going to lose that many Fate Points, but never going below zero. So if an elf character had accumulated 3 Fate Points but has a Refresh of -4, then at Refresh the elf character loses all 3 Fate points for a count of 0, not -1.

The end result of this is that until an elven character reached a sufficient class level to have a positive refresh, he would be pretty motivated (forced) to be at the whims of his compels. Indirectly (but in a very real sense), this is likely the true benefit to playing a human: at the low end of the scale, you really do have "free will" compared to your non-human counterparts.

I also feel that this serves as something of a reinforcement of the relatively rarity of elves in the world, along with reinforcing the general feel of elves as a somewhat "brittle" and "static" race.

From the players' side, the extra challenge of a negative Refresh might also serve as a barrier for some folks, especially those who might not be the most efficient at leveraging aspects of scenes and opponents.

NOTE TO LONG-TIME READERS: Some of you might remember that SoG spellcasting is planning to use a "Fate Point commit" mechanic. In other words, you must commit (not necessarily spend) a Fate point to cast a spell. I still plan to use that, but haven't yet figured out how that works with respect to characters with a negative refresh value. Maybe make it cost a Consequence of some kind?

Fantasy Race Package "Dwarf"

(Net Cost to Character Fate Point Refresh: -3)

Class Restrictions (+1 to Refresh)
Dwarf cannot select the following class packages: Druid, Paladin, Ranger, Wizard, Sorcerer, Monk

Class Limitations (+1 to Refresh)
For the following Classes, the dwarf has these maximums for that class' Apex Skill:
Cleric (+4), Fighter (+5), Assassin (+5)

Skill Modifications (No Effect to Refresh)
Toughness (+1), Empathy (-1)

Race Stunt "Magic Resistance" (-2 to Refresh)
Whenever any Magic effect is cast against a dwarf, the spell caster must roll a +1 or better to succeed, instead of a 0 or better. However if the roll succeeds, the shifts still count as if the caster rolled normally. Important distinction: Magic Resistance in this gameworld is only of use to AVOID being hit by magic, not as a reduction in the shifts of effect.

Extra Languages (5 extra languages, -1 to Refresh)
Dwarven (Native), Gnome, Goblin, Kobold, Orcish, Common

Race Stunt "Infravision" (-1 Refresh)
This race can see in the dark and take no penalties to Alertness when in mundane (non-magical) darkness.

Race Stunt "Humanoid Combat Proficiency" (-1 Refresh)
Add +1 to combat rolls when fighting half-orcs, orcs, goblins, or hobgoblins. This bonus is an expression of the knowledge of tactics, fighting styles and the weak points of these humanoid races.

Race Aspect "Short & Stocky"
There is no cost for the Aspect and the character can neither "buy off" this aspect nor does it count any against any maximum number of aspects, consistent with Consequences.
There is also the possibility that a more crunchy version of this could be implemented when a size/scale chart is nailed down.

Race Aspect "A Life Spent Underground"
Benefits:

Detect grade or slope up or down.
Detect new construction, passage, or tunnel.
Detect sliding / shifting walls or rooms.
Detecting traps involving stonework
Determine approximate depth underground

Limitations:
Agoraphobic, Bright lights bother you, you lose your way in the woods, other negatives that come from a life lived away from the light of day.

There is no cost for the Aspect and the character can neither "buy off" this aspect nor does it count any against any maximum number of aspects, consistent with Consequences.

Race Aspect "Interaction with other Races"

Tagged for positive social reaction against: Gnome, Halfling, Dwarven
Compelled for negative social reaction against: Elven, Half-orc

There is no cost for the Aspect and the character can neither "buy off" this aspect nor does it count any against any maximum number of aspects, consistent with Consequences.

The Branches of FATE

2011-02-22T16:40:00.001-08:00

PRESENTED WITHOUT COMMENT:

Fred Hicks breaks down the FATE games that are out there and expounds a little on their differences.

[Kerberos] Sample Characters for OrcCon

2011-02-17T02:21:00.000-08:00

So, as I believe I've mentioned before, I'm running a couple sessions of FATE Kerberos this weekend at OrcCon. The scenario's called "A Penny Dreadful for Your Thoughts," and it involves... some things. I don't want to spoil anything. I'm getting it together in a more-than-notes form, which is a new one for me -- usually I go in with a few paragraphs of rambling ideas, some stats (often complete!), and crossed fingers, so it's terra nova to try to make all of that into something substantial enough to share with the playtesters.

Anyway, it's been fun making characters for it. For some reason, I ended up with a preponderance of "old" characters -- either they're actually ancient, or they're the vessel for something ancient, or they're just ageless. Most of them, anyway. Here are a few:

A sort of immortal-champion take on Robin Hood (inspired by a thread on RPG.net)
Ferrous, a magical man-sized homage to the Iron Giant
A foul-tempered chimney sweep named Nick Fuller, a.k.a. the London Fog

Each session only takes five players, but I made six PCs anyway (with another three or four waiting in the wings that didn't make the cut). Hope to see you there!

[Kerberos] Playtest Packet #6 Away!

2011-02-11T20:51:00.000-08:00

Greetings, programs! The most recent batch of playtest materials for FATE Kerberos was sent out earlier today, so if you should've gotten it but didn't... let me know and we'll get that taken care of. Playtest Packet #6 definitely has its share of improvements, but the big addition (IMO) is the six sample characters from The Keberos Club, converted from Wild Talents to FATE. They were fun to do. I especially like the part where I can condense a half-page column of WT stats into four or five lines of FATE stats. That's... pretty sweet.

More characters on the way next week, plus an introductory scenario (the one I'm running at OrcCon next weekend), so keep an eye out for that. Believe it or not, we're actually nearing the end of the playtest period, so if you haven't playtested or reported in, then, y'know, get on that. Your feedback makes the game better.

[Kerberos] Playtest Packet #5 Away! (Also, OrcCon.)

2011-02-04T21:14:00.000-08:00

The latest Playtest Packet for KFC went out in the wee hours of this morning (Pacific Standard Time), so if you're on the list and didn't get it, drop me a line and you'll get it. Some minor errata's already gone up in our discussion forum, so check that out, too.

Lots of improvements in this one, most notably a greatly simplified character creation process that simply everyone is talking about. I mean, look at us -- we're talking about it right now!

There's also the beginning of some actual FATE rules -- zones, scene aspects, the Time Table, simple actions, contests (simple, consequential, and extended), and the bare outline of conflicts. While I continue to flesh that out, sometime next week I plan to send out some converted characters from The Kerberos Club, and an introductory scenario (either the one from the original book or my own) sometime after that.

Speaking of scenarios, I'll be running two sessions of FATE Kerberos at OrcCon in a couple weeks. (Wow, typing that makes me realize that it's literally only a couple weeks away.) Here's the blurb for the convention:

Something peculiar is afoot at the Pillars of Hercules. Or rather, it *was* afoot - and the only witness to the fate of the pub's patrons, a deaf mute, is, as they say, not talking. Who else but the Strangers of the Kerberos Club could hope to solve this mystery? Come playtest this specially designed FATE conversion of Benjamin Baugh's celebrated THE KERBEROS CLUB with the designer!

(Look, I'm not any more comfortable with calling myself "the designer" than you are, but if it'll fill up my tables, I'll go there. I guess I should've mentioned that it's a soon-to-be-published product and not one of my usual FATE hacks, but I ran out of characters.)

I'm running that Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, so come check it out if you've a mind to. Also, check out the other great FATE games being run that weekend. Will Huggins, of the Actual People, Actual Play podcast, is running two Dresden Files games, one spoileriffic and the other Leverage-tastic. Platonic FATE-mate and friend of the blog Morgan Ellis is running this ridiculous you're-all-Changelings-in-a-rock-bad DFRPG game -- let me just say here that I love it when Morgan comes up with a wacky high-concept FATE game and then actually runs it -- along with two sessions of his Avatar: The Last Airbender FATE hack, which sounds really cool but which I'll have to miss because he didn't schedule his games soon enough and had to settle for a Monday morning slot. Let that be a lesson to us all.

[Greyhawk] Experience & Advancement, Part the Second

2011-02-01T18:55:00.000-08:00

Old Business Before New Business
Progressive Skill Cost Method
In the course of writing the prior article on Experience, I had a thought that my previously determined flat rate of 1 XP per +1 skill might need an alternative. I am considering that each +1 of skill upgrade costs that same number of XP as the desired skill level. This means that to get a +4 skill to now be a +5 skill costs 5 XP.

Stated differently, my previous article suggested that to get a +0 Skill to be +5 would cost a player 5 XP. To do the same thing under this new "progression method" would be: 1+2+3+4+5 = 15 XP.

Using the progression method appeals to me it addresses a couple things that had been bugging me:

It makes the higher levels of skill proficiency MUCH more difficult to achieve. Legendary really is legendary now.
It reduces the chances of a character being able to add new skills that "leapfrog" lower level skills that they previously had. This promotes a more natural progression within the Skill pyramid.

Additional Stress Box on Level-Up
I had forgotten to mention that up achieving a new level (creation phase), you also receive an additional "base" stress box (in addition to aspects, stunts, etc). So a 1 phase character has a single stress box and for each phase gains an additional stress box.

Note that stress boxes are still adjusted by skills, etc.

Onward to New Business
So last article, I talked about a process by which players can accumulate experience points. This time, I'm focusing on players spending those experience points on their characters.

To start with, I will lay some brief groundwork for the basis of how Advancement might work in Spirit of Greyhawk.

Advancement Method
Based upon some number crunching, I have decided to stay with the SotC standard "Pyramid Method" of character building and advancement. Originally I was planning on going with the "Column" or "Tower Method" of advancement, but decided against it for the time being.

This post was getting way too long, so I've edited this section down to just show the bottom lines of Total XP expenditures.

Using the most efficient method possible (least amount of experience) to get a single skill from +0 to a +5:

Tower Method (Linear Cost): 15 total XP
Pyramid Method (Linear Cost): 35 total XP
Tower Method (Progressive Cost): 35 total XP
Pyramid Method (Progressive Cost): 75 total XP

So I like the Pyramid Method of structuring skills because it gives a very clear "apex skill" which will become important later in the article. I also like costing the skills in a Progressive Cost method, because it makes the higher end of the skill ladder much harder to achieve.

However, that now means the XP thresholds increase dramatically.

...Any opinions on this?

Class & Level Advancement
Every character class must have both of the following:

Class Aspect
Apex Skill

Class Aspect
Basically the player decides what class their character should be (again, just sticking with the generic "Fighter", "Wizard", "Thief" and "Cleric" for the time being), the player then must decide (with GM approval) upon an Aspect that reflects (or defines) that character's class.

Examples of Class Aspects:

FIGHTER: Guild Grunt, Trusted Retainer, High Lord's Shield Bearer, Duellist, Sargent of the City Garrison, Thug for the Thieves' Guild, Ranger of the North Woods
WIZARD: Sorceror's Apprentice, Alchemist, Master of the Lost Library, Battlemage
THIEF: Footpad, Locksmith gone Bad, Master Thief, Guild Master of Undercity
CLERIC: Acolyte of the Dark One, Gom's Healer, The Voice of Justice, High Priest of the Order of G'nirwob.

While you can be as generic or as dramatic as you wish, I believe that the Class Aspect should also contain some clue as to the general power-level of the character.

As the character progresses, the Class Aspect is going to change somewhat. It's possible that it could be totally redefined I suppose, but I would suspect that's probably more story-driven.

Apex Skill
As I mentioned above, the character's Class Aspect must be supported by single skill at the apex of that classes' skill pyramid. It doesn't always have to be as simple as a character with a Class Aspect of something Fighter-related, the Apex skill is "Melee". It could be something else such as "Might", or "Leadership". The character's Apex skill could be anything the player can "sell" to the GM.

Some ideas could be:

FIGHTER: Leadership, Melee, Missile, Intimidation, Survival
CLERIC: Magic (clerical), Leadership, Medical
THIEF: Burglary, Sleight of Hand, Deceit, Stealth
WIZARD: Research, Magic, Crafting, Resolve

...you start to see the possibilities.

Spending XP
The player may spend the XP as they are earned to increase the character's skills. Typically increases would occur at the end or start of sessions.

How to address the idea that a player may not follow an "optimized" pyramid progression? If you consider the progression from a 2nd phase character to a 3rd phase character (requires 6 XP), the "normal" track might be starting from this:

1 Skill at Fair (+2)
2 Skills at Average (+1)

So, the first increase would give this:

1 Skill at Fair (+2)
3 Skills at Average (+1)

Next increase to get:

2 Skills at Fair (+2)
3 Skills at Average (+1)

Finally one last increase to get:

1 Skill at Good (+3)
2 Skills at Fair (+2)
3 Skills at Average (+1)

...and the character is now considered a 3rd phase character, and gets the extra 2 Aspects, 1 Stunt and +2 Fate points on the Refresh.

So this is only the "basic" progression and probably the most efficient one for the fastest advancement of the Apex Skill under the Pyramid Method. However there's a few wrinkles that could happen to complicate things:

Picking A Non-Standard Pyramid
It's entirely possible that a player might select a skill pyramid that doesn't allow for that next apex at the soonest available "threshold":
If you consider the basic example of a second phase character:
1 Skill at Fair (+2)
2 Skills at Average (+1)

The player could allocate similar increases as listed above and end up here:
3 Skills at Fair (+2)
4 Skills at Average (+1)

...So you might have spent the almost the same XP, but have not yet achieved a Good (+3) skill. Should that character still be considered a 3rd phase character?

I say no, that character is not a 3rd phase character until a Good (+3) skill has been achieved, regardless of many XP are used. I consider the phrase "Jack of All Trades, Master of None", to be very applicable here.

So there's nothing wrong with creating a pyramid like this, just understand the impact (or lack thereof) to class.

In essence, the XP thresholds from the prior article represent the minimum Experience needed to achieve that level of "mastery". Additionally, by doing it this way, there's no need to adjust any thresholds if you chose to use different Skill architectures or costs.

Levelling & Aspects
The +2 Aspects acquired by a player at the achievement of a new level could be used to either:

Add a new aspect
Modify an existing aspect (important with redefining the Class Aspect)
Remove a character aspect

...at a cost of 1 earned aspect per transaction. In other words, each one of those three options costs one of the Aspects.

Whether existing Aspects were attached to the character during the course of play or from the player's prior decisions is not important.

I have considered the impact to the Advancement economy with respect to using XP to do the three things above, but at the moment I don't have a clear sense of how much currency those things cost. I had considered something on the range of 5 XP to add / modify / remove an aspect but it's not dancing and singing for me at the moment. I currently like the idea of tying a player modifying aspects based upon their level and it also reinforces the importance of a character's level in SoG.

Side Note on Epic Play: Too Many Aspects?
In my research there's plenty of mentions about folks having concerns about too many Aspects and being too much to keep track of at the high end.

I think that's a valid concern for some people, and while I have no plans to limit the number of aspects on characters, I think it's entirely reasonable for a GM to have a house rule capping the total number of aspects available on characters. In that case, you could still take the Aspect piece of the advancement and simply state that if a character's cap has been reached, their aspect modifications must be used within that capped amount.

Levelling & Stunts
Consistent with Aspects, Stunts are tied to levelling and not to XP. With that extra Stunt, the player can choose to either:

Add a New Stunt
Replace an Existing Stunt with Another Stunt

I'm not entirely certain about the concept of replacing a Stunt with another one, but I'm allowing for the idea that a player should be able to "focus" or "redefine" the character. Note that replacing a Stunt that is a requirement for other stunts, will essentially "liquidate" that related Stunt also. I'm currently going to side with the player and allow them to keep that empty slot and redefine that Stunt as well.

Multi-Class / Split Class
A player can have choose to effectively have multiple classes for their character, and spend Skill points as they wish, but they are working with two separate skill pyramids. I currently don't see that SoG is served by making a distinction between Split Classes and Multi-Classes, and the model appears to cover them both, so I'm going to leave this "as is".

For each class of the character (however many a character has), there would need to be:

A Class Aspect
A Skill Pyramid associated with the class, and by extension, an Apex Skill that supports the Class Aspect.

Plus looking back at the records of the old school gameplay experience and character advancement, it was quite common to have higher-level characters with two or three classes anyway--certainly at the higher levels of play.

The Core of FATE Core

2011-01-25T14:59:00.000-08:00

EDIT: I was more than a little distracted by my son while writing this post this afternoon, so some of this came out, um, not as clearly as I would've liked. So let me clarify.

When I mention Ryan, Chris, and Brad below, it's because these people are giants to me in the FATE world. I regularly read Ryan's blog and eagerly await Mythender. I had the pleasure of working with Chris on Legends of Anglerre. I stand in rapt admiration of what Brad and the VCSA team did with Diaspora. I look up to them. As part of writing FATE Kerberos, I've studied the work each of them has done with FATE and learned a lot. Their opinions on FATE Kerberos, should they choose to take a look at it, will matter a lot to me. A whole hell of a lot, actually. You put their names on a book and I'm going to want to check it out.

With that in mind: My first FATE experience was with Spirit of the Century. There are three names on the cover of that book: Fred Hicks, Rob Donoghue, and Leonard Balsera. That was only about five years ago, but I associate them as closely with FATE as I do, say, Ken St. Andre, Michael Stackpole, and Liz Danforth with Tunnels & Trolls, one of my favorite RPGs as a kid. Or Gygax with D&D. Or Merle Rasmussen with Top Secret. Or Steve Perrin and Greg Stafford with Worlds of Wonder. In my mind, there's that same level of celebrity association between those names and that game, even though I know plenty of people had just as much influence and history (or more so) with those games. It's a gut-level reaction.

So imagine my horror when I get messages from two people saying, in so many words, "I think you may have offended some people with that blog post." Let me tell you, there are a lot of places I don't want to be, and On Ryan Macklin's Bad Side is definitely one of them. (Please, please don't let me be the new You're Wrong guy. Please.) I'll apologize to Ryan personally, but please consider this a repudiation of the idea that he, Chris, Brad, or anyone else who's had a big role in the development of these games I love is somehow less deserving of respect than Fred, Rob, or Lenny. I'd never intended that, and I can't tell you how sorry I am that that's what came across.

And look, I don't know Ryan personally, or his complete history with FATE. I look forward to meeting him this year at GenCon or Gamex or wherever we might get to run into one another. I at least want to play Mythender or Vicious Crucible sometime before 2011's out.

(While I'm at it: Lenny, I know those core-of-FATE ideas didn't spring from Fred's mind fully formed. I know they're the result of work he's done and discussions he's had with you guys on SotC and DFRPG. But I still think it's fair to say that, at this point, they are what he sees as "the defining properties of FATE," even if he didn't do all the defining himself. I didn't mean to discount anyone else's hand in that process.)

I'm going to leave the rest of this post intact for... I dunno... posterity? I don't want the comments to not make sense, is I guess what I'm saying.

Don't call it a manifesto, but Fred Hicks has posted the defining properties of FATE as he sees them. The goal of the piece seems to be to address that old FATE issue: Why are the books so big? Fred spends a paragraph or two exploring the idea of overwriting out of love for the game, but most of it's devoted to distilling FATE into far more basic terms than you usually see (more basic even than the excellent Tri-Fold FATE).

It's an interesting read, especially considering Fred is one of the creators of FATE as we know it. I mean, it'd be one thing if someone like Ryan Macklin or Chris Birch or Brad Murray did it, but none of them has the same depth of history with the system that guys like Fred and Rob Donoghue or Lenny Balsera do. (Speaking of which, Lenny's SotC summary is here.)

In places, I want to read it as "This is what FATE is, and this is what FATE isn't," even though I know there's no way Fred intended it as something as divisive or judgmental as that. But I can't help cross-referencing every bit of it with what I know of all the FATE games on the market now (and, of course, FATE Kerberos) and seeing how they measure up to these Hicksian ideals. I can only think of one that, to me, doesn't quite hit every point he raises, which just goes to show how much any given FATE game shares with any other despite their many differences.

If you're writing a FATE game, it's a good road map. If you've never played FATE before and want to know what it's about (although, I mean, if that were the case, how did you end up reading this?), it's a good overview -- not necessarily of how any given FATE game works, but what FATE, as a system, is trying to accomplish. Certainly it's a better entry point for newbies than the SotC SRD, which can be a bit like drinking from the firehose.

(BTW, Fred, why couldn't you have written this back when Icons came out? It would've saved me from developing a new pet peeve.)

[Kerberos] Playtest Packet #4 Is Away!

2011-01-22T08:00:00.000-08:00

Thanks for your patience, and sorry it's a bit late, but if you're on the playtester list Playtest Packet #4 should be in your inbox already.

And if you're not on the playtester list, why not? Drop me a line and get in on this!

[Greyhawk] Experience & Advancement, Part the First

2011-01-19T21:20:00.000-08:00

Much credit and respect to Rob Dohoghue's blog entry as the genesis of this post: http://rdonoghue.blogspot.com/2010/10/role-of-spending.html

So, Spirit of Greyhawk is NOT dead, but had been on something of a hiatus for two reasons:

The demands of the non-RPG world just became too great to allow for any progress in the back half of 2010.
I had hit a bad case of writer's block with The Spirit of Greyhawk campaign (which tends to drive my postings here). The campaign storyline has been building to something of a "watershed moment" and I didn't feel as though I had enough planned to make it work the way I wanted.

Anyway, New Years' Resolutions and blah-blah-blah commitment to gaming blah-blah-blah, we got the game going again last weekend and though I was no further along to solving reason #2 above, I decided to stop delaying, put on my "Big GM panties" and really run the game as a "true" Fate game: stop worrying about lack of planning and let the players really have a say in where and how the game played out.

As most of you Fate-faithful might already have guessed, I was worrying too much about lack of planning. The session was actually one of the most engaging and fast-paced of any we've ever had. Being a Fate-GM, I had a very proud moment while we were cleaning up the Buffalo Wing bones, dice and empty cups when one of the players shook his head and said, "This session would have made for an amazing story to read or watch!"

In large part I credit that sentiment to a new rule I implemented with the goal of getting the players to stop "hoarding" their Fate Points--using the expenditure of Fate Points as the basis for character advancement.

Earning Experience Points
I've implemented Rob's rule pretty much as stated in the blog entry linked above:

"You can treat Fate points as XP by keeping a bowl in the middle of the table. Every time a player spends a FP, it goes into the bowl. The GM might also randomly toss into the bowl when he wants to reward general awesomeness. At night's end, the points in the bowl are converted to XP and divided among the players. Give any extra to whoever the table considers the night's spotlight player, or just let it ride til next time."

Playtest Experience
It was as though the clouds had parted: FP hoarding (or spending them only in a reactive sense) was a thing of the past. Declarations, tagging and Aspect powerings o' plenty. In a single 5 hour session, two 5-phase PCs had racked up 11 XP for the party.

Some examples of Player-related Awesome from that Session:

Declaring a large chandelier was hanging DIRECTLY above a wounded Villain, and the various rituals in chamber that involved the creation of a vortex (long story) had weakened the chandelier's chain, thus making it primed for use in a "Death from Above" attack.

PC encircling a villain's neck with his "chain whip" weapon while she tried to strangle him with her bare hands (big Wagnerian woman!), then using his Athletics skill and "Parkour" aspect to run up a wall and flip over the villain, thus simultaneously breaking her stranglehold on him and breaking her neck.

Correctly guessing/tagging another villain's "Mama's Boy" aspect to send him into a wild frenzy (cuz the PC had killed his Mother in the prior bullet point) causing him to scream in rage while attacking wildly and thereby negate any protective benefit of fighting within an obscuring mist.

Another correct guess/tag from the party that the geothermal vents upon which the town sat meant that the occupied mansion they had just cleared MUST have an escape tunnel somewhere and used it to free the mansion's servants. "If there's gonna be an escape tunnel ANYWHERE in the city, there'll be one in the mayor's mansion!"

This was (for me) the first time a Spirit of Greyhawk gaming session really FELT like a Fate "High Fantasy" game, rather than a Fantasy game that just happened to use the Fate ruleset. As a GM, I really felt the power of collaborative storytelling and that my job was to provide strong characters and settings to surround the PCs, keep a few things in my back pocket just in case, then put the pieces in motion and just let it happen.

And again in large part, I believe it was due to providing the players with an explicit mechanism to empower them to actively engage in the Fate system.

So now that Experience Points are a reality--how should Advancement be handled? There are other Fate implementations out there that deal with advancement in many different ways, but considering that Spirit of Greyhawk is attempting to stay consistent with players' expectations for how the gameworld works, I found that just lifting them "as is" into SoG wasn't going to work for me.

So here's my current thinking on how SoG will handle Advancement...

Spending Experience
Creation Phases and Levels
Spirit of Greyhawk makes the general assumption that each Creation Phase (as documented in Spirit of the Century) is considered as being the equivalent of "2 levels" in the source material. In other words, a Wizard with 3 creation phases is equivalent of a 6th-level Magic-User.

In Spirit of the Century, each creation phase is basically credited with having the following benefits:

2 Fate Points added to character's Refresh
1 New Stunt
2 New Aspects
Increased Number and Proficiency in Skills (discussed below)

Skill Points
If you consider each +1 in a skill as costing 1 point, the SotC 5-phase character would have the following...

1 x (+5) Skill = 5 Skill points
2 x (+4) Skills = 8 Skill points
3 x (+3) Skills = 9 Skill points
4 x (+2) Skills = 8 Skill points
5 x (+1) Skills = 5 Skill points

...for a total of 35 Skill points. At it's most basic, you could just divide the points by 5 (Creation Phases for a SotC character), make the statement that each phase would be worth 7 skill points and be done with it.

However I don't think that's really consistent with how this gameworld works and would be counter to the expectations of those players familiar with the source material.

Greyhawk Assumptions - Experience & Advancement
The following are derived from the Greyhawk source material:

As a rule of thumb, it takes roughly 2x as much XP to get from one level to the next. In other words, it takes about 2x as much XP to get to level 3 that it took to get to level 2. Then another 2x as much XP to get level 4 that it took to get to level 3.
NOTE: This is FAR from a constant, and at many classes' higher levels, this multiple starts to drop off.

XP rewards are constant with respect to who is earning them. A level 3 player killing a particular monster gets as much experience as a level 10 player would from killing the same monster. This means that a higher level character had to either do MORE of the same things, or kill tougher monsters (and get more treasure) to increase at the same pace as their lower-level counterparts.

If a 1st level PC were fighting a monster with a 12th level PC in the party, even though the 12th level PC might have done the lion's share of the damage to the monster and might have been solely responsible for killing the monster (with the 1st player being little more than an extra target), the basic rules state that 1st level PC gains as much XP for the kill as the 12th level player.

Phases: Skill Amount and Proficiency
Given the assumptions listed above, consider the SotC pyramid progression looking at the number of skills and at what degree of proficiency they are:

Phase 1:
1 Skill at Average (+1)

Phase 2:
1 Skill at Fair (+2)
2 Skills at Average (+1)

Phase 3:
1 Skill at Good (+3)
2 Skills at Fair (+2)
3 Skills at Average (+1)

Phase 4:
1 Skill at Great (+4)
2 Skills at Good (+3)
3 Skills at Fair (+2)
4 Skills at Average (+1)

Phase 5:
1 Skill at Superb (+5)
2 Skills at Great (+4)
3 Skills at Good (+3)
4 Skills at Fair (+2)
5 Skills at Average (+1)

So, working from that, we could take the following progression of total skill points needed to achieve each character creation phase. (NOTE: I've expanded the pyramid out to 9th level to be consistent with the SoG Ladder, as well as to see if the progression holds up at the high end.)

Phase 1: Earn 1 Skill point total.
Phase 2: Earn 3 more Skill points for a total of 4 Skill points.
Phase 3: Earn 6 more Skill points for a total of 10 Skill points.
Phase 4: Earn 10 more Skill points for a total of 20 Skill points.
Phase 5: Earn 15 more Skill points for a total of 35 Skill points.
Phase 6: Earn 21 more Skill points for a total of 56 Skill points.
Phase 7: Earn 28 more Skill points for a total of 84 Skill points.
Phase 8: Earn 36 more Skill points for a total of 120 Skill points.
Phase 9: Earn 45 more Skill points for a total of 165 Skill points.

While this progression is not a perfect fit with the source material, I think it's close enough out of the box to not worry about having to come up with something else.

Playtest Experience
Back to the last playtest session of SoG: we have two PC's at "Phase 5", or the equivalent of 10th level. As I had stated, the party had accumulated 11 XP total in one 5 hour session. For right now, I'm going to generalize that into a convenient "1 XP per gamer per 1 hour of gaming time" guess-stimate.

This means that for characters to get from Phase 5 to Phase 6, they would need to earn another 21 skill points each. Restated in source material terms, that means for 10th level characters to get to 12th level (remember that 1 phase = 2 levels), they would each need about 21 hours of gaming time to get there. From the perspective of my current gaming availability (5 hour game session every 2-3 weeks), that sounds pretty reasonable or perhaps even stingy. But then again going from 10th to 12th level is no walk in the park!

...So, any comments? My goal here is to try to stay true to the assumptions players have when they are playing in "Greyhawk", while staying as close as possible to the Fate system as implemented by the Evil Hat folks.

Coming up next: Going further off into the weeds with more specifics for spending XP and Advancement for a Fate game in the Greyhawk gameworld.

[Kerberos] Playtest Packet #4... Delayed

2011-01-17T01:49:00.000-08:00

I'd expected to send out the next Playtest Packet today (Sunday -- let's pretend it's still Sunday and not nearly two hours into Monday), but events conspired otherwise. I've been doing a lot of fiddling with trappings, and that's taken more of both my attention and my time than I'd anticipated. So be patient with me, playtesters, if we cycle through a few permutations of custom/Strange skill construction over the next week or two.

In the meantime, I'm still plugging away at getting the actual rules -- y'know, how to do stuff -- into acceptable shape. I've been consulting every FATE game I own for this, so it'll largely be a "best of" collection. ("Best of" according to me, of course. YMMV.) I've also been cleaning up the existing text, making a few alterations that have come up in our discussion forum, and that kind of thing. Which is useful and good, of course, but it also delays getting the new stuff out.

So hold tight, folks. There's another one of these things arriving in your inbox in the next couple days.

[Kerberos] Playtest Packet #3 Away!

2011-01-13T10:30:00.000-08:00

The third Playtest Packet (which includes the first two Playtest Packets in a revised form, plus some new stuff) has gone out, so if you should've received one but didn't, let me know.

One thing the playtesting process has pointed out so far is that while the chargen process isn't necessarily complex, it sure looks complex. This has been kinda frustrating for me, as the barriers to entry seem a lot higher than they actually are. In my head, everyone on my playtest list I haven't heard from has reacted the same way: "Character points? Lists of things? Tables? I'm out."

Overcoming that reaction, real or imagined, has been... a process. And that process has been all about organizing information to make it easier to digest. Take the big list of trappings. It started with putting them in a table, then adding one-line descriptions to each, and finally onto classifying them by function (e.g., Offense, Movement, Perception, etc.). So hopefully that will simplify things for people -- now you can figure out what you want the skill to do and just look at the categories to get the broad strokes. Also, the roadblock of Prohibited trappings has been replaced with the toll-road of Incompatible trappings. Instead of being arbitrarily told, "No, you can't do that -- build the skill a different way," now you can put any collection trappings together under a single skill, and the worst that'll happen is that it'll just cost a ton of points. That's a change in game mechanics, obviously, but the biggest reason it's in there is so people don't have to worry about building a cool Strange skill only to discover that this trapping isn't allowed to co-exist with this other trapping, so back to the drawing board, chump.

There's a lot of other stuff in there, including Ben Baugh's excellent chapter on social class (which meshes with the rest of this effortlessly), so if you're on the list you can look forward to that. If you're not on the list and want to be, get in touch with me on RPG.net or Facebook or something and just say the word.

[Kerberos] We Like Change

2011-01-10T20:34:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's chargen playtest at DiceHouse Games really opened my eyes to a few problems in KFC. For one thing, just being in the midst of six people completely new to the rules (mostly) and trying to make characters was an experience. Even better was the fact that it was six people of varying experience with FATE: We ran the gamut from Tony, who's barely touched FATE, to Morgan Ellis, my oft-mentioned platonic FATE mate and frequent Strategicon scheduling determinant.

My primary concern with this all along has been whether (or, to put it more optimistically, how much) it would appeal to the FATE community, so I took Morgan's fist-shaking during character creation and mutterings about crunchiness as something of an answer. Admittedly, this version of FATE doesn't really have your standard three-aspects-and-go character generation. I mean, there's nothing stopping you from doing that, I suppose -- Archetype aspect, Social Class aspect, and Conviction aspect, then figure it out as you go -- but it'd take quite a bit more familiarity with the quirks of this particular system before you could, say, slap together a Strange skill on the fly.

Desmond was another one. He spent the better part of two hours trying to put together four Strange skills to represent a suit of power armor (coin-operated power armor). I'm still not entirely sure what the hold-up was, but I know of a few things changes I can make and things I can clarify that should speed up the process significantly.

And that's the good news, really: We spent a few hours making characters and, more importantly, talking about making characters, and that discussion was full of little revelations and insights that have already made this a better game. I implemented a number of changes to the already-extant 50+ pages of playtest material, and I'm ready to move on to some more setting-specific stuff. Not that I've forgotten about writing the, y'know, the actual rules at some point -- how conflicts work, how long things take to accomplish, how hard it is to break down a door, etc. -- but that's coming too. I'm trying to take it three things at a time.

If you're interested in this, it's not too late to get in on the playtest. Email me or contact me on Facebook or on RPG.net or something. I'll send out a new Playtest Packet sometime this week that will include a link and password to our KFC forum on the Arc Dream website so you can join the discussion.

[Kerberos] Playtest Packet #2 Away!

2011-01-08T12:29:00.000-08:00

The lean-and-mean Playtest Packet #2 has gone out to the playtesters. If you're on the list and don't receive it sometime today, drop me a line and let me know so I can rectify that.

What's in this one? Mostly Archetypes. There's a good deal of detail on the Faerie and Magus Archetypes (which were fun to convert from ORE to FATE) in particular, plus a few paragraphs on how magic works in Victoria's Century. The PDF incorrectly says that it also contains errata, but it doesn't -- I put it together in the wee hours of the morning, and simply forgot to include it. I'll continue to post errata in our forum on the Arc Dream site. Join us there, won't you?

[Kerberos] Playtest Packet #1 Away!

2011-01-06T00:34:00.000-08:00

All right, so I may have been a little liberal with my use of the word "today" yesterday, but whatever -- the first playtest packet for KFC has gone out. If you signed up as a playtester, look for it in your inbox. Check it out, then come on down to our forum on the Arc Dream site. See you there!

[Kerberos] Playtest Packet #1 Going Out Today

2011-01-05T11:12:00.000-08:00

Either today or this evening (I'm betting on this evening, personally), I'll be sending out the first packet of playtest materials to everyone on this big list of playtesters I have here. This packet will contain:

Arc Dream's don't-call-it-an-NDA "Be Cool" form. This is important and you should read it.
Character creation rules.
The password for the KFC playtest forum on the Arc Dream message boards.

Again, my prime concern for KFC is character creation. Does it make sense to you? Does the math seem right? Does it make characters you feel would be fun to play? Does it make characters that demand you play them right now? What kind of horrible abomination of a game-wrecking character can you make with it? That sort of thing.

So be on the lookout for that, impatient playtesters! Excitement!

Five, Four, Three, Nose, One -- Happy New Year!

2011-01-02T16:48:00.000-08:00

To kick off 2011, I want to plug a couple of FATE projects on the Web. Granted, they were brought to my attention by the very people who created them, but that doesn't make them any less impressive.

The first is Malmsturm, a German FATE-powered game which, I believe, will be available in Germany soon, if it isn't already. If you can't read German, but enjoy puzzling through shaky translations of it, you might want to try to read it here and see if you can make heads or tails of Google Translate's take on it. Personally, I've found myself not up to the task, but the sheer amount of information there tells me that it's something worth checking out for those who are.

Speaking of sheer amounts of information, Emlyn Freeman has been meticulously detailing a complete setting, and FATE mechanics to go along with it, at RealmCrafting. There's a lot of detail there involving Emlyn's process of creating everything from cities to religions; in some ways, it's kinda the opposite of what I do here, in that I usually don't go concern myself with stuff like, y'know, flavor, so if you're missing that sort of thing, definitely check out RealmCrafting. In fact, check it out anyway. There's a lot there, and something's bound to inspire you.

As for me, I'm hard at work on KFC. Today I'm finishing up the Skills chapter and getting as much of the rest of it done as possible. If all goes according to plan (as it so often does!), character-creation playtest materials will go out mid-week. We're doing some sort of playtest next Sunday, as well, at DiceHouse in Fullerton, CA, although that may also be constrained to making characters. Honestly, it's the only aspect of this FATE supers thing that hasn't been playtested. Obviously, we're going to be playtesting the rest of it as well, but right now the thing that concerns me is whether this character-generation method makes as much sense to everyone else as it does to me.

[Kerberos] Update Again!

2010-12-28T08:00:00.000-08:00

I've been banging away at this project (I was looking for a way to combine the words "Kerberos," "Club," and "FATE" to somehow come up with an acronym of KFC, and had given it up as hopeless until Ben Baugh suggested "Kerberos FATE Conversion," so there we are) every moment I can spare between eating, sleeping, and making sure my now-all-too-mobile toddler doesn't run out the front door. My pile of reference material includes SotC, DFRPG, Diaspora, Legends of Anglerre, Wild Talents 2nd Edition, and, of course, The Kerberos Club, all of which, if I were still in school, would make this the coolest research paper ever.

A ton of would-be playtesters have contacted me, and you're all on the list. Sometime during the first week of January, I'll be sending out playtest packets to everyone with a rundown of the FATE ruleset I'm using for this book (even if you already know FATE, you need to read this stuff) and character creation guidelines. The first thing I'm going to want people to do is to make some characters -- and I want them as rules-exploity and min-maxed as possible. I want to see how bad these rules can be in the hands of someone who sticks to the letter of the law but disregards everything except sheer power. As much as I try to make characters like that, I know that there's still an internal sense of reasonableness that I just can't shake, so I'll need you guys to make those game-breaking characters for me.

Ben Baugh has a great little section in The Kerberos Club entitled "What's to Stop Me From Gaming This System?" I have a similar attitude regarding my system. I already know you can break it. I just want to see how bad it can get, and trust that the average player isn't, in Ben's words, "the kind of boor" who "would want to spoil such a marvelous bit of starry-eyed game design idealism." C'mon -- we're grown-ups.

[Kerberos] Updates!

2010-12-15T13:31:00.000-08:00

So! Just got off the ol' Skype from my first call with Shane Ivey at Arc Dream about this whole FATE Kerberos project, and I have to say... I'm pretty damn excited. There's a lot I can't disclose yet, but there are a few things I can, so let's do that.

It'll be a standalone book. No surprise here, really -- without a definitive version of FATE that everyone can agree on, we kinda don't have another option. I don't think many will complain, though. This means the standard bits on what aspects are, what skills are, how the Fate Point economy works, and etc. I will endeavor to keep all of this as concise as possible, but not so much so that it isn't easily understood. This book will not stop a bullet. That's the Mike Olson guarantee.
FATE trumps ORE. Many bits of KC are very FATE-friendly as-is, but where ORE's mechanics and FATE's are incompatible, or where replicating what KC does with ORE would be a convoluted process, the relative rules-lightness of FATE (not that it's actually rules-light, mind you) will take priority. It's my feeling that people who buy FATE Kerberos will be doing so in large part because they like FATE, and they'll want a decidedly FATE-y version of things that plays to FATE's strengths instead of a game that tries to turn FATE into ORE. ORE is a very different animal than FATE, so if it's an equal choice between, say, making a bunch of dice rolls or just compelling an aspect, I'll go with the latter.
Fudge Dice are the default. My take on scaling powers uses both Fudge Dice and d6s, so that's what we're going to use. However, I know that not everyone likes Fudge Dice, so there'll also be guidelines and advice on using one or two other dice mechanics instead. Regardless, the rules will work no matter what dice mechanic you choose to use.
The KC you know and love will be preserved wherever possible. By this, I mean that many of the concepts used in KC (and Wild Talents, as applicable) will be retained and FATE-ized with as little alteration as I can manage. For example, characters will still have an Archetype and Convictions, but as aspects, not as their own discrete mechanical elements. If I can find a cool halfway point for a given component between ORE and FATE that stays true to both and doesn't require pages of explanation to work, then I'll take it.
WE NEED PLAYTESTERS. Seriously. I can't go into specifics about the timeline, but we're going to need to get some good playtesting done within the next couple months. If you're interested in this, and I know you are, leave me a comment below, send me an email, or whatever with your contact info, and we'll get materials out to you ASAP. Please note that this is contingent upon me getting my notes and stuff together in a form that can actually be sent out to people, so if you email me today, don't expect to get a playtest packet tonight. Or tomorrow. Or over the weekend. I'll also be fishing for playtesters in the FATE RPG Yahoo! Group and on RPG.net. And Facebook, too. Sure, why not. Maybe I'll set up a group there we can use.

There's a lot more, but it's all either minutiae or stuff I just can't talk about yet. It was a pleasure to finally speak with Shane in person-ish, though. And now if you'll excuse me, I have a crap-ton of really awesome work to to do....

Small LOA Companion Update

2010-11-24T23:27:00.000-08:00

I have a tiny update on the Legends of Anglerre Companion, for those who are interested. And honestly, if you like LOA at all, you should be very interested, because this is shaping up to be a very good book.

Anyway, I sent in some last-minute revisions to the City Adventures chapter today. I used to think it was pretty good; now I think it's pretty great. Minor changes, but they make a big difference. Sorry I can't be more specific than that, but I can at least say that they give the chapter, which is primarily concerned with defining cities as collections of organizations, significantly more depth. And it makes those organizations more fun to create. IMO, anyway.

I'm pretty pleased with my contributions to this thing. The Random Adventure Generator does what it says on the tin, and the Island Adventures chapter, though wholly crunch-free (beware!), strikes me as both fun and useful for sparking ideas -- at least, that's what it's intended to be.

How about the Table of Contents? Sure, I don't see the harm in that.

Keeping it in the Family
Random Adventure Generator
City Adventures
~~Illondre and Goh’Myreth~~
Island Adventures
Hammerhold
Dreams on Dragon Island
Cities of the Silver Sea
The Sirens of Simris
Cornucopeia
Undercity Creatures and Island Inhabitants
Aspects-only Play
Sleepwalk
Pathwalking

As you can see, there's some actual Anglerre setting info (the Illondre chapter), a bunch of stuff on islands and aquatic adventures, the long-discussed-but-cut-from-the-corebook-for-space system for Aspects-only play, and more. It's going into the "pre-final edit" any minute now, which would seem to indicate it's coming out... soon? Ish?

So You Want to Play FATE....

2010-11-21T20:21:00.000-08:00

A little mini-meme project has spontaneously sprung into being over on RPG.net: FATE pamphlets. RPG.net user TheMouse did an excellent run-down of FATE basics that easily fits on a single double-sided sheet of letter-sized paper (and A4, presumably). Prompted by my half-joking suggestion for a FATE rules pamphlet akin to pamphlets you might find in a doctor's waiting room, user Glyptodont rose to the challenge with this pamphlet-style treatment of TheMouse's text, followed by Diaspora co-author Brad Murray, aka Halfjack, who added some art, a title ("So you want to play a gorilla in a bi-plane"), and true pamphlet-fold formatting.The call has now gone out for FATE genre pamphlets, for fantasy, sci-fi, and etc., though none as of yet has materialized.

Why is all this so great? A couple reasons.

One, it's proof that thick FATE books like SotC and Legends of Anglerre aren't massive because they have to be, but because the authors wanted them to be. The rules themselves (note that the pamphlet necessarily cuts out skill and stunt descriptions, but that's okay) clearly don't take up all that much space, so what else is in those books? Examples. Extrapolations. Expansions. In other words, more creative content. Y'know, the stuff you're paying for when you buy a book.

The other reason I think the FATE pamphlet is awesome is that it hopefully signals the beginning of a new shared project for the FATE community. TheMouse's slimmed-down FATE rules aren't the end-all, be-all of FATE, nor are they intended to be; they're just one gamer's attempt to illustrate that FATE doesn't have to be hard to learn. I'd love to see more takes on this same idea by other FATE fans. There's no definitive version of FATE out there (I think most of us can agree on that, anyway), but can you make a pamphlet for the FATE you play at your table? If you like your FATE by the book, fine -- can you make, say, a Starblazer Adventures pamphlet, or a DFRPG pamphlet? I know I'm going to make a FATE Kerberos pamphlet for convention games, that's for damn sure. And how great it'll be to leave FATE pamphlets lying around like so much propaganda at conventions. I mean, FATE isn't exactly a hard sell at Strategicon, but still, it'll amuse me.

In other words, could this be the beginning of Microlite FATE? I'd like to think so. If it is, you're a part of it!

UPDATE: And here's Eclipse Phase creator Adam Jury's take on the pamphlet.

UPDATE: Here's RPG.net user TechOgre's Legends of Anglerre-specific pamphlet. [As of 12/7/10, this link is no longer working. Following up with the man himself to see what's up with it.]

UPDATE: Here's TheMouse's fantasy-specific FATE pamphlet. Note that it isn't drawn from any one FATE source; it's pretty much his quick-and-dirty version of fantasy FATE, and it looks pretty good to me.