[Fate More] Get On It!

Hola, amigos! I know it's been a long time since I rapped atcha, but I've been hecka busy. Or... neglectful. Little of both, probably.

Anyway, I come to you today with an important message about Fate More.

What's Fate More? See, this is the problem.

Fate More is Evil Hat's Kickstarter campaign to publish more Fate material in hard-copy form. Most of this material has already been written and even released in PDF form, so the Kickstarter is basically just about covering the costs of printing and distributing these titles. It's already successfully funded, as you may be aware, but it's entering its final 48 hours and there are some really fantastic stretch goals and "Extras" that may go tragically unfulfilled. And the very thought of that makes the Hulk sad.

Or maybe just angry.

What's been unlocked so far? ONLY ALL OF THIS:

• Venture City, a greatly expanded Venture City Stories. Fate supers!
• Do: Fate of the Flying Temple, a standalone FAE take and sorta sequel to Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple.
• Young Centurions, a FAE prequel to Spirit of the Century featuring young-adult PCs and all that that entails.
• Atomic Robo: Majestic 12, a supplement for ARRPG all about playing Majestic 12 agents as the good guys (because they are). Brian Clevinger coughed up a bunch more detail on Robo's world, and I wrote some fun new mechanics for M12 missions and requisitions, then it was edited and laid out -- I'm getting too detailed here. Point is, it exists, and you can get it through this Kickstarter.

In addition, Evil Hat will release an open-license version of ARRPG's rules for modes, mega-stunts, and brainstorms. And I guess I'll have something to do with that, too. And if you think that's cool, there are plans to open-license other stuff, including:

• Venture City's power-construction rules.
• War of Ashes' miniatures combat rules -- that I wrote!
• Lots of cool new mechanics from various Fate Worlds & Adventures releases -- many of which involved me somehow to varying degrees!

(Forgive me for focusing on stuff I wrote or edited, but it's my blog.)

Speaking of the Fate Worlds & Adventures line, that's kinda the main thrust of this whole thing -- compiling them into full-color hardcovers. 

The campaign's almost certainly going to hit that $50K stretch goal, which includes two things I worked on (PK Sullivan's The Three Rocketeers and Nick Pilon's Frontier Spirit). But it's the third one, at $80K, that I most want to see succeed, because it contains Deep Dark Blue, which is the closest I've come to actually writing one of these things myself. The actual author is Lore Graham, who created and wrote the bulk of it, but I'm technically credited as a writer, I believe, mostly for my submarine construction and combat rules. So, y'know, for purely selfish reasons, I'd like to be able to hold that in my hands. 

And, uh, so would you! Right? Because it also has Slip, which has got to be the weirdest of these things I've worked on (in a good way, of course), and Eagle Eyes and House of Bards. Imagine, an entire house of bards!

(I didn't work on anything in Worlds Rise Up, unfortunately, but it has four cool settings of its own: Behind the Walls, Sails Full of Stars, Gods and Monsters, and Nest. I wasn't involved with them and don't really know anything significant about them either, but Evil Hat don't make no trash.)

If this is you -- not literally Atomic Robo from 1926, but metaphorically -- Evil Hat explains it a lot more thoroughly in this Kickstarter update. And while you're there, back the thing! You only have about 48 hours left to help bring hard copies of these books (and all that open content) into existence!

[GenCon 2014] It's Over, Go Home

This is funny, trust me.

Well. GenCon 2014 was one for the books. Yup. Some high points:

• The State of the Hat panel on Thursday. Fun way to kick off the convention. (I like doing panels. Are you doing a panel for a thing? Maybe you want me on it!) Some cool stuff on display there, including the Campaign Coins fate point tokens and a spiral-bound copy of the War of Ashes playtest rules. Finally got to meet Fred, Rob, and Sean in person. At least, I'm pretty positive Sean and I have never met. Anyway, also got to meet my personal savior, Adam Jury. Plus, the panelists didn't outnumber the audience this year, which was nice.
• Three very successful and fun playtests of The Sparks Nevada Thrilling Adventure Game, including one for a table of four superfans and one for aforementioned Evil Hat project manager Sean Nittner. Good feedback all around. This new version really feels like the show, and it's faster-playing to boot. One of these had the best aspect I've ever come up with (pictured above).
• An equally successful and fun game of Atomic Robo that let me playstorm ideas for training and planning montages for Shadow of the Century -- plus my players included Dave and Liz of Nearly Enough Dice, all the way from Scotland, which was very cool. Great to meet you guys in person! Wish we could've found time to do an interview face-to-face, but oh well. Hangout it is.
• The fastest ARRPG game of my or anyone's life at Games on Demand -- about 90 minutes, after introducing the PCs and explaining the basics of Fate -- but still managed to squeeze in two fun fights, a brainstorm, and, y'know, general roleplaying and farting around. Felt like a sprint from start to finish, but we did it, and everyone had a great time. I really enjoyed conceding on behalf of those last two NPCs.
• Playing in a Tunnels & Trolls game run by childhood idol Ken St. Andre. I told him later at the Flying Buffalo booth that T&T was a formative game for me, and that I was now a famous game designer. I don't think he believed me on either count. But it was still nice to tell him anyway, even if only one of those things is true.
• A drum corps fan I met Thursday morning while making our D&D characters for the convention. Most of the rest of the gamers at the table were fairly unpleasant, demeanor-wise, so it was cool to be able to talk drum corps with this guy (marched Cadets '92, son marched SCV in... 2011, I want to say), let him look up stuff in my PHB, and ignore those other people entirely.
• My first D&D game of the convention, when the DM had everyone go around the table and call out their race and class. After "Fighter, fighter, fighter, wizard, cleric," it was a pleasure to say "Bard!" The looks on their faces... priceless. But they changed their tunes the first time I handed out an Inspiration Die. Take that, unbelievers.
• My second (and, unfortunately, last) D&D game of the convention, when the tweenaged girl at the table got to strike the killing blow against the monster with her magic missile. I just like it when first-time players get to do cool stuff, especially if they're kids.
• Seeing ARRPG on the rack at the IPR booth and hearing that it was selling like hotcakes.
• Getting interviewed (on video!) about ARRPG, and suggesting questions to the interviewer, who was -- admit it, Spencer! -- more enthusiastic than prepared. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It was flattering. Cool guys, those guys.
• Played a demo of D&D Attack Wing. Like X-Wing, but with dragons. I... may be in trouble.

• Signing books! I feel like I signed a lot of books, including one copy of Jadepunk. No Fate Core, though. I guess that was a 2013 thing.
• Meeting a few industry-types who either wanted to meet me or felt they had no other option once I had been introduced. Regardless, hey, meeting new people.
• Talkin' business! Business business business! Numbers!
• Every single time someone told me they liked/loved/were excited about ARRPG.
• You! That time I saw you there and we talked about, I dunno, some gaming thing, probably.
• Going to the ENnie Awards the night that Fate Core, Fate Accelerated, the Fate System Toolkit, Fate Dice, the Fate SRD, and Evil Hat itself won ALL THE ENNIES. And also John Adamus and Ericka Skirpan got engaged on stage, which was a thing only one of them knew was going to happen. I'd never been to the ENnies before -- never really felt like I had a reason to go -- so I can only assume they're all like that.

Low points!

• Only getting to play games for 3 hours. Boo.
• That T&T game wasn't actually, like... good.
• D&D DMs being stingy with Inspiration. I'm roleplayin' my face off over here! Gimme the Inspiration already! Sheesh.
• Staying at a hotel out by the airport and having to take a 40-minute shuttle there and back every day. This was a bigger hassle than just the time lost. The shuttle only ran once and hour, and at night there was just a 10:00 and a 1:00 -- so if you didn't get the former, you had to wait around for three hours for the latter. Say, if you're at the ENnies and the thing lasts until 10:30.
• Being constantly aware the whole four days (five, including traveling Wednesday) that Gateway's in two weeks.
• Not getting around to meeting you. Yeah, you! I meant to meet you, honest.

Looking forward to next year, when I will make good on my promise to myself to not schedule so much stuff. See you there.

[Atomic Robo] The Robo Has Landed

Pictured: Atomic Robo, existing as a physical product
you can hold in your hands and everything. 

Has your copy of Atomic Robo: The Roleplaying Game arrived yet? Well did you preorder it? Of course, at this point you could just buy it, because it's out and in stores. You are running out of excuses, in other words.

In all seriousness, it's been extremely gratifying to see ARRPG getting such a great reception from people online. I spent more than two years neck-deep in this game, so it's really rewarding to see tweets like this, or this, or this thing here, or this other bit over here plus this frankly embarrassing praise, and so on. I guess what I'm saying is that the approval of strangers is very important to me, and then on top of that I'm obviously not able to be one-hundred percent sincere about any of this because it's so genuinely affecting. All of this boldfacing is actually part of a defense mechanism against emotional vulnerability. So... thanks!

Anyway, if you're still waiting for yours to show up in the mail, or even if you aren't, you can while away the empty, meaningless hours listening to a couple recent Robo-oriented (Roboriented!) podcasts.

Late last month I was on Useless Drivel talking with Rob and Matt about a bunch of stuff, including but not limited to:

• A radio show I had in college (that apparently had a MySpace page)
• The Thrilling Adventure Hour
• GI Joe, sorta
• The Heroes of Three Crossings
• Crimson Skies
• The Shieldwall minis wargame and the War of Ashes RPG
• The Kerberos Club
• Jadepunk
• OSS 117
• Luchadores
• Atomic Robo
• Legends of Anglerre (sad face)
• The not-at-all-secret origin story of the Atomic Robo RPG
• Why this blog is called "Spirit of the Blank"
• Living the dream

(I mention on this podcast that I'm going to make those Crimson Skies Fate dogfighting rules available, and that's still my intent, but they're not up yet. End of line.)

And just a couple weeks ago, Atomic Robo scribe Brian Clevinger talked Robo and the Technocracy with Ryan Macklin on Master Plan. The focus of the conversation is RPG licensing from the licensor's point of view, and also Brian corroborates my ARRPG origin story, which is kind of a relief.

On a related note, Ryan and Tim Rodriguez are running a Kickstarter right this very moment for Backstory Cards, so go get in on that.

BONUS PODCAST RECOMMENDATION: The last episode of Nearly Enough Dice (episode 141, for future generations) has a very nice, unapologetically glowing review/unpaid endorsement of ARRPG. The episode isn't completely Robo-centric or anything, and neither I nor Brian are interviewed on it, but still, it's good. Especially if you're like "ARRPG sounds pretty cool, but I dunno, I need someone with a Scottish accent to convince me," then this is -- it's the podcast for you. It's almost eerie how precisely they've tailored this episode to suit your exact needs. You'd be foolish not to listen.

[Atomic Robo] Preorder It!

"Hey, when's Atomic Robo coming out?"

Well, it's not in layout, I'll tell you that. Go preorder it now and get the PDF immediately! Trust in Science, sure, but do not remain calm!

("When's Atomic Robo coming out?" Whew. Here's to never answering that question again.)

You can also order it through your FLGS and still get the PDF right away thanks to Bits & Mortar, which lets you support your store while still getting all the benefits of buying it online. If you have a favorite local store, I highly recommend you do this. It's good for the bottle, it's good for the can. Or something.

If you've already downloaded the PDF, remember that it won't actually go to the printer for another week or so, which means you have a week to let me know all the errors that I failed to correct before it made its way to you.

If you're interested in learning a little more about ARRPG, here I am on the Vigilance Podcast, recorded late last night, with host James Dawsey. We talked mostly about ARRPG, but also touched on War of Ashes a bit and more besides. Knowing me, I probably mentioned Star Wars Minute somewhere along the way, but I can't be sure. We did a lot of talking. After James stopped recording, we carried on for another two hours or so. It's all a blur.

Finally, a lot of people have already had some very nice things to say about ARRPG, which has been very... I guess the word would be rewarding. I've poured a ton of time and effort into ARRPG, and while I can't really consider myself done -- there's still all that errata to address, after all -- we're close enough that I can say some post-mortem stuff. Some time ago, I said (I believe it was on the Bear Swarm podcast) that with ARRPG, I wanted to emulate Goldeneye for the N64 in terms of how much care and attention to detail would go into the game. I'm happy to say I feel that this comes across on every page. (Well, maybe not the index quite so much.) I hope you agree!

[War of Ashes] Playtest Open Now!

Is that a... meat... polearm?

The War of Ashes playtest is now open! Go apply for it!

What is War of Ashes? Is that what you're asking? Well, it's based on Zombiesmith's wargame Shieldwall, in which four varieties of puppety oddballs cut a bloody swath of death and conquest across the island of Agaptus. Zombiesmith makes some detailed, distinctive miniatures for it in their trademark "grimsical" style. They're kinda like Muppets, but even more bloodthirsty, if you can imagine such a thing.

It also has an impressively rich backstory, which WoA lead designer Sophie Lagacé has used to create a whole RPG using Fate Accelerated Edition. I was lucky enough to get to do the combat rules, as previously mentioned, which are minis-compatible. The design goal there was to make a FAE game that can incorporate minis and tactical combat in a way that adds to the fun instead of feeling like a barrier to it. Shieldwall has some unique cultural stuff that shows up in the game, like Roar and Froth, and figuring out how to work as much of that material in to give WoA a Shieldwall feel was a fun challenge. I'm really pleased with the results.

So go check it out! Playtest! Go!

[War of Ashes] You Got Your Minis in my FAE

Pictured: The aftermath of a really fun combat.

So as Fred mentioned in the most recent State of the Hat, I've been brought onto the War of Ashes team to work on some minis combat rules. Of course, the inestimable Sophie Lagace is still the lead designer/developer/writer/do-everything-person. I'm just doing this one thing.

What is this one thing? Little background on my influences here: I've played a bunch of every edition of D&D, and really enjoyed the tactical element of 4E in particular. I enjoy Descent a whole bunch, and own three sets of Dungeon Command, 4E's minis skirmish-game offspring. Despite this, I wouldn't necessarily call myself a "minis guy," which is too bad, because I like minis as a physical thing, but since I mainly run Fate, I haven't found a practical use for them. (I also run a very occasional D&D game that's cycled from Rules Cyclopedia to a couple of my own heartbreakin' "fixes" to D&D Next, but my players really enjoy not having any visual aids at the table, so even that's devoid of minis.)

My starting point for WoA's -- for lack of a better term -- tactical combat is to make use of existing elements in Fate that can lend interest to incorporating minis. Zones are already a thing, of course, but admittedly, a thing I rarely use. Descent, 4E, and Dungeon Command all taught me that interesting terrain can make for interesting minis combat by making the minis and defined space feel both relevant and fun instead of a barrier. Fortunately, Fate has an existing way to handle the "interesting" part too, in the form of aspects. So I'm not interested in 5-foot squares or hexes or anything on that level of detail. A zone and an aspect are good enough for me. In fact, if you look at that picture above, each separate card in the Noteboard is its own zone, with its aspect written in. There's enough implied contrast between Open Field, River, Trees, and Clifftop to make any more detail redundant.

Forced movement, too. I love playing fighters in 4E, not just because they're good at their job without being magical (although that's a big part of it), but because it's so satisfying to push, pull, and slide badguys around. You get a real sense of battlefield control. So that's a thing here. But because we're dealing with such coarse-grained detail, as long as you're in melee there's no functional difference between pushing or sliding someone into an adjacent zone. (Pulling looks the same too, but has a different feel, IMO. I'm not sure I can tell you why, which may mean I'm wrong about the different-feel bit.) Forced movement isn't always the most useful or exciting thing to do, but when it is, it's awesome. You may not care about pushing a guy from one Open Field to another, but pushing him into a Waterfall or River or off a Clifftop is another matter.

So. The aim is to add enough tactical detail to make fights more concretely realized without constraining the action, and no more. The rules need to be intuitive enough that your best guess about how something should work should do you fine and/or agree with the text. And everything still needs to play like Fate, not a tactical skirmish game that happens to use Fate dice.

To that end, I managed to press-gang some of my San Diego friends into a little playtest last weekend -- just a single combat to try out some ideas. And it was honestly a lot of fun. We worked a few things out in play that I hadn't been entirely sure about beforehand, but for the most part the stuff I came in with resulted in a good balance of Fate-style narrative and tactical play. The map and minis added fun to the fight instead of leeching it. I'm eager to try it again.

Pictured: One of Shieldwall's puppety oddballs.

You probably want some more details on mechanical stuff. Hey, I know I would! So here's some of that.

• Given the additional tactical elements, I decided to streamline things a bit by using conditions, from the Fate System Toolkit. I'd never used them before, but they were great. A++++, would use again.
• I used a version of my Red/Blue dice hack, which can also be found in the Toolkit. The minis wargame on which War of Ashes is based, Shieldwall, uses "Normal" and "Lethal" dice, so I called the Red dice Lethal dice. Lethal damage skips the stress track and goes right to conditions, and a single point of Lethal damage is enough to take out a nameless NPC.
• We did a thing I've been doing with the Sparks Nevada RPG, which is simultaneous combat. Attacker attacks, defender defends, but whoever has the higher total deals damage to the other, as long as they have a way of doing so. It speeds up combat and makes things deadlier, both of which are right for this project.
• This means that Blue dice (from the aforesaid Red/Blue dice hack) don't really work, because if you have Lethal dice to roll you're rolling them even on defense. So instead armor converts Lethal damage to Normal damage. Advantageous -- you'd certainly rather have it than not -- but doesn't drag out combats. Sometimes I find that Armor ratings can be kind of a bummer, and I like that here winning the roll will always have a direct effect on your opponent.
• Scale. Size matters in Shieldwall, so it does here, too. Bigger-than-average combatants basically have a +1 across the board against smaller opponents. There are probably more interesting ways to do this, but this was the most expedient and intuitive solution.
• Facing and positioning within a zone is way too fiddly for my tastes, so instead all we are about is numbers. If you and your allies outnumber your enemies in a zone, you get to roll more Fate dice and keep the best four (six-keep-four if you outnumber then less than 4:1, eight-keep-four if you outnumber them by 4:1 or more). This also gives added incentive to forcibly move your enemies around. Maybe you want to break them up so they don't get those extra dice against you, or maybe you want to push them into a single zone to surround them.

How did this all work? In brief, really well. Not everyone in the playtest group was super into using minis, I think, but they all got into it quickly enough. The word "feel" is kinda problematic in these contexts because it's so personal (and therefore often meaningless); nonetheless, I have to say it still "felt" like Fate in spite of what amounted to additional visual aids. We got to test out all of the above rules, too. We had the ogre PC fighting four NPCs at once. They had the numerical advantage, but he managed to push one of them into the waterfall, from whence the poor NPC was promptly pushed downriver by invoking the zone aspects along the way. (He was a nameless NPC and I thought it was funny, so we went with it.) We had someone invoke the Open Field aspect as part of a charge, and someone else invoke Clifftop to dodge a thrown rock from below. Even a single point of Lethal damage proved dangerous to the PCs at the right time. For me, a hallmark of an exciting Fate combat is if the PCs are beaten up by the end of it, and as the ogre finished the scene with a full stress track and a full four conditions, I'm going to say this more than qualifies under that criterion.

Now, could we have played this combat without the minis? Absolutely, and almost nothing would've changed rules-wise. The fact is, we enjoyed the minis, which is the experience WoA is supposed to help create.