[Zombies] More Zombies!

WERE YOU AWARE that this past Wednesday was the 75th anniversary of the Mercury Theatre on the Air's War of the Worlds broadcast? That's just one of many date-relevant facts I would've told you if I'd managed to get this posted before Halloween!

Anyway.

So when a zombie bites you, it's bad. We all know this. Any consequence from a Teeth attack will eventually result in the victim becoming a zombie, no two ways about it. It'll worsen from scene to scene, moving from mild to moderate to severe, until the victim is taken out... by becoming a zombie.

There's only one way to "treat" a Bitten consequence, and that's amputation. It's not the hardest surgery in the world, but man, you gotta do it fast. Regardless of the severity of the consequence, the difficulty to treat it is +6, and doing so gives you a severe consequence appropriate to the amputation. (I recommend Dis-Armed. I use it every chance I get.)

If that first attempt fails, no further attempts can be made. You are doomed. And if that Bitten consequence was already severe, then... see the previous sentence.

This is pretty rough, but a zombie can't actually make a Teeth attack without first invoking an aspect. It doesn't get the usual bonus or reroll for invoking this aspect -- all it gets is the opportunity to bite. We used to call this "invoking for effect." The idea is that it'd create an advantage with Claws, like Grabbed, then bite with its next action. Or the victim might be Surrounded, or maybe that Sprained Ankle slows them down. You get the idea.

Miscellany:

• I had this idea that zombies would only roll 2dF. They're reliable, predictable, and experience neither highs nor lows. But I'm uncertain about this one.
• Mobs are important to zombies and their particular brand of horror. Even though they take consequences individually, I'd still mob 'em up whenever possible. So they attack you en masse, but you attack them one-on-one.
• There've been quite a few scenes in The Walking Dead of people just head-stabbing helpless zombies through a chain-link fence. As always, if there's no interesting failure result, don't roll for it; it's just narrative color. "So you're out on fence duty, braining walkers with a crowbar, when all of a sudden...."
• If you need zombies to use a Physique-type overcome action, you could use Body. Or you could use nothing, and rely solely on mob-based gang-up bonuses. This is pretty cool, I think, because it means you can pretty easily keep one zombie at bay with a closed and locked door, but a pile of them will break through, given time.
• Brains. BRAAAIIINS.

[Zombies] Zombies!

I thought up some mechanics for zombies a while ago -- almost two years ago, according to Google Docs -- so I figured I'd post about it on account of it almost being Halloween and all. I'm talking about aim-for-the-head, brain-eating shamblers here, so don't try to apply these to, I dunno, voodoo zombies or 28 Days Later zombies or whatever.

So first of all, zombies don't have the same skills PCs do. Instead, their skills represent body parts: Claws (attack, create advantage), Legs (overcome, create advantage), Teeth (attack), Body (defend), and Head (defend).

The typical zombie might rank them like this:
Fantastic (+6) Head*
Great (+4) Body
Good (+3) Teeth
Fair (+2) Claws
Average (+1) Legs
*I'm fully aware of how dirty this sounds and regret nothing.

When you attack a zombie, you choose how it defends -- Body or Head.

A successful attack on the Body deals a consequence. Zombies don't have stress tracks, but they do have two mild consequences (or Arms consequences) and one moderate consequence (or Legs consequence). When a zombie's taken two Arms consequences, it loses its Claws skill. When it's taken a Legs consequence, it loses its Legs skill. But a consequence is the best you can do when you attack the Body. Well, you can get a boost if you tie or succeed with style, but the point is, even if the zombie's taken all three consequences, even if it's lost its arms and legs, it's still alive.

So, my God, how do you stop it? A successful attack on the Head takes the zombie out. (I'd fluff a tie against the Head as blowing its jaw off or something, thus the boost, but leaving the brain intact. Related: I'd also severely limit, or even eliminate, Weapon ratings, because all it takes is one shift on a headshot to take out a zombie. Like, shotguns and katanas are Weapon:1, but almost everything else is Weapon:0, and I don't mean Wolverine.)

Putting those two things together, obviously no one's going to attack a zombie's Body if it already has three consequences (or even two or probably one), but that's how these things usually work, isn't it? And mechanically, there's no reason to go for the Body once it's taken a consequence, because you can invoke it for free to cancel out the Head's higher skill rating.

It might seem odd for zombies to have a Great (+4) skill for defense, but it's not that they're so great at dodging or anything. On the contrary, they're easy to hit. They're just not necessarily easy to damage in a substantial way. So that's how I'd color that in play. Most failed attacks against their Body are actually going to be "narrative hits," in that I'd describe them as on-target but mostly harmless.

Next time: BRAAAIIINNNSSS...!

[Thrilling Fate!] Some Trouble In This Place

This post does indeed reek of trouble.

If you're one of those poor unfortunates who isn't already familiar with Sparks Nevada, Marshal on Mars, that guy on the right up there, the one speaking trepidatiously about the mere possibility of trouble, is the Barkeep. (He has a name, but it was a fairly recent revelation on the podcast, and I'm embarrassed to admit I don't remember it.) "I don't want no trouble in my place!" is the Barkeep's catchphrase, defining character trait, and probably his concept aspect as well.

So there's no way I'm not using trouble as this hack's term for "damage." So let's talk about damage.

First of all: no stress tracks. Just troubles, which will sub in for consequences in every way that matters. I'm not completely clear yet on how they'll work, but the basic idea is that you have so many trouble boxes, like six. Checking a box reduces a hit by 2 shifts.

But! When you take a hit, you can write down any number of troubles and check any number of boxes for each trouble. For example, if the Binary Kid nails you with a 6-shift hit, you could write down a single trouble, like Broken Ribs, and check three boxes -- or you could take three troubles, like Winded, Embarrassed, and Caught Off Guard, and check one box for each. Either way, you've dealt with all six shifts.

(This is a character sheet design issue: It has to be clear that you can have several troubles, and that each trouble has its own track of boxes, but that you can't have more than six boxes checked at a time.)

So if these work like consequences, why would you ever take three one-box troubles instead of one three-box trouble? Because the fewer boxes a trouble has, the faster it goes away.

• When you have a moment to breathe, like at the end of a scene, erase one one-box trouble.
• At the end of some currently unspecified longer period of time, like after a night's sleep or something, do all of these:
• Erase all  your one-box troubles.
• Clear one box on each of your troubles that has two or more checked boxes.
• A trouble can be treated much the same way a consequence can, with a difficulty equal to twice the number of boxes it has.

Now look, I'll admit that this is a little more complicated than consequences as written in Fate Core or FAE, but it's also a little less complicated in that you only have one option for damage mitigation (troubles) instead of two (stress and consequences). In my experience, new players -- my expected audience -- have an easier time with "When you get hit, take a consequence" than they do with "When you get hit, check a stress box or take a consequence, or both, or take two consequences." Plus, I dunno, it seems fun, so I'm going with it.

I also like the flexibility of it, and it makes things like Sparks' make-them-check-another-trouble-box stunt and Croach's clear-an-additional-trouble-box stunt viable and engaging without being difficult to grasp. There are other potential hooks too, like saying that if you take two troubles at once from a physical attack, one of them has to be mental (which is pretty typical of Sparks Nevada characters, who, Cactoid Jim aside, tend to have their share of insecurities). Or maybe a success with style on anything lets you immediately clear a mental trouble box. Just spitballing here -- this whole thing needs more thought, and obviously some refinement of terminology.

Anyway, this looks like the end of the hacking for this hack, but... I guess I'll post a few characters? Next week or something?

[Fantasy] Another Magic Idea

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.

[Greyhawk] Clerical Turning

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.

Spirit of Greyhawk - Damage Revisited

On the heels of a prior post about damage and SoG, some information about a SotC mod known as "2/4/6/8 damage" was provided to me. Apparently the 2/4/6/8 modification was created to provide a grittier play experience. So we'll give it a go.

Irresistable non sequiter: "You know nothing of The Grit!"
(paraphrased from "The Mighty Boosh" who likely stole it from Winston Churchill)

Naboo: You've read all the books, but when it comes to the crunch - where are you?
Saboo: How dare you speak to me of The Crunch! You know nothing of The Crunch. You've never even been to The Crunch.
Naboo: I've been there once.
Saboo: Oh, a little day trip around The Crunch. We can all go as tourists.

(ahem) Anyway, bringing it back around...

I don't know if there's a real provenance for the 2/4/6/8 damage mechanic--it's in the community and I'm using it. I provide this writeup as I'm going to playtest it in this weekend's upcoming SoG game, along with psionics. Hopefully this weekend's game is where the merde hits the ventilateur for this particular adventure and plentiful opportunities to test out both modifications will arise (mu-hu-ha)!

Stress Tracks

For every creation phase for a "named" character, give them the usual base of 1 stress box per phase. All SotC stunt and skill-related modifications to the stress track still apply.

So the typical SotC PC would have 5 stress boxes.

Keep in mind that in application to the Greyhawk source material, my quick-and-dirty conversion factor is that each creation phase is probably good for about 2 AD&D levels of experience. In other words, the typical SotC PC with 5 creation phases would tend to imply a 10th level AD&D character.

Consequences

Consequences work more or less as you know them in SotC RAW, in that a "named" character still has the baseline of being able to deal with 3 consequences before being taken out. All SotC RAW skills and stunts related to adding / removing consequences are still in effect.

However, there are now 4 consequences that could be inflicted...

• Minor (treated as per normal)
• Moderate (treated as per normal)
• Severe (treated as per normal)
• Extreme (receiving this consequence also creates a "permanent" damage-related aspect that would require something like Regeneration or Restoration to negate)

...but consistent with SotC, you can only have 3 consequences and only 1 of each kind (barring some stunt/skill adjustment). So for what this 4th consequence means, see the next section.

Applying Stress & Consequences

The process by which stress is applied is only slightly different.

Determine the amount of stress applied to a target. So let's use an example where a PC with 5 stress-boxes is thumped for 6 stress. Since 6 exceeds the PC's physical stress track, he is considered "taken out" UNLESS the PC accepts a consequence, which is pretty consistent with SotC. Remember that a PC can "trade in" consequences for stress boxes any time; it's at the player's discretion.

The severity of the consequence is related to a certain "reduction" of stress boxes:

• Minor (worth a reduction of 2 stress boxes)
• Moderate (worth a reduction of 4 stress boxes)
• Severe (worth a reduction of 6 stress boxes)
• Extreme (worth a reduction of 8 stress boxes)

So using the example above, the player who received the 6 stress has the option to avoid being taken out by either:

• Accept a Minor consequence and receive 4 stress (6 - 2 = 4)
• Accept a Moderate consequence and receive 2 stress (6 - 4 = 2)
• Accept a Severe consequence and receive 0 stress (6 - 6 = 0)

All SotC stress roll-up rules still apply.

Recovery Time

Recovering from consequences is is pretty much the same as SotC RAW, but I'll show it here with the Extreme consequence:

• Minor ("take a breather" for a few minutes)
• Moderate (several days recovery to clear)
• Severe (several weeks recovery to clear)
• Extreme (several months of recovery to clear, but even still there's a permanent loss somehow, expressed by an Aspect.

Some examples of Extreme consequences might be:

• Luke gets his hand cut off by Vader's lightsaber.
• Frodo stabbed by the Nazgul's blade--even though Elrond "healed" him, he still carried the effects of that wound the rest of his life.
• Harry Dresden's hand being burned during the showdown with Mavra's Scourge

So what I really like about this is the fact that it's such a small modification and how much fun and (oh I'm gonna say it) "grit" this adds without very much re-work at all.

Giving credit where credit is due: A huge amount of thanks to Bill Burdick for the research.

Psionic Effects coming up next!

SoG - Damage and Stress Tracks

Progress in Spirit of Greyhawk had been somewhat held up as I needed to make some decisions about some rules-related modifications before going further. I've said it before but I'm more of a GM than a game designer. So I'm not quite as eager to fiddle with the dials as perhaps many of you are. So I keep my new rules-design efforts focused on what I know won't work for SoG.

So before getting back to High Fantasy magic translations, here's a couple rules changes in SoG that might put some context into some of the magic / spells writeups to come:

Damage in Spirit of Greyhawk

Damage in Spirit of Greyhawk has been modified to reflect less-merciful assumptions about damage and dying than was used in Spirit of the Century--people can get one-shotted in SoG. This doesn't just apply to mooks either: anyone could get taken out with one hit, if that hit was big enough.

For purposes of the next parts, consider a character's Physical stress track as looking like this:

Stress -> Consequences -> Taken Out

OOOOO -> OOO -> O

Basic Stress Track Rules for SoG

Checked boxes within the Stress section still act the same way. Consequences work differently:

• In SotC, consequences follow a linear progression (you can't have a Moderate consequence before a Mild consequence is assigned). In Spirit of Greyhawk, the amount of stress determines which Consequence you get--if there was enough stress to inflict a Moderate consequence (bypassing an open Mild consequence), that's what the target suffers.
• "Taken out" still follows the same rules (see note below).
• Roll-up behavior DOES apply normally, and includes Consequences also

Examples:

• Damage of 6 stress on a clear track (as shown above) would bypass the first Stress section, and go straight to a Mild Consequence. Only that box is then checked / assigned.
  Boxes already filled would follow the rules consistent with SotC roll-up rules (see example #3 below)
• Receiving damage of 9 stress on this track would go straight to "Taken Out". Done.
• If the 5 box was already filled, and a Moderate consequence was filled and the character then received ANOTHER 5 stress hit, a "Mild" consequence would be assigned.

Extra Note on the "Taken Out" status

Without rehashing the whole writeup on this blog, there was a great writeup over here with thoughts about what "Taken Out" might mean in conflicts when there is a significant disparity in power levels of opponents. If you decide to check it out, think about potential conflicts between an adventuring party and a Dragon, or Demon Prince, or a deity's avatar--you get the idea.

It does pose some interesting thoughts for certain monster translations--watch this space. ;)

Adding a "Mental Stress Track" (see below for new edit)

Most of you know there's currently only two stress tracks in SotC RAW: Physical and Social. In the upcoming Dresden Files RPG, Evil Hat added a third stress track for Mental Stress.

I had previously resisted the addition of any other Stress tracks, because I personally felt that it was opening the door to making more-more-more tracks, which I don't have an interest in doing. Additionally I had considered the Composure stress track was easily used to track Mental damage anyway. The example I had considered was that if someone had taken Mental stress or a Mental consequence, wouldn't that likely represent a reduced ability to deal with stress in Social situations?

However I only have the blogosphere and Google to go on for this--I don't really know why the choice was made to do it that way. However given that DFRPG does have a Mental Stress track, I decided to not worry about it and just add it in.

So Spirit of Greyhawk has three stress tracks; Stunts and Skills will need to updated to reflect similar adjustments and modifications that are already available to Physical and Social Stress tracks.

Edit (3/25/10):
Rather than re-write the above four paragraphs (which would mess up the points in the comment thread), I'll note here that I've changed my mind about the SoG's inclusion of a Mental stress track--thanks to the points brought up in this post's comment thread.

SoG will not have a Mental stress track. Mental stress will be tracked as part of the Composure stress track. To echo a note from above, the other implication here is that psionic stress/damage will also negatively affect social stress situations, and I like that.

Plus this also eliminates the need for me to create makes skill/stunt clones that would make modifications to a Mental Stress track, similar to the Composure stress track.

SoG: Encumberance?

Okay, so I'm listening to the latest "Roll For Initiative" podcast, and they're discussing the topic of "Encumbrance" and how cumbersome it is.

...Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Now here in "less crunch land", the first reaction of many of us might be to blow off encumbrance entirely. In fact, most of us old-school AD&D'ers usually did blow it off, or at least not mess with encumbrance too much until a PC pushed it too far. ("Really? You're carrying 3 halberds?")

However the excellent point was made that by blowing off Encumbrance you also miss out on a lot of story-related opportunities:

• "How are we gonna get all this treasure out?"
• "They're gaining on us! Drop the treasure!"
• "I don't have to outrun them--I just have to outrun you..."
• "How are we supposed to fight carrying these sacks of gold?"
• "I left my plate armor behind so I could carry more, see? Smart, huh?"
• "Who knew priceless tapestries were so heavy?"
• "That pit looks awfully wide..."

...and so on.

Given my goal for the SoG implementation is supposed to provide the gaming group the feel that they've been old-school gaming in Greyhawk while still using the awesomeness of FATE, I'm electing to attempt Encumbrance of SOME sort.

So, how might this be accomplished in FATE?

My first reaction is to look at what usually happened at the gaming table. Quoting myself, "...not mess with encumbrance too much until a PC pushed it too far."

So that says to me: Aspects.

I am thinking about doing some sort of GM-discretion maneuver test, where the player might try to get creative (especially with judicious use of stunts):

• Might (the obvious answer--just schlepping it)
• Resources (I just happen to have this scroll with "Tenser's Floating Disc" handy...)
• Empathy (con someone else into carrying it)
• Craft (MacGyvering some kind of travois or some such)

...and so on.

The GM could elect to do the maneuver against each individual PC.

However, I'm thinking it might be more fun for everyone (PCs and GM) to consider the maneuver as a test against the party as a whole. Or stated more mechanically: do a maneuver test against a single PC and the rest of the party tries to help that PC's skill. So this way they cooperate, divvy up and work together to figure out how they're going to get the booty out of the dungeon.

With respect to the description of any Aspects applied, and having them be of "BAM!" caliber, I think the GM should also take the DESCRIPTION of the treasure into account: Gold pieces versus copper pieces versus gems versus priceless sofa cushions. In other words, it's not just weight that needs to be considered.

Sandbox Example:
If a party is presented with a treasure of "Epic" weight (+7), and the designated PC (Dwarf fighter) for the Manuever test has a Might of +3...

...the Gnome Thief in the party decides to use his Craft skill (+2) to complement the Dwarf's Might and helps find a way to jerry-rig the load (considered a complementing skill, so it's good for +1 even though it's less than the +3 Might?)

...the Human Fighter in the party might pitch in with carrying treasure too, electing to use his Might at +2 as an additional complement of +1 to the Dwarf?

...Additionally if the Dwarf and Human decided to discard their armor (both have "Heavy" Armor), what would that be worth? Noodling it around as a GM, if the party offered to strip off their armor and leave it there, I would be inclined to offer at least an additional +1.

That would put the Dwarf's Might effectively at +3+1+1+1 = +6 (Fantastic).

So the impact of this would then depend upon the nature of the treasure:

• If the treasure was "splittable" (eg., piles of coins), they could elect to carry most of the treasure equal to the party's +6, meaning they would have to leave some behind and now have a +6 (Fantastic) treasure to their names, without having to incur an Aspect (though the fighters wouldn't have their armor).

• Given that same splittable treasure, the party might get greedy and try to carry the whole thing out anyway, and they'd be assessed an Aspect of something like "Can barely stay upright" or something along those lines.

• If the treasure wasn't splittable (eg., Heward's Mystic Refrigerator) they would likely also have the same scenario above where they take the Aspect, or just leave it there.
  

Some Other Thoughts:

• For purposes of lifting heavy stuff, could you also consider the members of the party without the Might skill as "minions"? That way, 2-3 minions would be good for +1, 4-6 minions = +2, etc. Currently I think so, because here's another compelling reason to go old-school about bringing henchmen into the dungeon with you. However this would also mean that the "Can barely stay upright" Aspect would apply to them, too. The more I think about this one, the more I like it.
  Cross reference: 1,000's of people working together to move the enormous blocks to make the pyramids. :)
  
  
• Though it wasn't explicitly stated above, I personally don't consider this a "roll the dice" opportunity. You can either lift it, or you can't. I don't see where randomness is required in this situation.
  

• Would you think it's too crunchy if the GM might then consider an Endurance test in subsequent scenes to see about exhaustion, or even consider payment in Physical stress boxes or even a Consequence?
  
  
• Fate Points. According to SotC RAW, the Might and/or Endurance skill are eligible for using a Fate point to get a +2 push, I'd probably at minimum continue to assess that cost on a per-scene basis. But I'm not entirely sold on this.
  
  
• One thing I glossed over in the "splittable treasure" writeup, was the question of how to divide ladder ratings. In other words, does 1 Fantastic (+6) treasure divide into 2 Good (+3) treasures? I haven't done enough research to determine if the ratings are linear or not, but I currently think it does not. Anyone got anything more definitive on that?
  

Supers: Consequence Pools

I was thinking about this team of supervillain-types the PCs will encounter in my FATE supers OrcCon game, and two things occurred to me:

1. These aren't minions, but neither are they important enough to the story to warrant full PC-like treatment. Stress tracks, sans consequences, seem like a disservice.
2. I don't want to track consequences for five or six named NPCs at once.

So it hit me: I already effectively have a "pool" of consequences for the campaign. Why not have something similar shared by the team? Say, four Minor and three Moderate -- enough that everyone should have the chance to take one, but not so many that more than one or two of them could take more than one.

Logistically, I'd fill in the consequences as they were taken and indicate with initials or something who'd taken which ones, so they can still be tagged without confusion. I think it's kinda interesting for a group of traditionally selfish badguys to share survivability like that. It'd be interesting on the player side, too, but not for this game. (Y'know what I bet it'd work great for? Survival horror.)

Then I thought of this other thing: Tie it into the Fate Point economy. Normally, as a GM, I allot Fate Points to myself on a per-scene basis, not per-character. It feels more appropriate from a narrative point of view and makes it easy to control how tough, long, or important a conflict will be. For every one of these shared consequences I take, I lose a Fate Point. I can continue to take consequences after I'm out of Fate Points, though.

What about making it weirder than that? What about being able to take a consequence in lieu of spending a Fate Point? What about not giving myself Fate Points at all, and only having consequences? On a single-character basis, this wouldn't work, but if I'd have 10 Fate Points spread between five characters, how much would it screw things up to give myself, say, six Minor consequences and four Moderate consequences instead? Or fewer than that, but Minor consequences give me the usual +2 bonus and Moderate consequences give me a +4? It'd definitely make the badguys more vulnerable, since they're going to rack up consequences with trivial ease, but I could temper it by making the Minor consequences fragile -- they can't be "spent" again, but once they're tagged they're gone. And tagging a Moderate consequence frees up a Minor consequence slot.

In essence, it'd be a Fate Point economy without the Fate Points. I can't figure out if I like it or if it's just an odd idea that I'm curious to see in play.

Either way, I'm feeling pretty good about the shared consequence pool on a conceptual level. Anyone have experience with doing this kind of thing?

Magic Spells - Healing Spell(s)

This is a situation where I'm currently working from the premise that for SoG there is only a single damage-healing spell (instead of multiple healing spells at different levels). Likely this same situation will also come into play with the "Monster Summoning" spells--there will only be a single spell, and the Margin of success of the casting will determine the strength of the spell.

Healing Spell (+1 Difficulty)

Benefits (+3 to Difficulty)

• Improvement: Alternate Useage (Use Magic-related Skill for Physik) (+1)
• Improvement: Alternate Useage (Make effect more "magical") (+1)
  This improvement means the following change in the use of the magically-generated Physik Skill effect with respect to Medical Attention. With the use of this spell, a target can be the target of more than one healing action in an exchange.
• Improvement: Alternate Useage (Make effect even more "magical") (+1)
  This improvement means the following change in the use of the magically-generated Physik Skill effect with respect to Medical Attention. When used against Consequences, the caster does not take the entire scene to help the target, and multiple attempts can be made.
  

Requirements (-2 to Difficulty)

• Requirement: Verbal Component (-1)
• Requirement: Somatic Component (-1)

Spell Mechanics:
Before rolling the dice on the spell, the Caster decides on one of two possible uses for the Healing Spell:

• Heal a Target's Stress
• Heal a Target's Consequences

Healing Option 1: Heal a Target's Stress

RULES NOTE: This is a slight modification to the Physick skill's "mundane" listing, to remain consistent with the Magic dice-rolling mechanic.)

GAMEPLAY NOTE: There are opinions by players that using a spell to cure Stress might be considered something of a wasted effort given the fact that it's really just "combat fatigue", not so much as considered damage. However it will be left here for now, as it's consistent with the skill's listing in the SotC source material.

Anyway...

When healing stress, roll against the skill level of the spell. If the spell is successfully cast (Caster equals the spell's difficulty), then the subject may remove a checkmark in his one-stress box on his physical stress track. Every two shifts beyond the first improves this effect by one; for example, with four shifts, a character can remove a checkmark in his target’s three-stress box. The list below shows the full progression.

Healing Success Effects

• 0 shifts (equal): Clear the one-stress box
• 1 shift: Clear the one-stress box, roll up
• 2 shifts: Clear the two-stress box, roll down
• 3 shifts: Clear the two-stress box, roll up
• 4 shifts: Clear the three-stress box, roll down
• 5 shifts: Clear the three-stress box, roll up
• 6 shifts: Clear the four-stress box, roll down
• 7 shifts: Clear the four-stress box, roll up
• 8 shifts: Clear the five-stress box, roll down
• 9 shifts: Clear the five-stress box, roll up

The "roll up", "roll down" notation refers to the fact that if the target box is already clear, then the effect rolls and clears the next available box in a particular direction. For example, if the spell's success was "4 shifts" and allowed the three-stress box to be cleared, but only the one-stress box was checked, then clear that one instead.

ACTION ITEM: Review if this scenario works or not: If there is nothing left in the direction indicated, then just look for the lowest stress box, and then redefine that having been downgraded by one stress. Note that the downgrade only occurs if there were no stress boxes available to clear, as described according to the shifts above.

Example: Conman the Barbarian had the following physical stress: ( )( )(X)( ) ( ), and a caster scored "2 shifts (roll down)" on a healing. Conman noted that his 2-stress box was clear and there no lower-stress boxes to clear. What would happen then is that the 2-stress box would be "downgraded". In other words, the 3-stress box would be cleared, but the 2-stress box was now checked, for a final effect of: ( )(X)( )( ) ( ). This way no healing was "wasted", consistent to the source material.

NOTE: The goal of all this crunch was that the source material's magical healing mechanic allows for the ability of a number of small healing spells would eventually return a high HP character to full capacity. In other words, unless the "tank is topped off", healing doesn't go to waste.

Healing Option 2: Heal a Target's Consequences
TRANSLATION NOTE: This one gave me a lot of headaches. Ultimately this effect ended coming almost directly from the source material. Reviewing the clerical healing spells in the source material and what level they are...

• Cure Light Wounds: 1st Level spell
• Cure Serious Wounds: 4th Level spell
• Cure Critical Wounds: 5th Level spell
• Heal: 6th Level spell

...Taking the spell terminology literally, you might then end up with the following expectation...

1. The "Cure Light Wounds" effect allows the caster to clear a single Mild Consequence at Average (+1) difficulty.
2. The "Cure Serious Wounds" effect allows the caster to clear a single Moderate Consequence at Great (+4) difficulty.
3. The "Cure Critical Wounds" effect allows the caster to clear a single Severe Consequence at Superb (+5) difficulty
4. The "Heal" effect allows the caster to clear all Consequences at Fantastic (+6) difficulty.

Now we have a convenient link between the power of a healing spell and the severity of the consequence.

Based upon the source material, we already know that a lot of high-level fighters can absorb multiple "Critical" wounds. In other words, the AD&D spell "Cure Critical Wounds" will often leave high-powered PCs still short of their maximum HP. So this should be consistent with the Endurance-related stunts of allowing extra consequences over the normal 3.

ITEM FOR REVIEW
What should the benefit be to someone with ONLY a single Severe Consequence, if they are the recipient of only an Average (+1) difficulty Healing Spell against that consequence? My current sense is that "failing" to clear a consequence should at least allow for a downgrade of one level. The caster determines what gets downgraded.

Example: An Average (+1) healing spell is cast against a target who has Mild, Moderate and Severe Consequences. The caster of the spell can choose one of the following:

1. Clear the Mild Consequence
2. Downgrade the Moderate Consequence to an additional Mild Consequence
3. Downgrade the Severe Consequence to an additional Moderate Consequence

ITEM FOR REVIEW
It might make sense to tweak the difficulties a bit to avoid that uneven progression (+1, then +4, +5, +6), but I think that even given the subjective nature of FATE's consequences, there's a relatively big gap between what constitutes a Mild consequence versus a Moderate consequence. Or even Severe consequences for that matter. So it probably all evens out.

Supers: Heroic Consequences

Let's leave aside for a moment all this stuff about how to handle powers and instead talk about this other thing, which I'm calling, at least temporarily, Heroic consequences.

Heroic consequences are a third "pool" of consequences (in addition to the usual Physical and Mental), but one shared by the PCs instead of belonging to any of them individually. They represent, and give more significance to, their failures -- stuff like property damage, civilian casualties, falling reputations, and the like. Think of them like campaign aspects, but... y'know, consequences instead.

When a PC fails to defend against an attack, the player can choose to reduce the incoming stress (because we're using that, at least for the time being) with either one of his own consequences, or a Heroic consequence. The latter means that the PC gets the reduce the stress without suffering himself, but something bad happens to the environment around him. An innocent bystander could get knocked out, a car could be crushed, an office building could burst into flames, the public could turn against the PCs -- whatever.

For example, Roborilla, the supervillainous robotic gorilla, throws a compact car at the Blue Knight, who throws up one of his trademark blue force fields to stop it. But he's too late -- his defense roll fails by 4. The Blue Knight has three choices:

1. He can take 4 Health stress, a result of dodging out of the way in the nick of time. 
2. He can take a Physical consequence, like "Knocked Off Balance" or "Cracked Ribs." The car's hit him, and he's worse off for it.
   
3. He can reduce that 4 Health stress with a Heroic consequence, like "Smashed Storefront" or "Civilian Trapped Under Car." The car's missed him, but it's caused some trouble elsewhere in the scene.
   

So in one sense, it makes the PCs a little hardier in the face of head-exploding super-strength punches and brain-melting psychic blasts. More importantly, though, Heroic consequences obey the usual rules (well, my usual rules, anyway) of consequences.

To recap: Minor consequences go away at the end of a scene, Moderate consequences can only be removed with a Great skill check, and Severe consequences only go away at the end of the story -- but they change an aspect when they do.

So going back to the example of Roborilla and the Blue Knight, "Smashed Storefront" is a Minor consequence. It's not really something the PCs are going to be expected to set right. We can assume that it's mundane enough that someone else will take care of it later. However, it still represents collateral damage, and the PCs are still indirectly responsible (Roborilla was throwing that car at the Blue Knight, after all), so it's fair game for a Heroic consequence.

"Civilian Trapped Under Car," though, is best as a Moderate consequence. It's a clear and present dilemma for the PCs to solve, either during the scene or right after (after that, for a consequence like that, it's too late -- the story's moved on to the next scene). If they don't solve it, the consequence sticks around -- and the next time they might want to take a Moderate Heroic consequence, maybe they'll have to take a Severe consequence instead, maybe something to do with the fact that they just left some dude to be slowly crushed under a car. "Public Turns on the Hero League," say. At the end of the story, one of the campaign aspects changes to reflect the public's similarly changing attitudes towards the PCs.  For example, "Hero League to the Rescue!" could become "Misunderstood Heroes."

How late is too late to deal with a Moderate consequence? Right now it's a matter of common sense, I think. If a guy's trapped under a car, he'll need immediate assistance. I'd say that if you don't take care of it before the next scene, you missed your chance to clear that consequence slot. If your reputation takes damage, though, that's more of a long-term issue, and something you should be able to try to remedy almost anytime. Of course, it's also more involved than a single civilian under a car -- you need to call a press conference, get yourself on TV, or something along those lines. It's all very Marvel.

Here's another one: Ultra-Violence drops a hostage from the top of a 10-story building. If the PC fails to save the hostage (by flying up and catching him, using TK to get him safely to the ground, cushioning his fall with an awning or something, etc.), he can take a personal consequence, indicating that the hostage actually was saved, but the rescue took a toll on the PC. It can be something as minor as being winded or as significant as almost killing himself in the process of saving an innocent life. Alternately, if the PC goes for a Heroic consequence instead, that indicates that the guy actually was hurt, if not killed, in the fall. He can walk away from a Minor Heroic consequence, a Moderate Heroic consequence will probably require medical attention (or, if the consequence involves the PCs' reputation instead, a Great Art or Rapport effort later on), and a Severe consequence will likely mean the hostage fell to his death.

The upshot is that these Heroic consequences can help drive the narrative. "Building On Fire"? Someone should probably take the time to put that fire out, possibly in the midst of combat if they want to free up that consequence slot for use later in the scene. Press conference? Failing to get the press on your side may be a Moderate Mental consequence ("Frustrated!") or a Moderate Heroic consequence ("Front-Page Hatchet Job") -- and if the latter, you probably want to get that cleared up, before your poor public image bites you in the ass later (i.e., you only get one Moderate Heroic consequence, so if you don't clear it, you may find yourself stuck with a Severe Heroic consequence later on).

Lastly, Heroic consequences can be tagged or compelled like any other consequence, as long as it makes sense. "Smashed Storefront" might not make for an easy compel, but "Civilian Trapped Under Car" sure does. A supervillain attempting to cow an auditorium full of would-be victims is going to be able to tag your "Distrusted by the Public" Heroic consequence as part of his Art roll, because these poor people just don't have any confidence that their "heroes" are going to save them.

Rethinking No-Stress Consequences

I'm headed out tomorrow on a four-day Geek-End in Washington State with some old friends of mine from when I lived in Vancouver -- there'll be Blood Bowl, Space Hulk, a Magic booster draft, a PS3 with whatever it is that's good on a PS3, and, if we get to it, an RPG one-shot or two -- but I wanted to throw an idea out there before I go.

As you may or may not know, I don't use stress tracks in my FATE games, except for minions. Instead, stress goes straight to consequences. Every PC starts out being able to take one consequence of each degree -- Minor, Moderate, and Severe (usually) -- regardless of type. So if you take a Minor physical consequence and then have to take a Minor mental consequence, you take a Moderate mental consequence instead. If you have Good or Great Endurance or Resolve, you get to withstand more physical or mental consequences, but otherwise you're stuck with the three.

This doesn't appeal to me so much anymore. I used to be a little more into the hardcore idea of "narrative punishment" -- there's only so much abuse any character can take in a story before he drops out of it somehow. Having a high Endurance or Resolve was the player's way of telling the GM "My character will take more physical or mental abuse than most during the course of the story, because that's part of what makes him who he is." I liked how narrative and gamist it was without being all that concerned with simulating anything.

To prevent things from getting too out of hand what with the character-fragility thing, I've been clearly demarcating different types of conflicts, whether physical or mental. If you're in a mental conflict, you use social skills (mostly) to deal mental consequences, but can use physical skills to maneuver. It's the reverse in a physical conflict: Skills like Intimidation can only be used to maneuver an aspect onto an opponent, but don't actually inflict consequences. If you're in a mental conflict, like an argument, and want to escalate to a physical conflict, you can do that, but then there's no going back. This means that if you're going to keep arguing with someone without baring steel, it's because you're either a skillful arguer or have no intention of actually fighting. You can make a concession during an argument to escalate and essentially say, "Okay, you got me -- but now someone's gonna bleed."

This has had two major effects in play. One, arguments are short, because whoever's on the losing side is likely to escalate the first time they have to take a Minor mental consequence, lest they go into a fight staring down the barrel of a Moderate consequence they first time they're hit. If a character takes a Minor consequence like "Infuriated" in an argument, the natural next move may be to get physical -- but that's contraindicated by the game mechanics, which leads to some weirdly unintuitive metagaming. Two, there's no real parity between physical and social skills in combat, which is a big attraction for a lot of people (me included) in SotC. Piotr the troll can holler at a group of Average-quality goblin minions all he wants, but no matter how well he does the only thing he can really do with his Intimidation is create an aspect of "Scared." But he'll never scare them so bad they run away (barring some creative tagging for effect, but that's pretty hand-wavey).

I don't dig either of those. The easiest alternative is to have a set of slots for each type of Minor and Moderate consequence -- so if your game has physical, mental, and social consequences (as in "Spirit of the 17th Century"), the average starting PC would be able to withstand seven consequences before being Taken Out: one physical Minor, one mental Minor, one social Minor, ditto that for Moderate, and one Severe consequence of any type (Severe consequences are a big deal in my games). A character with Great Resolve (or Esprit, if you want to get technical -- and I do!) would be able to take another, say, two more: a second mental Minor and a second mental Moderate.

Up until recently, I'd pretty much dismissed this option out of hand, because the idea of a character who could take a full nine consequences is kinda ridiculous to me. Plus, there's something aesthetically unappealing about how the character sheet would look with that many consequence slots. However... I'm now of a mind that this is the way to go, despite those misgivings. That Great-Resolve guy might be able to take nine consequences, but he's just as fragile in a swordfight as he would be under the current system -- plus it gives the GM and the players something to do with skills like Intimidation in combat besides create aspects.

I want that pissed-off guy to jump into combat with the jackass who pissed him off if he wants to, not slink away with his Minor consequence between his legs and wait for another scene. I want Piotr to be able to scare the bejeezus out of those goblins and send them running back into the hills. More than that, I want that Piotr's player to feel like he can contribute meaningfully with his Great Intimidation in combat, instead of feeling like he made a mistake in chargen. It's perfectly in keeping with FATE if that troll shouting at his swordsman opponent is just as viable as that swordsman stabbing Piotr with his blade.

The only real misgiving I have is that a really Intimidation-focused guy against a combat-oriented guy who hasn't even ranked Resolve has the potential to be pretty damn brutal -- but no more brutal than the combat-oriented guy fighting a combat weakling. So... fair enough, I guess. (In either case, the defender would be well advised to make a concession and get out while he still can.)

How about you? What are you thoughts on any of this?

Swashbuckling: Some Basics

A recent thread on RPG.net has me taking a fourteenth look at my swashbuckling FATE stuff, so I figured I'd finally start posting it. There's kind of a lot of it, actually: ideas about fencing schools, maneuvers, non-clunky (I hope) differences between weapon types, a revamped skill list, social class, and more. It's all wildly untested, though, so keep that in mind as we go forward.

Now, like many enthusiasts of the genre, I'm a fencer. Er, at least, I was; it's been years, really, and it's such a physically demanding sport that I've found it tough to get back into after time away. Anyway, the point is that it's easy to get caught up in the details of fencing as a sport and overcomplicate combat mechanics as a result. I know, because I've done it before. So I've tried to stay away from that and stick to the core of what makes FATE so good: narrative elements, cinematic action, and fast-and-loose rules.

So, to that end: Advantage.

At the beginning of combat, roll a skill for initiative. This will usually be Alertness (or the swashbuckling non-union equivalent), but certain fencing schools could let you use something else instead: Empathy, Deceit, Resolve, etc. instead. If one combatant obtains spin in this contest, he gains Advantage. (Use a token of some kind to indicate this to keep it clear.)

As long Advantage is in play, it is required to inflict consequences in combat.

If the combatant with Advantage loses an exchange, he loses Advantage as well.

In the event that neither combatant has Advantage, set the Advantage token aside, out of play.

If a combatant without Advantage obtains spin on an exchange using a non-offensive skill (such as Athletics, Deceit, Intimidation, Art, and so on), he gains Advantage, either by taking it from his opponent or by bringing it back into play. Advantage can't be gained by simply using Weapons or Fists.

Advantage isn't used for combats involving multiple combatants against a single opponent, such as a player character against a bunch of minions. That'd just be a straight Weapons (or whatever) contest.

So what's the point of this? The idea is that it would replicate the back-and-forth of a swashbuckling duel while explicitly encouraging maneuvers and a wide variety of skills in combat. The method by which a combatant gains Advantage is entirely up to the player. He can pull a Cyrano and use Art to infuriate his opponent with his rapier wit. He can use Athletics to grab onto that chandelier (always a classic) and swing into an advantageous position. He can use Might to knock over a statue into the path of his foe. And so on. If you can justify it, go for it! That, if you ask me, is very much in the spirit of FATE and SotC.

A concern here is that it might slow things down. After all, if only one guy at a time even has the ability to inflict stress, lag is a definite possibility. To combat this, and to make supplemental actions more attractive, I'm reducing the threshholds on consequences: Minor is 1-2 stress, Moderate is 3-5, and Severe is 6+. (Actually, for this I'd rename them Trifling, Middling, and Grievous, because I loves me some genre-specific flavor.)

As I said, this is untested, but gosh, it sure feels right to me for the genre.

Hyphen Con, The Importance of Making Concessions, and RIP Dave Arneson

So! Hyphen Con was once again a lot of fun. "Four Weapons and a Funeral" went well, thanks to a crop of four great players who were enthusiastic about running with the idea. I ended up using very little of what I'd planned (but mark my words, one of these days, in some game or other, there's gonna be a fight inside an astronomical clocktower) because the players basically took control of things right from the get-go and took things in their own direction. And that was awesome. All I had to do was compel some aspects to keep them from agreeing with one another too readily or unconditionally. I spent about two hours mostly just listening and adjudicating some rules.

The gimmick -- that the four PCs disliked one another but had to come to a consensus somehow -- resulted in a lot of great roleplaying, and at least one extended social conflict. That, in turn, led to an issue being brought up that's been on my mind ever since.

Here's the situation: The PCs are discussing who's going to take the place of their dead master. When they reach a stalemate, it's time to pull out the dice and start rolling Humanity (the "SotF" equivalent of both Rapport and Intimidation) vs. Spirit (the "SotF" equivalent of both Resolve and Endurance). Everybody gets in on the act, spending Fate Points and everything, and pretty soon everybody has a Minor mental consequence of some kind (Ashamed, Embarrassed, Infuriated, etc.). The late master's daughter, in whose house they're arguing, shouts, "Enough! Get ouf of my house!" This is another Humanity vs. Spirit test with two PC targets, White Crane and Tiger Jin.

(Incidentally, the way I handle mutiple targets in this sort of situation is this: Everybody rolls his or her relevant skill. The attacker's effort is applied against the defenders' higher/highest effort. Any shifts gained over that defense can be split between the two defenders, so if you have two targets with defenses of Great and Fair, you'll need a Fantastic effort to get enough shifts to affect each of them. Tagging a target's aspects or consequences only gives you shifts for that target for that target only, so if, in the example above, you have a Great effort and tag one target's consequence, you still can't distribute the resulting two shifts between your two targets.)

Each PC is in a position to take a consequence -- but I also remind them that they can make a concession instead. That is, they can continue to stay in this argument and try to win it, or they can leave the conflict by walking away and say, "Fine, I'll leave." (Or "You're right," but since she's giving them a very specific command, there's really only one way to both comply and leave the conflict.)

White Crane's player objects to this. He only has one Fate Point left, and the daughter has three shifts on him (she tagged his untagged Minor consequence of Infuriated to get to three), so even if he spends it he's still taking a consequence. He doesn't like the option of making a concession, either, because "normally in Spirit, when something bad happens to you you get something in return." This is true -- if I'd had to have spent a Fate Point to tag that consequence, I probably would've given it to the player, but since it was still fresh no Fate Points traded hands. Similarly, I could've compelled that same consequence to make White Crane just storm out of the house, and I wouldn't have had to pay a Fate Point to do it. The player would've had to give up his only Fate Point to refuse, though. This is one of the reasons why you don't want consequences. Tough, but fair.

Anyway, as Tiger Jin's player said, "It's not a choice between good and bad -- it's a choice between bad and worse." And he was absolutely right. If you'd rather take another consequence instead of leaving the conflict (i.e., surrendering), that's up to you. Neither option's really that attractive, but you got yourself into this mess, and now these are your options. It was interesting to work through this, but instead of seeing this as a problem I see it as a feature of the system, if anything. As social conflict mechanics go, I think it's pretty great.

However, there's another issue at work here, and one that both White Crane's and Tsai Lung's players brought up individually. It's essentially this: If you already have consequences on you from a social conflcit, progressing to a physical conflict is that much more dangerous, since odds are good that you'll be taking more serious consequences. That actually dissuaded Tsai Lung's player from kicking it up a notch from argument to blows, even though that's where he felt he should take things next. Likewise, White Crane's player pointed out that Tiger Jin, with his Great Humanity, was in a position to really stick it to someone by engaging them in an argument (inflicting mental consequences with his high Humanity) then forcing them into a physical conflict (which they'll enter with a couple consequences already on them). Likewise, even if everyone's in a physical conflict already, couldn't he just use Humanity to keep tagging low-Spirit suckers with consequences? These did indeed seem problematic.

At first, anyway. First of all, in any conflict, there are one or two skills that deal stress, one or two or three that defend, and some others that maneuver. In a physical conflict in "SotF," Fists and Weapons are normally the only skills that deal stress. Fists, Weapons, and Athletics are the only skills (again, normally) that can defend against attacks. Humanity, in a physical conflict, can maneuver, but that's it. In a physical conflict, Tiger Jin could use his turn to intimidate someone. If he succeeds they'll get a fragile aspect of "Intimidated," but not a consequence. Conversely, in a social conflict, Humanity is the stress-dealer, Spirit's the defense, and other skills can maneuver. White Crane could quote the Te Tao Ching to help make a salient point, using his Scholarship (i.e., Academics) to maneuver a fragile aspect ("Befuddled") onto his opponent, but doing so won't deal any stress. Heck, he can even use Weapons as a maneuver, if he can justify it, with the same mechanical result.

As for the issue of physical conflicts following (or not following) social conflicts, that seems just fine to me -- ideal, even -- thanks to concessions. Tiger Jin's a charismatic guy. He's a leader of a rebellion. He wins arguments because getting into one with him will almost always mean taking consequences. If he says something you don't like, something that pisses you off enough to want to fight, man, start fighting. Like, right away. Make a concession: "I can't beat you in a war of words, so out comes my sword!" It's either that or he gives you a consequence of his choosing. The only reason you'd stay in the argument and continue to take consequences is if you think you can beat him. It's also the only reason you'd stay in a physical conflict instead of running away.

There's an excellent illustration of this in, of all places, last night's South Park. Cartman wants half-credit for a joke Jimmy wrote, even though he didn't do any of the actual, y'know, work. Kyle tells Jimmy to totally deny him anything, and if Cartman argues, fight back. Craig, ever the practical one, tells Jimmy several times to just give in, and be glad Cartman isn't asking for all the credit. In other words, he's suggesting that Jimmy make a concession. Why? Because people who get into conflicts like this with Cartman invariably lose, and lose hard. (Cf. Scott Tenorman being tricked into eating chili made of his own parents, Titus Adronicus-style.)

One more thing, and this is really too important to be tacked on to the bottom of a long post like this: After a long battle with cancer, Dave Arneson died Tuesday night, so now, in a little over a year, we've lost both creators of D&D as we know/knew it. Gygax did the heavy lifting in terms of converting wargames rules over to fantasy wargames rules, but Arneson's the guy who came up with adding actual roleplaying to that. He's also the originator of the dungeon crawl (and dungeons, really), the concept of hit points, and lots of other absolutely integral aspects of OD&D that make it what it is, not to mention Blackmoor. His name isn't as well-known, unfortunately, but his influence looms large over even the latest edition of the game, despite the 35 years or so that have passed since his first letter to Gygax full of ideas that would one day become D&D. As Ken Hite points out, he can fairly be called "the inventor of roleplaying games." We all owe Dave Arneson a great debt.

Fantasy: Talk of Updated Rules. Also, Rambling About Consequences.

In a quickie attempt to meet the stampeding demand for rules updates, which I honestly didn't realize existed until today, here's... something. On the whole, the stunts-ectomy greatly simplifies things. I would kick myself for all that time I spent poring over the stunts chapter of SotC and making minor adjustments, but the truth is that there really isn't anything wrong with that approach. Sticking closer to the SotC RAW is still totally valid, so if you're into that, go to it.

Me, I'm going a different way. Right now that way is called "Boons," but I don't know if I'll stick with that. It's basically replacing stunts with this, with the change of limiting the +2 narrow-specialty bonus to maneuvers only. Otherwise, I've recently experienced, it's just too open to abuse -- the drawback of only getting that +2 with, say, your father's sword is not commensurate with the benefit, and creates an artificial situation where the GM will constantly be forced to try to steal said sword to make the drawback worth it. In FATE, a +2 is too huge to just give away so carelessly. However, I love me some aspects, and I love maneuvers because they create more aspects in an interesting fashion, so limiting that +2 to maneuvers will hopefully encourage the use of them. That, or it'll discourage people from taking the +2 boon in the first place. Either way, I'm happier with the result.

Anyway, for this weekend at OrcCon, I'm going the route of higher Endurance/Resolve allowing the character to take more consequences: +1 Minor at Good, or +2 Minor and +1 Moderate at Great, all of the appropriate type (physical or mental). One of the PCs, Rain-Splitting-Rock, has Great (+4) Resolve and Good (+3) Endurance, and can take as many consequences as a character could possibly withstand under these rules (three more mental consequences, one more physical consequence). I'm doing something similar in "Spirit of the Fist" -- the big consequence-withstander in that group of PCs has Great (+4) Spirit, allowing her to take a total of three Minors and two Moderates (Endurance and Resolve are combined in "SotF" as a different skill -- Spirit).

Here's my it's-not-hit-points rationale for this: I see a character's skills in FATE as an indication of how he'll solve problems. It's not necessarily a literal indication of how good or bad the character is with a given skill, though. For example, if you're playing a silver-tongued swordsman of some repute, you can have Average (+1) Melee and be no less of a swordsman -- but if you have Great (+4) Rapport and Good (+3) Status, you'll solve most of your problems through talking or weight-throwing-around than through violence. And if you have an aspect or two that can relate to your skill with a blade, you can still perform in combat when it counts. Your apex skill says to the GM "Here's what I want this guy to be about," regardless of his backstory.

So then. Endurance and Resolve are both passive skills. Endurance is almost never rolled, and Resolve is almost always rolled in response to someone's else's action. If you put either of these skills at the apex of your skill pyramid, you'll succeed more through perserverance and toughness than through offense, generally speaking. For this to make game-mechanical sense, or at least have a game-mechanical payoff, the character has to be able to withstand abuse. Since stress tracks are gone, the only way to do that is through consequences. I usually have a hard time expressing what I see as the difference between consequences-as-hit-points and consequences-as-narrative-protection, but... well, I do see a difference between the two. One is the literal ability to withstand damage, whereas the other is narrative stick-to-it-iveness.

Let's take the aforementioned Qing Pei-Pei. She's not the "toughest" character, strictly speaking -- not the strongest, or the best fighter. If you're looking for a combat monster, she ain't it. But she's stubborn and headstrong (and maybe lucky) enough to keep going somehow, no matter what's thrown at her. Having Great (+4) Spirit and Fair (+2) Weapons tells the GM, "Go ahead, put me in over my head -- I can take it!"

Does that make sense? Or is it so friggin' obvious that there was no point posting it?

Fantasy: Demonbound Items

Kuron's hulking blade sliced through his enemies as a scythe cuts wheat. The rank and file of the mountain dwarves fell back in chaos in the face of the enraged barbarian. Power coursed through the greatsword's hilt into his mighty thews, energizing him, changing him, and he drank it in like the dry earth drinking rain. His blows rained down ever faster on the fear-stricken dwarves. In horror, they looked over their shoulder as they fled at his eyes -- once coal-black, now they glowed an inhuman red.

"Nurzkalak hungers!" he roared, in a voice not entirely his own. "Nurzkalak thirsts!" He paused a moment for a blood-curdling, throaty laugh, then resumed his lusty butchery anew.

. . .

The most powerful magic items achieve their potency not through the skill of artificers -- not solely so, at any rate -- but through altogether more dangerous means: the binding of demons.

Centuries ago, demons freely walked the lands of Aarde, leaving evil and sorrow in their wake. Their physical forms could be destroyed, albeit at great cost, but their ancient spirits would live on, find a new host, and return undiminished to wreak yet more havoc. Banishment from the corporeal world was possible but difficult and taxing, and always there existed the very real chance that a power-hungry summoner, tampering with forces beyond his imagining, would pull it back into reality and inadvertantly unleash the beast on the world again.

After years of toil, a group of highly skilled artificers developed a means of trapping demonic spirits into physical objects, binding the two together inextricably. The process was one of both guile and force, first tricking the spirit into entering an object, then using powerful magic to keep it there. The weaker ones, the ones who still possessed some semblance of vanity and greed, could be lured into finely wrought trinkets such as rings or pendants, but the strongest and most violent specimens, owing to their natural tendencies, only had eyes for implements of war and destruction: swords, axes, cruel knives, spiked shields, and the like. As long as the item survived intact, the demon was helpless to escape, so the artificers forged these demonbound artifacts out of the strongest of substances to ensure their resilience.

And then they buried them in the deep places of the world, guarded by monstrosities and deadly traps, hoping to conceal them from prying eyes and mischievous intent. For the spirits held within these demonbound items made them powerful beyond reckoning. A warrior armed with a demonbound sword might lay waste to armies, just as one protected by demonbound armor might withstand them. Moreover, the process was not perfect: The demons within the artifacts could achieve some measure of empathic communication with their possessors, and could even, through prolonged use, come to dominate them. The artificers worked in secrecy, hoping to keep the knowledge of the demonbound items from the public at large, lest the demons turn the weak-willed or foolish into their unwitting pawns.

Of course, their plans were far from perfect. One or two greedy artificers kept the occasional ring or sword for themselves. Ignorant adventurers eventually stumbled upon the artifacts, claiming them as trophies of their heroism. Over the years, the true nature of the demonbound artifacts has been forgotten by all but a handful of artificers -- the remnants of the old order, all but faded away.

In Atwell, the capitol city of Brightmar, legend says that the king's line shall rule so long as the gleaming brightsteel sword suspended above the throne remains in place... but not even the king knows the true reason why, or the origins of the tradition.

All right, enough fluff. Gimme the crunch.

Demonbound items have, appropriately enough, a demonbound aspect of some kind. It could be something as vague and straightforward as "Demonbound Blade" or something as specific and flavorful as "Nurzkalak's Prison." (The most powerful demonbound items might even have two or three such aspects.) This can be invoked in all the usual ways (+2, reroll, effect), but without spending a Fate Point. Instead, when you invoke the demonbound aspect, the GM gives you a token: a Doom Point. Use something that won't be mistaken for a Fate Point.

Immediately after invoking the demonbound aspect, make a Resolve roll against a target equal to the number of Doom Points the character's accumulated.

For example, Kuron's player up there has invoked "Nurzkalak's Prison" three times so far, including this time, so he now has a pile of three Doom Points. His Resolve effort has to be at least Good (+3) to get through this scot-free.

If you make the roll, nothing happens. Congrats! I knew you were strong. If you fail, however, you take a mental consequence (Minor for 1-3 stress, etc.) reflecting the demon's hold on your mind, however temporary. The demon will always want to destroy, twist, or pervert the world around you in as cruel a manner as possible.

Treat these consequences normally. That is, Minor ones go away at the end of the scene, Moderate ones go away with a skill roll (in this case, your Resolve, or someone else's Resolve if they're trying to exorcise you), and Severe go away through the narrative. If you've sustained a Severe consequence from a demonbound item, forever will it, as they say, dominate your destiny. At the end of the story arc, alter one of your personal aspects to reflect this. "Incorruptible Knight of Brightmar" might become, say, "The Lingering Madness of a Demon."

You can probably guess that Kuron failed his Resolve roll, but not by much: Let's say he took the Minor consequence of "Bloodthirsty." The GM can compel that consequence to force Kuron to keep fighting when he'd rather not (the mountain dwarves are already fleeing in the example), kill helpless opponents, and so on. However, since it's just a Minor consequence, he'll regain control of himself at the end of the scene... but he'll still have those three accumulated Doom Points.

That's right: Doom Points don't go away. Not without effort, anyway. There are two ways to go about this:

• At any time, you can lose Doom Points by spending Refresh on a 1:1 basis. Ridding yourself of demonic influence takes a lot out of you.
• When the GM compels your demonbound consequence or the demonbound aspect, either one of you may choose to conduct the transaction in Doom Points instead of Fate Points. For example, if the GM compels you, Kuron's player, to chase down those fleeing mountain dwarves, instead of offering you a Fate Point, he might offer instead to take away one of your Doom Points -- or you might decide to accept the compel by paying him a Doom Point instead of receiving a Fate Point. Think of Doom Points as the anti-Fate Points: You pay them when compelled, and receive them when you invoke. If you do what the demon wants, you gradually reduce its influence. The downside to that, of course, is that you're taking orders from a demon.

So then.

What if a PC becomes the last recipient of the secrets of the ancient order of artificers?

What if a demonbound artifact falls into the hands of the party?

What if the PCs find out the true nature of the king's sword in Atwell?

What if the spells of imprisonment laid upon that sword fail -- or are countered somehow?

What if some crazy villain has dedicated himself to freeing a number of demons in a futile bid to to harness their power?

What if that villain succeeds (probably sacrificing himself in the process), and the PCs are a sort of medieval fantasy version of the Ghostbusters?