[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!

[Atomic Robo] Robotoberfest

Well, it's the last day of Sept, so you know what that means: It's almost time for Atomictoberobofest!

That's right -- Atomic Robo comes to your town, if you live in Tampa Bay, FL or Fresno, CA or Oakland, CA.

First up is Necronomicon in the Sunshine State, where John Campbell will be running some sort of ARRPG game. That's happening next weekend, October 9-11, so if you're around there or are willing to make the trip, go check it out.

Then I'll be at ZappCon in beautiful Fresno -- where the city motto is "You can get there from here!" -- running some sort of ARRPG game on the morning of Saturday the 17th. The blurb's super-vague, so maybe it'll be a Majestic 12 game, maybe it'll be "Atomic Robo and the Invaders from Mars," maybe it'll be a Robo Force game, I dunno. There's no way to know.

I'll also be part of a panel on Sunday the 18th at 2:00 pm about family gaming. Because ARRPG won a Silver ENnie for Best Family Game at GenCon this year, so it's only logical that I'd be able to speak about family gaming at some length, right? Please come to that panel and see if that's at all a reasonable assumption.

And if you can't make it to Fresno that weekend but you can make it to Oakland for some reason, it better be because you're going to Big Bad Con.

UPDATE: Though I can't find them on the schedule itself, there is apparently at least one Atomic Robo game happening at Big Bad Con on Sunday the 18th, as well as Morgan Ellis running Shadow of the Century, and also there'll be other Fate games, although I see exactly one on the schedule, so I dunno what the story is there. 

[Gen Con 2015] Self-Indulgence

It's been two weeks since Gen Con, and since getting back life's been pretty busy with family stuff (yay), work stuff (yay), and one of my kids going back to school (YAAAAAAAY!!!). I'm rapidly running out of time to crow about this -- arguably, I already have -- but I can't just let it go without comment.

You're probably already aware, but Atomic Robo: The Roleplaying Game won a Silver ENnie for Best Family Game at Gen Con a few weeks ago! I dunno, I think this is pretty cool.

Friends kept telling me Robo was going to win this very ENnie (it was also nominated for Best Game, as you may recall, but the competition there involved D&D, The Strange, Firefly, and Mutant: Year Zero, so we all agreed even Silver was highly unlikely), but I steadfastly went in with zero expectations, so when the award was announced I was genuinely surprised. Not the least of which because there was serious competition in the Family Game category as well -- I wouldn't have been shocked if any of the other nominees had gotten the Silver instead.

I don't know how much sense I made during my brief acceptance speech. I'd been thinking of and rejecting jokes for it for a couple weeks, so fortunately I didn't step onto the stage with a bunch of material that just had to be heard. But I thanked the judges, the voters, Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener, my wife and kids, everyone on stage with me (Morgan Ellis, Brian Engard, and Sean Nittner, though I honestly thought John Adamus was standing behind me too), and Adam Jury, but I bet I forgot to thank Evil Hat as an entity, or Fred Hicks for bringing me on board as a freelancer in the first place, or others who helped and whom I forgot in the moment. So I'm doing that now. Thanks!

Morgan then told everyone that they oughtta check out Atomic Robo the comic, especially if they want to introduce their kids to comics, then I chimed in to agree, then we got into a brief bit of "Sorry I never told you about Atomic Robo, Mike!" and "Yeah, this guy, he never even told me about Atomic Robo!" and I bet everyone in the audience was like "WTF are these two clowns talking about?" but fortunately we got off the stage right after. Regardless, I'm glad Morgan spoke up.

Then afterwards I went and played an 11:00pm game of D&D. Mike Mearls and Jeremy Crawford were there, so I congratulated them on their many (many, many) wins, and Jeremy says, "Hey, this guy over here" -- here he jerked a thumb in Mearls' direction -- "he's got the Atomic Robo RPG on his shelf at work!" And Mearls says, "Hey, whatta you gotta go and tell him a thing like that for, ya rube!" Then he went to poke Jeremy in the eyes with two fingers, but Jeremy put his hand up in front of his face to block him, so Mearls just slapped him on the back of the head. I dunno, some of that may not have happened -- it was a crazy night -- but the bit about Mearls having a copy of ARRPG in is office is true, that I rememeber for sure.

The next day, when I was back there playing D&D again (I played a lot of D&D at Gen Con...), they both signed my PHB, thusly:

I don't know how well you can read it there, but Mearls wrote "Thanks for playing the #2 best RPG of 2014," implying that ARRPG was the best, which is nice. Then he told Jeremy to write "Atomic Robo is better than D&D," to which Jeremy reacted with genuine doubt. I told him to just write whatever (or just sign his name, which was, y'know, what I thought was going to happen), so he wrote "Isn't D&D kind of OK?" And to think, he was so well-spoken at the ENnies when he accepted all those awards.

What else happened at Gen Con? I ran two fun games of Majestic 12, one off-books game Wednesday night when we were all too tired to see it through, and another Friday morning that had plenty of energy to the end. Oh, and I went to a fantastic baseball game, probably the funnest thing I did all weekend, but I've found that most Gen Con attendees are surprisingly disinterested in minor-league baseball, so I'll just leave that there.

Anyway. No joke, the real honor was that ARRPG was nominated for something at all. The medal's icing on the cake. The most important part to me is that people are playing and liking the game. So if you're one of those people and you voted for Atomic Robo, thanks! If you're one of those people but you didn't vote, then you missed an easy opportunity for me to owe you one. If you don't like Atomic Robo in the first place, you seem to have stumbled upon the wrong blog, but take a look around and maybe you'll see something you like.

[GenCon 2015] State of the Hat!

Just a reminder that this is what GenCon looks like.
Those people in the front there in the bright light are about to be taken up. 
DISCLAIMER: NOT INTENDED AS AN ACCURATE DEPICTION OF GENCON.

Didja see that this year's State of the Hat panel is Thursday at 10:00am GenCon-time, and also at GenCon? Well, it is. Will you be there? I'll be there. On the panel, I mean. And if I weren't, I'd be there in the audience -- just like you should be! Full circle!

Anyway, what is this thing? It's a panel where Sean Nittner gets a bunch of Evil Hat people together to talk about how great the past year has been and how great the coming year's going to be.

Guests scheduled to appear include:

• Me!
• Sean Nittner, like I said!
• Morgan Ellis!
• Brian Engard!
• Sophie Legace via Skype or something, maybe!
• Rob Wieland, I think!
• Woosh!
• Pamela Walker should be able to make it!
• Bill White!
• Pretty sure Ken Hite said he'd be there!
• Others! I dunno, it's fluid!

See you there?

UPDATE: A couple of readers have pointed out that the picture above is only indicative of what the main concourse at the convention center looks like when everyone's waiting for the dealer hall to open in the morning, and not what it looks like at any other hour of the day. I've amended the picture's caption accordingly, lest anyone get the incorrect impression that the crowds at GenCon are routinely that large. I apologize for any confusion or distress the image and accompanying caption may have caused you or your loved ones, and trust that now that the matter has been fully explained, and thus drained of any humor the image and its caption may have held, that you'll be able to plan for GenCon accordingly.

[Atomic Robo] ENnie Noms!

Just saw that Atomic Robo: The Roleplaying Game has been nominated for ENnie Awards in two categories: Best Family Game and Best Game!

Both are surprises, honestly, but I'm especially surprised (pleasantly!) at the Best Family Game nom. I don't necessarily think of ARRPG as a "family" game, but then again we are talking about a game for which I've occasionally used pictures of action figures as character portraits.

Anyway, last year, Fate Accelerated Edition won a Gold ENnie for Best Family Game -- and Fate Core won Gold for Best Game -- but to be honest it's just an honor to be nominated. I know that's a cliche, but it's true. There are a lot of great games out there.

Speaking of which, congrats to all the other nominees! Special biased congrats to the other Fate nominees, Mindjammer and Mass Effect: Fate. And Evil Hat's edition of Monster of the Week is nominated for Best Rules, and Designers & Dragons is up for Best Writing and Product of the Year!

Look, I could go on all day enthusing about this stuff, but I got kids here who demand my attention. It took me like two hours to write this! See you at GenCon.

[FAE] Nemesis Approaches

Before we get into these FAE-related ramblings, I want to let you know that I'm on the RPG Gamer Dad podcast this week, talking Atomic Robo and Fate in general. This was recorded back in... I dunno, a couple months ago, but I don't think there's anything time-sensitive in it that's since been rendered obsolete in the interim. If you like accents, that story of how I ended up involved with Atomic Robo: The Roleplaying Game, or people expressing enthusiasm, you will not want to miss it!

Okay! Initiate FAE-related ramblings.

I've been thinking more about FAE in practical terms over the last 12 hours or so, because I realized last night that my current level of interest in Steven Universe means I'm almost certainly going to run a one-shot based on the show in the relatively near future. I know myself well enough by now to realize and embrace this. This is the inception. FAE seems a good fit.

As it happens, I'd also already planned to run another Star Wars one-shot of some kind at Gateway to complete my trifecta of "games about people in the Star Wars universe you don't usually hear much about but who could reasonably fit into established canon, such as it is, one way or another" in this, the year of the Star Wars. I've done political-activist droids with OVA and an Ewok hit squad with Mini-Six, both of which were largely disappointing system-wise (very likely because of my inexperience with those systems), so it seems natural that for this last one (Rebellion-era Imperial Academy cadets, maybe?) I should return to something I know works well and would suit the source material: FAE.

Anyway, something I really like about FAE is a thing about which I've seen people complain, and that's spamming your highest-rated approach. Specifically, I like finding narrative reasons to spam your highest-rated approach, and then doing that thing.

This is not a broken or weak aspect of FAE. On the contrary, it's a strong point. You feel like you're getting away with something because you're almost always adding +3 to every roll, all for the low, low cost of providing colorful descriptions of how Forceful or Flashy or Clever or whatever you're being. But it's that last bit that really matters -- making the story better. It's a trick. You want to play the big strong hero with +3 Forceful? Go ahead and do that! You should be finding Forceful solutions most of the time. It's what you're best at!

The thing is, it's implicit in this that taking one approach means you're definitely not taking any of the other five. And that may be a problem for you. Forcefully busting down that locked door means you're not doing it Carefully or Sneakily. Someone probably heard that, right? If you're Cleverly picking that lock instead, no one's going to hear you, but you're probably not getting it down Quickly, either.

Were I to formalize this systematically, I'd call this approach you're not using -- the one that, because you're not using it, is generating a complication for you -- the nemesis approach. I say the GM gets to pick your nemesis approach, both because it's a lot easier and because it just makes sense. It's the GM's job to fill your character's life with drama, so this would seem to fall under that umbrella. It doesn't need anything else number-wise, I think. It's basically just a source of inspiration for the GM and a clear message to the player that using a given approach to solve a problem may make their lives more difficult.

Furthermore! I'd say that on a success with style, you get to pick a complementary approach that applies to the task at hand. You don't get its bonus -- you just get to include that adjective (or adverb, as the case may be) in your problem-solving narrative. Succeed with style on Cleverly picking that lock, and you can do it Quickly too. So whatever other problems may come down the pike as a result of this task, they can't originate from your lack of Cleverness or Quickness. That's actually a pretty powerful thing, really.

Some time ago I made this graphic for another post on approaches:

Ignoring all the numbers there, this could be used as a guide for which approaches make good complementary approaches (those connected by a solid line) and which would make good nemesis approaches (those that aren't connected by any lines). It's not 100% foolproof, and it won't suit every situation, but it's something.

Now, I hear what you're saying, even though I have this playing in the background and also my 2-year-old is pushing a chair around the living room for some reason: "Hey, these nemesis approaches sound a lot like compels. Are these compels?" I'd say no. If you're going to use this, everyone has to be on board with the implication that using one approach means possibly suffering the consequences of not using one of the other five. Likewise, the GM needs to be on board with not making the players pay for every damn choice they make. Bring in a nemesis approach when it's interesting and dramatic, or when one player is leaning really heavily on one approach to the exclusion of the others.

That last bit might make this sound like this is meant to be punitive, but it's not! You're not punishing them for playing the character they made -- you're just telling them, "Look, your character is rad, absolutely, but you can't go through life being this one-note without creating some problems for yourself now and then." I think that's fair. The GM has to be on board with that, too. Be a rabid fan of the PCs and this shouldn't be a problem.

[Atomic Robo] News You Can Use

In before May!

I know it's been a long time since I rapped at ya, but I've been busy with a variety of things -- many not even gaming-related! But I did want to post about a couple notable recent... things.

First off, Atomic Robo: The Roleplaying Game has been nominated for an Origins Award for Best Role-Playing Game! It's a real honor. Even more of an honor is the crazy list of other nominees: Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook, Firefly, Icons Assembled, and The Strange. As you can see, those range from pretty huge to as huge as they get. Two of them I own and like, one I've only played, and the last I admittedly really know nothing about other than it's from a highly respected, well-known designer and its predecessor cleaned up at the ENnies last year. (Guess which one is which!) Seeing the team behind ARRPG on that list... it's surreal.

To say that I do not anticipate that ARRPG will win is something of an understatement, but that's fine! It's amazing to see it up there with those other games. If you'd like to help it along, though, go here and vote for it. Or any of the others! They're all great! And there are other things to vote for, too, so vote for those. I... don't really know what this online voting means -- I coulda sworn there was a judging panel or something, and that the fan favorite award was voted on by Origins attendees -- but hey, it can't hurt.

Second off, what'd you do for International Tabletop Day? (It was April 11th.) Me, I playtested the Sparks Nevada Thrilling Adventure Game for four Thrilling Adventure Hour die-hards, then saw the final monthly Largo show. Bittersweet, but I'm so glad I got to be there.

Pow. Sniff.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in LA, the man known as the Dungeon Bastard, aka Bill Cavalier, aka Tom Lommel, and Lyndsay Peters, who has the audacity to face the world without a single alias, let alone two, ran a demo of Atomic Robo at ITT HQ. I wasn't able to attend, but it went well. Pretty cool, that thing happening at that place for that event. The best part? I wasn't even involved! Always gratifying when you discover that someone else likes your work enough to actually use it.

That bat'leth is a dry-erase surface -- perfect for any Fate game!

What's more, Mr. Bastard has kindly put his materials for the game online. It was a little nonstandard, and certainly deviated from one or two standard ARRPG standards and practices, but it worked, so who cares about that. Maybe you can make use of the Bastard's work to run a Robo convention demo of your own! In fact, go do that.

And that's it for the news, I think! Oh, I ran a Majestic 12 playtest at Kingdom-Con in San Diego last weekend, and it went well. The supplement's mostly done, barring a minor but important change as a result of the aforesaid playtest and some adventure hooks by Brian Clevinger and myself that we thought would be handy. Plus, new modes! New skills! New mechanical bits to make things extra-Majestic! New Scott Wegener art! Tons of background material from Brian that may never make it into the comic! I'm looking forward to getting it into your hands. (If you don't have hands, we'll work something out.) Should be out in June.

Coming Up: Gamex is happening soon! I'll do my usual roundup of Fate games so you can schedule accordingly.

The Dork Forest!

Hey, I'm on this week's episode of The Dork Forest with Jackie Kashian!

Are you familiar with this podcast? Every week Jackie has a guest come on and talk about, in great detail, something they're really into -- a.k.a., "dork out." This week it's me, talking about RPGs, drum corps, and current kids' TV.

This is kind of a big deal for me. I mean, I've been on a few podcasts here and there, and they've been great and I've had fun on every one of them, but The Dork Forest... I mean, Dana Gould's been a guest on this podcast. Eddie Pepitone. Maria Bamford. James Urbaniak. Jimmy Pardo. Mary-Lynn Rajskaub. Paul F. Tompkins. If you're a comedy nerd like me, those are big-deal names. So it's a kinda sorta huge honor to be able to say that I have this in common with them.

And as long as I'm naming names like a comedy nerd, there's Jackie Kashian herself, who killed on Conan the night after we recorded this episode. That was so weird to watch after having had a conversation with her and her husband Andy in their living room just the day before.

Anyway. It was a real pleasure to meet Jackie and Andy and record this. Thanks to Brian Tatosky for making it happen.

RPG-wise, I talk about Atomic Robo, Smallville, D&D, and OVA, among others -- this was the Monday after OrcCon 2015, so OVA was on my mind -- but, the rush of things, didn't mention nearly as many small-press games as I'd wanted to, so just pretend you heard me plug Fiasco, Dungeon World, Primetime Adventures, and many, many more, including your favorite small-press game in the event that it wasn't included in the brief list earlier in this sentence.

[GenCon] What Am I Doing I Don't Even

GenCon is next week! Holy troat!

Somehow or other, I already have a pretty full schedule for the con. Here's what I know so far:

• Thursday, 1pm: The Sparks Nevada Thrilling Adventure Game. 
• Thursday, 5pm: State of the Hat, the Evil Hat what's-goin'-on panel. Yay, doing a panel! For future reference, I would do more panels. Panels seem fun. Are you putting a panel together? I bet we can contrive a reason for me to be on it!
• Friday 10am: GMing at Games on Demand (pictured above). It's only a two-hour slot, so odds are good it'll be Sparks Nevada.
• Friday 2pm: Atomic Robo: The Roleplaying Game.
• Friday 7-ish pm: Attending the ENnies. I may be missing an Indianapolis Indians game for this, so some Evil Hat Fate thing had better win something to make this worthwhile.
• Saturday 2pm: GMing at Games on Demand again. Four-hour slot, which makes Atomic Robo or my ARRPG-based Crimson Skies thing likely.
• Sunday 10am: My last two-hour stint at Games on Demand.

I'm also currently slated to play a few scheduled games, including a one-hour D&D 5E demo-intro-thing Thursday morning, a Tunnels & Trolls game (with Ken St. Andre!) Saturday morning, and some Crimson Skies (the WizKids minis game) Saturday night. But... I dunno if the D&D and Crimson Skies games are going to make the final cut. For one thing, the shuttle to and from the convention center is an hour. For another, back when I booked those games, I was like "OMG, what will the new edition of D&D be like?!" (I've since played it more than a little) and "If I'm going to run a Fate Crimson Skies game, I should probably play the minis game" (I've since become... less convinced of the necessity of this). 

But there is zero chance of me missing that T&T game. And I have plenty of generics, so come at me, bro.

I'm also trying to leave more gaps in my schedule for GoD or off-the-books games or, like, someone saying, "Hey, I want to talk to you about this project," which, based on the past few months, is a thing that could conceivably happen. If you interpreted that statement an assertion that I am so important and in-demand that I expect people to be stalking me just for the mere chance of hearing words fall out of my mouth, you are absolutely correct.

Seriously though, it's nothing like that. It's more like this is my fourth year at GenCon, and every year I promise myself that "Next year, I'm not going to sign up for any games in advance! All the cool stuff seems to happen at GoD and in off-books games!" and then I've done the exact opposite of that three times now. So I'm trying for a late-game course-correction here.

Anyway, see you there. And hey, if we don't see each other there, then maybe I'll see you at Gateway, because it's only two weeks after GenCon, which was only two-and-a-half weeks after Comic-Con. 

I'm freaking out.

[Atomic Robo] At San Diego Comic-Con! UPDATED

Wow, where'd Comic-Con come from this year, huh? Sneaked right up on me. I am... kinda totally not as prepared as I'd thought I'd be. I guess you have to actually, y'know, plan for stuff like that. Which I normally do! But this year, I dunno, it sneaked up on me.

Regardless! I have time Thursday and Sunday, so if you're going to be there and you want to play ARRPG, Sparks Nevada, my Crimson Skies-via-ARRPG thing, uh, my sorta-works D&D-via-Traveller hack, whatever. We have options.

In fact, I'll leave a sign-up sheet at while there's no room at the Red 5 booth (1717) for something like a sign-up sheet (I'll admit, it was optimistic of me to suggest there would be), I'll tell them when games will happen and they'll be happy to direct you accordingly, because they're super-good people. If you're around and interested, and want to let me know both of those things, you can put your name down there and that will accomplish that purpose go to the indicated place at the indicated time, or contact me online (here or on Twitter) to let me know you plan on being there.

Regardless, I'll run games in 15AB, the open-gaming room.

The first game will be Thursday the 24th at 11am. First five cool people to show up get to play!

I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to another San Diego Comic-Con! Comic-Con! Comic-Con! Comic-

Standard foot traffic outside the convention center.

These people would like to hear more about Star Wars, please.

These people would also like to hear about Star Wars. Or whatever.

Oh.

Right.

Almost forgot.

[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!

[OrcCon 2014] Cowboys and Dinosaurs

Pictured, from left to right: Sparks Nevada and a lunatic.

Ah, late January, a time when a middle-aged SoCal gamer's mind turns to thoughts of OrcCon and the games to be run and played there. This middle-aged SoCal gamer will be running three games over the course of President's Day Weekend (aka Valentine's Day Weekend... awkward...), which is what this post is about.

I know lately I've been doing breakdowns of all the Fate games being run at these conventions, but it's been a long day and I just wanna get this one out. I will say this: There are 10 eleven such games at OrcCon, including the three below.)

Friday night at 8:00 and Sunday afternoon at 2:00 are playtests of the Sparks Nevada Adventure Game (working title -- maybe the Sparks Nevada Thrilling Adventure Game?). Why not call it Sparks Nevada: The Roleplaying Game? I dunno. I kinda like "adventure game." I seem to recall it was out there in the '80s, but never really caught on as a term, which is too bad, I think. I like how it tells you what the game's going to be about: adventure! I mean, yeah, it's about playing roles too, but if you were to ask me "Do you want to go on an adventure?" vs. "Do you want to play a role?" I'm pretty sure I'd take you up on the former faster than I would on the latter. Plus, it feels like a natural derivation of "The Thrilling Adventure Hour."

Anyway, I digress. Here's the blurb:

Kids! Shine your astro-spurs and don your robot fists! It's time to playtest the Sparks Nevada Adventure Game! Based on the wildly popular Thrilling Adventure Hour, the Sparks Nevada Adventure Game uses a greatly altered and simplified version of Fate Core that emphasizes character interaction and big dramatic moments. Newcomers to Sparks Nevada and/or Fate welcome!

I'm... not entirely sure what the premise is yet, but for some reason I'd like to make use of K of the Cosmos, if I can get the voice down. Oh yes -- owing to the audiocentric nature of the Thrilling Adventure Hour, Sparks Nevada is one of those games that really benefits from getting the voices down, which makes it an unnatural fit for me, but whatever. I'd also kinda like to make it Valentine's Day themed, but y'know, President's Day might be just as good. Sparks and Croach fight Lincoln and Washington for reasons that only make sense to K? And hey, wasn't there a Star Trek kinda like that? This idea's sounding better all the time.

More on OrcCon after the jump.

That was the jump! Did you enjoy it?

Sunday morning at 9:00, which you may know better as "the best time to not run a game at a convention," I'll be running an Atomic Robo scenario I'm calling Bring Me the Head of Dr. Dinosaur. It was prompted by the thought that if Dr. Dinosaur is a spectacularly failed genetic engineering experiment, then -- well, the blurb explains it pretty well, I think:

You were elite agents of a secretive government agency, genetically engineered to be the best of the best. But 14 years ago, the black sheep of your group, a psychotic with the delusional belief that he's a velociraptor named H'ssssk, slaughtered your creators and set off on a worldwide chaos spree. Tesladyne wants to imprison him. Majestic 12 wants to study him. But you? You just want revenge.

So it's that game, the one where the PCs are non-insane versions of Dr. Dinosaur, more or less, and both Tesladyne and Majestic 12 are the badguys. It'll take place after volume 8, which just concluded this past week. For those among you who are sticklers for canon, this means we will be operating without a net. I mean, obviously I know what goes on in volume 9, to a certain extent, on account of how special I am, but we'll be ignoring that for secrecy reasons, and also because I honestly don't know that much.

Pre-reg opens today at noon PST, so get on that. I want full games, people! There may be a little tiny cool surprise at one or more of those games, if you're a dedicated fan of the thing that one of those games is based on, but I promise nothing.

In related news, there may be some exciting related news soonish, so keep checking the blog. Or y'know what? I'll just let you know via Twitter. Yeah, that's better. Saves you checking the blog in vain.

[Fate Core] Fate Core Day at Villainous Lair

This Saturday, October 26th, is Fate Core Day at Villainous Lair Gaming! Games start at 1:00 pm.

I do not know what my game will be. All I know is that it'll use Fate Core.

Let me be clear here: This isn't some kind of stunt. I really don't know. I've been busy with other things and haven't had much time to figure out a gimmick for this one, and usually, my one-shots are highly gimmick-based. Part of the problem is that I want to run something as close to RAW as possible to give people a good idea of what Fate Core (as written) is like, but RAW isn't really... something I do with Fate.

Now, if I were going to do my usual -- that is, a hack -- I have all kinds of ideas. I need to playtest my Sparks Nevada hack. I need to playtest my latest Fate supers hack. I have really weird ideas for a Fate/Rolemaster crossover. And of course, I could run Atomic Robo!

So... any ideas? I'm open to suggestions.

Oh, and if you're in the area, you should obviously come out and play!

[GenCon 2013] My Schedule

Really looking forward to this.

This seems to be a thing some people do, so I figured I'd do it too. Hey, easy blog post!

Thursday, 12:00 pm: ARRPG, "Tesla's Seven." This should probably be called "Tesla's Five," but that's even less of a thing than Tesla's Seven is, and Tesla's Seven is just the less-of-a-thing version of Tesla's Eleven, which is a lateral move from Ocean's Eleven. So I think we have enough layers of remove as it is.

Thursday, 5:00 pm: State of the Hat seminar. I'm on a panel. It's crazy. I and many other Evil Hat-types will be on hand to answer questions about the development Evil Hat stuff. Specifically, I can talk about ARRPG, Fate Core, FAE, and Shadow of the Century. Not rules-stuff, though. Development stuff.

Saturday, 2:00 pm: ARRPG, "Robo Force." This is aptly named.

I expect I'll also run ARRPG at Games on Demand at least once, so keep an eye out. I'll tweet/blog about it in advance to give fair warning.

As for stuff I'm playing, currently I'm only signed up for two games, a Qin: The Warring States game Friday at noon, and Dave Mattingly's Bring Your Own Brick Champions game Thursday at 7:00. Wait, Thursday at 7:00? Seriously? Ugh. Thursday's gonna be rough. I just noticed that.

Regardless, there's no way I'm missing that Champions game. The premise -- bring two 400-point 6th-edition Hero System characters, and the GM chooses one -- hooked me, because long ago, before Fate came along (to me), Hero was my go-to system. I used to make 5th-edition Hero characters for purely recreational purposes. I'm new to 6th, but still I made four PCs and am restraining myself from making a fifth. Picking just two of those four for Dave's review will be tough enough already. It's gonna get all Sophie's Choice up in here.

And if you see me at GenCon sitting by myself doing homework, I'm just prepping for Gateway, which sounds crazy, I know.

[Fate Core] Significant Milestones

Yeah, I'm just stealing from Fred for the title of this post, but it's so damn apropos!

Fate Core and Fate Accelerated Edition are off to the printers. I have the PDFs right here. They look pretty great. I'm pretty thrilled that my name has somehow ended up on the covers for both books. Fate Core, I expected; FAE, I did not. But Evil Hat values their editors, so hooray for Jeremy, Amanda, and me.

Y'know what else is awesome? The cover price of FAE. Take that, Savage Worlds Explorer's Edition! I like Savage Worlds a whole lot -- I just never thought I'd see a mass-produced core RPG book that undercut its price point so severely. It's a good time to be a cheap bastard.

Anyway, I seem to have a bit more Fate System Toolkit work to do here -- editors, amirite? -- so I'd better get back to that, but I couldn't help crowing a bit about these two books.

[Off Topic] Baby! Again!

That right there is Will Robert Olson, born December 18th, 2012 -- two weeks earlier than expected. Surprise! He's currently at a top-rated children's hospital in San Diego and doing great. Welcome him to the world, everyone.

[Fate Core] Rules vs. Settings

This is a warning.

So! That Fate Core Kickstarter's been pretty crazy, am I right? It's great to see so many people excited enough about it to back the campaign -- exactly 3,600 people, as I type -- and also to see how many of them are new to Fate with this edition. That's awesome.

Not surprisingly, there's a lot of discussion about Fate Core in various places around the Internet, and a lot of it's revolving around what it can do. Most of the time, inquiries about this kind of thing look something like this:

Really enjoyed the Terra Nova TV series when it was on and was wondering if it would be possible to make that kind of setup using the FATE system?

(That's James Cartwright, commenting on the Kickstarter page.)

Or this:

I would love to see a strong example of a heavily race based system. Ideally in my mind an anthropomorphic animal game in the vane of Redwall, Mouse Guard, or Ironclaw.

(That's Jonathan Dietrich, also on the Kickstarter page.)

These both sound like great games to run with Fate Core. Terra Nova may have let me down as a show, but the premise was cool -- sci-fi tech and dinosaurs! As for the anthropomorphic animal thing, well, I own Mouse Guard and backed Cairn, so I'm in.

My reaction to this kind of thing is always the same: Yeah, of course Fate can do that. What does it really involve, anyway? Knowing the source material? Fate Core gives you everything you need to sort out the rest.

This is a pretty unfair attitude, I know. I'm so used to hacking Fate and talking about hacking Fate and seeing Fate hacks that at this point it's kinda That System Everyone Hacks to me. You want to do something with Fate? Great! Go do it. What are you waiting for? Again, unfair.

However, there's an actual point to be made here as well. As I also said on Twitter, there's a real difference in Fate Core between saying "I want rules for..." and saying "I want a setting that's like...." 98% of emulating a genre using Fate Core is knowing the genre well in the first place.

Do you need special rules for shooting a dinosaur -- rules that aren't already in Fate Core? I don't think so. I mean, sure, you'll want to stat up some dinosaurs, but that's definitely within the scope of the rules as written. Do you need special rules for playing a sword-wielding mouse (as opposed to a sword-wielding human)? If everyone's playing an animal, make sure everyone has at least one aspect describing what kind of animal they are. (And then, y'know, stat out some cats and weasels.) Hashtag done!

Let's take Fate Core assistant developer Brian Engard's Wild Blue setting as an example. Wild Blue is part Western, part fantasy-magic stuff, and part supers. It has new rules for the magic-and-supers stuff (in the form of gifts), because Brian had a specific vision for how those work in the setting that he needed to convey. It has a couple new skills that suit the setting. And... that's it for new rules. Because Fate Core does everything else.

But Jonathan Dietrich came back with this:

Which is a great question! I tried to answer it on Twitter, but Twitter's not the best medium for that sort of thing, so let's see if it I can do it justice here.

What we're really talking here when we talk about sci-fi dinosaurs or heroic rodents isn't rules, but setting. Most of what'd be in a good Terra Nova RPG built on Fate Core would be descriptions and stats for things from the show -- an implementation of the system, sure, but off the top of my head I can't think of anything especially new it needs in terms of rules or mechanics. (Of course, I'm no Terra Nova scholar or anything, so maybe I'm misremembering.)

Anthropomorphic animals? As a complete game, I'd want lots of descriptions of animals and examples of aspects and stunts for each. But what I can't imagine is that any of that would deviate from the tools that Fate Core gives you. Maybe -- maybe -- you'd want size and scale rules, but extras can do that as-is. (The Extras Toolbox will probably have those size and scale rules, but still.)

The thing is, the protagonists in these stories do things that "baseline" human protagonists do in Fate Core anyway. (Well, apart from, like, gathering nuts for the winter, I guess.) They don't shoot laser beams from their palms or have super-strength or bend the laws of reality or anything. Even if they're mice or voles or whatever, they do what mice or voles or whatever in the setting do -- which makes mice or voles or whatever the new baseline, which means you don't need special rules for them. If you know your source material and follow the directions in Fate Core, you'll get the game you want.

With all that established: What makes Atomic Robo so special that it need its own book?

This is a fair and complex question.

One, Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener want to do it. I want to do it. Evil Hat wants to do it. Lots of Robo fans really want us to do it. So... we're doing it.

Two, ARRPG may be an implementation of Fate Core, but it has several significant divergences meant to engender the kind of play we want to see out of an Atomic Robo game. Modes simplify character creation and skills to get players playing ASAP. We expect some people who buy the book will be Robo fans first and RPG fans second, or totally inexperienced with RPGs, so right from the start "quickplay" was the default. (Fate Core's easy for first-timers to pick up too, of course; a lot of these core concepts of ARRPG were established long before I even set eyes on Fate Core.)

Y'know how I said I'm not a Terra Nova scholar? Over the past year, I have arguably become an Atomic Robo scholar. Eating, breathing, and sleeping Atomic Robo has had a huge effect on the game in a hundred little ways. Atomic Robo doesn't tell stories the usual Fate Core way, so ARRPG structures stories the Atomic Robo way. The game has mechanics that emulate some specific stuff from the source material, like a group of Action Scientists working together to apply science to a mystery, a quick method for handling the in-game invention of new technology, and the capacity of characters (like Robo himself) to greatly exceed normal human limits.

What else? Aspects are categorized differently. There are no phases. There's no refresh (another very early decision). PCs start with more stunts. There's a subsystem for building customized skills outside of the extras framework. ARRPG has the great GM advice from Fate Core, but with an eye toward telling Atomic Robo stories, and new tools to help you do it. And because I wrote it, it has a random table. Maybe two. Maybe a random number of random tables. We'll see.

(Incidentally, some of the above will probably make it into the Extras Toolbox in some form or other.)

On top of all that, it's a thorough sourcebook for Atomic Robo -- more information on the Robo-verse than you'll find in any other book, plus a bunch of great art from Scott, both from the comic and new stuff. As a fan of Robo, this might be my favorite part of it.

Anyway. What was I talking about? Something to do with rules vs. settings in Fate Core?

[Fate Core] Surprise!

Surprise!

The Fate Core Kickstarter campaign has kicked off a little earlier than anticipated, thanks to editor Jeremy Keller and all-around provocateur Fred Hicks.

You've probably already checked it out. If you haven't yet, it's, uh, doing pretty well. Funded in under 15 minutes, hit the first two stretch goals shortly thereafter.

And in case you weren't already aware of this particular tidbit: If you back at any level -- including the $1 Access level -- you get immediate access to the draft copy of Fate Core.

Not bad, right?

This is all kind of novel for me. It's the first project I've worked on that's gotten the Kickstarter treatment. I had nothing to do with setting up the Kickstarter itself, nor am I currently on the hook to produce any new material as part of a stretch goal. So really, in a sense, I kinda don't really have much of a stake in this beyond wanting people to like and play a game I've worked on. (As I've said before, I've been extremely lucky so far in my RPG freelancing career to have worked on pretty much only fairly high-profile, well-received projects.)

But I'm going to be watching this Kickstarter with as much attention and enthusiasm as, I dunno, this, or this -- because it's always fun to see a highly anticipated campaign for a cool project go from "funded" to "ridiculous runaway success." Join me, won't you?

Join me.

[Fate Core] Coming Soon

So everyone knows about this by now, right?

No?

If you don't, you really should check it out.