[Atomic Robo] "It's In Layout!"

"It's in layout!"

That's been my stock answer for the past few months whenever someone's asked me what's up with Atomic Robo: The Roleplaying Game. And it's the truth, and it's been the truth, but honestly, that's all I knew until... well. Suffice it to say, there's a little more to it than that, and I think it's high time you fine people who've been waiting so patiently for its release (I am one of you, BTW) were let in on some of the details. Fortunately, Fred Hicks agrees, so we actually get to open up a bit about it.

Now, Fred wrote this and posted it on the Evil Hat website, but I'm going to repost it here because it's, uh, just, like, a lot easier than paraphrasing it all.

So, we've been saying that the Atomic Robo RPG is in layout for a while now, and that's still true. The reality runs a little more complicated than that once you get into the details, though!  

The editing and layout process has been intricate. We're looking to present a number of our examples visually, sourcing them straight from the events of the comics, and that can be slow going. We've had to rework chunks of text, a little bit here, a little bit there, over the course of it all, in order to make sure it all fit best with the layout.  

Probably our biggest speed-bump, however, has been imposed upon us by life. Our editor/layoutist found that the freelancing lifestyle wasn't paying the bills on its lonesome and, completely understandably, got himself a job to address that concern. This involved a move to a different state (time consuming), and then a focus on that new job that's kept him busy a good 72 hours a week. Due to the aforementioned intricacies of the layout, the layout wasn't done in time for these events to befall him, but it all added up to there being no more time to work on the book except for a few hours squeezed in every Sunday.  

We recognized this as unsustainable, and brought in a replacement layoutist, the incredibly talented Adam Jury. Adam has been vigorously coming to terms with the layout files as they stand (which is always rough; it seems no two layout folks do things the same way, so it's akin to getting tossed into a foreign country and asked to speak the language with no prior experience), and he's moving it forward as quickly as he can. 

The bottom line is that with the speed bumps we've had, and the spin-up time necessary to bring on new talent, we're likely to miss the end of year/Novemberish publication date that was our goal, and instead launch in early 2014. 

This isn't all bad, though. The fourth quarter of the year (October through December) is usually a very weak time for a company to launch a new game. Sales tend to be down significantly across the board. We believe a launch in early 2014 is going to give us a much stronger performance for the Atomic Robo Roleplaying Game than we would get if the time fairy waved his magic wand and made the book suddenly ready to publish in 2013. Ultimately this will all make for a stronger, better game without all that much more waiting (December's coming up fast)! 

Thanks to everyone for their time, talent, and patience in bringing the Atomic Robo RPG to fruition. We're past the rockiest part of the road, and just need time to cross the remaining distance.

So the bad news is, obviously, that the release date has been pushed back to 2014. None of us is happy about that, and I'm especially bummed about it, but it is what it is. The good news is that forward progress is still being made. Things are happening. I'm helping Adam source more art from the comics and I feel privileged to work with him, so despite the delays, the old cliche of "but the book will be better off for it!" is absolutely true.

Anyway, there you have it. It's in layout!

[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?

[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.

A Double Whammy of Fate

So. Lots of stuff going on. Eventful!

Here's the news: What with one thing and another, Fred Hicks asked if I'd be willing to help Lenny Balsera (along with Bulldogs! co-author Brian Engard) with the development of Fate Core. Uh, yes. Obviously. I want to go to there.

Initially the idea was that I'd let up on Atomic Robo for a few weeks and get back to it in a big way after GenCon. This would've pushed ARRPG back about a month, but whatever -- as long the delay wasn't going to stem directly from me, I was fine with it.

But it became clear pretty quickly that the changes in Fate Core that'd prompted Fred to reach out to Brian and me in the first place are simply too significant for ARRPG, in its current state, to escape unscathed. If I were to leave ARRPG as-is, the GenCon playtests would be... less than productive. They'd still be good for buzz and hype and all that, but the playtesters probably wouldn't be contributing to its development. And that's not really an option, from my perspective.

What to do? We can't cancel those playtests. I don't want playtests that aren't actually playtests. Nope. The only way out is through.

To that end, I'm now going to be working on both projects simultaneously, incorporating as many of the changes to Fate Core as possible into ARRPG before getting on that plane to Indy. If you playtest ARRPG at GenCon, know that you'll also be among the first, for all intents and purposes, to playtest Fate Core. 

You're probably asking, "What are these changes to Fate Core that are affecting Robo so significantly?" No? You weren't asking that? Well, I'll just proceed as if you were. I'm not going to go into that here, because both games are still in development, but I will say that Lenny's taking a really cool, inspired new direction with Fate I really like. And if I like it, it's gotta be good, right? 

To paraphrase Philip J. Fry, "Don't you worry about Fate Core. Let me worry about blank."

Anyway. I'm still figuring out just how much ARRPG's going to feel all this. I suspect it might not require a ground-up redesign of some fundamental subsystems. I also suspect I may be wrong about that. But whatever -- it's all good. I'm up for it. My duties on Fate Core involve writing/re-writing about half the book, so rest assured I'll be at the epicenter of this thing from start to finish.

TL;DR: I'm also working on Fate Core now in addition to Atomic Robo. It's going to be awesome. See you at GenCon.

In the meantime, go back Race To Adventure!

[Greyhawk] NaGa DeMon Post-Mortem

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

So, lessons learned: 

You’re Doing it Wrong

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

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

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

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

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

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

Necessity is the Mother of Translation

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

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

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

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

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

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

When In Doubt, Go Back to the Gameworld

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

...To Be Continued?

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

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

So, anyone interested in hearing specifics?

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

Continuing on from the prior posting…

Generating a Magical Effect

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

On the Fly Magic Effects

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Predefined Spells

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

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

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

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

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

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

Question: Why be a Wizard?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Casting Failures

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

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

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

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

Dealing with Magical Recoil

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

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

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

Which also brings up an interesting thought…

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

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

Wizardry and Casting Failure

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

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

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

Side Note: It is possible to consider that it’s not the spell that has the fail-safes within it, but rather that the Wizard possesses the skill and knowledge of how to safely disperse the energies.

Problem with this assumption is that you might need to state that non-wizards using scrolls could experience casting failure, which was not in the source material.

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

D.A.'s Anniversary and Fantasy Strongholds

Dave Arneson (October 1, 1947 – April 7, 2009)

While you can't debate EGG's profound contribution to wargaming and role-playing, his works never really sparked a profound desire to write my own works in the way that Dave Arneson's original Blackmoor did. The first time I read Dave Arneson's descriptions of Blackmoor in the Judge's Guild book "The First Fantasy Campaign" (originally pub'd 1977) I felt a connection with the "tongue-in-cheek" humor, inside jokes and "anything goes" style of fantasy that still persists in my adventures to this day (for better or worse).

One characteristic that stood out about the Blackmoor campaign was that a basic motivation for Blackmoor PCs going on adventures was to fund their strongholds, purchase improvements for the strongholds, and help defend or expand their lands. In other words, there was a feel of "ownership" in the Blackmoor campaign that you don't much see anymore these days.

In tribute to Dave Arneson, I outline some modifications for the creation of PC strongholds as they might exist in Spirit of Greyhawk.

So as a foundational step to Strongholds, I think you have to consider the tropes of the Fantasy-gaming genre and make a quick pass at Treasure (at least in the macro) as it might be played out in a world based upon dungeon crawls and treasure hoards.

The Treasure Track

Considering that a big point of the traditional dungeon crawl was the acquisition of treasure, I propose adding a stress track for Treasure. The Resources skill still exists, but is not directly used for spending money, determining lifestyle, or purchasing / maintaining workspaces and strongholds.

• Purchases reflect stress applied against the Treasure track.
• The Resource skill represents a per-adventure benefit paid into the Treasure track (like natural healing over time).
• The acquisition of treasure reflects a one-time benefit paid into the Treasure track.

The Treasure track for any particular PC is determined as:

• Base Treasure track score = Resource Skill
• Plus any current Treasure (net increase, not gross)

Example:

• PC with Resource Skill of Fair (+2) but no treasure has a Treasure Track of 2.
• Same PC received a Good (+3) treasure so his Treasure Track is increased to 3 (not 5).
• PCs spending drops his Treasure Track to 1 by the end of the adventure.
• At the start of the next adventure, the PCs Resource skill +2, resets the PCs Treasure Track to 2.
• If the PC receives a Great (+4) treasure, then the Treasure Track is increased to 4.
• If the PC spends 1 stress worth of treasure, then the Treasure track stays at 3.

Not entirely the most accurate method, but it keeps the game moving and the fudging is on both sides of the scale so I think it evens out.

General Rule for Spending Wealth (Stress against the Treasure Track)

GM's discretion as to when to take stress to the Treasure track applies (so we don't get into paperwork to buy rope...) but essentially the cost of items (measured on the ladder) represents stress against the Treasure track. For now, roll-ups are applied normally as per any other stress track. Again, perhaps not the most accurate, but keeps the game moving.

Keeping the Randomness in Purchases

Because this is no longer a skill roll against Resources, we can shift the randomness function to instead focus on possible negotiations and modifications to the cost of something, due to the fantasy / feudal nature of the economy. This also has the benefit of making things more fun for socially oriented PCs.

Future Points of Consideration about the Treasure Track

Things to think about at some point in the future:

• Distinctions about treasure "readily available" versus net sum of wealth.
• The application of consequences against the Treasure track (like losing access to Strongholds, or losing them altogether)

Workspaces

PCs have the opportunity to purchase and own a physical location that would support them in their endeavors.

Basic Workspace Characteristics

A Workspace consists of ONE of the following at a level equal to the initial purchase quality +2:

1. Mundane Library (use with Lore)
2. Arcane Laboratory (use with either Wizardry or Sorcery)
3. Temple (use with clerical magic)
4. Alchemy Laboratory (use with Alchemy)
5. Training Area (Melee/Missile, Thievery, Monk, Assassins)
6. Armory (use with Crafting)

Example: To acquire an Armory of Fair (+1) quality, it would require a treasure amount of Good (+3).

Specializing Workspaces

Workspaces can be specialized to function in particular area instead, at a level equal to the purchase quality + 1. Examples would be:

• An Armory that specializes in creating swords
• A Library specializing in Ancient Lands
• An Arcane Lab specializing in Summoning

Improving Workspaces

Workspace improvements may be constructed with a skill difficulty equal to the quality desired +2 (or +1 for a specialized workspace).

Example: A PC with a Treasure available of +3 (Good), decides to have a workspace of a Mundane Library. The base quality of the Library is +1 (3 - 2 = +1). If the PC wants the Library to be improved and expanded to become +3, the difficulty would be (3 + 2 = 5), and so the PC would have to roll a +2 on the dice or better (5 difficulty - 3 skill level = 2). Of course, Fate Points and Aspect tagging rules would be available as per usual.

At this level, the physical area is usually represented as more of a house or something similar. Any general physical characteristics are set at Mediocre (+0).

Resource Stunts

Note that these stunts are still tied to having the Resource skill. In other words, just having treasure might give you a nice place to do your research and whatnot, going past that point and creating strongholds, keeps and citadels does require advancement to be spent on the Resource skill.

Secondary Residence

Used as per SotC RAW to allow a second Workspace in a second physical location (either pre-determined or can be specified during play as long it's on the same plane of existance). Some examples of a Secondary Residence might be:

• A noble's family maintaining a residence in another city.
• A ranger having a backup lair deep within the forest
• A thief's safehouse

The physical characteristics of a secondary residence also start at Mediocre (+0).

Stronghold

This stunt allows one of the character's properties to qualify as a Stronghold. Note that a Stronghold is used somewhat generically: a bard's stronghold might be a playhouse, whereas a Wizard's stronghold might be a tower in the Yatil mountains.

The quality of the stronghold's "default" workspace is equal to Resources skill (or Resources + 1 if the workspace's function is specialized). The base physical characteristics of a Stronghold start at Average (+1) and can be improved with the Fortifications improvement.

The stronghold also will have 1 extra improvement (see "Stronghold Improvements", below)

Keep

Prerequisite: Requires Stronghold stunt

The keep is similar to the Stronghold, but provides an additional 3 Stronghold improvements. The base physical characteristics of a Keep start at Average (+1), same as a Stronghold and can be improved with the Fortifications improvement.

Citadel

Prerequisite: Requires Keep stunt

The Citadel is considered a "Wonder of the World". It has the improvements from the prior stunts, but one 1 of them can be traded (if desired) for something unique and distinctive. This 1 unique improvement can be determined between the PC and the GM. The following are some examples:

• A world-class workspace (adds another +2 quality to one of the workspaces within the citadel and adds another +1 to speed the rate of research).
• An exotic location like: the Astral Plane or the Yatil Mountains. This also includes a means of dedicated transport for reaching it.
• A larger and more highly-trained staff (the head of the citadel is of Good quality, and attended by two Fair and three Average lieutenants).
• The citadel is movable (Baba Yaga's hut anyone?)

A citadel starts with base physical characteristics of Fair (+2) and can be improved with the Fortifications improvement(s).

Stronghold Improvements

Improvements can be selected more than once and can be stacked.

"Additional Workspace"

This improvement allows for an additional workspace to contained within the same stronghold. For example, an arch-mage could choose to have a Library and a Laboratory contained within the same stronghold.

"Add a Stronghold Aspect"

Adds an aspect to the Stronghold at the GM's discretion. Examples could be:

• Holy Ground
• More than it Seems
• Hidden Reserves
• Traps and Pitfalls
• Perfect acoustics (useful for a bard's performance or for social combat showdowns in front of a crowd)
• Situated on a Magic Ley line
  

Aspects can be purchased with treasure, but each aspect would require a treasure quality of Good (+3). Additionally, aspects purchased after a stronghold's inception would need some manner of explanation. Certain aspects are fairly easy to explain by the application of money ("Hidden Reserves" for one), others like "Situated on a Magic Ley Line" might take some thought to work out a plausible explanation.

"Fortified"

Improves the physical toughness of the Stronghold by 1 shift. I would consider that fortifications could also be considered a function of the geography of the area as well, but I wouldn't consider that this improvement places it in some exotic location (see "Citadel")

"Landed Gentry"

This is sort of a catch-all improvement that basically states that Stronghold also has associated lands as well as some sort of feudal order that goes with it. The size of the lands within the Stronghold's control are determined by this improvement. Each improvement counts as 1 shift. This is a prerequisite for other improvements that follow.

NOTE: I haven't worked out the full implications of this improvement, but I expect that this might also have an impact on the PCs status or title.

"Improved Tithing"

Prerequisite: Landed Gentry

The quality of the lands within the Stronghold's control are a function of this upgrade. While a stronghold might control "large tracts of land" (pantomiming Michael Palin's father-in-law from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"), this upgrade provides a shift in the quality of tithing that is provided by those lands.

So for a literary example of a relatively small stronghold with Improved Tithing, you might consider the Kamarg from Moorcock's Hawkmoon stories.

"Conscripted Troops"

Prerequisite: Landed Gentry

I haven't fleshed this out entirely (maybe Mike can chime in with suggestions as I'm using his Mass Combat rules), but I would look at each grade of improvement as the ability to marshal increasingly large forces for military purposes.

"Lackeys"

Note that this is slightly different from having minions/henchmen in that lackeys are tied to the location of the stronghold and the lands surrounding.

The stronghold has a small staff of competent people: two with Average skill at something (skill to be determined when defining the henchman), and a Lieutenant with a peak skill of Fair. However these henchmen are tied to the location around the Stronghold.

NOTE: I'm sure there's more to be thought through, but this is enough to start!

Maintaining Workspaces and Strongholds

This is still in the consideration phase, but I think that if a campaign is going to venture into the area of the PCs having holdings, there should be idea of having to accept Treasure stress in order to maintain these holdings. I mean if you're looking for a reason to go out adventuring, that's just far too choice to not use!

Being unable to accept the stress to the Treasure track due to maintenance costs would likely result in a per-adventure cumulative -1 "consequence" to the quality of the workspaces and then losing upgrades (one upgrade counts as -1). Fortifications crumble, unpaid troops will desert, etc.

Assessing the Maintenance Cost (or "Paying the Cost to be the Boss")

Each of the following adds or subtracts at the number shown next to the condition. Add all of the applicable together for a net Treasure stress to be assessed per adventure.

• Workspace +1
• Stronghold or Keep rating +1
• Citadel rating +2
• Conscripted troops (add a Treasure stress equal to their size/quality)
• Landed Gentry -1 per upgrade
• Improved Tithing -1 per upgrade
• Owner's Resource Skill used as a modifier to the cost. (Note that this doesn't count against his Treasure track)

Apply the net result to the Treasure track. If the net result is positive, that gets added to the Treasure track!

Example: Branson the Knight has constructed a Stronghold with the following characteristics and associated maintenance costs...

• Workspace (Armory) +1
• Stronghold +1
• Aspect "Moat" +0
• Fortification +1
• Landed Gentry -1
• Resource Skill of Mediocre +0
  

He would have a maintenance cost of +2 assessed against his treasure per adventure. So then our knight is now heavily motivated to adventure so that he could...

• Acquire sufficient upgrades to have the stronghold pay for itself (or fill his coffers)
• Acquire sufficient advancements to increase his Resource skill
• Acquire loads of treasure as a backlog to keep things in good repair

...otherwise, he starts losing stronghold improvements due to lack of maintenance.

WHEW! Okay, that's enough. Mr. Arneson: thank you for the inspiration.

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 Psionics: A Long Time Ago in a Fantasy Genre Far, Far Away...

I remember reading somewhere that when EGG wrote the original psionics for AD&D, it was done primarily in response to a player's request to be able to play a psionic PC rather than from a particular desire to put psionics into the Greyhawk campaign. In a similar vein, my SoG campaign has a player who has a very specific vision for his character--combining equal parts assassin, monk and jedi-knight.

And so the implementation of psionics I am presenting here bears much more in common with WEG's D6 Star Wars than the normal AD&D psionics. But there will be no SW-related story conventions: no "Light Side", "Dark Side","Force", what-have-you for SoG's psionics. I have retained some of the limiting factors, but redefined them somewhat to fit in with the Fantasy genre.

The good news is that once a few key issues were worked out, the D6 system as it was implemented in Star Wars 2nd edition (revised) is really a nice fit into Fate.

Working out "a few key issues"

Because my intention is to use this with Spirit of Greyhawk, I wanted psionics to have a different feel from Magic, but still stay pretty close to Fate conventions.

Psionics is very definitely NOT magic and while similar effects might be generated, they are generated by very different sources. Magic effects are generated by the caster manipulating external forces, similar to a scientist creating effects by his knowledge and skill of chemistry or physics. Psionic effects are generated by use of skills that manipulate something internal to the psionicist: like esoteric yoga or martial arts.

Perhaps another way to state this is if a psion and a wizard were transported from their high-fantasy realm to a low-fantasy realm, the wizard's ability to generate effects would likely be impacted while the psion would likely be unaffected.

However, this also means that the psion has limitations and concerns that a wizard doesn't necessarily need to be worried about.

Differences from SoG Magic

Base Skill Levels

I'll list out the psi skills below, but because psionics are so rare and so esoteric that they start at a -4 level (Abysmal) rather than the SotC floor of 0 (Mediocre). This way if someone has a psionic Aspect, a tag would take them to -2, which would allow for the potential of untrained "wild talents" who could occasionally generate some sort of psionic effect if the dice were right. In other words, without training (and without an aspect) someone without the skills has no potential to generate psionic effects.

No Aspect Requirements

Unlike magic, there is no aspect requirement to be psionic. The implication here is that given access to enough training and time for personal advancement, anyone could generate psionic effects. While this is not exactly canon, it could be argued that psionics as a whole in the Greyhawk source material were always optional anyway.

So while not required to generate psionic effects, someone could have Aspects related to their psionics. In fact, many psionicists have acquired Aspects through the course of using their psionic skills! Typically, acquired Aspects related to psionics have a negative implication (i.e., madness), but can still be tagged or used via Fate point expenditure to increase psionic effects.

No Fate Point Commit Needed

My current feeling is that I don't believe that the Fate Point commit rule that exists with Magic is needed for psionics. However playtesting will determine if this is necessary. The potentially damaging nature of using psionics beyond your skill levels (see below) will itself provide a limitation. Additionally the quantity of skill advances required to become proficient at psionics is also a limitation.

Psionic Skills

All psionic effects are generated by the use and interaction of three skills:

• Control - Using psionics to generate effects within the psion's own body.
• Sense - Psionics will provide information about things outside of the psion's body.
• Alter - Psionically alter things outside of the psion's body.

Each skill has psionic effects that can be generated by the use of that skill. Additionally, unique psionic effects are generated by the combined use of 2 or all 3 of those skills, subject to the usual rules for "Combining Skills".

Rather than mess around with sub-skills, the player would have to elect specific psionic effects that are attributed to each skill, based upon the number of advances they have in a particular psi skill (not the skill level, since most psions run negative skill levels). Once selected, psionic effects cannot be swapped out or changed.

Example: Revok has two advances in psi skill Sense, so he may select two Sense psi effects from the list (or depending upon the nature of the story, the GM may dictate which psi effects the character would have access to--subject to what was available, mentor and training-wise.)

Psi Skills and Mental Stress

A unique feature of psionics involves the fact that since the effects come from within the psion, there is the opportunity to "push" the potency of those effects by virtue of the psion accepting stress to their mental track.

Example: Revok has two advances in the psi skill Sense for a net effect of -2. (-4 + 2 = -2). His dice roll was neutral (0) but needs a Good +3 effect. So in order to achieve it, he would have to have 5 extra shifts. Therefore, he accepts 5 stress shifts to his mental stress track (some big stress).

Open Issue: I currently don't know if the rules should dictate for the mental push after the PC rolls the dice (similar to Fate points) which means you use only what you need, or if a push is determined before the dice are rolled. There's reasons to do it either way, but I would like to keep the uniquely "retroactive application" of Fate points as being particular only to Fate points. Which means for the time being, I'm currently going with having the player state any mental stress being used for "pushing" BEFORE the dice are rolled.

While aspects and fate points are used as per normal skill useage, many psions find it very tempting (or necessary) to "burn the candle bright" because it takes so long to become skillful in psionics.

Of course there is a danger to this--it would be very easy for a psion to accumulate severe consequences if they were taking mental stress from opponents in addition to using it themselves to boost their own psionic effects.

In this fashion, a psion could quite easily acquire long term mental damage (in other words, gain aspects with a more negative focus). Eventually a psion could literally end up driving themselves mad by generating psionic effects that would normally be beyond their skill levels!

Some sample mental aspects gained from psionic combat / usage:

• "I can't shut out the voices!"
• Catatonic episodes
• Persistent nosebleeds
• "Everything I touch gives me flashes of those who touched it before!"
• "I see everyone who ever walked here..."

The Psionic "Death Spiral"

Psions who acquire aspects in the above fashion (by accepting mental damage), could actually tag those aspects to boost their potency. In fact, it's quite possible a psion could choose to continue to acquire damaging mental aspects to allow for more frequent tagging. Functionally the character could become so hemmed by their aspects as to become virtually unplayable (read: gone insane).

So the really good (or really smart) psions rely purely on skill for their psionics and accept their limitations. That is to say that they are calm, and at peace when using them.

Psions that use their emotions / aspects (anger, fear) to power their psionics run the real risk of descending into madness and losing themselves to their psionic abilities.

Next Entry: Skill specifics

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.

Burning Stress

No, it's not a new game by Luke Crane.

So Greg Stolze started this thread on RPG.net where he proposed replacing "hit points" with "miss points." It's a neat bit of wheel-reinvention phrased as something revelatory. What he's suggesting is pretty close to how hit points work in every edition of D&D -- in that they're not intended to be solely a measure of a character's capacity to be stabbed 17 times in the back -- or, to get a little closer, Vitality/Wounds in D20 Star Wars. That's a little unfair -- some good ideas came out of that thread, and we are talking about Greg Stolze, here.

Why am I bringing this up here? Because of this other thread, where Matt Sheridan talks about applying this concept to FATE. I know what you're thinking: FATE already has this in the form of stress tracks. Taking stress without taking a consequence generally represents a near-miss. But Matt's looking for something different. He points out that while failed attacks are misses, merely taking stress is often framed as a miss, too. So what's the difference? He proposes making hits hits and misses misses by not giving the defender a defense roll at all, but substituting a different die mechanic in its place:

But what if, instead, we gave them a different kind of defense roll that actually replenished the stress track? Actually, let's just start using the phrase "defense tokens", instead of "stress track".

So you're making a defense roll per round instead of per attack, and thus multiple attackers become pretty scary (and involve less rolling). Let's say you also can't replenish defense tokens with the same skills you use to attack, so it'll be possible for characters to be better at dishing it out than taking it (something I almost always want in my NPCs), leading to faster and nastier fights. Naturally, you can tag aspects on your defense rolls as well as your attack rolls (appropriate for moves like taking cover).

(Of course, the real answer here is just cutting out stress tracks altogether. Now every hit is significant. But I digress.)

All that rolling is a little much for me, but it's cool nonetheless. And since I used stress tracks in the supers game I ran at OrcCon, I started thinking about what I could do to stress tracks to make me want to use them more often. So how about this:

Stress tracks clear at the top of every round, and absorb incoming stress, like usual. However, you can "burn" a stress box to get a bonus of some kind on a roll -- say, +1 per stress box burned. Helpful, but not as good as a Fate Point. Or maybe it should be +2, to make it a last-ditch option when you're unwilling (or unable) to spend Fate Points.

In any event, burning a stress box means losing it for some period of time. In fact, it means losing a box from both the Health and Composure stress tracks. Those boxes don't come back until... I dunno. The next scene? The longer it takes, the less inclined players will be to burn them, so I think making it a per-scene thing feels about right.

Obviously, just because of the way it works out, this is something you'd do when you're on the offensive, not the defensive, so it'd be a balance between improving a roll now and staying on your feet later.