[Greyhawk] Experience & Advancement, Part the Second

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

However, that now means the XP thresholds increase dramatically.

...Any opinions on this?

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

• Class Aspect
• Apex Skill

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

Examples of Class Aspects:

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

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

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

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

Some ideas could be:

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

...you start to see the possibilities.


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

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

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

So, the first increase would give this:

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

Next increase to get:

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

Finally one last increase to get:

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

• Add a New Stunt
• Replace an Existing Stunt with Another Stunt

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


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

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

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

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

[Greyhawk] Experience & Advancement, Part the First

Much credit and respect to Rob Dohoghue's blog entry as the genesis of this post: http://rdonoghue.blogspot.com/2010/10/role-of-spending.html

So, Spirit of Greyhawk is NOT dead, but had been on something of a hiatus for two reasons:

1. The demands of the non-RPG world just became too great to allow for any progress in the back half of 2010.
2. I had hit a bad case of writer's block with The Spirit of Greyhawk campaign (which tends to drive my postings here). The campaign storyline has been building to something of a "watershed moment" and I didn't feel as though I had enough planned to make it work the way I wanted.

Anyway, New Years' Resolutions and blah-blah-blah commitment to gaming blah-blah-blah, we got the game going again last weekend and though I was no further along to solving reason #2 above, I decided to stop delaying, put on my "Big GM panties" and really run the game as a "true" Fate game: stop worrying about lack of planning and let the players really have a say in where and how the game played out.

As most of you Fate-faithful might already have guessed, I was worrying too much about lack of planning. The session was actually one of the most engaging and fast-paced of any we've ever had. Being a Fate-GM, I had a very proud moment while we were cleaning up the Buffalo Wing bones, dice and empty cups when one of the players shook his head and said, "This session would have made for an amazing story to read or watch!"

In large part I credit that sentiment to a new rule I implemented with the goal of getting the players to stop "hoarding" their Fate Points--using the expenditure of Fate Points as the basis for character advancement.


Earning Experience Points
I've implemented Rob's rule pretty much as stated in the blog entry linked above:

"You can treat Fate points as XP by keeping a bowl in the middle of the table. Every time a player spends a FP, it goes into the bowl. The GM might also randomly toss into the bowl when he wants to reward general awesomeness. At night's end, the points in the bowl are converted to XP and divided among the players. Give any extra to whoever the table considers the night's spotlight player, or just let it ride til next time."

Playtest Experience
It was as though the clouds had parted: FP hoarding (or spending them only in a reactive sense) was a thing of the past. Declarations, tagging and Aspect powerings o' plenty. In a single 5 hour session, two 5-phase PCs had racked up 11 XP for the party.

Some examples of Player-related Awesome from that Session:

• Declaring a large chandelier was hanging DIRECTLY above a wounded Villain, and the various rituals in chamber that involved the creation of a vortex (long story) had weakened the chandelier's chain, thus making it primed for use in a "Death from Above" attack.

• PC encircling a villain's neck with his "chain whip" weapon while she tried to strangle him with her bare hands (big Wagnerian woman!), then using his Athletics skill and "Parkour" aspect to run up a wall and flip over the villain, thus simultaneously breaking her stranglehold on him and breaking her neck.

• Correctly guessing/tagging another villain's "Mama's Boy" aspect to send him into a wild frenzy (cuz the PC had killed his Mother in the prior bullet point) causing him to scream in rage while attacking wildly and thereby negate any protective benefit of fighting within an obscuring mist.

• Another correct guess/tag from the party that the geothermal vents upon which the town sat meant that the occupied mansion they had just cleared MUST have an escape tunnel somewhere and used it to free the mansion's servants. "If there's gonna be an escape tunnel ANYWHERE in the city, there'll be one in the mayor's mansion!"
  

This was (for me) the first time a Spirit of Greyhawk gaming session really FELT like a Fate "High Fantasy" game, rather than a Fantasy game that just happened to use the Fate ruleset. As a GM, I really felt the power of collaborative storytelling and that my job was to provide strong characters and settings to surround the PCs, keep a few things in my back pocket just in case, then put the pieces in motion and just let it happen.

And again in large part, I believe it was due to providing the players with an explicit mechanism to empower them to actively engage in the Fate system.

So now that Experience Points are a reality--how should Advancement be handled? There are other Fate implementations out there that deal with advancement in many different ways, but considering that Spirit of Greyhawk is attempting to stay consistent with players' expectations for how the gameworld works, I found that just lifting them "as is" into SoG wasn't going to work for me.

So here's my current thinking on how SoG will handle Advancement...

Spending Experience
Creation Phases and Levels
Spirit of Greyhawk makes the general assumption that each Creation Phase (as documented in Spirit of the Century) is considered as being the equivalent of "2 levels" in the source material. In other words, a Wizard with 3 creation phases is equivalent of a 6th-level Magic-User.

In Spirit of the Century, each creation phase is basically credited with having the following benefits:

• 2 Fate Points added to character's Refresh
• 1 New Stunt
• 2 New Aspects
• Increased Number and Proficiency in Skills (discussed below)

Skill Points
If you consider each +1 in a skill as costing 1 point, the SotC 5-phase character would have the following...

1 x (+5) Skill = 5 Skill points
2 x (+4) Skills = 8 Skill points
3 x (+3) Skills = 9 Skill points
4 x (+2) Skills = 8 Skill points
5 x (+1) Skills = 5 Skill points

...for a total of 35 Skill points. At it's most basic, you could just divide the points by 5 (Creation Phases for a SotC character), make the statement that each phase would be worth 7 skill points and be done with it.

However I don't think that's really consistent with how this gameworld works and would be counter to the expectations of those players familiar with the source material.


Greyhawk Assumptions - Experience & Advancement
The following are derived from the Greyhawk source material:

• As a rule of thumb, it takes roughly 2x as much XP to get from one level to the next. In other words, it takes about 2x as much XP to get to level 3 that it took to get to level 2. Then another 2x as much XP to get level 4 that it took to get to level 3.
  NOTE: This is FAR from a constant, and at many classes' higher levels, this multiple starts to drop off.
  

• XP rewards are constant with respect to who is earning them. A level 3 player killing a particular monster gets as much experience as a level 10 player would from killing the same monster. This means that a higher level character had to either do MORE of the same things, or kill tougher monsters (and get more treasure) to increase at the same pace as their lower-level counterparts.

• If a 1st level PC were fighting a monster with a 12th level PC in the party, even though the 12th level PC might have done the lion's share of the damage to the monster and might have been solely responsible for killing the monster (with the 1st player being little more than an extra target), the basic rules state that 1st level PC gains as much XP for the kill as the 12th level player.

Phases: Skill Amount and Proficiency
Given the assumptions listed above, consider the SotC pyramid progression looking at the number of skills and at what degree of proficiency they are:

Phase 1:
1 Skill at Average (+1)

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

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

Phase 4:
1 Skill at Great (+4)
2 Skills at Good (+3)
3 Skills at Fair (+2)
4 Skills at Average (+1)

Phase 5:
1 Skill at Superb (+5)
2 Skills at Great (+4)
3 Skills at Good (+3)
4 Skills at Fair (+2)
5 Skills at Average (+1)

So, working from that, we could take the following progression of total skill points needed to achieve each character creation phase. (NOTE: I've expanded the pyramid out to 9th level to be consistent with the SoG Ladder, as well as to see if the progression holds up at the high end.)

Phase 1: Earn 1 Skill point total.
Phase 2: Earn 3 more Skill points for a total of 4 Skill points.
Phase 3: Earn 6 more Skill points for a total of 10 Skill points.
Phase 4: Earn 10 more Skill points for a total of 20 Skill points.
Phase 5: Earn 15 more Skill points for a total of 35 Skill points.
Phase 6: Earn 21 more Skill points for a total of 56 Skill points.
Phase 7: Earn 28 more Skill points for a total of 84 Skill points.
Phase 8: Earn 36 more Skill points for a total of 120 Skill points.
Phase 9: Earn 45 more Skill points for a total of 165 Skill points.

While this progression is not a perfect fit with the source material, I think it's close enough out of the box to not worry about having to come up with something else.


Playtest Experience
Back to the last playtest session of SoG: we have two PC's at "Phase 5", or the equivalent of 10th level. As I had stated, the party had accumulated 11 XP total in one 5 hour session. For right now, I'm going to generalize that into a convenient "1 XP per gamer per 1 hour of gaming time" guess-stimate.

This means that for characters to get from Phase 5 to Phase 6, they would need to earn another 21 skill points each. Restated in source material terms, that means for 10th level characters to get to 12th level (remember that 1 phase = 2 levels), they would each need about 21 hours of gaming time to get there. From the perspective of my current gaming availability (5 hour game session every 2-3 weeks), that sounds pretty reasonable or perhaps even stingy. But then again going from 10th to 12th level is no walk in the park!


...So, any comments? My goal here is to try to stay true to the assumptions players have when they are playing in "Greyhawk", while staying as close as possible to the Fate system as implemented by the Evil Hat folks.

Coming up next: Going further off into the weeds with more specifics for spending XP and Advancement for a Fate game in the Greyhawk gameworld.

Fantasy: Phases Redux

Here's a look at how we're handling what's arguably the most important part of character creation -- phases -- in the "SotS" game we're starting next month.

In SotC RAW, as you probably know, character creation happens in five phases: Background, The Great War, Your Novel, and two "guest-starring" roles in two other characters' novels. That works well for a game built around human characters all born on the same day and adventuring in the pulp era, but taken out of the 20th-century context I think it can feel a little forced.

For one thing, putting it in a different time necessitates coming up with another "Great War" to fill that second phase, which can come off as arbitrary unless you're working with a specific timeline and setting. Second, while the idea of "starring" in "novels" is absolutely perfect for pulp, with the fantasy genre it rubs me the wrong way. There's a deeper layer of metagaming going on when you talk about your character having starred in a novel, and the implication that he or she is merely a protagonist in a book instead of a living, breathing person. Third, if you're taking out the idea of a novel for the third phase, then the fourth and fifth phases have to be revamped, as well, just to be consistent. Fourth, when I think about all the things that would be important to a character, following a fairly strict chronology seems overly restrictive.

Instead, we'll use conceptual phases. This is hardly my invention; I've seen this, or a variation of it, as a house rule here and there, and I like it so much it's going in.

The possible phases, then, are Origins, Profession, Goals, People, Beliefs, Possessions, and Adventure. Pick five in any combination. It's possible to take one more than once, if you really want to emphasize some portion of your character that much more. It doesn’t have a mechanical effect, the way it would in FATE 2.0, but it helps to focus your character.

Origins: Where are you from? What's your race and/or culture? How were you raised, and with what values?

Profession: Do you (or did you) have a "day job"? What trade(s) do you know, and where did you learn it/them? Are you a mercenary? A pickpocket? A sorcerer's apprentice (or the sorcerer himself)? A Jack-of-all-trades?

Goals: What do you hope to accomplish in life? Where do you see yourself going? Do you want to rid the world of evil, or merely rule it? This can be as specific or as general as you'd like.

People: Who are the important people in your life, if any? Friends, enemies, superiors, lackeys, secret admirers, the secretly admired... who and where are they?

Beliefs: Does your character have any important beliefs that drive him as a person? Note that they don't actually have to be true.

Possessions: Does your character own something that helps define who he is? Or maybe he used to own something like this, but lost it -- and wants to get it back.

Adventure: Briefly recount an adventure you've already had. Did you ransack some ancient ruins? Escape from the city guard with a purloined loaf of bread? Conduct a magical experiment gone awry? Engage in a public debate? It doesn't have to be life-threatening, but it does have to be exciting.

Instead of waiting for the final two phases to establish connections, players are encouraged to cross-pollinate with other players at any time. All phases are game for this. For example, two characters raised in the same village could appear in one another's Origins phase; if they've remained life-long friends (or enemies) and helped defend their village from a bandit raid, they might also appear in each other's People and Adventure phases. Or, given the propensity for PCs in fantasy games to start out as total strangers, they might not cross-pollinate at all.

Fantasy: Boons

Those character sheets I posted for the "Spirit of the Sword" game I ran at OrcCon generated a little confusion. Specifically, the question "What are boons?" was asked. So... here's an answer.

Boons (I'm not crazy about the name, but that's another issue) are my attempt to include something like stunts without actually including stunts. My only real problem with the fix I came up with before is that it's a little flavorless -- it's missing the cool names stunts have, like "Unsafe at Any Speed" or "Master of Disguise" or "Right Place, Right Time." But then I realized that the character sheet already has something like "cool names," in the form of aspects. So if PCs in "SotS" get one aspect per phase, and one boon per aspect, boons should have the same feel as stunts, but even more personalized to the character.

The process goes from phase to aspect to boon, each determining the next. In a sense, the same way that the aspect is the distillation of the phase, the boon is the distillation of the aspect -- or a concise, mechanical reflection of the phase.

Anyway, enough philosophy. Here's the current writeup on boons.

Boons are those qualities about your character which put him or her above the common crowd. They provide guaranteed situational benefits, special abilities, and can sometimes let you bend the rules in specific ways.

Boons fall into nine general categories:

• Focus: +1 [skill] with ____ -- Fill in the blank with a broad-category use of the skill (+1 Melee with axes, +1 Art with music, +1 Athletics with climbing, etc.). No two Focus boons can modify the same skill (e.g., no matter how many times you take +1 Melee with axes, you'll only benefit from the first one). The Focus boon should reflect how you see the character when you picture her in your mind. If you were to paint a portrait of her, what would she be doing? Is she swinging an axe? Is she performing on stage? Is she crouched in the shadows?
  
• Specialty: +2 [skill] with maneuvers or +2 [skill] with assessments/declarations -- This is pretty self-explanatory: a bonus to maneuvers or assessments/declarations with a particular skill. There's a list of maneuvers in the SotC SRD, but this applies to any use of the skill in question to put an aspect on someone else. From the SRD:

If the target is another character, the maneuvering character and the target make opposed rolls, using whatever skills the GM deems appropriate. Success is usually achieved if the maneuvering character generates at least one shift. A successful maneuver may add a temporary aspect to the targeted character; the target can either accept the temporary aspect, or spend a fate point to avoid accepting it. An aspect that results from a maneuver is temporary and does not last very long ... The temporary aspect may then be tagged for a bonus on a subsequent roll. The first tag usually doesn’t cost the tagging player a fate point, but subsequent tags usually do ... If a character is simply trying to increase the difficulty of another target’s action, this is considered a block action, and should be resolved as such....

• Substitution: Use [skill] instead of [skill] when ____ -- Fill in the blank with a verb reflecting a specific condition or circumstance (Use Melee instead of Intimidation when fighting, Use Art instead of Rapport when dealing with other musicians, Use Athletics instead of Melee when attacking from surprise, etc.). In terms of the role it serves in fleshing out your character, Substitution is usually comparable to Focus, but with a different mechanical effect.
  
• Ease: Ignore penalty to [skill] for ____ -- Fill in the blank with a specific, static penalty in the SotC SRD (Ignore penalty to Melee for using improvised weapons, Ignore penalty to Art for a distracted audience, Ignore penalty to Athletics for climbing a slippery surface, etc.). The "penalty" may actually be removing an increased difficulty to a static task, but whatever. It's the same basic idea.
  
• Item: The character has some sort of special possession, along the lines of Weapon of Destiny, Personal Gadget, Prototype Car, etc. The item has three improvements that only apply when using or wearing the item in its intended manner -- generally bonuses to one or more skills. If two bonuses are applied to the same skill, or to the same use of one skill (if applicable -- e.g., +2 to attacks with Melee), then instead of a third improvement, the GM picks an aspect, preferably something detrimental (e.g., Slow, Unwieldy, Two-Handed, Dark Oaths, Glows Brightly When Activated, etc.), as the third "improvement." The improvements allowed are as follows:
• +1 to a noncombat skill
  
• +1 to attacks with a combat skill (Melee or Missile)
• +1 to defense with Melee or Athletics
  
• Use one noncombat skill instead of another noncombat skill in specific circumstances
• Use one combat or noncombat skill in place of a combat skill (This is the improvement that lets you use a melee weapon at range or a missile weapon in melee, such a throwing a dagger or fighting hand-to-hand with a bow.)
  
• An aspect
• Companion: In general, I don't see this one as being all that applicable, with the exception of animal companions -- so we'll throw it in, using the revised companion rules from "Spirit of the Season" as a base. Animal companions start with four advances. Taking this boon more than once can add more advances to the same companion, though at diminishing returns. Taking it twice for the same companion nets you another three advances, taking it three times another two, and taking it a fourth time yields but one additional advance.
  
• Quality: Every tier of skill quality costs an advance. Basically, you get one skill in each tier you pay for, up to Good. For example, if you spent three advances on your companion's Quality, you'd have an Average skill, a Fair skill, and a Good skill. Your companion can take a number of consequences equal to its Quality, as well, one per degree of severity: one Minor at Average, one Minor and one Moderate at Fair, and one Minor, one Moderate, and one Severe at Good. As long as your your companion is attached to you, its skills complement your own. Another example: If you had Average Melee and Good Athletics and your companion were a Fair-quality wolf with Average Athletics and Fair Melee, when your wolf's attached to you you get a +1 bonus to Melee from your wolf (because its Melee is superior to your own) but no bonus to Athletics (because its Athletics isn't).
• Quantity: By default, you have one companion. With this advance, you have more than that: another one or two if you take this advance once, and up to three more if you take it a second time. However, your companions' maximum Quality is reduced by one each time you take this (Fair if you take it once, Average if you take it twice).
  
• Independent: Normally, your companion can't act on its own without the expenditure of a Fate Point. With this advance, you don't have to pay the Fate Point.
• Breadth: Expand the companion's skill pyramid by one degree, up to a max of two skills at its apex. For example, if your wolf companion's Quality is Fair, taking Breadth once gets it another Average skill, and taking it twice gives it a third Average skill and a second Fair skill. It can't get a Good skill, though, without another advance spent on Quality.
• Communication: You can communicate with your animal pal somehow or other. Maybe you can growl its language, or it understands yours, or you just have some kind of empathic link.
  
• Unusual: Spend a Fate Point to do something special not otherwise covered by the above three options (e.g., Enemies denied gang-up bonus when you're armed, Use Art in place of any social skill when dealing with other musicians, Ignore all penalties when climbing, etc.), as long as it's cool with the GM. Basically, take every stunt in the SotC SRD that requires a Fate Point expenditure and put it in this category.
  
• Heritage: A collection of three very specialized benefits derived from your racial or cultural descent, and are most appropriate for characters who exemplify their race or culture. These are things like +1 Craft to stonemasonry for a dwarf, +1 Rapport when haggling for a city-dwelling sort, and so on. For balance purposes, they should not give bonuses to anything combat-related.
  
• Magic: The gateways of magical ability. The four types of magic are Alchemy, Artifice, Incantation, and Summoning; the fifth type, Necromancy, is the purview of evil, and its practitioners are so hidden in shadows that many don't even realize they exist. Each different type of magic requires its own boon to learn. Thus, if you wanted to be both an alchemist and a summoner, you'd need Magic: Alchemy and Magic: Summoning.
  

Kung-Fu: Spirit of the Fist!

I mentioned earlier than Hamish's throwaway remark on Sunday that I should run a kung-fu or wuxia game using SotC immediately got me thinking of just how I'd do that. So... here's a rough outline of what I came up with. I fully intend to develop this further when I have time.

The Five Phases, each of which is a very brief (3-4 sentences) story about the character related to one of the Five Virtues, and each of which is assigned one aspect:

• Xiao - Filial Piety: Circumstances of the character's birth, his relationship with his family, whether he honors his parents, etc.
• Yi - Righteousness: The character's sense of justice, righting wrongs, wronging rights, etc.
• Jen - Benevolence: The character's generosity or lack thereof; a time when a gift from him benefited someone else or vice-versa, etc.
• Zhong - Loyalty: The character's friends and associates, any organizations he belongs to, what that might mean to him, etc.
• Li - Propriety: The character's sense of proper behavior, assuming he has one; a time when his actions were either exemplary or deplorable

The Five Elements, each of which corresponds with a Phase/Virtue. When invoked in opposition to an aspect tied to an element, these elemental aspects are either weak (+1 bonus), strong (+3 bonus), or neutral (+2 bonus). Aspects are only invoked for bonuses, never to reroll.

• Wood (Xiao): Strong against Earth, weak against Metal
• Fire (Yi): Strong against Metal, weak against Water
• Earth (Jen): Strong against Water, weak against Wood
• Metal (Zhong): Strong against Wood, weak against Fire
• Water (Li): Strong against Fire, weak against Earth

The Three Qualities:

• Kung-Fu: The character's interest, focus in life, or training (e.g., White Dragon Kung-Fu, Finest Chef in Zhang, Sorcerer of the Tao) -- something toward which he's devoted a significant amount of time and energy. This aspect is assigned to an Element of the player's choosing.
• Wu Wei: The character's instinct or nature -- what comes naturally to him (e.g., Sword In Hand, Sucker for a Pretty Face). This aspect isn't assigned to an Element.
• Sign: The character's astrological sign. An Element does apply here, in correspondence with the animal chosen.

The Ten Skills:

• Skill pyramid with an apex of Great.

Chi, a stress track that starts at three boxes and is modified by Spirit as per Health/Composure in RAW.

• Checking a box of Chi lets you replace one Fudge die with a d6 for one roll.
• When you run out of Chi boxes, you can still use Chi; it just means taking a Consequence each time.
• Chi boxes clear with a Spirit roll against a target equal to the highest box checked out of combat, or Superb in combat. The target increases by one for each consequence you've taken. Clear one box for each shift obtained on the roll.
• Mysteries can be used to "block" Chi, using accupressure, sorcery, and the like (against an appropriate defense: Fists/Weapons/Athletics against accupressure, Spirit against sorcery, and so on). If the stress dealt exceeds the number of Chi boxes, deal a Minor spiritual consequence: "Blocked Chi." As long as the consequence remains in place, the target can't expend Chi.

Skills:

• Academics (includes the non-medicine portions of Science)
• Alertness (includes Investigation)
• Art
• Athletics (includes riding from Survival)
• Bureaucracy (the bureaucracy parts of Leadership)
• Deceit
• Empathy
• Craft (formerly Engineering)
• Fists
• Gambling
• Humanity (includes Rapport and Intimidation)
• Medicine (the medicine bits of Science, with some aspects of Mysteries)
• Might
• Mysteries
• Society (combines Contacting and Resources)
• Spirit (includes Endurance and Resolve)
• Stealth (includes Burglary and Sleight of Hand)
• Survival
• Weapons (includes Guns, if applicable)

Stunts:

• No stunts. Use a variation on the stuntless rules. Spend a Fate Point to invoke an aspect for a bonus (+1, +2 or +3), to use one skill in place of another (e.g., invoking your "White Tiger Style Kung-Fu" aspect to use Weapons instead of Athletics for one roll), or to invoke for effect.

Fantasy: "Election Day" Characters

I believe that, yes, the Summoning rules are good to go. If I'm lucky, I'll get them posted online sometime this weekend.

However, it'll be a busy one for me: As I mentioned before, I'm running a couple of games at GameX in L.A., one of which is a "Spirit of the Sword" one-shot/playtest called "Election Day." Last I checked, I have one player signed up, so... that ought to be either interesting or a non-event. We'll see.

In any case, here are the six PCs I made for the one-shot. Despite the presence of a dwarf, an elf, and a troll, they have a pretty low-fantasy, low-magic vibe to them -- there's only one spellcaster and no magic items. I've really enjoyed making them, and I'm excited to see how the game goes... assuming it goes at all.

Augustus
Fortunata
Gregor
Iko Tana
Orrick
Yves

Their last phase -- Adventure -- has been left blank. That's for the players to fill in themselves on Sunday. They'll whip up some quick bit of adventure the character's already had, then we'll play out out the scene's climax for each character (which may or may not involve some guest starring). The players will also provide two more aspects for each character, at least one of which will be attached to the Adventure phase.

Wish me luck. And if you're going to be at GameX, come on by and check it out: Sunday at 10:00 am.

Fantasy: Phases and Aspects

In SotC RAW, as you probably know, character creation happens in five Phases: Background, The Great War, Your Novel, and two "guest-starring" roles in two other characters' novels. That works well for a game built around human characters all born on the same day and adventuring in the pulp era, but taken out of the 20th-century context I think it can feel a little forced.

For one thing, putting it in a different time necessitates coming up with another "Great War" to fill that second phase, which can come off as arbitrary unless you're working with a specific timeline and setting. Second, while the idea of "starring" in "novels" is absolutely perfect for pulp, with the fantasy genre it rubs me the wrong way. There's a deeper layer of metagaming going on when you talk about your character having starred in a novel, and the implication that he or she is merely a protagonist in a book instead of a living, breathing person. Third, if you're taking out the idea of a novel for the third phase, then the fourth and fifth phases have to be revamped, as well, just to be consistent. Fourth, when I think about all the things that would be important to a character, following a fairly strict chronology seems overly restrictive.

Instead, "Spirit of the Sword," for such is the poor working title of this project, uses conceptual Phases. This is hardly my invention; I've seen this, or a variation of it, as a house rule here and there, and I like it so much it's going in.

The five Phases, then, consist of Origins, Profession, Goals, People, and Adventure.

Origins: Where are you from? What's your race? How were you raised, and with what values?

Profession: Do you (or did you) have a "day job"? What trade(s) do you know, and where did you learn it/them? Are you a mercenary? A pickpocket? A sorcerer's apprentice (or the sorcerer himself)? A Jack-of-all-trades?

Goals: What do you hope to accomplish in life? Where do you see yourself going? Do you want to rid the world of evil, or merely rule it? This can be as specific or as general as you'd like.

People: Who are the important people in your life, if any? Friends, enemies, superiors, lackeys, secret admirers, the secretly admired... who and where are they?

Adventure: Briefly recount an adventure you've already had. Did you ransack some ancient ruins? Escape from the city guard with a purloined loaf of bread? Conduct a magical experiment gone awry? It doesn't have to be life-threatening, but it does have to be exciting.

Instead of waiting for the final two Phases to establish connections, players are encouraged to cross-pollinate with other players at any time. All Phases are game for this. For example, two characters raised in the same village could appear in one another's Origins phase; if they've remained life-long friends (or enemies) and helped defend their village from a bandit raid, they might also appear in each other's People and Adventure phases. Or, given the propensity for PCs in fantasy games to start out as total strangers, they might not cross-pollinate at all.

Aspects represent a slight change as well. Under normal circumstances, each Phase comes with two attendant Aspects. In "SotS," they aren't as evenly distributed.

Every character begins with seven Aspects to spread between his five Phases, with a minimum of one Aspect per Phase.

Why the change? "SotS" characters will end up with a few more Aspects to deal with than their SotC cousins, via equipment and magic (more on those later). Keeping the number of "personal" Aspects down to seven makes things a little more manageable. Aspects are fun, but if you're dealing with 15 at once they lose some of what makes them interesting. If you ask me, the most interesting part about using Aspects is finding ways to apply what you have to the situation at hand. Limitations encourage creativity, and limiting the number of Aspects a character has encourages the player to come up with interesting, colorful ideas. To paraphrase SotC, "Trained Fencer" is one thing, but "Trained By Montcharles" is quite another. The first is only likely to come into play during combat, but the second could apply equally to social situations (Rapport or Contacting) in which being the student of Montcharles makes a difference.

In addition, I often see players struggle a bit to come up with the last two or three Aspects. Cutting them down to seven seems an efficient way to alleviate that. Besides, when it comes to actual utility, seven's plenty. Rarely do I see a character or GM make use of every last Aspect on the sheet. Speaking of GMs, fewer Aspects makes the GM's job a bit easier in terms of compels and simply keeping track of the PCs. Giving the player the opportunity to have, say, two Origins Aspects over two People Aspects is a good way of letting the GM see at a glance that the character's origin story might be more fertile ground for the plot than the character's interpersonal relationships.

Next time: Skills.