Supers: Sample Characters

All right. Let's put this thing to the test. Here's a Superman knock-off built on 100 points. I think he came out pretty good. He doesn't do everything every Superman can do, but he can fly, toss a bus around, see through walls, and burn holes in things just by looking at 'em. That's close enough for me.

Note that because I plugged in a standard skill pyramid with an apex skill of Great, I've just abstracted his skill costs to 20 points. However, there's no need he has to follow the standard pyramid -- I could probably squeeze another few points out of there if I wanted to -- but I wanted to make him as well-rounded as possible.

Incidentally, here's the tiers (and the cost of a stunt that lets you have a skill in that tier) so far:
Mundane (0 points)
Extraordinary (10 points)
Superhuman (20 points)
Godlike (30 points)
Cosmic (40 points)

Paragon (100 points):

• Standard skill pyramid peaking at Great (20 points)
• Superhuman Stunt: Great Super-Strength (20 points)
• Trappings: Physical Force, Attack, Physical Resistance
• Major Weakness: Riptonite (-4 points)
  
• Extraordinary Stunt: Good Flight (10 points)
• Trappings: Move, Unusual (Flight)
• Complication: Lana Lane
  
• Extraordinary Stunt: Fair Riptonian Eyes (10 points)
  
• Trappings: Examine, Unusual (X-Ray), Attack, Ranged (Heat Vision)
  
• Snag: No x-ray vision through lead
  
• +2 Trappings for Fair Riptonian Eyes (4 points)
  
• +1 Trapping for Great Super-Strength (4 points)
  
• 2 Refresh (10 points)
• +1 Average skill (1 point)

It all looks pretty self-explanatory to me, but just in case it isn't:

• Physical Force is a combination of Might's lifting and breaking trappings. (It seems unreasonable to be able to do one but not the other, so they've been combined.) Paragon can use his Super-Strength to be super-strong.
• Attack lets him use the super-skill to cause damage. This does mean that he's a totally awesome fist-fighter, which isn't completely in line with Superman, but I'm thinking about work-arounds for that. For example, if his regular Fists skill is Good, maybe we could re-interpret the rules for complementary skills a little to say that his Super-Strength complements the tier of his Fists skill, bumping it up from Mundane to Extraordinary. That sounds pretty good to me, but I haven't given it much thought. If that were the case, I'd replace that Attack with Health Capacity, which would let the super-skill grant him bonus Health stress boxes. (It feels weird to talk about stress tracks....)
  
• Physical Resistance lets him use his Super-Strength to defend against physical attacks, not by dodging (a separate trapping) but by "taking it." He relies on his toughness to shake off damage, but his ability to avoid attacks isn't exceptional. If he uses this skill to defend against a non-damaging physical attack, his effective skill is Mediocre (and his effective tier should probably be Mundane, as well).
• Unusual is a topping that lets a trapping work differently than usual -- in this case, it changes the Move trapping from ground movement to flight. The mechanical upshot of this is that it should let him ignore all but the largest barriers.
  
• Examine is careful, prolonged examination of something, the main component of Investigation. The Unusual (X-Ray) topping lets him use Examine to see through walls.
• Ranged lets him use the Attack trapping of his Riptonian Vision at range -- it's his heat vision. Without it, the player could still flavor it as heat vision, but he'd only be able to affect targets in the same zone.
• Snag is a limitation on his Riptonian Vision, but not common enough to warrant a Major Snag (which would in turn net him an additional trapping for his Riptonian Vision).

Note that he's still left with 2 Refresh, which isn't terrible, really, but is still pretty low. Can't get much lower, really. Just the way it should be.

Something I noticed about the Snags and Weaknesses is that it encourages you to take a Major one of those on your most-expensive super-skills -- if you take a Major Snag on an Average super-skill, it only gets you 1 point, but on a Great super-skill it's worth 4 points. In other words, it's more efficient to put greater limits on your biggest powers than on your smallest ones. A happy accident!

(Two hours later....)

I couldn't stay away. Here's another character, this time a Captain America/drum corps tribute named Vanguard.

Vanguard (100 points):

• Standard Skill Pyramid peaking at Great (20 points)
• Extraordinary Stunt: Great Super-Soldier (10 points)
• Trappings: Dodge, Health Capacity, Attack
  
• Complication: Secret ID
  
• Extraordinary Stunt: Good Vanguard Shield (10 points)
• Trappings: Physical Resistance, Parry, Unusual (vs. Ranged Attacks), Attack, Ranged
• Obvious Item (-3 points)
• Extraordinary Stunt: Fair Resolve (10 points)
• Major Complication: Code of Honor (-2 points)
  
• +2 Trappings for Good Vanguard Shield (6 points)
• +1 Trapping for Great Super-Soldier (4 points)
  
• Two stunts (10 points)
• 7 Refresh (35 points)

Really pleased with how this guy turned out. There's a little min-maxing to be done here, for an enterprising player -- that Major Complication could be stuck on his Super-Strength instead of his Resolve, which would net him one more point -- but that's okay. Another Average skill isn't going to break anything.

Supers: Quick Update

Just a minor update here to say that progress continues to be made on this.

I combed through SotC's skill list and extracted every trapping, explicit and implied, for a Big List of Trappings, then culled from there -- renaming, deleting, combining, adding -- for what looks to be a pretty decent selection. Funnily enough, in practical terms, it's really a list of powers. It's just that every real "power" in this conversion will essentially be the equivalent of a Hero multipower, or an M&M framework.

Similarly, some effects are best achieved through what I'm calling Toppings for now, probably because I'm hungry for frozen yogurt. They're essentially advantages and limitations, but severely streamlined into just a few broad categories each, and taking inspiration from SotC's gadget-creation rules. Despite the slight increase in fiddliness these add, I really do believe it's the way to go (for now, anyway). What added crunch there is disappears after character creation, which remains a concept-focused process.

Even still, I have the uneasy feeling that this is how Champions got started. And that way, as far as FATE is concerned, lies madness.

Hopefully sometime in the coming week I can post some sample characters, but before I do that I have to figure out how many points to budget for an "average" superhero. I will, however, enjoy puzzling that out.

Supers: In Which I Shoot Everyone Down

No, I'm just kidding. I sincerely appreciate all the feedback. It was great to come back from a day at Crystal Cove and see all the discussion my last post engendered. I'm going to try to go through the suggestions and comments and respond semi-intelligently. This is a long post, though, so... fairly warned be ye, says I.

Instead of replacing the Fudge dice with d6, how about adding more Fudge dice but you still keep the best set of 4.

That's exactly what I do with fencing styles in my swashbuckling hack -- knowing a style means you're more likely to make the best of the situation. It's great for increasing the odds of a character doing the best a human can do. I want something more than that here, though. I want superpowers to let you do things normal humans just can't do.

However, I have considered this as an alternate Will mechanic for supers. Instead of replacing Fudge dice, you add more and roll-and-keep. An unintended but appropriate side-effect is that it's less efficient to spend Will on attacks versus lower-tier defenses than it is against higher-tier defenses.

Perhaps stated more appropriately, what's a reasonable way to translate these characters into a form where we can continue to "play at the speed of FATE" and still have any hope of doing these characters justice?

That's a good question, and something that weighs heavily on my mind as I muddle through this. Moving closer to a pure point-buy FATE feels alarmingly like re-inventing Hero. At all costs, this supers thing must avoid being (or feeling) that crunchy. It's not what I want, and it certainly isn't what the system does best. When I start thinking about having to list a super-skill's trappings in addition to everything else that's already on the character sheet, it seems a little overwhelming, but I'm convinced it wouldn't actually be overwhelming in practice.

One thing the powers-as-trappings model does that's a radical departure from other FATE hacks I've done/seen is that it makes characters much more individualized where skills are concerned. Sure, every FATE character has his own set of aspects, but you can always count on, say, Fists being Fists no matter where you go. With this, though, one character's Fists will likely differ from another's Martial Arts, and each character's liable to "play" a little differently. That's definitely something that feels more like Hero or M&M than FATE. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I'm also too curious to see how this would work to turn back now.

The more broad the skill/power the more it costs per "die" in WT (a dice pool system).

It'd essentially work the same way here, incidentally. You get your free trappings, but the more trappings you tack onto a super-skill the more it costs. A few cheaper, narrowly focused super-skills, or fewer, broader super-skills at a greater cost?

And yeah, the effectiveness of that broad factor is definitely weighted towards the knowledgeable / experienced player.

This goes back to that character-differentiation thing I was talking about. Your choices in character creation become more important than in SotC -- at least, it seems that way to me. But I don't want a lack of foresight to cripple a PC (unlike in that other game -- you know the one I'm talking about!), so the plan is to allow a player to invoke the character's Concept aspect for effect to add a trapping to a power for... a scene? An exchange? I don't know. Probably the former.

Hmmm. Interesting direction. I would like to say, I prefer the three scale thing. Simple, clean, and easy to remember.

I understand and anticipated this reaction. My answer is "Then only use the first three tiers." Seriously, it won't break the system. If the issue is that you just prefer to absoluteness of the earlier proposal, then that's a whole other thing. Personally, I steered away from that because of Robert's contention that the first thing he'd do in chargen would be to find a reason to buy up his defensive skills whether it made sense or not, because if he didn't he'd be auto-screwed. If it works for you, though, go for it.

I don't like a constant d6 die sub for scale difference. I think it runs into the same problem as a bloated scale. "I rolled a +15. What did you roll?"

Well, that isn't as likely to come up as you think. If you got a +15 for your effort, it's because you're facing off against someone who's probably a few tiers below you, in which case that guy should be screwed. He just isn't auto-screwed simply because he forgot to get Super-Resolve. He can spend invoke and tag, or even just roll well, and still have a slight chance of walking away from this one. Not a very good chance, but a chance nonetheless.

Just in case it wasn't clear from my last post: Since you're taking the difference of tiers into account, if two combatants are dealing with each other using skills in the same tier, it's a straight 4dF + skill. No d6s are involved. If Superman punches non-powered Lex Luthor in the face, he's rolling a few d6s, but if he punches power-armor-suited, Superhuman-skill-having Lex, it's business as usual.

And I will tell you now that, in my experience, 3dF + 1d6 does not usually wildly better results than 4dF. Probability be damned. I can't tell you how often someone's rolled --- and 1, but I can tell you I've only seen +++ and 6, like, twice. The plural of "anecdote" isn't "data," of course, but I've seen enough of the die-replacement thing in action to be comfortable with a one-tier difference in skills.

I think it's a fair assumption that supers often face off against other supers. Unless you're fighting mooks, the odds of you replacing more than a Fudge die or two are probably pretty slim -- and thanks to the standard gang-up rules, a few Good-quality minions can still pose a threat to a super a tier or two above them, and large group of them (10+) would still threaten just about anybody, especially if they're well armed (e.g., wielding weapons that bump their attacks up a tier, which is very easy to implement here). That's not normally how we handle groups of minions in FATE, but whatever.

How about this? You can't attack a higher scale without tagging a Weakness, but you can place Maneuvers! Has to fit the narrative, of course. Those thugs won't put a scratch on ol' Supes without a really good Aspect or Weakness to tag. But can they make him "Disracted", have him "Entangled", or even "Irritate" him? You betcha'. In fact that is their purpose. Not to threaten heroes. To slow them down, to complicate things, and of course to fall down before them in great numbers.

This is a very interesting idea -- the can't-attack-without-tagging-a-weakness bit. I'm just not sure it works for everyone. It's great for Superman, but not every superhero has a weakness that works like that, or a weakness at all. The Hulk seems to take a point or two of stress from heavy artillery now and then, but I'd hardly say that his weakness is artillery. What about the Flash? He manages to get tripped up by a mundane explosion in his path every so often, but not reliably enough that I'd call it a weakness.

I guess what I'm getting at is that I like those corner cases, and I want to retain them. That's another area where the former proposition wasn't working for me.

As for the maneuvers -- you betcha, indeed. None of that runs contrary to any version of FATE I've seen, and it's a great way to play hordes of minions.

Rolling the dice should always be important. So Superman isn't rolling to see if he hits a mook. Of course he does. He is rolling to be able to narrate how he does it heroically.

Agreed. Fortunately, we have overflow, so a really fantastic hit against one mook means taking out a group of them, and that's where the rolling stays relevant. Naturally, the player is free to narrate that however he wants, and if he does so in a way that goes against his nature, the GM should compel an aspect to keep him in line.

I'm equally comfortable with a hero dropping a wall on a group of mooks, or taking one of them out so handily that the others just turn tail and run, as long as the player's choice is consistent with the hero's concept and aspects.

Have you looked at a game called Risus?

Indeed, I know Risus pretty well; it and PDQ had an obvious influence on my aspects-as-skills idea from a couple months ago. I'm not into inserting multiple die types into this, though, beyond the d6 (although in other games, I'm all for it).

It may also help to check out some of the discussion of the Dresden RPG about Freewill vs Nature (sorry, can't find a link). Purchasing supernatural powers reduces refresh -- the extreme case would be starting a session with 0 FATE points.

While I'm largely in the dark about DFRPG -- not by choice, I assure you! -- I do know about the powers-reduce-Refresh thing. I'm going for a practical application of that here by either allowing you to sell back Refresh in exchange for more skill points, or simply making Refresh another thing that costs points. Whatever the point budget would be, it'd necessitate sacrificing Refresh for powers.

Basically, use the original 3 scales and say that skills used for defense to not have a tier.

I do have a concern about Superman (it's always Superman, isn't it?) being able to dodge a little too well, although he should certainly be able to take a hit. FATE doesn't really differentiate between these things, though -- if I let Superman defend against bullets with Man of Steel, it's functionally identical to the Flash defending against the same with his Super-Speed.

One thing that occurred to me today while I was out was splitting up combat trappings rather narrowly, like differentiating between Resist Damage and Dodge. Superman does the former, and the Flash the latter. Again, functional difference? Nonexistent. Flavor difference? Huge. But does it make the game more fun? That, I don't know.

1) Aspects can overcome scale:
- Hit superman with a stick and nothing happens because they are different scales. Put some kryptonite on a stick and the kryptonite aspect overcomes the scale difference.

Indeed, that's exactly what I had in mind. I'm torn on whether I'd charge a Fate Point for it, though. It's kryptonite -- it's going to work every time. I mean, I wouldn't want to charge Sinestro a Fate Point every time he uses something yellow against Green Lantern. My mind's divided between mechanical consistency and common sense.

- In Star Wars, what good are snub fighters going to be against a Death Star? Got the Plans + Found a weakness + manoeuvre down the trench + use the Force and you overcome the scale difference.

Well, we're getting far afield here from the genre, but... I'd call the two-meter exhaust port right below the main port a major weakness, so firing a proton torpedo down there is going to reduce the Death Star's defense by four tiers. I'd still require a roll to hit it, though, which is where "Got the Plans," "Found a Weakness," "Maneuver down the trench," and "Use the Force" come into play. Tag those for a +8 to hit. The torpedoes, I imagine would have some sort of damage modifier, as much as I usually dislike that kind of thing in FATE, but... hey, I'm not responsible for sorting that out using these rules! You tricked me by mentioning Star Wars!

- Don't fire your bazooka at the super hero. Instead fire at the wall behind him. Bazooka + collapsing wall overcomes the scale difference.

The collapsing wall, IMO, is arguably a matter of special effects. It's an aspect to maneuver/tag, sure, but in FATE, if you want to say you shot a guy between the eyes or shot the rope holding up the chandelier to make it fall on him, either way he's defeated. The flavor's up to you. So if the bazooka already boosts your attack by a tier, that's all you need to know in terms of mechanics.

I'm enamored of the basic concept, but I'm not of a mind to change how aspects work (invoke or tag for +1 tier), or to make their functions situational ("If you're evenly matched, they work like this, but if not, they work like that"). I encourage you to take it farther and report back, though, because it's interesting.

Brad Murray (Diaspora) had a suggestion on how to handle giant bugs in his blog that might work.

Awesome -- I'll check that out. My copy of Diaspora just arrived in the mail yesterday, and I dig it. Look for scopes to figure into this hack in the near future.

The really hard part is super vs normal. When superman punches a normal why doesn't the guy's head explode?

Okay, disregarding my quickie answer for the time being, my long-winded answer is essentially the same as my last response: If you want Taken Out to mean his head asplode, or if you want it to mean he's knocked out, that's up to you. The important thing is the end result: He's Taken Out.

If, however, you want to do this Authority-style, it's be an interesting challenge to let the attacker voluntarily pull his punch in an effort to avoid outright killing a dude. I'm not interested in that degree of reality, though, and neither is FATE. I much prefer genre emulation (all the time, always, for all genres), and in this particular one, Superman doesn't roll like that.

Supers: Balancing the Scales

I've been thinking aloud about this whole scaling issue -- specifically, how to handle disparate power levels without climbing higher and higher on the ladder -- and I think I have an answer. Haven't really been able to bounce it off anyone but one loyal reader (at least, I assume you're loyal -- I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt on that one), so here it is for everyone else to take a whack at.

First thing we do is remove the Will mechanic. It's not that I don't like it, because I like it a lot, actually, but it doesn't really work with this new scaling thing. So out it goes, at least in its current incarnation.

Next, instead of three tiers of power, we have five -- 1 to 5, or 0 to 4. Either way. Names are important for flavor, but right now that's up in the air, so let's at least agree on Mundane for the lowest of them and, say, Cosmic for the top end. You get the idea. Like before, skills fit into these tiers and your skill pyramid simultaneously, with some skills designated as Mundane, some as Superhuman, and so on.

When you act against someone else, look at the tiers of your skills. Whoever has the higher tier notes the difference in steps (e.g., Tier 1 vs. Tier 3 means two steps) and replaces that many Fudge dice with d6s. Then roll as normal.

(Yes, this still involves swapping out Fudge dice, but I like that, and I've seen my players like it, so it's a perfectly fine design element as far as I can tell. If you don't like that sort of thing, this won't really work for you at all.)

The point remains to emphasize the difference in power levels between two parties, but still allow them to interact. The latter bit is where the earlier system kinda fell down. More tiers means it isn't easy to just buy up your Mundane skills to Cosmic without spending a boatload of points. How many points, I don't know yet, but it wouldn't be cheap, that's for sure.

So, with that mechanic in mind, look what else we can do. When someone tags your weakness aspect, it reduces your defense by one tier. If your weakness is defined as a "big" weakness (we need another adjective there, obviously), it reduces it by two tiers. Or more, maybe. Maybe it's two and four instead of one and two. The point is, it allows a regular human with kryptonite-on-a-stick to pose a danger to Superman in a way that's internally consistent and fairly elegant. It may even be that the weakness isn't an aspect, or at least not one in the usual sense, but I'm not going there right now.

Why would you have a "big" weakness instead of just a regular one? Because if you take that in conjunction with a super-skill, that super-skill starts with three trappings instead of two.

That reminds me, since I'm rambling anyway. There are three kinds of "negative" aspects: weaknesses, complications, and restrictions. A weakness is what it was in the last post, but complications are limited to things in your personal life -- DNPCs, enemies, secret IDs, and so on. Restrictions are constraints on your super-skills, like "Can't Affect the Color Yellow" or "Power Armor."

Complications and restrictions should have "big" versions, too, with the same extra-trapping trade-off. A big complication means that negotiations for compels start at two Fate Points instead of one. A big restriction is... I dunno. Still thinking about that.

The most shocking thing is probably that I'm thinking of including Diaspora-style stress tracks. Superheroes tend to batter each other a lot pretty casually; it'd feel weird to give, say, the Midnighter a consequence every time he's hit in combat (not that he can be hit in combat, but you get the idea). I like Diaspora's middle ground between SotC and hit point-style stress. It might mitigate some of the potential Authority-scale ultra-violence, too.

Supers: Iron Man's Resolve

I think Robert's comments on my last post are extensive and insightful enough to warrant a full-post response -- the highest honor I can bestow to a reader! -- especially where this passage is concerned:

My concern isn't if Iron Man can take out the minion - of course he can with an apex skill of +5 vs the minions apex of 1 to 3 (the guy with the 3 might be carrying a bazooka).

With different scales as you have proposed where you either need to buy into the scale or spend will to temporarily act on that scale. My concern is more that Iron Man forgetting to take his Resolve to the super scale and Psychic Blast dude with a Fair super scale mental attack being able to casually mop the floor with Iron Man.

First thing I'd buy under your system is a super defense in every conflict category (probably Endurance and Resolve). And when everyone needs to do something like that to "feel playable" then IMHO something is wrong.

I totally understand the concern re: Iron Man's Resolve (didn't Hemingway write that?), and I'm aware this needs tweaking -- possibly past the point of recognition, but that's how these things often go. (I'm less married to the scales than to the player-defined super-skills-plus-trappings thing.)

My concern with removing the scales, or redefining what Superb means based on genre, is that within the supers genre abilities can vary so wildly I'm not sure a scale of +1 to +10 would really cover it. And once we get up past Superb, it really bugs me that the character's bonus far outstrips the variability of the dice. I admit it is more intuitive to just say "I'm the Hulk -- I have +10 Super-Strength!" but the +10 itself puts me off.

This reminds me a bit of something that came up for Legends of Anglerre. When we were tossing around ideas for epic-level characters, an early one someone proposed was the idea that you'd spend spin on an attack to do something extra, or to have an effect -- like spending spin to be able to harm a dragon -- but all that really boils down to is a +3 to the defender's defense. LOA still makes use of spin for epic-level stuff like that (last time I saw it -- who knows what it looks like after editing?), although the problem remains that equally matched high-skill opponents are no more likely to get spin on a roll than their equally matched low-skill counterparts.

That's the kind of thing I want to avoid, and am struggling with (or "with which I struggle"). I'm not comfortable with the Hulk having Superb Might while a mook has Average Might, but nor do I like expanding that range out ad infinitum to accommodate those extremes. I really want the split between Human and Superhuman to be more than a few degrees' difference on the ladder. I fervently believe there's another option, and if separate scales isn't the solution, then there are other switches and dials still left for me to fiddle with.

Supers: Cracking the Nut

Often in the past I've lamented the lack of a supers FATE hack that appeals to me. While I've seen some totally workable supers rules for FATE in the past -- in that I can say "Yes, I see how this would work well for other people who aren't me" -- they've all been either too hand-wavey (all superpowers basically work like the Theory in Practice stunt) or too crunchy (lengthy, pigeon-holing stunt chains) for my tastes. No offense intended to anyone involved in their creation, of course. We just have different tastes.

But! I've been giving it more thought lately for some reason (I've actually made periodic stabs at this one for a couple years, at least) and I think I'm on to something. It's a pretty radical departure from the way I normally handle these conversions, but the superhero genre presents some unique challenges -- consider, for example, that Capes and Champions are both basically trying to do the same thing, albeit in radically different ways.

The first big departure: Skills are bought with points, not merely slotted into a pyramid. Starblazer Adventures does this, and while I'm not usually keen on it (I really dig the simplicity and implicit philosophy of the pyramid), it's the way to go here. So let's say characters start with 35 skill points. That's enough to give you a pyramid that peaks at Superb. Maybe that's too much, but it's not important right now.

These skills are in three broad tiers, which for now we'll call Normal, Enhanced, and Superhuman. Each tier has its own ladder, so you could have Great Athletics (Normal) or Great Athletics (Enhanced) or Great Athletics (Superhuman). As might be expected, Normal covers the normal range of skills in SotC. It's the realm of what normal people (albeit heroic ones) can do. Enhanced is better than that -- Wolverine's speed and olfactory sense, or Wonder Woman's or Luke Cage's strength. Beyond what a human could normally do, but not Earth-shattering. Superhuman is Earth-shattering: Superman's or the Hulk's super-strength, the Flash's super-speed, Daredevil's super-senses. That kinda thing.

Skill ratings are only relevant if you're dealing with an opposing skill that's in the same tier as yours. Otherwise, Enhanced always beats Normal, and Superhuman always beats Enhanced. Go ahead and roll, but it's just for effect. If you have Fists (Enhanced) and your opponent has only has Normal skills for his defense, you defeat him. End of line. I know that seems harsh, but there's a way of mitigating it -- I'll get to it in a bit.

Skills cost a number of skill points equal to their quality (e.g., 3 skill points for a Good skill), plus 5 skill points per tier above Normal (+5 for Enhanced, +10 for Superhuman). So Superb Might (Normal) costs 5 skill points, but Superb Might (Superhuman) costs 15.

That can eat up skill points pretty quickly, but you can "sell back" Refresh to get more. Players can trade Refresh for skill points on a 1:5 basis. Refresh starts at 10. Something that often gets bandied about is lowering Refresh in exchange for superpowers; this is obviously similar, but without the arbitrary factor.

However, no skill list is going to cover everything that superheroes do -- nor would you want a huge skill list for a FATE game anyway. It's antithetical to the system. I'm solving this with super-skills, as so many have doubtless done before me.

There's a generic stunt called Super-Powered (or something) that lets you take an Enhanced or Superhuman skill, or a super-skill. These are player-defined, and can be as specific as Flight or Ice Bolt or as general as Utility Belt or Man of Steel. Super-skills are characterized by their trappings, so... we're going to need a list of skill trappings. When created, a super-skill begins with two trappings for free. Each trapping added on top of that costs skill points equal to the skill's quality.

So you can see the dilemma there: Do you get a cheaper, narrowly focused super-skill, or a more-expensive super-skill with broader application?

For example, that Man of Steel super-skill I mentioned earlier could start with the Physical Force (lifting/breaking) and Toughness (additional physical consequence slots) trappings. Great Man of Steel (Superhuman) with those two trappings would cost 14 skill points. (Of course, it's much funnier as "Average Man of Steel.") Adding the Unarmed Combat trapping would cost another 4 skill points, because its quality is Great, for a total of 18 skill points.

Let's do Utility Belt. There should be a lot of trappings here, if you're making the God-Damned Batman -- stuff like Ranged Combat (batarangs), Climbing (grappling line), Locks, Security, Lab Work, and more. Even with just those five, a Good Utility Belt (Normal) would cost 12 skill points. An Enhanced version of same would be 17 skill points -- nearly half your starting allotment. Better trade in some Refresh.

Don't think you have to buy everything in advance, though. Every character has a special aspect -- his Concept aspect. This is exactly what it sounds like: a brief description of the character's shtick, like Last Son of Krypton, Super-Soldier, World's Greatest Detective, or Fastest Man Alive. Pay a Fate Point to invoke it for effect and get an additional trapping for that super-skill, probably for the length of the scene.

Now then. In addition to the stunt, taking a super-skill also means taking another special aspect, either a Weakness or a Complication. I think we all know what those mean, so I'm not going to dwell on it too much, other than saying that a Weakness is something that's harmful to the character, or something against which his powers are especially weak (kryptonite, the color yellow, "strong magnetic fields" -- always a classic), while a Complication is basically an Aunt May, a Mary-Jane Watson, or a mild-mannered secret ID. You need one of these two for each super-skill you take. There's some more possible motivation to consolidate your superpowers into a small set of super-skills.

A brief word about Will. This is a character resource (as opposed to Fate Points, which are a player resource) that can be tapped when a character wants to put extra effort into something. Spend a point of Will to replace a Fudge die with a d6. But here, you can do something else with it: You can spend a point of Will to bump a skill up one tier for one roll, but only if targeting or defending against a higher-tier skill. For example, if someone's coming at you with Fists (Enhanced), you can spend a point of Will to improve your Athletics from Normal to Enhanced for your defense. But you can't spend Will to get Fists (Enhanced) just to punch out a mook.

How do you get Will? Every time you obtain spin on a roll, you earn a point of Will. Like I said, it's a character resource -- performing well boosts your confidence, and etc.

Will goes by many names -- Chi in "Spirit of the Fist," Elan in "Spirit of the 17th Century," Grit in "Spirit of the West," and so on -- so I'm inclined to call it something different here, too. Whether that's something warm and fuzzy, like Heart, or something more tied to the medium, like Pow!, I really don't know. Whatever it's called, it lets you bridge the gap between skill tiers.

Anyway, this is just the beginning of an idea, I know -- there are a lot of details to iron out -- but I really think it has legs. I haven't been this satisfied with FATE supers since... well, ever.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Spirit of Greyhawk series.

Spell Requirement - Temporary Aspect "Material Components"

Reader biff-dyskolos made a very valid point in his comment...

http://spiritoftheblank.blogspot.com/2010/01/casting-spells-part-i.html?showComment=1262822883938#c4433906003682226396

...I'm editing it a bit for presentation purposes:

"An issue that could be a problem is with material components. Fate and SoTC kind of hand-waves the concept of equipment. It is generally assumed that a character automatically has their tools-of-the-trade (although Diaspora has Wealth/Resource rolls with stress and consequences for buying stuff)."

Example: A pinch of sulphur for a Fireball sounds like something any Wizard with a Fireball spell is likely to have on hand and doesn’t really restrict the casting in any way.

"Have you thought about how you’d handle spells that have material costs - 2500 gp worth of this-or-that? Will you just tack on a gp economy?"

I'm so thrilled that I'm getting the chance to have this kind of dialogue. These questions are really helping clarify issues in the SoG rules.

Your points about Material Components are very valid.

I agree SotC does gloss over money, and I've been putting some thought into a "ladder-based" wealth/treasure system in the hopes of doing "Fate treasure" without having to be an accountant. However at the moment, I'm not firm on anything. So I can't really give a good response to the economy question right now.

Now, thinking back to economy, magic reagents and the source material, I don't remember playing in ANY old-school D&D games where the DM got very granular at all around restrictions on the V,S,M components for spells. The impact of expensive components (and having them handy) was usually indirectly handled, if not outright ignored. YMMV.

In fact in all my years (gawd, that makes me sound old) of tabletop playing I only remember once when it became an issue at all. It was one of the few times I played a magic-user PC and we ended up on a weird tangent because the party wanted me to cast an "Identify" spell and the material component was swallowing a live goldfish. So the adventure went on this whole sub-quest because I needed to FIND a live goldfish (they weren't exactly plentiful), and carrying one around was a big pain (keeping it alive) and then I wanted extra treasure because swallowing a live goldfish was gross, etc, etc... Oh, the good old days! :)

The example you stated above about having a pinch of sulfur, or more generically about material components that might be mundane or fairly common is a good one. And as a GM, I probably wouldn't bother with trying to compel that too often. But understand that it's available and given the tone of a particular game, might be fertile story-telling ground.

So with the understanding that Fate is about story-telling (and so am I), I want the SoG implementation to support my stories, rather than get involved in resource management. Lemme throw out some possible examples as to how I might (as a GM) use the Material Component restriction...

ONE:
Certain spells require "Very Rare" components, but the Wizard has the aspect of "Penniless Wanderer". The GM might compel the "Penniless Wanderer" aspect and restrict the player from being able to cast spells with a "Very Rare" material component requirement. The player could then opt to resist the compel and perhaps state that having acquired those components is the reason the Wizard has no money. (With all the attendant Fate point gains/losses)

TWO:
This same scenario might also explain why an otherwise "bookish" Wizard might go off adventuring or attempt some other fool's errand--to be able to purchase these components and thus be able to use those spells. Or stated in Fate mechanics: GM compels Wizard's Aspect "Penniless Wanderer" and thus the Wizard goes into the sewers to find out why the Baron's men are going missing and thereby claim the reward.

THREE:
Wizard acquires a decent chunk of treasure, and the player might gain an extra Fate point by stating he's blown it all on expensive reagents and is now penniless again.

FOUR:
Party is splitting up treasure, and GM compels the Material components aspect to force the Wizard into either not being able to cast those spells in the next adventure or (better roleplay opportunity here) negotiating with the rest of the party for a bigger piece of the pie: "Do you KNOW how much that fight with the Lich COST ME?? So your armor's dented--big deal! I'm out thousands of gold!"

FIVE:
In the middle of a dungeon, a player short on Fate points (and with Wizards, that's VERY possible), tags his rare material components aspect and decides to spend some time slowing down the party by rooting around in the innards of some monster the party just killed, because "do you know how much Umber Hulk bile is going for these days?"

(Any GM worth his dice is gonna have fun taking advantage of that)

Literary example: "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" Professor Horace Slughorn "harvesting" spider guts from Hagrid's recently-deceased pet. That was pretty indelicate, amiright?


Bottom line: For gameplay, I don't know that I'd be beating the material component requirement over a Wizard's head. Only that the aspect is available to use to help tell stories and provide roleplay opportunities. As a general guideline, the more rare a component is, or the more spells the character has access to that require increasingly rare stuff, the more likely I would be to compel/tag them.

I think it depends upon the tone of the game: some games might never bother with it, whereas other games might use it pretty regularly.

It might also provide an additional motivation to have the Wizard aspects and whatnot progress over time to address those kinds of issues.