So, as I believe I've mentioned before, I'm running a couple sessions of FATE Kerberos this weekend at OrcCon. The scenario's called "A Penny Dreadful for Your Thoughts," and it involves... some things. I don't want to spoil anything. I'm getting it together in a more-than-notes form, which is a new one for me -- usually I go in with a few paragraphs of rambling ideas, some stats (often complete!), and crossed fingers, so it's terra nova to try to make all of that into something substantial enough to share with the playtesters.
Anyway, it's been fun making characters for it. For some reason, I ended up with a preponderance of "old" characters -- either they're actually ancient, or they're the vessel for something ancient, or they're just ageless. Most of them, anyway. Here are a few:
A sort of immortal-champion take on Robin Hood (inspired by a thread on RPG.net)
Ferrous, a magical man-sized homage to the Iron Giant
A foul-tempered chimney sweep named Nick Fuller, a.k.a. the London Fog
Each session only takes five players, but I made six PCs anyway (with another three or four waiting in the wings that didn't make the cut). Hope to see you there!
Fate for every genre (eventually)!
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
[Kerberos] Playtest Packet #6 Away!
Greetings, programs! The most recent batch of playtest materials for FATE Kerberos was sent out earlier today, so if you should've gotten it but didn't... let me know and we'll get that taken care of. Playtest Packet #6 definitely has its share of improvements, but the big addition (IMO) is the six sample characters from The Keberos Club, converted from Wild Talents to FATE. They were fun to do. I especially like the part where I can condense a half-page column of WT stats into four or five lines of FATE stats. That's... pretty sweet.
More characters on the way next week, plus an introductory scenario (the one I'm running at OrcCon next weekend), so keep an eye out for that. Believe it or not, we're actually nearing the end of the playtest period, so if you haven't playtested or reported in, then, y'know, get on that. Your feedback makes the game better.
More characters on the way next week, plus an introductory scenario (the one I'm running at OrcCon next weekend), so keep an eye out for that. Believe it or not, we're actually nearing the end of the playtest period, so if you haven't playtested or reported in, then, y'know, get on that. Your feedback makes the game better.
Friday, February 4, 2011
[Kerberos] Playtest Packet #5 Away! (Also, OrcCon.)
The latest Playtest Packet for KFC went out in the wee hours of this morning (Pacific Standard Time), so if you're on the list and didn't get it, drop me a line and you'll get it. Some minor errata's already gone up in our discussion forum, so check that out, too.
Lots of improvements in this one, most notably a greatly simplified character creation process that simply everyone is talking about. I mean, look at us -- we're talking about it right now!
There's also the beginning of some actual FATE rules -- zones, scene aspects, the Time Table, simple actions, contests (simple, consequential, and extended), and the bare outline of conflicts. While I continue to flesh that out, sometime next week I plan to send out some converted characters from The Kerberos Club, and an introductory scenario (either the one from the original book or my own) sometime after that.
Speaking of scenarios, I'll be running two sessions of FATE Kerberos at OrcCon in a couple weeks. (Wow, typing that makes me realize that it's literally only a couple weeks away.) Here's the blurb for the convention:
I'm running that Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, so come check it out if you've a mind to. Also, check out the other great FATE games being run that weekend. Will Huggins, of the Actual People, Actual Play podcast, is running two Dresden Files games, one spoileriffic and the other Leverage-tastic. Platonic FATE-mate and friend of the blog Morgan Ellis is running this ridiculous you're-all-Changelings-in-a-rock-bad DFRPG game -- let me just say here that I love it when Morgan comes up with a wacky high-concept FATE game and then actually runs it -- along with two sessions of his Avatar: The Last Airbender FATE hack, which sounds really cool but which I'll have to miss because he didn't schedule his games soon enough and had to settle for a Monday morning slot. Let that be a lesson to us all.
Lots of improvements in this one, most notably a greatly simplified character creation process that simply everyone is talking about. I mean, look at us -- we're talking about it right now!
There's also the beginning of some actual FATE rules -- zones, scene aspects, the Time Table, simple actions, contests (simple, consequential, and extended), and the bare outline of conflicts. While I continue to flesh that out, sometime next week I plan to send out some converted characters from The Kerberos Club, and an introductory scenario (either the one from the original book or my own) sometime after that.
Speaking of scenarios, I'll be running two sessions of FATE Kerberos at OrcCon in a couple weeks. (Wow, typing that makes me realize that it's literally only a couple weeks away.) Here's the blurb for the convention:
Something peculiar is afoot at the Pillars of Hercules. Or rather, it *was* afoot - and the only witness to the fate of the pub's patrons, a deaf mute, is, as they say, not talking. Who else but the Strangers of the Kerberos Club could hope to solve this mystery? Come playtest this specially designed FATE conversion of Benjamin Baugh's celebrated THE KERBEROS CLUB with the designer!(Look, I'm not any more comfortable with calling myself "the designer" than you are, but if it'll fill up my tables, I'll go there. I guess I should've mentioned that it's a soon-to-be-published product and not one of my usual FATE hacks, but I ran out of characters.)
I'm running that Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, so come check it out if you've a mind to. Also, check out the other great FATE games being run that weekend. Will Huggins, of the Actual People, Actual Play podcast, is running two Dresden Files games, one spoileriffic and the other Leverage-tastic. Platonic FATE-mate and friend of the blog Morgan Ellis is running this ridiculous you're-all-Changelings-in-a-rock-bad DFRPG game -- let me just say here that I love it when Morgan comes up with a wacky high-concept FATE game and then actually runs it -- along with two sessions of his Avatar: The Last Airbender FATE hack, which sounds really cool but which I'll have to miss because he didn't schedule his games soon enough and had to settle for a Monday morning slot. Let that be a lesson to us all.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
[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:
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:
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
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:
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:
...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:
...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:
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:
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
The Core of FATE Core
EDIT: I was more than a little distracted by my son while writing this post this afternoon, so some of this came out, um, not as clearly as I would've liked. So let me clarify.
When I mention Ryan, Chris, and Brad below, it's because these people are giants to me in the FATE world. I regularly read Ryan's blog and eagerly await Mythender. I had the pleasure of working with Chris on Legends of Anglerre. I stand in rapt admiration of what Brad and the VCSA team did with Diaspora. I look up to them. As part of writing FATE Kerberos, I've studied the work each of them has done with FATE and learned a lot. Their opinions on FATE Kerberos, should they choose to take a look at it, will matter a lot to me. A whole hell of a lot, actually. You put their names on a book and I'm going to want to check it out.
With that in mind: My first FATE experience was with Spirit of the Century. There are three names on the cover of that book: Fred Hicks, Rob Donoghue, and Leonard Balsera. That was only about five years ago, but I associate them as closely with FATE as I do, say, Ken St. Andre, Michael Stackpole, and Liz Danforth with Tunnels & Trolls, one of my favorite RPGs as a kid. Or Gygax with D&D. Or Merle Rasmussen with Top Secret. Or Steve Perrin and Greg Stafford with Worlds of Wonder. In my mind, there's that same level of celebrity association between those names and that game, even though I know plenty of people had just as much influence and history (or more so) with those games. It's a gut-level reaction.
So imagine my horror when I get messages from two people saying, in so many words, "I think you may have offended some people with that blog post." Let me tell you, there are a lot of places I don't want to be, and On Ryan Macklin's Bad Side is definitely one of them. (Please, please don't let me be the new You're Wrong guy. Please.) I'll apologize to Ryan personally, but please consider this a repudiation of the idea that he, Chris, Brad, or anyone else who's had a big role in the development of these games I love is somehow less deserving of respect than Fred, Rob, or Lenny. I'd never intended that, and I can't tell you how sorry I am that that's what came across.
And look, I don't know Ryan personally, or his complete history with FATE. I look forward to meeting him this year at GenCon or Gamex or wherever we might get to run into one another. I at least want to play Mythender or Vicious Crucible sometime before 2011's out.
(While I'm at it: Lenny, I know those core-of-FATE ideas didn't spring from Fred's mind fully formed. I know they're the result of work he's done and discussions he's had with you guys on SotC and DFRPG. But I still think it's fair to say that, at this point, they are what he sees as "the defining properties of FATE," even if he didn't do all the defining himself. I didn't mean to discount anyone else's hand in that process.)
I'm going to leave the rest of this post intact for... I dunno... posterity? I don't want the comments to not make sense, is I guess what I'm saying.
Don't call it a manifesto, but Fred Hicks has posted the defining properties of FATE as he sees them. The goal of the piece seems to be to address that old FATE issue: Why are the books so big? Fred spends a paragraph or two exploring the idea of overwriting out of love for the game, but most of it's devoted to distilling FATE into far more basic terms than you usually see (more basic even than the excellent Tri-Fold FATE).
It's an interesting read, especially considering Fred is one of the creators of FATE as we know it. I mean, it'd be one thing if someone like Ryan Macklin or Chris Birch or Brad Murray did it, but none of them has the same depth of history with the system that guys like Fred and Rob Donoghue or Lenny Balsera do. (Speaking of which, Lenny's SotC summary is here.)
In places, I want to read it as "This is what FATE is, and this is what FATE isn't," even though I know there's no way Fred intended it as something as divisive or judgmental as that. But I can't help cross-referencing every bit of it with what I know of all the FATE games on the market now (and, of course, FATE Kerberos) and seeing how they measure up to these Hicksian ideals. I can only think of one that, to me, doesn't quite hit every point he raises, which just goes to show how much any given FATE game shares with any other despite their many differences.
If you're writing a FATE game, it's a good road map. If you've never played FATE before and want to know what it's about (although, I mean, if that were the case, how did you end up reading this?), it's a good overview -- not necessarily of how any given FATE game works, but what FATE, as a system, is trying to accomplish. Certainly it's a better entry point for newbies than the SotC SRD, which can be a bit like drinking from the firehose.
(BTW, Fred, why couldn't you have written this back when Icons came out? It would've saved me from developing a new pet peeve.)
When I mention Ryan, Chris, and Brad below, it's because these people are giants to me in the FATE world. I regularly read Ryan's blog and eagerly await Mythender. I had the pleasure of working with Chris on Legends of Anglerre. I stand in rapt admiration of what Brad and the VCSA team did with Diaspora. I look up to them. As part of writing FATE Kerberos, I've studied the work each of them has done with FATE and learned a lot. Their opinions on FATE Kerberos, should they choose to take a look at it, will matter a lot to me. A whole hell of a lot, actually. You put their names on a book and I'm going to want to check it out.
With that in mind: My first FATE experience was with Spirit of the Century. There are three names on the cover of that book: Fred Hicks, Rob Donoghue, and Leonard Balsera. That was only about five years ago, but I associate them as closely with FATE as I do, say, Ken St. Andre, Michael Stackpole, and Liz Danforth with Tunnels & Trolls, one of my favorite RPGs as a kid. Or Gygax with D&D. Or Merle Rasmussen with Top Secret. Or Steve Perrin and Greg Stafford with Worlds of Wonder. In my mind, there's that same level of celebrity association between those names and that game, even though I know plenty of people had just as much influence and history (or more so) with those games. It's a gut-level reaction.
So imagine my horror when I get messages from two people saying, in so many words, "I think you may have offended some people with that blog post." Let me tell you, there are a lot of places I don't want to be, and On Ryan Macklin's Bad Side is definitely one of them. (Please, please don't let me be the new You're Wrong guy. Please.) I'll apologize to Ryan personally, but please consider this a repudiation of the idea that he, Chris, Brad, or anyone else who's had a big role in the development of these games I love is somehow less deserving of respect than Fred, Rob, or Lenny. I'd never intended that, and I can't tell you how sorry I am that that's what came across.
And look, I don't know Ryan personally, or his complete history with FATE. I look forward to meeting him this year at GenCon or Gamex or wherever we might get to run into one another. I at least want to play Mythender or Vicious Crucible sometime before 2011's out.
(While I'm at it: Lenny, I know those core-of-FATE ideas didn't spring from Fred's mind fully formed. I know they're the result of work he's done and discussions he's had with you guys on SotC and DFRPG. But I still think it's fair to say that, at this point, they are what he sees as "the defining properties of FATE," even if he didn't do all the defining himself. I didn't mean to discount anyone else's hand in that process.)
I'm going to leave the rest of this post intact for... I dunno... posterity? I don't want the comments to not make sense, is I guess what I'm saying.
Don't call it a manifesto, but Fred Hicks has posted the defining properties of FATE as he sees them. The goal of the piece seems to be to address that old FATE issue: Why are the books so big? Fred spends a paragraph or two exploring the idea of overwriting out of love for the game, but most of it's devoted to distilling FATE into far more basic terms than you usually see (more basic even than the excellent Tri-Fold FATE).
It's an interesting read, especially considering Fred is one of the creators of FATE as we know it. I mean, it'd be one thing if someone like Ryan Macklin or Chris Birch or Brad Murray did it, but none of them has the same depth of history with the system that guys like Fred and Rob Donoghue or Lenny Balsera do. (Speaking of which, Lenny's SotC summary is here.)
In places, I want to read it as "This is what FATE is, and this is what FATE isn't," even though I know there's no way Fred intended it as something as divisive or judgmental as that. But I can't help cross-referencing every bit of it with what I know of all the FATE games on the market now (and, of course, FATE Kerberos) and seeing how they measure up to these Hicksian ideals. I can only think of one that, to me, doesn't quite hit every point he raises, which just goes to show how much any given FATE game shares with any other despite their many differences.
If you're writing a FATE game, it's a good road map. If you've never played FATE before and want to know what it's about (although, I mean, if that were the case, how did you end up reading this?), it's a good overview -- not necessarily of how any given FATE game works, but what FATE, as a system, is trying to accomplish. Certainly it's a better entry point for newbies than the SotC SRD, which can be a bit like drinking from the firehose.
(BTW, Fred, why couldn't you have written this back when Icons came out? It would've saved me from developing a new pet peeve.)
Saturday, January 22, 2011
[Kerberos] Playtest Packet #4 Is Away!
Thanks for your patience, and sorry it's a bit late, but if you're on the playtester list Playtest Packet #4 should be in your inbox already.
And if you're not on the playtester list, why not? Drop me a line and get in on this!
And if you're not on the playtester list, why not? Drop me a line and get in on this!
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
[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:
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:
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:
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:
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.
So, Spirit of Greyhawk is NOT dead, but had been on something of a hiatus for two reasons:
- The demands of the non-RPG world just became too great to allow for any progress in the back half of 2010.
- 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.
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)
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.
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