The Branches of FATE

PRESENTED WITHOUT COMMENT:

Fred Hicks breaks down the FATE games that are out there and expounds a little on their differences.

[Kerberos] Sample Characters for OrcCon

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!

[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.

[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:

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.

[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.

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.)

[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!