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I don't know how every game does it, but I liked Strands of Fate's notion that you don't bother trying to give individual NPCs their own pools: just give yourself an amount of fate points equal to what one of your PCs is getting, and budget them out across a session of play. Keeps me thinking more about what's going to be dramatic at any given moment, and less about tactical play.
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| # ? Dec 23, 2011 07:50 |
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| # ? May 18, 2013 13:51 |
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I really really want to get a copy of those Changeling Fate rules Xand_Man mentioned in the Indie RPG thread.
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| # ? Dec 27, 2011 05:42 |
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Fred Hicks posted The State of Evil Hat 2012 today, and there's some interesting Fate notes:Fred Hicks posted:Dresden Files
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| # ? Dec 27, 2011 21:20 |
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Thanks for the explanation of the consequences. The aspect system is just so ridiculously robust. Speaking of Dresden files, how heavy is the supernatural element in the setting? Is it full-blown mages and monsters, or is it possible to do something more subtle, like Twin Peaks?
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| # ? Dec 27, 2011 21:54 |
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I Am The Scum posted:Thanks for the explanation of the consequences. The aspect system is just so ridiculously robust. The book provides rules that can be tailored to either extreme, though it tends to assume you're going to have supernatural factions and antagonists. (However, you could run an entire game with just Pure Mortals and maybe a guy with some minor talents.)
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| # ? Dec 28, 2011 03:18 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:Fate Core...full text to an editorial squad by February Squee! I really can't wait for this one, especially since I'm not big on Strands. It'll be nice to have a sort of official "common toolbox" to draw from that includes some system updates from Dresden.
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| # ? Dec 28, 2011 05:11 |
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So my first campaign (yes, campaign) with experienced role-players was a Spirit of the Century campaign. It was really weird, as the setting was a fantasy multiverse, and we played a character that was already established in some form of fiction. The party was River Tam, Peter Pan, Silk (from the Belgariad), someone's Tiefling pirate, and a wizard from the player's own works. It was awesome. We're starting a Diaspora campaign this weekend. The wealth stress track and the world building are the things I like the most of it. LoA sounds really awesome. If Diaspora goes over well (we have a person who's really resistant to it), I'm gonna suggest that we try LoA, as the setting is much better for her.
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| # ? Dec 28, 2011 17:54 |
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I Am The Scum posted:Thanks for the explanation of the consequences. The aspect system is just so ridiculously robust. One of the houserule / conversion ideas I've read is to lowering the max Fate points for all characters but keep the 0 fate = NPC barrier, reducing the possible potential of the PCs. Doing so also establishes, system-wise, the supernatural as something that drives people crazy, too.
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| # ? Dec 28, 2011 18:27 |
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Dresden Files update  Really can't wait for it now, I'm dying to see what the FATE group is up to! Is there anyway to preorder it already or anything? --- OmegaGoo posted:So my first campaign (yes, campaign) with experienced role-players was a Spirit of the Century campaign. It was really weird, as the setting was a fantasy multiverse, and we played a character that was already established in some form of fiction. The party was River Tam, Peter Pan, Silk (from the Belgariad), someone's Tiefling pirate, and a wizard from the player's own works. It was awesome. Diaspora is, in my experience, the weakest of the FATE systems, as it's less open to awesome stunts due to its hard sci-fi roots. I'd suggest just using LoA rules straight up, honestly, they're much more flexible and nicer than Diaspora's. If you really want the wealth track, just port it over, FATE has the advantage of being really easy to mod without breaking anything. PS: That sounds like an awesome campaign. How'd it go?
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| # ? Dec 28, 2011 18:57 |
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Tollymain posted:I really really want to get a copy of those Changeling Fate rules Xand_Man mentioned in the Indie RPG thread. Speaking of frankenFATE - if you're still interested in this, here it is.
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| # ? Dec 28, 2011 19:07 |
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Transient People posted:Diaspora is, in my experience, the weakest of the FATE systems, as it's less open to awesome stunts due to its hard sci-fi roots. I'd suggest just using LoA rules straight up, honestly, they're much more flexible and nicer than Diaspora's. If you really want the wealth track, just port it over, FATE has the advantage of being really easy to mod without breaking anything. Considering we've already created characters, I think we're stuck with Diaspora for at least one story arc. If the system goes over well with our last person, I'm going to suggest LoA. Even so, I'm picking up LoA as soon as possible. Transient People posted:PS: That sounds like an awesome campaign. How'd it go? Rather fantastically. We actually have a log on Obsidian Portal, here. Only issue was the player of River Tam is extremely flighty and can't handle rule systems very well. e: Apparently, our pair of writers (one of which is me) never actually wrote the finale. Whoops. OmegaGoo fucked around with this message at Dec 28, 2011 around 20:25 |
| # ? Dec 28, 2011 20:21 |
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Christmas has left me with a boatload of Amazon money, so I was thinking of picking up a FATE book. Probably Legends of Anglerre at least, because the writeup in the FATAL & Friends thread made it sound interesting. I'm also wondering if there's a good system to run my homebrew setting in. I need magic, guns, science, and stabbing to all be viable methods of problem solving. It's a fairly low-powered setting, with magic requiring great risk to achieve results much greater than what hard work could accomplish. There are a bunch of different player races, some of which would have greater than human abilities. The local civilization has hit a bit of a rough patch, so most everything is in some state of disrepair and some way to add mechanical weight to the shoddiness of everything might help. Gear doesn't need to be terribly crunchy. Currently running the game in D&D 4e and it's going well with reskinning, but I'd like to find something that fits a bit better for the future. Is there an existing product which can be adapted without too much hassle? Should I wait for the FATE Core that Evil Mastermind mentioned?
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| # ? Dec 30, 2011 10:04 |
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PublicOpinion posted:Christmas has left me with a boatload of Amazon money, so I was thinking of picking up a FATE book. Probably Legends of Anglerre at least, because the writeup in the FATAL & Friends thread made it sound interesting. I'm also wondering if there's a good system to run my homebrew setting in. I need magic, guns, science, and stabbing to all be viable methods of problem solving. It's a fairly low-powered setting, with magic requiring great risk to achieve results much greater than what hard work could accomplish. There are a bunch of different player races, some of which would have greater than human abilities. The local civilization has hit a bit of a rough patch, so most everything is in some state of disrepair and some way to add mechanical weight to the shoddiness of everything might help. Gear doesn't need to be terribly crunchy. Currently running the game in D&D 4e and it's going well with reskinning, but I'd like to find something that fits a bit better for the future. Is there an existing product which can be adapted without too much hassle? Should I wait for the FATE Core that Evil Mastermind mentioned? Couple choices. Dresden Files is the obvious one. There's two main books, but you only honestly need one, Dresden Files: Your Story. Alternatively you could go with Kerberos Club: FATE edition. It's geared toward 19th century London, so the majority of the (almost absurdly) robust setting info will be lost on you, buuuut then again maybe not as it provides TONS of cool adventure hooks involving all the stuff you described as integral to your campaign. It's also got a risk vs power mechanic for magic, though optionally you could build stunts as spells and give them weaknesses that make casting risky/dangerous. Kerberos is my personal favorite iteration of FATE primarily because it lets you build your own stunts and it's simply amazing the variety of effects and power levels you can crank out of this thing. Strands of Fate is a popular go-to FATE system that lets you build your powers, though it's more like tweaking a shopping list when compared to Kerberos. SoF is a solid system and the rules are 100% setting agnosting, so it's VERY easy to adapt to any game world. I dunno, maybe that just presented you with too many choices. On the bright side, you could pick any of those and find a great game for your purposes. Maybe one of them would better fit what you have in mind or your group's dynamics, but all of them will work great. You can't pick a wrong one.
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| # ? Dec 30, 2011 14:18 |
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Hyperactive posted:re: your homebrew setting. I would definitely second Kerberos, as it is very easily ported to another setting. And the default setting is an awesome read, even if you don't use it. Dresden I'm not so sure about, most of the powers are tied to specific classes drawn from the book, so I'm not sure how portable it is. I do love the magic system in it though. Super flexible and elegant.
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| # ? Dec 30, 2011 17:44 |
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Demon_Corsair posted:I would definitely second Kerberos, as it is very easily ported to another setting. And the default setting is an awesome read, even if you don't use it. P.S. The default setting is wonderful.
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| # ? Dec 30, 2011 19:41 |
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Hyperactive posted:re: your homebrew setting. I really like Strands of Fate, but it really handles modern and sci-fi better than fantasy. You can do fantasy, but they definitely thought way harder about the near-future tech. Also of note is the new book that just came out, Strands of Power. It's a 338 page book that's literally nothing but advantages and powers. Has packages for your standard fantasy classes and some monsters like werewolves and vampires. I just picked it up and it's a pretty good addition. I may have to rescind that 'doesn't do fantasy adventuring well' thing a little. There's like 60 pages on the Arcane Power power source with an assload of spells. You could totally do Shadowrun with the stuff in the other sources, too. There's still not really any older equipment, but you can just make that poo poo up or reflavor to taste. Yeah, definitely cool and only 9 bucks on DTRPG for the PDF if you're feeling uncreative.
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| # ? Dec 30, 2011 22:28 |
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Hyperactive posted:Hell, I only suggested the others so my blatant Kerberos fanboy-ism wouldn't be too obvious. It is seriously THE GAME to play, whether or not you use the default setting. I'm not a fan of the build your own power style magic, but the way they handle obsession and magic is interesting. I wish there were some decent examples of how to handle it. Hopefully some day I will get to play it. 
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| # ? Dec 31, 2011 02:29 |
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Demon_Corsair posted:Hopefully some day I will get to play it. 
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| # ? Dec 31, 2011 03:53 |
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My Kerberos Club copy arrived in the mail really recently. Depending on a couple things, I might be able to swing running a game. I'll have to spend a little time checking the mechanics base first though, to make sure everything's in working order.
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| # ? Dec 31, 2011 04:34 |
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ALright, so one of my players has volunteered to give me a break, and run her first game. She's getting her fangirl on and running Dresden Files. I don't have the corebook, and have never read the stories, so I threw a couple ideas out, and they all got vetoed. Crap. So she threw a couple of suggestions at me, and I latched onto the idea of a White Court Vampire, there's just one problem- the template sets your refresh rate to -2 in one book, and -7 in the other. Is this an NPC only thing? The book apparently says your refresh has to be +1 to be a PC.
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| # ? Dec 31, 2011 15:58 |
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That's the cost, not what your Refresh Rate will be. You take your refresh, and then subtract that number. You'll probably want to be White Court Virgin, which means you get less powers but stay more human and have not eaten someone to death.
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| # ? Dec 31, 2011 16:05 |
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Thanks to Evil Mastermind and the "what system should I play?" thread, I'm switching my group from D&D 4e to FATE, specifically Legends of Anglerre. It's the first time any of us have played or run anything that isn't D&D or Paranoia but I'm super excited about it because the system does everything I wished 4e did but doesn't. Anyway, coming from a background of D&D and videogames, I am a little worried about how freeform the game is. I trust both my regular players not to powergame or metagame so that's not an issue at all, it's more that they simply won't be used to being told "yeah sure, you can do that!" and having it be a part of the game. I fully anticipate that they'll be very conservative with their fate points in the game, and that they'll be very cautious with their aspects in character creation. Again, coming from D&D I can understand that caution, as something even slightly negative about your character can really screw you over there, but I'd like them to get creative with their aspects as it's my favourite part of the game and one I think they'd really enjoy if they can get to grips with it. So how can I encourage a pair of new players to make the best of their aspects, and not to hold back on their fate points like I'm fully expecting them to?
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| # ? Dec 31, 2011 16:48 |
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I think the best way is to start setting stakes higher and higher as they keep holding on to FATE points. They either start using points to win or they start taking consequences. Yank that goddamn heroism out of them if you have to. If they start using them, start compelling more often to keep the point economy going. You tend to hoard less when you already have a nice stack in front of you. I also don't see a problem with prompting a bit for scene declarations, either. Let them call out the stuff you'd normally tell them is there in a D&D game. If they tell you it's there, they're more likely to use it. Aspects are pretty tricky when you're first starting out. I think they're easily the hardest part for new FATE players. I know they were for me. I'm most used to Strands, and they really seem to like equipment aspects. The only issue with those is they are really drat hard to compel. LoA has a similar mechanic, but I think it's a Aspect/Stunt combo (Weapon of Destiny, I think). If they come up with a boring aspect, just offer advice for making it awesome. Also, make sure to point out that purely negative aspects tend to leave you rolling in FATE points. Being a smug, condescending racist means you get to do more fun stuff everywhere else. Wheras being personable and generous means you're spending FATE points to get people to like you. Neither is better or worse, it all comes down to what they want to play. Note that stuff like Honest to a Fault are really good, though, since they can be compelled pretty easily and be used by the player. Stubborn is a decent Aspect, for example. It can be compelled readily and should be pretty easy for the player to use. On the other hand it's boring as hell. Narrow-minded is better for social effects, Doesn't Know When To Quit is better still and MUCH broader in scope, while "Don't tell me what I can't do!" is punchy and a solid Aspect, to boot.
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| # ? Dec 31, 2011 17:24 |
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Well, after running one of my players through the character creation process and helping her with the mechanical side of things, her list of aspects so far is looking a lot better than I expected. We're still going through it so she only has four but so far we have; Raised in the Convent: Deep and extensive knowledge of all things religious but can't resist the urge to preach and convert people she believes need to be saved. Volatile Magician: Innate magical abilities mean she doesn't spend nearly as much time studying as other mages, but has much less control over her spells and magic. Overenthusiastic Librarian: Working part time in the archives of church makes her excel at finding her way around libraries and researching things, but perhaps a little too willing to see book smarts as a solution to problems, even if it's not appropriate. "I accidentally a hero": Through her unpredictable magic, accidentally saved her church from bandits and tends to receive preferential treatment, however she is held to higher standards of goodness and despite not enjoying combative magic, is occasionally called on to be a hero again. I would also like to point out that those explanations are (paraphrased) hers, not mine. I don't think she's going to be a problem at all, and I think it's a good sign that I'm already full of ideas on how to compel just these four in interesting ways.
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| # ? Dec 31, 2011 17:37 |
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Let's see, that's an excellent First Stage aspect, a personality aspect, a second personality aspect (which looks mostly like boost-bait, seems a bit hard to compel it), and an aspect that makes for excellent plot hooks, but not so good invocations and compels (as the latter will happen occasionally at best). Not bad at all, actually, though it might be a good idea to ask the player to flesh that last aspect's traits a bit, or turn it into a Hook which can dispense FP and plot stuff without taking up an Aspect line.
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| # ? Dec 31, 2011 18:11 |
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I get what you mean with the overenthusiastic librarian being debatable, but knowing the player, I know she's not out to do that, and I can definitely think of a few ways it could apply. For example let's say she's on a mission to help resolve a dispute between two diplomats of different nations who are on shaky ground politically. Acting out of turn might spark conflict and she would want to avoid that, so I could compel her to spend her time reading up on the countries involved and getting so absorbed in reading about geography and culture that she neglects the politics and ends up at a disadvantage when negotiations begin. Not the best example and maybe I'm not doing it in the best way (I'm new to this too!) but that's certainly the kind of thing that came to mind when I read that aspect.
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| # ? Dec 31, 2011 19:36 |
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Opposite the FP miser, you do sometimes get the other sort though, where every scene cannot be conceded in any way, and they'd treat even trivial conflicts with a shower of FP and coming out of it more battered than necessary(multiple characters taken out with plenty of consequences all around), even when the other party demonstrates willingness to compromise(simplest example is a fight, when it comes to one, the players always throw in every resource to take down the enemy, permanently where possible, even when the other guy is already fleeing). How should that be handled?
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| # ? Dec 31, 2011 21:56 |
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Hit them with a Crushing Ceiling event due to overkilling, if what bothers you is that they take things too far. By Crushing Ceiling, what I mean is an event you can't wiggle free of once it has come to pass, much like how if a crushing ceiling squishes you, you die, full stop. Obviously killing them isn't the solution - but forcing them into a trial due to excessive violence, for example? That could work.
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| # ? Dec 31, 2011 22:04 |
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Over enthusiastic librarian is the equivalent of a know it all Wikipedia sperglord. Problem solved for compels.
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| # ? Dec 31, 2011 22:05 |
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Has anyone ever run a Legends of Anglerre game with the PCs as monsters? I was going to do a one-shot for my group and it seemed like the old 2e Council of Wyrms campaign option (where everyone's a goddamn dragon) would be pretty fun. I guess thanks to the FATE fractal it should be about the same, but I was wondering if anyone had any tips for a monster game like that.
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| # ? Jan 1, 2012 22:54 |
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Echophonic posted:Has anyone ever run a Legends of Anglerre game with the PCs as monsters? I was going to do a one-shot for my group and it seemed like the old 2e Council of Wyrms campaign option (where everyone's a goddamn dragon) would be pretty fun. I guess thanks to the FATE fractal it should be about the same, but I was wondering if anyone had any tips for a monster game like that. Well, Dragons are one of the sample races, and there are plenty of creature-powers you can take. You'd have to start with more characters, probably (or lift the stunt limit for starting characters), but I don't think you'd really need to tweak much.
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| # ? Jan 2, 2012 04:51 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:Well, Dragons are one of the sample races, and there are plenty of creature-powers you can take. You'd have to start with more characters, probably (or lift the stunt limit for starting characters), but I don't think you'd really need to tweak much. I actually haven't gotten too far into reading the book, I'll be honest. That's stupidly helpful. The setting actually assumes a dragon and a human, elf or dwarf kindred. This all assumes anyone wants me to run anything. Seems like it'd be a respectable amount of work for a one-shot, especially since I don't think anyone in my group is all that familiar with FATE. Thanks!
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| # ? Jan 2, 2012 05:50 |
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Transient People posted:Diaspora is, in my experience, the weakest of the FATE systems, as it's less open to awesome stunts due to its hard sci-fi roots. I'd suggest just using LoA rules straight up, honestly, they're much more flexible and nicer than Diaspora's. If you really want the wealth track, just port it over, FATE has the advantage of being really easy to mod without breaking anything. Mechanically, it's the tightest of the FATE systems and doing awesome stunts is up to the Game Master/Mister Cavern so V  V. There's not a hell of a lot of differences between the underpinnings of FATE 3.0 outside of SotC -> Everything Else -> Kerberos Club.And yeah, compelling Overenthusiastic Librarian would basically be any time you think "Don't worry, I read this in a book!" would be famous last words. Also, between Aspects, LoA having a lot of creature powers and the ability to make your own Stunts, you could do a creature feature pretty easily. Check the back-end of the book Echo.
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| # ? Jan 2, 2012 06:55 |
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Echophonic posted:I really like Strands of Fate, but it really handles modern and sci-fi better than fantasy. You can do fantasy, but they definitely thought way harder about the near-future tech. Also of note is the new book that just came out, Strands of Power. It's a 338 page book that's literally nothing but advantages and powers. Has packages for your standard fantasy classes and some monsters like werewolves and vampires. I just picked it up and it's a pretty good addition. Thanks for reminding me about Strands of Power. I picked up Strands of Fate some time back, and though I loved the Power Advantages, I found that certain things (like all the Meta-Powers) just went over my head. Maybe the book dedicated to Powers will help explain it better. Bulldogs was mentioned earlier, and for what it's worth, I thought it was a great way to introduce FATE to others. The mechanics are laid out crisp and clear, and I particularly liked how the skills chapter broke down all the skills with at least 3-6 mundane and creative ways to use them. The sci-fi bits aren't bad either, though nothing extremely detailed and more or less a springboard for standard ship-faring adventures. Shouldn't be hard to convert to something like Star Wars, though.
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| # ? Jan 2, 2012 08:40 |
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drat you FATE and your 5 or 6 incarnations that are all highly priced and only slightly different! I'm eagerly awaiting some sort of comprehensive system comparison so I can decide on what to buy. I was thinking LoA since I'm more interested in fantasy than anything else, but this thread has got me all confused on what each system does best.
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| # ? Jan 2, 2012 16:36 |
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MadRhetoric posted:And yeah, compelling Overenthusiastic Librarian would basically be any time you think "Don't worry, I read this in a book!" would be famous last words. When she handed me that Aspect I actually instantly thought of a character in Syrg's 4e Let's Play, a very enthusiastic librarian called Miriam Webster (as played by medibot) who, in one combat encounter, sacrificed her minor action to write down all the stuff that was happening in a battle. Hell "let me write this poo poo down" is basically one of her catchphrases along with "I think I have a book about that!", and using that as a bit of a base, I can certainly think of more than a few ways to compel this character.
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| # ? Jan 2, 2012 16:40 |
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Oh poo poo, the bad guy's on our tail! Oh poo poo, this information we grabbed from our safehouse on the way out is a mess. No I'm not going to help you shoot, we could be talking about the loss of a full year of indexing here.
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| # ? Jan 2, 2012 16:42 |
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Cyphoderus posted:drat you FATE and your 5 or 6 incarnations that are all highly priced and only slightly different! If you can wait a while, DFRPG Paranet Papers is probably the closest thing to 'Core FATE' we're going to get until the main book comes out. Otherwise I'd recommend DFRPG or LoA for sure.
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| # ? Jan 2, 2012 17:21 |
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I think Fate Core will probably end up coming out before Paranet Papers, since Fred already said that FC will be going out to proofreading in February or so, but there's been no word about when Paranet will be out.
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| # ? Jan 2, 2012 17:34 |
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| # ? May 18, 2013 13:51 |
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I'd expect Paranet Papers to come out first since it's been repeatedly stated that DFRPG was the second link in a chain that went SotC>DFRPG>FATE Core, but you're right, the order might flip.
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| # ? Jan 2, 2012 17:36 |
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