Playing in Tekumel, with Fate

I have been quite curious about Tekumel a while now. More and more Tekumel texts have assembled on my sagging shelves, and I have decided to take a dive into the deep end and run a game in the new year. Bethorm arrived and I blogged about my impressions. Having read a bit more in it I'm now pretty clear I wont run that game. It's a bit too fiddly for me. But, the game system I have been using lately, Fate, might do the trick.

Fate is a very different game. Different from almost all other traditional games I've been playing for all these years. Trying to adapt Fate for Tekumel I've found one of the reasons for that. If you were to become enamoured by Savage Worlds or GURPS and wanted to convert your old game to that new system, is would mainly be a question about how to map the different systems to each other. Magic works in one way in the original system, and then the question is how to make the target magic system to behave that way. Fate is different. I have found that when I started to do a "generic" conversion it felt a bit rough in places. It turns out that the game you want to play will strongly influence how you do it.

My first idea for a Tekumel game centred around a clan house. I figured it would be easiest to keep the game within one clan, within one location and centre is around interaction between clan siblings.

It turned out to be harder than I thought to model this by figuring out how to make the rules for the usual cabal of magic-user, cleric and fighters. I dived deep into the intricacies of Tekumel metaphysics and magic and suddenly I had a game where magic way more complicated than anything else in the game. But, magic was not intended as the big focus of the game! I found out it is very easy to use the so called "Fate fractal" to take that literally and recursively deep into a tailspin of complexity.

That was when I realized what I wrote above, the game you want to play will strongly influence how you do it. Fate is a game system that change depending on how you handle it. Once again I had been fooled. Once again the strangeness of it all had exposed how I had approached the game I was planning with an approach that the rules was something I brought to the game, not something that adapted to the game. I wonder if I will ever feel comfortable with that!

Now I have a set of Fate rule guidelines for a Tekumelian game, and once I have written it all down from my handwritten notes I will put them up for perusal.

Some impressions of Mutant: Year Zero

I guess you have heard that Modiphius is going to publish the Swedish post-apocalyptic game Mutant? If you have not, go forth and click that link and read some about it. I'll stay here until you get back?

You're back? Good. Let's move on. I have read the Swedish edition of the game and I'm going to talk a bit about my impressions. It is a game with some peculiarities and own takes on things. Please note that as far as I know, the edition Modiphius is publishing is just like it. But, I have no inside information.

First off let me say this is an interesting game. I have yet to try it, but reading it makes me really pumped up about the idea of running and playing it. There are some things that stand out.

The first thing is how the game have a communal part, and an individual part. You all belong to a community of mutants, an Ark. This Ark you all develop together, deciding how it's supposed to be developing, putting efforts into defenses or developing culture. This works as a framing device for your individual goals and also drives you into the Zone, to gather resources. I really like how this gives you all a reason to band together, and something to do.

Then there's the characters. All characters have one NPC they hate, one they want to protect and then they have their one big dream. It's the classic stick and carrot. While this is neat, I think where the system has the potential to really shine is in the mixing. You have a "council session" first at every game session where you plan the strategic game, then you get to play your characters and their hates and cares pull them in different directions.

Now, this is when I find it all becomes quite interesting. You have 10 Type Events for the Ark and 10 Events for the Zone. Roll the dice or pick one of those events, like One NPC Is In Trouble or Fight About An Item and combine that with the strategic goal for the Ark and the different characters the PCs care or hate and you will have something happening. I think this has potential! When things have really gelled in my Tianxia game is when I have managed to match a place with characters in conflict. This feels like it could work like that.

Actually, this makes me think of how I used to read Ars Magica and feel that game sounded great, and then really fall flat in play. This promises some of the same things. Maybe it will all come together better this time. I feel this way the characters are beings hooked into the Ark more than the Ars Magica characters ever where. In the Ark there's a desperate need for food and clean water, and necessity will drive the PCs and NPCs into conflict, and into the Zone. With the Type Events, you are sure to have something happen that will topple any kind of balance achieved.  

This all comes together to drive story. Note to my old school friends, this is not Story Before! This is very much a story that develop out of play. This naturally relates a lot to my previous Fate experience. There are still lessons to be learned from that. I will re-read chapter 9 of my Fate Core rule book and think upon the Mutant way a bit more, and I expect the fallout to at least be interesting. Yeah, fallout. The future is post-apocalyptic and brutal.

Running Tianxia - the session that brainfaded

Last Wednesday I was supposed to be running my somewhat weekly Tianxia game. This time I canceled the game, since not only were attendance a bit spotty, but the main reason was I was totally out of ideas. Now the question rears up, should a total brain fade on the GM's part be reason enough to cancel a game night? Can you not just plow on, or is it indicative of something being done wrong?

In theory you just show up for a game, explore the hell out of the secondary world and fun things happen, right? Pure sandbox enthusiasts talk about that as the bees knees, but I've never been able to make it happen. Either it's me not being able to make the sandbox enticing enough, or the people I play with just aren't that good at go and make the world their own. Considering the fact we are all busy people, who drink beer and chat during the the game on a weekday night tired after a day's work, I guess the latter is a major part. My limitations I am well familiar with, so I leave them out for this time.

So, what do you do to give the game some structure? Previous sessions I've set up a location with some people in it and written up some goals for them, and then it has just evolved naturally from there. I wrote about that, the plot triads, and how well it worked before. This time I had the location, but just couldn't invent any interesting people for the life of me.

Thus I turn to the game system for a lead. When you play Fate you can be sure of one thing, it's covered by the rules somewhere. It's the most comprehensive rules set I've played so far! Guess what? I have not read chapter 9 of the Fate Core rules yet...

Looking in that chapter I find a handy little list.

Creating A Scenario:

• Find Problems
• Ask Story Questions
• Establish the Opposition
• Set the First Scene

There's one way to start off that first bullet point, start with the aspects. Naturally. Everything is about Aspects in Fate.

This kind of brings home how important it is, and hard, to create good aspects. Now when I sit down and look at them, some of these I should be able to use, shouldn't I?

Always in Trouble, Watch Your Tongue, Unwilling Mentor, Paladin in training, These are sad times, Righteous Anger, Scumbags gets what they deserve, The Good Fight

I know where I want the action to kick off, in the governor's palace. Using that I guess the list above should be able to tell me something about the potential conflicts and opposition.

I wonder if it's because it's so formalized that it feels hard? In the end I still think this will make me a better GM. I usually never think things through like this, and when lightning strikes I am cooking with gas. When there's no lightning it will be a dud. Hopefully this will teach me something.

Using Plot Triads for the win

Last night we played Tianxia again. My life is in a very hectic phase, but I have managed to get a 2-3 hour session in now for two weeks in a row. Naturally, when you have limited time you have to use your game prep wisely.

The setup for the episode last time was that the Iron Monkey Escort Company had gotten the prestigious contract to move the Jade Buddha from the Green Heaven Temple to the governor's mansion in the city of Bao Jiang. Since running yet another ambush in the woods felt repetitive, I decided to focus instead on what happened at the end and the beginning of the journey. So, it was to be intrigue and showdown in the temple before they get out the door with the jade statuette.

Having decided that I wrote up a few antagonists. I had a young woman, with a troubled past. Since one PC is a "paladin in training" I knew I could entangle him there. I had an arrogant noble sword fighter who would rankle one of the other PCs, and to make things interesting I followed the advice in the Tianxia book and made a plot triad.The plot triad is a simple but smart idea about always having three way interplays between plot elements. So, the arrogant noble knew about the troubled past, but was honour bound to protect her because of that.

I took that same plot triad idea to the jade buddha statuette. Young woman want buddha, scheming corrupt bureaucrat want the buddha and the PCs are hired to take it from point A to point B without those two getting it.

It turned out this was a great way to get the players to interact with the world, and the characters within it. Thinking about it, just interacting with one character that have a "thing" and you want it, is pretty limiting. Either you get it, or not. The triad turned out to twist that into something that felt complex, and manageable at the same time.It was easy on prep, with just jotted down notes on who where present and who wanted what from whom. All in all, just a sentence on each character. Having limited time for prep, this was perfect. I can really recommend this tool!

What happened was the young woman charmed one PC to let her out of jail after her attempt on the statuette, the the magistrate made his grab for it, and the players got to fight a whole squad of soldiers in the abbot's quarters. They whacked the magistrate, scattered the soldiers and ride off with the buddha, escort company banner fluttering in the wind. Up on the hills were bandits and out there was the young woman, and the mysterious swords man. Very cinematic.

Next time I will just fast forward to the governer's mansion, and set up some new triads. Almost instant drama. It worked wonders for a busy gamer!

Campaign design in Tianxia

By now you have probably picked up on what's my favourite Fate setting, the wuxia game Tianxia from Vigilance Press. I have ran a few sessions, and decided to wrote some words on how setting development and campaign design have worked for me.

First off I might say I consider a campaign to be a GM and his or her ongoing game, not a storyline. That being said, I have not really thought much about where this game will be heading. My main focus was to have a set up that would enable people to come and go, and always have a reason so slot in the game for a night.

The gathering point, I decided, would be one of the security and escort companies that litter the setting of Jiangzhou. Having a central repository of "missions" and clients would help tie the characters to existing conflicts and also to powerful individuals that could make life interesting for them.

If you have ever played Call of Cthulhu, you are probably well familiar with the question of not only "why are we doing this again?", but also "why am I hanging out with these nut cases again?". For me that is a very relevant question, not only in CoC. By having the escort company, I get to offer some kind of fall back to those questions for the PCs. For those tired nights when everyone feel less than inspired, that can be a great help. This is what I wrote for the central organization for my campaign.

The Iron Monkey Security Company
It Will Be Delivered On Time
Discretion Above All
It's like a family

Great Contacts +4
Good Resources +3
Fair Lore +3

I really like the way you stat things up like this. I gives you some game mechanics to hang on to. If I'm out of ideas I can always use those traits as a problem and off we go.

For me it has often been a source of problem to tie the PCs to the actions in the setting. I've been a CoC fan for ages, and the idea of Delta Green as a solution to that age old problem for CoC is not exactly new to me. Maybe I had to read it in a book to feel I got the blessing of the game designer to use it somewhere else, I don't know.

I decided the company is run by "Old Monkey Li" one of the disciples of The Flashing Sword Song. Another of Song's disciples, Madame Wu, is running The Golden Flower Company which will be a possible source of conflicts.

I think the next time I start up a "D&D game", broadly interpreted, I will also start with an centring organization like this. It strikes me as I write this that The Harpers in the Realms probably started out with a similar function. Well, it would not be the first time I was a late guest to the party...

This is what I had when I started the first session. Every night would be another mission, or some intermezzo created by the last one. Regardless who showed up, the company would have representatives present as everyone was a brother or sister in the company. I decided to start the off on their way home from a mission, and naturally there was an ambush in the woods. Original, yeah right. But, it has worked before, have it not? At least it were no kobolds involved. Let's just say it's a classic.

From this start we put things in motion, and I'll write more about the highs and lows of what happened later. 

 

Running a game of Fate - Tianxia

Having played a few sessions of Fate, and having seen how much it's been talked about, I took the plunge and ran a game myself. The publisher of Tianxia has a great blog post about running demo games of Tianxia. I stole his setup whole cloth, and it worked great!

I've found there are some things I really like with Fate. My favourite above all is how easy it is to create the opposition. You just need to think up the main thing the character is about, that's their High Concept, and add their top three skills in the pyramid and you're ready to go.

I guess that is precisely the thing that makes class based systems work so well. For me those have never been categories that sparked my imagination, though. Being able to use Drunk Brute or Snarky Magistrate  just runs straight into what makes me go "wow" and get ideas about what that character can do that would be cool to put in a scene with the PCs.

This might be the "killer feature" I unconsciously have been missing in so many other games. It makes me think that there might have been a reason I so often have relied on stock NPC templates from the GM chapters of the rules of whatever game I'm running. Interesting that it took so long to figure that out!

Waking up, smelling the coffee and thinking ahead

Excuse me if I wax a bit poetic in my post titles. Sometimes I get a bit influenced by Samuel R. Delaney and created titles that sound pretentious and grand. Considering I lag behind him English style, it might sometimes become a bit comical. You'll get those laughs for free.

Since I have woken up this blog, here are my intentions going forward.

I have been thinking a bit about D&D again in the hubbub about the 5th ed. and I have been playing mostly Fate recently, so I will write about those things.

Fate for me is a very strange experience. It's a game that liberates, and at the same traps me in crunch and game mechanics. D&D at the same times feels very much more like a sounding board, a reference, than a living game for me. Maybe 5th ed. will change that. I will at least make an attempt in that direction.

Let's go. First out is a post about my thoughts relating to an old school D&D release.

How to have a moving combat

A while ago we had a game session in our irregular D&D game, and it made me realize that as mechanics went, it was a very clunky game session. I wondered at the time if there was a better way to model what was happening in the fiction, and how the rules might steer you away from something that makes sense in the fiction, but would not be fun or work well in the game mechanics you're using.

We were travelling in a boat, with one PC rowing like crazy since his STR is way better than the rest of the characters. The rest were tasked with protecting a NPC also in the boat, and we were all trying to reach the middle of this lake as fast as possible. That was the easy part. Don't let that fool you, it became a stumbling block for game mechanics as well. More on that later. Now for the dramatic part.

As we sat in that boat, a hundred or so of tiny red dragons circled ahead, and they started to swoop down and attack us. Picture this in your mind.

Picture now in your mind a battle mat, minis on the table for the characters. Now you have to place, and move, all those critters attacking us. Yes. Picture that.

So how on earth do you handle the fact that the boat and its passengers are moving constantly and thus leave the flying creatures behind and new ones come swooping in and you have to keep track of which one is which, and who has gotten 4 hits, 2 hits or maybe is under the influence of a Slow spell? Our DM was kind enough to limit our attackers to just 20, but it was still quite a circus. Also, it was slow moving and it felt quite clunky.

Of course, you could decide that the error here was to bring out the minis and the battle mat in the first place. But, would you do better by trying to just describe all that in vague terms? It would probably be even harder to remember which dragon was hit, and for how much. Maybe the relative movement could have been easier that way, but I'm not sure.

I guess you can tell that 3rd ed D&D was not a great match for this. If I had been the DM, I probably would have tried to figure out a way to change the narrative instead of the rules. But, the setting were set up and I liked the fact that the cool part of what was happening in the setting did happen, regardless of the rules. Thinking about it, I wondered what kind of rules set would handle this.

I pondered some rules I know, and some which people usually grasp for to model wild and woolly action scenes with. Doing a chase in Savage Worlds sounds like it could work quite nice, especially with the new chase rules in SW Deluxe. But, having used those rules I feel they are only slightly less painful than the alternative, not pleasant. Picking another favourite in the gaming scene online, Fate, don't solve it either. You could use Zones and maybe abstractly make the movement easier to handle that way, but the damage tracking would still be there. Frankly I'm not sure the chase would not have been a bit bland in Fate, really. I have not checked the Toolkit book for any rules about chases, though. BRP would probably be just as cumbersome as D&D.

So no great and simple solution readily available, eh?

What was it I wrote about the rowing? Yeah, you know what? There are no numbers in the book about how fast you move in a boat. Seriously? No data? Sailing? Rowing? Nothing. You have to make it up, and guess if that turned into a show stopper as well... While I felt the DM handled the scene as well as could be expected when the action finally started, I really wanted to scream when people slowly and politely discussed how fast beasts and boat should be able to move.

The session left me with the question of how to better model this, and I've still to find the answer.

Flavour of the week - converting between gamesystems

In between the Fate game I play in, and my resurging love of BRP, I think about these trends in converting games to your favourite system.

When Savage Worlds debuted I remember seeing threads on rpg.net everyday about how you could "savage" this or that old classic and make it sing again. Savage Worlds was the "flavour of the week" so to speak.

I'm a fan of Savage Worlds, and many games I think really benefit from a "savaging". But, one thing not always taken into account in those happy endorsements are the flavour a game system bring to the table. These days the worse enthusiasm have cooled off Savage Worlds, and now I think it's more often suggested for games that need that special pizzazz and zing that a fast flowing pulp, action game gives you. Needless to say, that's not all settings and games.

Now I get the feel that Fate is the new "flavour of the week". How does it stack up?

As anyone who have tried Fate knows, it's a game much like the revised 3rd ed of D&D where everything is nailed down. It's a crunchy system, but very abstract and broad reaching, with its capability of turning anything into an Aspect and thus part of the mechanics of the game. If you want a game system that fades into the background, I don't think it's a game system for you, just like I don't think you should use Savage Worlds if you want a simulationist feel to your game.

But, I'm beginning to see why it's very alluring to try to make Fate the base for any kind of game you want to play. It's very elegant to use the "Fate fractal" and let everything be modelled with a High Concept and some more Aspects, some Skills, some Stunts and Stress tracks. You can fairly easily model anything that way. Understanding that makes it easy to quantify anything, and put numbers on it.

The other game that I always think of is BRP. It's trivial to make up a skill list suited to your setting/game and if you need anything to be modelled by the game system, you make a skill or a derived attribute of it. Then you roll your percentiles and Bob's your uncle. You only need to make up a rough probability of something succeeding and that's the whole game system. Basically.

My thinking is that make not all games has to be run in Fate, just like to every game turned out to need to be savaged? Can anything be estimated as a probability written as a percentile, and end up BRP game?

I guess that if you want to you can turn any game into whatever it needs to be. Hero and GURPS were designed to be used for putting numbers on anything, but it takes so much work I'd never work up the energy to even try.

Whatever the feel of BRP is, and however it compares to Fate (I might delve into that at a later date), they have one big thing going for them both. It's really easy to convert things into those systems. My latest reading of Fate conversions have really opened my eyes to how things like that can be done. I'm beginning to see how the Fate Fractal might be the most insidiously genius thing Evil Hat ever created. Even if I arm myself with BRP in one hand, I'll be thinking of that fractal. Make all the cool things an Aspect, and then roll those percentiles!

The strangeness of Fate

I'm now a few sessions into a Fate game. It's a fantasy game, with magic and elves and all that jazz. Even though those parts makes me grounded in the familiar tropes, the rest of the game still makes me reel sometimes. I think Fate is probably the most different game I've played.

Different than what? I hear you ask. Well, most things. First off, it's very loosey goosey as far at delimiting what is turned into game mechanics. Aspects, the core of the system, can be something looking like a class, a part of the character psychology or a relationship. I guess most people have heard about that part. That part I think I've got down pat by now.

Now, how you use those Aspects and Skills, that is where it gets weird. At least it's what trip me up. In Fate you have those aforementioned loosey goosey crunchy bits, which really gets in your face when you use them. The thing is, I'm used to have the game mechanic be some kind of binary system. Do I succeed at this or that? Fairly simple, you do or you don't. In Fate you have specific actions you take. You might Attack, Defend, Overcome or Create Advantage. That to me feels strange.

I'm used to expressing what I want to achieve, getting some feedback from the GM of what I need to roll and then get some kind of adjudication of what that means, cooperatively sometimes. Contrast that with Fate, where you can do all those actions mentioned before with almost all abilities, and they make narrative and tactical sense! That last bit is interesting.

I don't know how often I've read or heard that Fate is one of those narrative modern "story games" or whatnot. In my experience it's not. Fate is in your face crunchiness and the most tactical game I've so far played. Even when you do things that are "pure roleplaying" or "story" in that they are driven by your character's foibles or relationship, it's still tactical thinking. You set up an Advantage so you can then invoke it, or activate a negative Aspect so you can get more Fate points to then boost your next skill roll which might be a, say,  social Attack. That seriously trips me up. Interesting, but odd.

Using the right tool for the job

Yesterday I was browsing my collection of game books. Some of them I don't read that often, and almost forgets about. I have a few...

My eyes fell on GURPS Black Ops, and it piqued my interest. Who doesn't like the idea of truly badass characters taking on monsters? I figured it would be fun to read some of it, and maybe import some ideas into a game some day. When I came to the section about building characters I paused for a second.

Characters in Black Ops are built on 700 points. For those of you who don't know much about GURPS, I checked the core rules about campaign scales, and there it said 500 pts is "Superhuman". Cinematic action is the name of the game.

This is where I got reminded of why it is a good idea to use the right tools for the job.

In the book there are five templates of 650 pts you can use as base for your character. They are the Combat Op, Intelligence Op, Science Op, Security Op, Technology Op. Sounds like it covers all the bases in the genre, right? What gave me cause for doubts was what was on those pages.

Those templates all took up one page each, with about an inch at the top with the stats, Disadvantages and Advantages. The rest was three columns of text listing skills, and taking the illustrations into account it was maybe two full columns on the average. I counted the skills on one template, and it was about a hundred. 100. Yes. 100!

If you have that many skills, how are you even going to find the ones you need?! Why list all those? I've never seem anything so unwieldy in a game before. It would have been easier to list what was missing instead. Sure, the idea is to play super competent characters being really awesome. But, will that list really help you do that? What you really want to express is how cool you are, and how many cool things that character can do. It just screams out to be simplified. Mayve into some kind of system of skill categories, or even in a more daring move, reduced to Aspects like they use in FATE.

Here I think we see one indication this kind of game is not best modelled in GURPS. 

The next thing I noticed was the ratings of those skills. In GURPS you roll 3d6 and try to roll below your skill rating. Personally I cry foul when I see characters which break the ceiling of the system. These templates ranged from 12 to 22. Yes, roll below 22 on 3d6. Foul. Something is broken there, even if the list had been a fifth the size is was.

Here I think wesee another indication this kind of game is not best modelled in GURPS.

I've seen that kind of stuff in other games, sadly more than once. One example was this system which used roll low and a d20, i.e. a percentile system divided by 5 and less granular. This NPC I think of had 40 in some skills and spells, i.e. 200%!

If you want to play cinematic action, the best tool is probably not a game system that focuses on realism and detailed simulationism. You probably want to use FATE, or Savage Worlds.

This I think is also why the idea of a generic system is a failure. The idea is beautiful, and the amount of "generic" systems in my collection tells the long story of that strong allure of having one system for all your games. But, the sad fact is that you have to tweak and adapt a system to the style and setting you are using. Some games can be changed more or less easily and after a while it will become clear that you would have saved time using a system tailored for the experience you want.


...so if you see numbers like 200% in a percentile game, or 34 in a d20 based one, then it's time to look for a better tool for the job.

Getting hurt in different games

Since I recently played a game of FATE, I have been searching out other experiences of playing FATE, including listening to podcasts. At the same time, I have been re-reading Dragonquest, which a game quite different from FATE. Today I realized you could consider them side by side, based upon what happens when your character gets hurt in those two games.

In FATE you basically only have two hitpoints. You have two stress boxes for physical hurt, and two for mental hurt. Nothing happens when you tick them. Then you have consequences, which are things that last. I guess that's clear from the name, right? But, what I found intriguing is how those consequences are used.

Since they are Aspects, just like so much else in FATE, they can be invoked. That means they will affect the story and the narrative, and they wont just be points of damage. Now, how does damage works in Dragonquest? Well, you have your points of Fatigue, and you have your Points of Endurance. Depending on how severely you get hit, you dock some points off those. But, here's the thing. If you get hit real bad, you take a Grievous Injury. The interesting thing about them is that they are lasting consequences.

See? How about this. Grievous injury are stuff that will stay with you, and a smart opponent will invoke for effect, eh. I mean, utilize to their advantage.

If you were afraid of New School, don't be. It's all known stuff, eh?

My JackerCon experience - playing FATE

This last weekend there was an online convention being organized among the fans and friends of the Happyjacks RPG podcast. It was all happening on g+, after you signed up on the events posted in timeslots in the podcast forums. Luckily for me, some people scheduled events at a time when it was not in the middle of the night here in Sweden. So, jumped in and played a session in a g+ hangout.

First I had to setup a laptop with a webcam, which I did not have on my main machine. Then I actually did a test hangout with my wife just to understand how it worked. It felt like I had never used a computer before. Finally, I was ready. I can say from the start that it worked quite well, even though it felt a bit awkward to switch from the Roll20 window to the Hangout window to actually see the person speaking. But, all in all I think this marks the beginning of more online play on my part, if I can only manage to get all the duck in a row in the messy world of international gamerdom and timezones.

The game was a secret, only to be revealed when we "sat down at the table" so to speak. Had I known more about the source material I might have been able to immerse myself even more. We played gummi bears. Yes, from the children's cartoon. Silly but funny.

Our GM had decided to run the game using Fate Accelerated Edition, a slimmer version of the recently concluded FATE Core rules release. I have not played FATE before in modern times, and it was great to get the opportunity to try out a new game system. I own the FATE books, but sometimes you get a better perspective on the game not by reading, but by playing it with someone who have ironed out the kinks, and can show how it's done. I love that aspect of convention play, and I'm a bit sad it doesn't seem to be done much in these parts where freeform play is popular in the convention arena.

How did it work? Quite well! We had an aspect that defined our character, a bit like the class define who you are in D&D. Then we had an aspect defined as a trait that would get us into trouble, either with the setting or another character. In general that is a great idea, I think. There were some other abilities, but those were the ones I fixated on. We went nuts and acted like cartoon characters for a couple of hours and laughed a lot. Thanks a lot to the organizers and to our GM Mike!

One thing I though you could grab from FAE, and maybe import into other games. In contrast to FATE Core, you don't have skills but instead have something called Approaches. Since older editions of D&D don't have skills, many have pondered the question of whether that is a feature, or a indication that something is missing. I wont take a firm stand on that question, but for your edification I will tell you something about how Approaches work, and you can decide for yourself if you like to maybe include something like that in your D&D game.

Approaches are basically words that describe how you do things. They are Forceful, Quick, Careful, Clever, Sneaky, and Flashy. So, if you want to bypass a door, you can do it sneakily or forcefully. I guess you see what those two options entail. I think the way you do it in FAE, add your rating in that Approach to your diceroll, might be borrowed to other games. Maybe you have a few points to spread around, or decide one Approach is dominant and the other recessive. It could be a cool way to differentiate that 1 in 6 roll to intimidate someone if you choose to do it your favoured Forceful way, or the Clever way instead. If you roll under your stat with a d20 or 3d6 a bigger bonus than +1/-1 might be used depending on how much you want those Approached to influence play. I think there are interesting possibilities in this system! Fool around with it, and if you try it out, I'd love to hear how it went.

My problem with Fiasco

I have read so many times, and heard on so many podcasts, that Fiasco is a great game. Having listened to some actual play, and detailed rules explanations, I find that this really isn't a game for me. I kind of wish it was, though.

Not every game is for everyone, and you don't have to love every game. Just move on, right? Kind of true. The thing is, the kind of play that Fiasco supposedly is all about is one I think sounds interesting. I also think the multitude of play sets are really cool, and some are kernels to really cool games. Maybe there's something to learn from Fiasco, or maybe there's something that can be found to make it work for me? I'll start to nail down what I don't like.

Playing the game is, unless I have misunderstood something completely, basically done in four phases. First you roll the dice and distribute them using the play set, then you make shit up until you run out of dice, them you roll them again and you make more shit up until the end.

What I don't like about that is the "making shit up" part. In that part, you for each scene get to decide how it ends or how it's set up. That's what's rubs me the wrong way. If someone else is deciding what happens, why should I sit and waffle about what happens? This, I feel, robs me of "player agency" or if you like, the point where I think rpgs really shine. That thing, I think, is going into a game ready to gamble some resources not knowing the outcome, exploring a secondary world. If someone sits there and just makes shit up, why should I then play out that scene? I'd like to turn that on it's head.

When I listens to people playing Fiasco I don't hear people play. I hear people just talk. Making shit up without any relation to effort involved, traits involved or chance just don't a game make.

This makes me think of another game I have read but know played, and listened to and becoming confused. That game is Burning Empires. In that game you do one thing differently, though. In BE you have one trait that is the one that determines success in that scene, and after the talky part you actually do the game bits. You roll dice and "make your bets". I'm wondering if that retrofitted to Fiasco would suit me better?

So, what do I like about all this?
 
I really like the idea of the setup for the game in Fiasco. Coincidentally, in Burning Empires you also start the game by generating the setting and framework for play. That part I think could be really cool to explore in a game of a more traditional bent. Maybe that part is why I come back to Fiasco again and again, and even bother to talk at length about a game which looks like it will bore me to tears. But, the system for building a city in Dresden Files looks interesting! There is a system based on that in the new shine FATE Core book I own. Maybe there is a way...

Impressions of FATE Core - look and feel

So I finally got my copy of FATE Core. While I am less than happy with some Kickstarter projects, this was not one of them. Evil Hat kept in contact during the whole process from the funding until arrival of the goods, always updating with the latest status. Take note, all you who run rpg Kickstarters! Let people know what's going on? You have taken their money, they deserve to know you have not left for a sunny beach with their money. Kudos to Evil Hat. they did this right.

How is the game?

Well, I have not yet run a game, since I've only owned the book for a few days and I rarely read a game book from cover to cover when I first get it. But, it looks good. I am familiar with FATE 2nd ed and this looks like a really good update. It's well presented and from what I've glanced, it reads well. All concepts are clearly presented.

This is where I'd like to take a moment to compare this book to The Dresden Files game. In that game there was sidebars and "boxed notes" laid out to look like handwriting, and post-it notes. It was horrible! The page looked so busy I got tired from reading just a few pages. It also made it a pain to skim a few pages to search for something, or get a grasp of things. With so busy a page, it made the eyes jump all over the place. Less is more, guys.

Not so in FATE Core.

In this book it's all black and white and the sidebars and boxes highlighting stuff is integrated in the graphical profile of the whole page. If that sounds like just so much typographical gobbledygook, I will hold up classic Call of Cthulhu as an example. If you take a book like Arkham Unveiled or The Fungi from Yuggoth, you'll see two column lay out, few fonts and the boxed illustrations align with the text columns. The eye needs not stray. Everything you needs in where it's expected to be.

There's more.

One thing I really like is how Evil Hat have put small notes in the margins, pointing out where to go for details on something mentioned in that paragraph. Especially in the beginning chapters which explains the basic concepts and character generation that is really helpful. It's taking the usage of an index to the next helpful level. There is an index, but thanks to these hints it's quite short. I think it works pretty well. We'll see how it holds up after heavy use.

Another thing I really liked were the illustrations. I found no gravity defying breasts and ridiculous  armour, and in general women were depicted sensibly. Also worth noting is that there are quite a few non "white dude" individuals. I liked that. I have not found any really amazing pieces that I stood out, but I found none that made me cringe, which I think is far more important. You can say what you want about knowing your target audience, but clearly Evil Hat wants to think beyond the niche here and they should be applauded for that.

This game I like, and I have seen enough of the rules to like them as well.

So.

You know what I have a problem with? Now when I have this game and Savage Worlds, I have two games that can cover multiple campaigns. (Yeah, I also have GURPS but I have given up on that.) Why is that a problem? What should I use it for? I have too many choices! But, maybe I can finally get a Planescape game that feels like it lives up to the setting's potential. Just maybe.

How to not write a game

Last night I had some time to browse a game I have borrowed from a friend, Dresden Files the rpg. This is a game that have been talked about a lot, and most of it very positive. I did find some points of it so grating I had to put the book down. What do you do then? Gripe online!

In Dresden Files, the pages a very "designed". In my view, overly so. For example, some parts of the pages are designed to look like someone took a highlighter pen to some words and sentences. Personally I have never been able to use highlighter pens. For me they are of no use. I don't read like that. Sometimes I have read books bought second hand, and underlining or highlighting drives me up the wall. If anything, I take notes on a separate paper, never in the book I read! Having a thing like that in a printed book, by design, drives me nuts. It makes my eyes stop at intervals which are not natural to my way of reading. Quite jarring.

The other design element is sticky notes. Yes, they have small "sticky notes", with faux hand writing in the sidebars of the text! To me it just makes the text on the page drown in the clutter of notes. Adding insult to injury, the few times I stopped reading and glanced at those notes, almost all of them contained snarky remarks of a very annoying nature. I mean, if you add something to the text, add least make sure it adds information!

Since it's very easy to complain, I'm also going to say how I think it should be done.

The best game book I ever read is the 2nd ed. rules book for Unknown Armies. What's so good about it? It's clear and understandable. There are no witty quotes or snarky sidebars, just a clearly presented text with illustrations not interfering with the text. The text is different from the majority of gaming prose, though. It is not detached. Instead it is personal, and with a very clear author voice. For some that is a killer, and for those I direct you to SPI's DragonQuest, which is as formal as it gets.

But, I'd like to emphasize that in Unknown Armies, the voice never hinders the important function of the text, to get the information across on how to play the game. You can read one sentence after the other and the information flows naturally. The combination of all these factors are sadly quite rare, and one reason why I have sought out Greg Stolze's writing since.

GURPS through a FATE lens

I have been thinking about GURPS a lot lately, and it feels like it wont leave my head.

GURPS is a very crunchy system, and while I have no fear of crunchy systems (I did start out with MERP and Rolemaster after all) something scares me off GURPS. That something is character generation. One problem with point buy systems is that it necessitates a lot of thumbing through the rules books, and recalculating and juggling numbers around. That takes time. I hate that part.


Still the allure of a generic and universal system have never left me. While I have never actually played GURPS, I imagine it could be pretty smooth in actual play. So, how do I take out the points while keeping the customization possibilities? Today I got this idea of merging GURPS with FATE.


FATE, Fantastic Adventures in Tabletop Entertainment, doesn't only have the worst name ever, it's also a pretty slick game system. Even better, I have played it, and enjoyed it. FATE is a game engine, an outgrowth of FUDGE, that can be used for lot of different settings. It almost start to sounds like "generic and universal", doesn't it? I took a stab at combining the two flavours.

Step one. Roll your stats, ST, DX, IQ and HT, on 3d6 - in order. That's your basic stats, and you can calculate Move by averaging HT and DX, or something similar.

Step two. Now pick your Aspects. This is where we bring in FATE. You can have any kind of trait as an Aspect. It could be a personality trait, an advantage or feat like Advantages in GURPS. The important thing is that this is a defining aspect of your character, and from this you generate your skills. Eyeballing it I'd say you pick three Aspects for a 100 pts GURPS character. Maybe add another one per 25 pts?

Step three. Now you get to pick skills. My first idea was to say you get a bunch of points to spread around. Then I remembered the idea was to get rid of points, and decided on picks instead. Make of it what you will, it's all for free on my blog, right?

So, skills. I suggest you now pick five skills per Aspect. Make them all relate to the Aspect in some way. The rating is eight to start with, and if you spend more of your picks on the skills they get +1 per pick. Got that? If one of your Aspects are a Power of some kind, like magic or psionics, you get 5 free "skills" for free, at rating 6, before spending picks.

Step four. Roll 3d6 x 10 for money. Or credits or dollars or whatever you want to call it.

How's that for a slimmed down GURPS? What? How to use those aspects? Well, this is what I'm thinking.

For every Aspect you have, you can once per game day invoke it to add +2 to any skill roll, i.e. 3d6 against your skill rating. Once every session you can invoke it for +3. Take your pick. The gamemaster can do the same to give you a penalty of -2/-3 instead. What helps sometimes hinder, right? Untrained skill use I'd say you roll 3d6 against a relevant stat -4, or 10 if that's lower.

Will this work? Will it feel like GURPS? I have no idea. Feel free to test it and tell me. Some days I feel like tinkering with rules, but I seldom get a chance to play test them.