Fate Core: Magi pt 14

This post may be the last Magi post for a while. basically I have a few minor issues to work through, and then it is off to play testing. Who knows how long that will last. So this post will(hopefully) clear up some issues with the game that I had previously spoken of, but not written about extensively. There will be a bit less cohesion of ideas in this, but hopefully it will make the game more playable.

There will be no stunts in Magi. The Magi alter everything around them fairly regularly. Having anything as concrete as a stunt just doesn't feel right to me. Perhaps after a bit of play testng I will become convinced of the need for stunts. As it stands they seem like a superfluous addition to the game I want to make.

Skill aspects need to be removed/changed. When I originally thought of them I saw them as a replacement for regular skills. I realized that, in the setting I have made, there is no appreciable difference between a skill aspect and a regular aspect. Except that a regular aspect has far better rules working for it. So now you can build skills as aspects. I think there might need to be a character sheet with a big side list(empty at first) that you can fill with all the aspects you put  on yourself. Just cross them out when they have been destroyed.

Creating aspects in a node that has a style that meshes with a character's style has a Fair(+2) difficulty. Creating an aspect on yourself has a mediocre difficulty. It is very easy to change yourself and your world when you are in synch with it.

Creating aspects in a node where your style is out of synch with the node's style is a Fantastic(+6) difficulty. creating aspects on yourself is a Good(+3) difficulty. Also at any point the GM can give you a fate point to increase that difficulty by +2 as a compel.

You can attempt to halt another character's create advantage roll. It uses up your action for the turn. Your roll adds to the difficulty of the create advantage action. you can only do this in a node which has a style in synch with yours.

Trying to alter/destroy a node's aspects is more(+2) difficult than creating new aspects. Changing a core aspect is more(+2) difficult than that. I am uncertain on this last rule. I would very much like the nodes to fight back when you attempt to change them. However I feel this might take the human element away from the game. In the early days of this project I got entirely too focused on the nodes and how the players interacted with them. For now I will go with these rules on how changing a node works as it tends to focus the conflict around the humans in control of the nodes.

That's about all I have for today. I am pretty much done with this project. Unless someone really wants to see more of this project. Until I have run it some more, I am out of fresh ideas.

Fate Core: Aeon Trinity pt 7

Coalition
After the battle of Erebus, the coalition limped away in defeat. It was thought, they would never been seen again. And so it went, for 13 years.they have spent the intervening time rebuilding and making alliances. They have mastered(mostly) the Aberrant Taint they took within them. They have finally master FTL(using Warp abilities). They still hunger for earth and its psychic and biotech treasures. They are coming. They have swept through the galaxy like locusts, leaving devastation in their wake. They have their eyes on Earth and her allies.

The Coalition are the greatest threat to humanity. Unlike the Aberrants they are united and focused. They have spent over a decade planning and plotting, and now they are ready to conquer the psychic races of the galaxy. They will attack the Chromatics first, as they are seen as the weakest of the space faring races.

Envoy
Good Nameless NPCs
Aspect: Friendly Pheromones
Aspect: Talking is the only solution
+3 Rapport +2 Empathy, Deceit

Spinal
Good Nameless NPCs
Aspect: Charge!
Aspect: Fast Mover
+3 Fighting +2 Physique +1 Shooting, Athletics

Sasq
Good Nameless NPCs
Aspect: I can fix it
Aspect: Large but clever
+3 Crafts +2 Lore +1 Investigate

Drone
Average Nameless NPCs
Aspect: Just a drone
+1 pick a skill that requires no real training

Fury
A fury is just one of the other Phyles with between one to three Aberrant abilities.

Progenitor
They are named NPCs build them as such. They have a tendency toward the mental over the physical. When they have the fury template attached to them they have all the abilities of an Aberrant.


New Aberrant Abilities
Quantum Blast: you can use shooting without a weapon.
Quantum Blast2: This ability has the prerequisite of Quantum Blast. When you take this ability you can choose one of the following abilities:
    1. Supercharge: your blast counts as Weapon: 2
    2. Combustion: you can attack a whole zone, roll your shooting at -1 to attack every target in the zone.
    3. Alternate defense: Your opponent must defend against your blast with some other skill(choose the skill when you choose this ability.
Armor: Gain Armor: 2 against physical actions. You can take this ability multiple times.
Disrupt: You can halt another Aberrant from using there abilities. Roll your Will vs your opponents will. If you succeed, your opponent cannot use there Aberrant abilities unless they spend a round to roll their will vs Fair(+2) difficulty.

Fate Core: Aeon Trinity pt 6

The Abbies came for Danielle O'Dare, four of them. They weren't the big bads by any means, but they were going to kill her none the less, She slowly reached for her plasma pistol as the spiny oozing horrors moved in to surround her.  They had numbers and thought to use them against her. they were about to attack. She smiled.

As they charged her heavy barreled gun whipped in an arc. The grip connected with an Aberrant face as she spun out of the way. Two more of the monsters collided in the space where she had been. She tripped over a tail and fell into a roll. This put enough distance between her attackers and herself that she was able to fire off four quickly aimed shots. Without looking she knew that the fight was over. Luck, some would call it. She preferred skill. Of course she wouldn't turn her back at luck. 

Daredevils
There are some people who have no powers, no special abilities. Yet even with this apparent weakness, they stand taller than their fellow men. They seem to be luckier than most, always in the right place at the right time with the right skills. They are both  blessed and cursed. Cursed to live in interesting times. Blessed in that they can face that danger head on. They are the daredevils. Singular individuals with the skill, luck, and desire to walk where angels fear to tread.

Daredevils either are normal folk, just luckier than most, or the third evolutionary branch of mankind, able to bend probability to there unconscious desires. If they are baseline humans, they seem to survive and thrive in situations that kill all but Aberrants and Psions. If they are some type of evolutionary offshoot they are undetectable by any known method.

If you are not playing an Aberrant or a Psion, you will be a Daredevil. When you strt the game you ay want to disxuss as a group exactly what they are. Or perhaps you would like to leave that a bit of a mystery. Either way, it is good to know that ahead of time.

Knacks
There are certain stunts that daredevils can take. Aberrants and Psions cannot take these stunts. Daredevils can only take one Daredevil stunt at character creation, and one at each milestone.Daredevils do not need to take a knack, but they are the only ones who CAN take a knack.

Death Defiance: Gain an additional mild consequence. Should you raise your physique or will to five, you gain an additional mental or physical(depending on the skill) moderate consequence.
Forgettable: gain a +2 to rolls involving blending in with the crowd. Any nameless NPCs automatically fail any roll to detect you.
Indomitable Will: When some one seeks to read or control you mind(via psychic or aberrant power) should you succeed with style on your defense roll you can choose to do two mental stress to that person rather than gaining a boost.
Navigation Hazard: On a successful pilot roll to attack(ramming, sideswiping, etc) you can spend a fate point to increase the level of consequence inflicted(mild to moderate, moderate to severe). If they would not normally take a consequence, they take a mild consequence.
Perfect Poise: You are immune to normal fear of any kind. You gain a +2 to any roll versus psychic or aberrant effects that cause unnatural fear.
Resilient: You heal consequence as if they were one level lower.
Untouchable: Nameless NPCs do not get a teamwork bonus against you.


Scales
During the course of designing the aberrant post I realized I needed a distance/time/mass scale. When they do something faster/further/larger it would be good to know, roughly, how much that was. So here is my first attempt at that. Let me know what you think.
  Time units/Distance Units/Mass Units
1 Second/couple of feet/handheld item
2 Minute/across the room/hold in two hands
3 Hour/across the city/Man sized
4 Day/City to city/twice man sized
5 Week/cross country/car sized
6 Month/continent/building sized

Fate Core: The Sharn Codex pt 3

Yesterday I ran a game of The Sharn Codex for my regular group. Overall there was a lot of intrigue and investigation. Everyone seemed to have a good time. At least, that's what they say.

When I am running Fate Core I have this issue. I am not even sure if it is an issue, really. It could be my imagination. Mountains and molehills and all that. When I am running the game, I find a few things slightly off.

My player's characters rarely take consequences. I find this happens for a couple of reasons, they use fate points to increase there defense, they tend to stay in situations where there highest three skills apply, and they tend to take the bad guys out rather quickly. Now the last problem, I know how to fix. I will just alter the stats and give that a go. It is the two former issues where I run into my disconnect. I especially find the use of fate points to defend troublesome. Fate points are there to make the actions more dramatic and interesting, whenever they would normally take stress(which is exciting and interesting) they use faitpoints to negate it by adding to defense.

I have not talked mush on my blog about my gaming beliefs, but one of the key beliefs I have is that defense is inherently boring. In my mind Ties should go to the attacker, not the defender. This is because defense negates action, whereas attack adds action. Defense is necessary, don't get me wrong. It s just not really adding to the action. Now, Fate Core deals with this in a creative way, with boosts and the like. However when the player is going to take one stress(basically they rolled one less then the antagonist on their defense roll) adding a +2 doesn't give any interesting results. It just negates the hit. And that is boring, or it can be boring. There have been instances where it was described well.

I think I am going to have to ramp up my GMing chops for the next few games. It is not that I feel anything in the game is going wrong. More that I think I should be doing better. I definitely have room to improve. Sorry if I got a little ranty therefor a bit. Here is the recording of the session, if you want to watch it.

Wild Blue: Loss of Patience

Yesterday I ran a game of Wild Blue for Fate Core. The players ranged from knowledgeable about the system and setting to almost completely ignorant of all of it.There was fun to be had, though there were a few false starts, and some of the people had real issues with google's interface.

We had a couple of issues in the game. The first issue we had was that in Wild Blue your power can expand/advance. However the text is unclear as to when this can/does happen. One of my players wanted to start out with an advanced power. I vetoed this, but I am unsure if that is how it was supposed to work.

The story revolved around a south western river town, called Patience. The town has gone completely silent. The PCs were new recruits to the Wardens. This was there first mission. They took a river boat upstream to the town itself. Arriving near dusk they find the smell of death on the air. While in the general store/tavern they are attacked by shadow creatures. They run the creatures off and discover they burn when exposed to direct light. They have locked themselves in the sherrifs office for the night. That is where we left it.

If you would like to watch, here is a recording of the game.

Diaspora: The Inevitable pt 2

I ran my second game of Diaspora today. We had a player bow out today due to illness. I hope he recovers soon and can play in the next adventure. Since he was missing we had a stunted session as we did not want to leave him behind. So the players basically worked through a few of the smaller plot points as well as discovering new data bout the Hexapods(poids? Peds?). They discovered that the aliens had Terran DNA in it and that the sky city was partially organic. There also seems to be a connection to the giant crustaceans on Erdea. The game ended with our heroes sitting in port over Erdea waiting for there ship to be refitted.

We had a good time, but the session was a little short. It looks as though I will be running the next session as well, when we meet up next. If you would like, here is a recording of our session.

Fate Core: Magi pt 13

In honor of the number thirteen and the deaths of the Templars that tarnished its glory, I have decided to write about Style and how it interacts with the world.

Quick and dirty vs slow and sure
I would like there to be a strong distinction between actions of the moment and long term actions. Basically fast casting and ritual casting should be different mechanically. Quick and dirty magic requires a sense of immediacy. It needs to be almost reactionary. Slow and Sure magic should feel more like planning a  heist. There should be a lot of build up. The more you plan and build up the spell the bigger the effect you can attain and the bigger the risks attached to it. Slow magic should feel like a fight scene or a political debate(preferably both).

Fast magic should be frantic and have some bleed over. I am thinking of not allowing any aspects to be created by fast magic. You would use slow magic to build advantages ahead of time and then use them during the scene with fast magic. I do not like this idea too much, as it changes quite a few of the fundementals of the game. Creating advantages is a big part of the game play. Segregating that out is problematic.

I had another idea for skill use as well. Fast casting has bleed over. When you are casting on the fly you have to choose between doing a controlled burst and only doing one stress, or doing all the stress you normally would but taking a point of stress yourself. Perhaps instead of that it changes the world around them somehow. I would like to damage the world somehow, but I am a bit off at the moment and cannot come up with a way to do it. Maybe they gain a boost on you when you fast cast or something.

Slow casting would need to be done over the course of several rolls and scenes. Basically you would need to collect ingredients, do the ritual, and then complete the action. I think the effects would be allowed to be much larger and more powerful/diverse. I do not know how to model this as it would represent ritual magic, item creation, and long term social engineering. I know that I would like the players to be in more control of how this goes. Slow casting is not reactionary, it is proactive. Maybe I could put  a template of actions down and the players choose what each part means for that slow casting action.

This post is mostly just me trying to externally sort out my thoughts on how the players interact with the world around them. I think I may be just as confused now as I was at the beginning. Well, maybe not as confused as all that. I can now see the shape of things. I know roughly what I want. Any thoughts on what action I could take? Any thoughts would be very appreciated.