Charla, the Sphere of the Dragon Kin

So a long time ago, at a high school that is very far away from me, I started getting involved in Role Playing Games. My friends and I started participating in game of Everway at lunch with people who would become part of our core group of friends (every single one of which I still think of as family). I was able to get my hands on a copy of the Everway box set during this time and began reading. My creative spark was inspired and I wanted to start running a game, but didn't know what I was going to do for a story or quest.

I truly had no experience or anything close to an idea of what I was doing. At this time I only had really shitty  writing and random knowledge of Fantasy universes/writing to work with. I wasn't fully "out of the basement" yet and didn't embrace my geek nature and I didn't have much confidence in my ability to tell a story. This was all happening prior to the outbreak of Geek culture into the mainstream and the release of movies and TV series that would make it okay to talk about these things to normal people.

I don't know where I'm trying to go with this particular portion of this rant. Really though I think I'm just trying to get  across the point that I was inexperienced and not ready for the big time, but I had some lofty ideals that I was trying to get across. I started coming up with what I thought was a neat idea and tried to create a world around it.

This world was what I called Charla (Char-lah). It was based off the idea for one of the literally hundreds of character ideas I had been coming up with during those early days. The character (who's name escapes me) was a humanoid character with Dragon wings, immunity to fire, and the ability to control fire (an inborn talent for pyromancy ran in this race). This was his home Sphere (Everway was a crossroads for many different portals to other "spheres" or planets and Spherewalkers always ended up in Everway proper some way or another). I never got to play him, but I liked the idea of his world a lot and started to think about what types of things it would have to deal with.

I created a world where there were two species of sentient beings. One of them were the Charlanites, who all had the dragon wings, fire immunity, and the pyromancy. The other race was the Dak'kon (I think... it's been about 15 years since I created this thing, maybe it was the Drakar... I wish I could remember. Dak'kon may have been a character's name the more I think about it) which were a race of Dragon like humanoids with a breath weapon, an extremely reptilian style body, and no wings. Both races had a strong magical heritage and had been warring for millennia.

The Charlanites were ruled by an Archmage in a magic skills based monarchy. They had no real society other than that. I was inexperienced, shut up. The Dak'kon were led by a war chief, or warlord or something... it wasn't important at the time. Whoever it was happened to be the main villain who was just kinda there with no motivation other than to fight the PCs because Noob GM.

The Charlanites worshiped a god they believed resided in the volcano in their capitol city. They held various ceremonies and combat tournaments in the god's honor because that sounded like a good idea. The Archmage would lead everyone in the ceremonies and used the gathered energy to protect everyone from the eruptions that would regularly take place during the height of the ceremonies.

It was during one of these ceremonies that the PCs were brought in. This being the Everway setting I had to come up with a reason for the PCs to be brought out there to a whole different "Sphere" via the portal network. I of course didn't want to give them an option to potentially ignore my "finely crafted" adventure, so I created an ultra powerful and very awful NPC named The Watcher. So called because he watched over many different spheres to ensure that prophecies were fulfilled. (A concept that is so ridiculous that it might actually make him a great concept for a villain now that I think back on his role in things. Maybe I'll write that down for later.)

Anyways, The Watcher (no I didn't know about the Marvel Comics character of the same name at the time) gathered the PCs together at his tower on a desolate and featureless sphere that may or may not have been a pocket dimension. There he told them of Charla and that they would play a vital role in protecting the future of that sphere. He then opened a portal for them (not really a power that anyone is really allowed to possess other than gods) and shoved them through into the welcoming arms of the Archmage as he completes a ceremony.

The specifics of this adventure become hazy from this point on, I'll do my best to retell it but no promises that it'll be even remotely right.

The Archmage welcomed them and then offered them a chance to prove their worth and abilities in various arena battles. I'm trying to remember what each PC was, because this would prove to eventually be important in a few cases. Let's see, there was the half-demon, a zombie-esque undead creature based off of Rob Zombie (I think he named the species a "Creeper"), a Gargoyle (as in Gargoyles the cartoon) with an amulet that kept her out of stone form in the day, a beserker named Orsen (whose battle cry was "SPOOON!!!"), some type of fighter... I think (it was an early Chris character, I can't remember and feel ashamed by that), and an magic sensitive, graceful dancer whom I think could spin illusions.

So after a bunch of combat the PCs were told that they were to gather the ancient weapons of legend to use to defeat the evil warlord and were given the locations of these four weapons. Oh yeah, and everyone had a chance to get fire lizards bonded to them as pets, as in the ones from Anne McCaffrey because.

[Later edit: You have no idea how difficult this is to write, this storyline is just awful and it HURTS to remind myself of it.]

The weapons were a physical manifestation of the four elements that govern Everway; Air, Fire, Earth, and Water. I thought it was clever and neat. The first weapon they went after was the Sword of Inferno. Inferno being the name of the Charlanites' greatest hero whom used the sword to do something heroic sometime in the past.

That sword was meant to go to the person with the highest score in the Fire element when I initially designed the campaign but I couldn't justify giving the sword to the Creeper who used claw-like weapons. so instead I exercised my first bit of the Golden Rule and gave the Sword to the half-demon because of his connection with the element because it made more narrative sense. The sword was kept inside of some volcanic landscape somewhere and they had to sort of dodge the environments and fight something simple. If I had encountered this in a game now I as a player would expect that we were being set up at this point.

So after grabbing the sword they report back to get the next weapon's location and were then given all three of them. They headed up to the highest mountain peak to retrieve the Lightning Dagger, which was given to the Gargoyle. They wandered a frozen wasteland and retrieved the Bow of Ice which went to the dancer. Finally they descended into a deep canyon to retrieve the Stone Axe (or maybe it was the Axe of Earth) which was at the center of this canyon/ravine thing that it was in the center of which went to Chris' fighter. They reported back to the Archmage and then participated in an "epic battle" between the Dak'kon/Drakkar and the Charlanites which the players participate in and the chosen wielders learn the true power of their legendary weapons. (There may have also been gratuitous use of the word "Swack!" and the destruction of a carriage made of spoons during this time. Shut up, it made sense at the time! Okay it didn't, but shut your face hole anyways!)

The Sword of Inferno basically changed shape to fit with the personal style of the bearer. It was also able to coat the blade in flames and launch fireballs and other fire based attacks at foes. The Lightning Dagger did similar things, but used lightning instead. The Axe of Earth was made of stone and cut things super well while enhancing the strength of the bearer. The Bow of Ice generated its own arrows in its quiver that when they hit their target basically completely froze the target in an effect similar to what you see in movies where things get turned to stone by magic, but with more ice and it adding a couple of inches of ice around the body. They also had the ability to be willed back to their bearers but that was never used.

The characters were charged with chasing the warlord back to his castle and take him down. And so they did and then peace became the norm and the prophecy was fulfilled. At this point the story is very fuzzy and I can't remember it because I was flat out making it up as I went along. No prep, no notes, just winging it at lunch everyday with no thoughts given to it other than a general goal for the players. The PCs were allowed to keep what they had found and/or were given (including the weapons) and were picked up by The Watcher to be brought back to Everway. The two races may or may not have suddenly merged together and become full blooded dragons (I seem to remember that thought, but can't remember if it was just an idea or what actually happened. If it did happen though it raises a whole bunch of other questions that make my head hurt).

And that is basically the end of that story. I think there were gifts and abilities given out as the players so desired, but I can't remember what the rewards were. It was awful (but not the worst!) and there were more holes than plot, but it was my first time in the hot seat and I'm glad that I did it. I learned a lot from that experience.

My second time running a campaign went far, FAR worse. I won't retell that tale, but it is a shame filled thing that nearly stopped me from doing anything again ever. I'm glad I learned from that one. Let's just say that the second game evolved from the idea that aliens from X-Com decided to invade Everway and there was a Predator.

As for the first campaign though. I keep thinking I should try to rebuild it as a D20 module with a proper storyline and everything but every time I try to I run into the same problem I always do. D20 systems just seem to be too restrictive for it to work the way I want it to. Although it is very easy to transplant the legendary elemental weapons into any other system out there. I may use them again, but the base idea of this campaign may not ever see the light of day again.

I'm not sure I'm okay with that though. I want to go back and tweak and/or fix it.

BAM-Con Panel Ideas

So some of you have heard about BAM-Con (Berkshire Anime and Manga Convention) that the wife and I have been a part of for the past two years. Some of the talks we've had about it are about expanding it beyond just the themes of Anime, Manga and Japanese culture. Mostly adding in more mainstream Sci-Fi/Fantasy and Geekculture themes.

Our convention is going to continue to be in early May. It's just a good time period to run one. It puts us between a couple of the big ones in the area and is early in the season so people aren't already burned out by other conventions. I can't talk about some of the things the organizers have been talking about yet, but the early May timing means that the convention happens around some important dates in Star Wars fandom. Which is of course one of my favorite subjects.

So I'm being told that I should be designing some type of Star Wars panel/panels for next year's convention. I'm not sure if I am going to do it, but before I figure out if I want to do it or not I need to figure out what types of panels I could do well at and what type of unique talk I could bring to the convention.

I'm not sure what I can do based upon my own interests and knowledge that can be turned into a half hour to an hour long panel though. I'm open to suggestions if anyone wants to post some ideas. I'll be trying to figure out some ideas myself. Hopefully I will find something that will stick.

Geinrich, the city of merchants, Fate RPG

So for the past few months I've been working on putting together a Fate RPG setting. Life has been getting in the way of my normal nerd related pursuits so this has taken me a lot longer than I expected it to, but I’m pretty happy with how well it has turned out so far. I’m basically doing this to get myself back into the swing of things because it has been a long time since I've run anything, especially anything worthwhile. With Fate so much closer to what I learned to GM with (Everway) I think it will give me the practice I need before I finally run the Eternal Seas campaign setting I've been cooking up.

So, as previously mentioned, the system being used is Fate RPG. This is a system based off of the Fudge System and uses Fudge dice to determine the outcomes of actions. See my previous posts for the explanations of that type of thing. Since I’m rusty and suddenly got excited by the fact that there were people who were willing to play this system I decided to go with a smaller, more “intimate” style setting and build a large city for the players to be based out of. I wanted the setting to be to my taste so I decided that the setting will be the equivalent to a “low” magic DnD setting, which basically means that it has the equivalent magic level of Everway. (No level 8 clerics with all the powers of Jesus. Magic might be common depending upon the area, but it isn't world shattering stuff most of the time.) I also want the players to be able to do cool things so I’m thinking of starting the PCs off at a Refresh level of 4 or 5, maybe 6 depending upon people’s preferences.

As is my style, I started calling this setting “Generic Fantasy World #12” as a placeholder for a name because I’m so creative like that. This setting being based out of a large city meant that I needed to figure out why this city would exist, and what types of conflicts could be found in it. I got to thinking about it and went with a centrally located Trading Hub style city with a river running through it because that gives you quite a lot of options to work with. You have the ability to have characters with very diverse backgrounds show up, a constant stream of new people, goods, etc flowing through, and plenty of employment opportunities for PCs seeking adventure. The river gives you access to the ocean and implies a mountain range or other source for the river coming from upstream somewhere. The river also gives me the ability to split the city and make a section that is the “ghetto” side of town which has all of its own implications.

Okay, off to a good start. So now some more specific things were needed. I eventually settled on Geinrich (Gyn-Rick, like gynecologist and the name Rick) because it sounds faux German and is totally isn't based off of the fact I might have been watching a Bobby’s World episode and was reminded of his last name.  I needed to come up with some distinct landmarks and areas/districts for the city, and some NPC organizations, a government, and a little bit of information on the surrounding areas to help as a kickstart for not only myself, but the players for when we sit down for the planning session.

With this being a centrally located trading hub it made sense to me that there would be a large number of roads leading to the city. Old cities would have to have walls to protect themselves from invasion so I figure that there would be a limited number of roads leading into the actual interior of the city. I settled on 5 roads because it was a nice number that made my poorly drawn map look a little prettier. Each road would have its own gate and all roads would meet in the middle of the city where the Great Market of Geinrich is set up. The roads and the gates are all named in pairs; Beggar’s Road/Gate, Golden Road/Gate, Merchant’s Road/Gate, Council Road/Gate, and Fool’s Road/Gate.

There are two gates on the river as well so that they can control entry. These gates are called South Bend Gate and River Gate. River Gate is upstream, South Bend Gate is downstream. There are 4 Bridges that cross the river. 3 in the city, 1 just down river from the South Bend Gate outside of the walls. Starting upstream you have North Bridge, Market Bridge, Hope's Bridge, and Outwall Bridge. Hope's bridge collapsed about 10 years ago and hasn't been rebuilt, or even really cleared away more than enough to allow river traffic through. (That's not symbolic AT ALL!!!).

I started off with the river through the city going straight through and dividing the city neatly in half, but I didn't like that too much. Just seemed too perfect to me for the city to be divided like that, so I turned the river into an almost C shape through the city. So the river enters the city through the river gate from the North West and exits it from the South through the south bend gate. The Western piece of the city makes up about a third of the city's area.

I decided to break the city up into 7 different districts because of the way that I drew the roads and river made that the easiest way to do it. The west bank of the city contains the city's poor district, also called the West Bank or Westside. Through the middle of West Bank is Beggar's Road and Beggar's Gate which leads directly through the district to Market Bridge. Over the river reside the other six districts. The Smith's Quarter sits on the northern district of the city between the river and [Fool's] Road. It is an industrial district, connected to its primary source of workers by the North Bridge. The district has so many businesses and warehouses in it that it has spilled over to outside of the walls.

Next up in a clockwise direction you have a  Middle class district that is currently unnamed bordered by [Fool's] Road and Merchant's Road that is unnamed at this time. The next district is an upper-middle class area bordered by Merchant's Road and Golden Road. this district is also unnamed at the moment. Next you have The Gilded Quarter, the rich/ruling/upper class area of the city. This district is bordered by Golden Road and Council Road. Finally you have another middle class district. This one is bordered by Council Road and the river (which I really need to name). This middle class district is a little bit lower in the wealth department because this was where the poor from the West Bank tended to go when they were able to rise out of poverty and cross Hope's Bridge before it collapsed.

At the center of the city, where all roads meet you have The Great Market of Geinrich. A place where merchants from all over the continent congregate to sell their wares on their way through. It is a veritable menagerie of goods. Anything is potentially available given enough time and searching. This area is heavily regulated by the Council (more on them later) and also the area that they station the most guards because this is the source of most of the city's tax income.

Since I mentioned them now's as good of a time as any to start talking about some of the major organizations of the city. I only created these as a starting point since the players will be adding their inputs into the world as part of the character/world design session we will have before we start playing (as per Fate's world building rules). So with that in mind, here are 4 of the many organizations active in the city.

First off you have the Guild Council. This is the actual legislating/ruling body of the city. The city's government is basically a Mercantile Republic where each officially recognized guild has a vote in government policy. The number of guilds is always shifting, but there tends to be a few dozen officially recognized guilds at a time. The Council votes to appoint a Lord to ensure the day to day running of the city and to faithfully execute the laws of the city (for those who understand government structure, the lord is the executive branch while the council is the legislative branch). A lord is appointed by a simple majority vote of the Council and is in office until removed by council vote or death. To remove the appointed lord from power the Council requires a two thirds vote. So historically it tends to be easier to remove the lord by assassination rather than by vote.

Guilds can gain official recognition by the Council and obtain a vote by following an application process and a simple majority vote. In order to revoke their official status it is also a majority vote. It is an accepted, if rather looked down upon, practice to use this revocation to shut down political opponents. Which is why the numbers of Guilds are always fluctuating.

The rest of the government is a bureaucratic nightmare of appointed officials "selected" by the lord (or one of his representatives) and appointed by the Council. These officials tend to be issuers of licenses/permits and tax collectors for a particular area. When officials have to do these things over in West Bank they tend to have to have an armed escort because of the rampant crime and general hatred of the residents.

The second organization I created is the City Guard. This is an organization that tries to do its best, but is significantly undermanned for the amount of things they have to do. The Council won't let them hire more full time guards for political/fiscal reasons but keeps telling them to do more and more. The captain of the city guard, Captain Michael Greggorson, has resorted to using some of his budget to hire whomever is willing to help as well as post bounties so that he doesn't have to waste his men on such things.

I decided immediately to give the organization the Aspect "Too many things, not enough bodies" because that perfectly fits their situation. Without manning at the levels they need, organized crime has been flourishing within the city and West Bank has been basically abandoned by the City Guard, outside of guarding the gates and bridges that lead to it.

I mentioned organized crime so let's get to that. I'm pretty tired of the semi-friendly and noble thieves guild style organized crime you normally see in fantasy settings. That's not how criminal enterprises operate. I don't like that interpretation of it at all, so after watching some Guy Ritchie movies I figured out a perfect way to represent the organized crime in Geinrich.

The first criminal organization is a Mafia-like group (probably going with "the Syndicate" as a name) that basically controls all criminal enterprises on the East Bank (the "civilized" side of the river). They are led by a mysterious boss known only as "the Baron." very few people know whom he actually is, but his influence is felt over most of the city. This group has a full command structure and initiation practices. Once you get to the point of being a "made man" you gain various benefits of their organization. They take care of you.

They are typically involved in prostitution, smuggling, "high-class/high stakes" gambling (including rigging high profile sports and tournaments), bribery, some extortion/protection, and drug running/dealing. They also are the exclusive importers of Opium (a highly illegal substance) into the the city and violently hold a monopoly on it. Anyone who gets caught dealing in it without their permission is dealt with in a very public way that shows their death was not quick.

The other "organization" out there are the various small groups, gangs, and criminal rings of West Bank. Think of these guys as the petty criminal groups you'd see in Guy Ritchie's movies. Some of them are pretty brutal characters with small organizations, while others are just underground pit fight promoters looking for a new wagon. The groups are diverse and sometimes work together with or against each other.

One of the most infamous groups right now are the Bonny Lads, lead by a man called The Laughing Man. (So named for the large "smiles" he leaves in people's throats.) They are primarily into extortion, robbery, and gambling (mostly pit fighting based). They are an extremely brutal and nasty gang to cross. Anyone who is in their way or that causes them trouble will be hurt or killed in a particularly brutal fashion. Those who survive are typically crippled for the rest of their short lives and are a nightmare to look upon.

I'm trying to think if there's anything else in particular to go over at the moment. I've got some NPCs built, I've got some history thrown together, and I have some initial adventure hooks planned. This setting is basically ready to go following some minor details, which can be filled in with the help of the players.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I decided to place this city on the continent of Wasslund from my Eternal Seas campaign setting. I just didn't feel like creating a new continent from scratch. This is going to take place prior to the Cataclysm that screws magic up globally and is also taking place prior to the Sacred Empire taking over the entire continent. Geinrich is an independent city-state located in a central part of  the continent. I haven't put it on the map yet, but it's in a generalized spot in case the players want to head somewhere else. I've got a bunch of notes on the current state of the continent somewhere, but can't find them at the moment so maybe I'll just write a different post about it when I do find it.

Musings

So I'm trying to figure out what direction I'm going to go with this blog next. I've got some more 3.5/Pathfinder campaign stuff that I'll end up posting here, but I've also got some other thigns that have been pecking at my brain lately.

I've been wanting to do more Fate conversions for old characters, which will require some Character Profiles to be created. I also got the bug to go through old campaign ideas and write them down.

The only problem there is that I've been wanting to actually run these ideas at some point and I don't want to ruin the surprise for some of them for people who might one day potentially play them (on the rare chance that anyone actually reads this blog...). I have to have realistic expectations though, and I know that the likelihood of getting to run these things is slim to nil. So really I want to write about the ideas but I don't wan to write them because I don't want to ruin them.

I'm really conflicted about it and may decided at some point over the next few weeks whether or not it will be worth it to attempt it.

I also want to write some short stories, but I keep getting hit with life and AD/HD based laziness. My wife has challenged me to complete at least one 3000+ word story within the next few months though, so we'll see if that happens. Don't know what I'm trying to accomplish here other than writing SOMETHING to keep me doing this writing thing.

Fate Character Creation: Makass, Part 2

So this next part was a bit harder as I mentioned in my last post. This part of character creation is where you select your Skills, Stunts and Extras. Skills are the same type of thing they always are in an RPG, the statistical representation of how good at particular things you are. Stunts are neat things you can do with your Skills and abilities. They are the way to add flavor to your character’s actions and abilities which help to distinguish your character from someone with exactly the same statistics as you, usually through things like some type of particular training, personality quirk, or raw talent (it’s really loose on the specifics, which is a good thing). Meanwhile Extras are special powers that help define some unique ability your character might have, like Magic, Cybernetics, Superpowers, or in Makass’ case, Psionic Powers.

So first things first, let’s look at Skills. Everway wasn’t exactly a skills based system. 4 stats with a single specialty in each category didn’t exactly lend itself to micromanaging the character’s skills. So Makass’ actual skills were never fleshed out back then and since everything else I’ve used the character in was a Class based system or an MMORPG, they still haven’t really been developed and established. Fate 3.0 uses what they call the Skill Pyramid to speed along character creation. It is simple and easy to figure out. The view of it on the character sheet really spells it out for you. Alternatively you can use the 20-point skill column system that is used in the Dresden Files RPG as they suggest, but that is more for advanced play and takes a little bit more time and familiarity with the system. So for now I’m going to stick with the Pyramid.

Okay, when you select your character’s skills you get the following: 1 skill at Great (+4), 2 at Good (+3), 3 at Fair (+2), and 4 at Average (+1). The numbers determine how much of a boost you get to the particular skill, just like any other game with dice and a skill set out there. Roll your Fudge dice, and add the skill total to the results along with your other factors (for more information on mechanics I recommend my buddy’s blog).

So for Makass I’m going with the following for now:
Great    (+4): Will
Good     (+3): Intimidation, Lore
Fair         (+2): Deceit, Notice, and [Reserved]
Avg.       (+1): Resources, Investigation, Empathy, and [Reserved]

I’m figuring as a Psionic character, Will is going to be his most important stat and very likely his casting stat so it goes right to the top. Intimidation plays into his personality while Lore is there because he’s a former member of a Psionic Order, of course they made him study. The rest is a bunch of general skills that make sense for him. I didn’t use two slots because I wasn’t exactly sure what to put there. In an actual character creation scenario for this game this would be perfectly acceptable and recommended early in the campaign so that the character can be adapted to the circumstances that arise that no one was expecting. It keeps the character and setting organic and evolving without punishing the players.

So, onto Stunts and Extras. Everyone in this game gets one Stunt for free. If you take only one Stunt you start off with a Refresh Rating of 3. Refresh determines what your starting Fate Point total is at the start of each Session. You can take up to 3 Stunts at creation per the baseline rules (this is always flexible though and depends upon the setting you’re trying to build). If you take 2 Stunts you start with a Refresh of 2, while 3 leaves you with a Refresh of 1. You can’t hit 0 or lower Refresh. If you do your character becomes unplayable. (The Dresden RPG explained that away as your character succumbing to their abilities/powers/nature and losing their Free Will in the process.)

Stunts let you change the way a Skill works for you. It indicates a lot of different things, like special training, genetic alterations, or any endless variety of things that make your character special. Skills are considered unique for the character and are used to show why they’re different than that other guy with the same Deceit Skill level. Typically speaking the way you design a Stunt is by following one of these three paths (Book examples in parenthesis.). You’re either adding a new action to a skill (Backstab: Use Stealth to make a physical attack as long as your presence isn’t discovered by the target), adding a bonus to an action (Arcane Expert: Gain a +2 Bonus to create an advantage with Lore vs things of Occult or Supernatural origin), or creating a rules exception (Riposte: If you “Succeed with Style” [kinda like a crit] on a Fighting Defense, you can choose to inflict a 2-shift hit rather than take a boost).

You have to try and keep your Stunts balanced though. They shouldn’t completely replace the use of a different skill. It should be something you use every once in a while to make something cool happen. If it’s too powerful you can balance it by requiring a Fate Point to be spent to activate it, limit it to a certain number of uses per scene, or require some type of Consequence or Stress to be inflicted upon the character. There are no hard and fast rules on this though so you need to work with your group to determine what makes the most sense.

For Makass I’m going to use his free Stunt to take one I call “Make an Example of Him.” When invoking his aspect “Shock and Awe” to defeat an opponent, Makass may use his Intimidate skill to make defensive combat actions for the remainder of the scene against foes who saw his target get taken out. This represents his opponents hesitating to go after him because of how brutally he took out his last target. This is a little bit too powerful just to have without an activation cost, so I figure the requirement of him spending a fate point to invoke Shock and Awe specifically to defeat a target allows him to activate this Stunt. Which is just allowing him to use Intimidation as a defensive action against physical attacks. Obviously I’d have to clear this with the GM, but I feel it is properly balanced, very cool, appropriately thematic, and falls within the guidelines laid out by the rulebook.

Extras are something more nebulous though. It has taken a ton of effort to come up with this parts. Extras, as mentioned before, are the unique powers and abilities of your character. These are your Cybernetics, Secret Societies, Magic, Superpowers, gadgets, and so on.

Now this is where this whole thing gets tricky. With me as the only arbiter of the powers I’m about to bestow upon Makass I could be doing a rather large disservice to this system in the following paragraphs. At the time of writing this I’m bouncing my ideas off of one other person, but since he’s not the actual GM watching over him it takes out some of his stake in fight, so to speak.

Extra creation is generally free form with a bunch of different ways to integrate things. You can have a flat Refresh cost, it could be based in an Aspect or a Stunt. It can come in the form of a magic sword or a suit of gigantic robot armor. It’s all about how you go about doing it, how you word it, and how it fits into and contributes the setting. This was honestly the hardest part to try to grasp in this section. The initial rule book for the 3rd edition came with only a couple of poorly explained examples, but fortunately the internet is full of useful things, including an updated Extras section for the core rulebook that is leaps and bounds better than the initial Kickstarter release. So I’ve put way more work than I should have into grasping this concept and this is the culmination of this particular endeavor.

So Makass is all about his psionics. I want him to be able to use it with impunity. He should be able to do simple, everyday tasks, like eating while using them without so much as batting an eye, let alone spending a Fate point to use them. I also want them to feel organic and flexible. I don't want to have to be limited by a spell list, or other items that make it seem like a set of rules. So after some heavy research I decided to start from an example from the updated extras chapter.

This particular example is called Collegia Arcana Magic. This example basically allows anyone in the particular setting with a high enough Lore skill and the proper training to use magic. The advantage of the way this Extra works is that it is entirely an organic process. There is no spell list, just a general idea of what it can do when you decide to use it to complete one of the 4 basic actions. It's simple and works similar to what I was wanting so I'll use it as the baseline for Makass' Psionics.

So Permissions are part of an Extra. It's some type of requirment that you have to meet in order to have access to them. It basically just means that you have to meet certain requirements that you and your GM work out before hand. Typically it will be reflected in your High Concept or other aspects, but it can come from the other areas too, as always the system is flexible and at your mercy. So in Makass' case his permissions will be an Aspect reflecting the fact he has abilities. Which is more than covered by his High Concept.

The next thing to work out is Costs. The example I pulled from only requires you to have Skill ranks in Lore. It makes sense for the setting they're building because magic can be used by anyone with the proper training. It isn't based upon your inherited traits. Makass' powers on the other hand are a birthright and are only possible because his mind was awakened by the nature of his blood. So because this isn't just a common feature of his world that everyone has access to, there needs to be another set of costs associated with it.

Costs can come from anything. Most likely you'll see it come from Skills, Refresh, or an Aspect. So because this power set is coming from the College Arcana baseline I will have to use a skill that controls the power. Lore doesn't quit fit with the theme of his abilities so I'll go with Will instead. Okay, that one was easy, but it is still missing something that makes it feel like it's a birthright. Maybe I need to add a Refresh cost to it to help with that.

The power gamer in me screams at me when I say that though. From a gameplay mechanics perspective this doesn't sounds fair or balanced, at least not at face value. So to remedy this feeling I began some more research. I decided to look through the Dresden Files RPG for inspiration since it is a very well fleshed out setting that is already established. Looking through there I found the Channeling power. It's a lesser form of Evocation magic that only deals with 1 element, like Force for example. Well that sounded like a good place to look into further so I did.

Evocation magic in Dresden has similar functions to what I described above, with having the magic just be a free form extension of the casting stat. There is a lot more under the hood of the Dresden RPG though. Two special casting Skills, mental stress damage, magic item slots, counterspelling, and a whole mess of other things that take a ton of explaination to understand the nuances of it all. All I was interested in was an idea to enhance the psychic abilities of Makass to make that point of Refresh seem worth it.

So looking at the cost of Channelling, it's worth 2 Refesh. For that you get the same things as what I have from the Collegia but with a few more things. The only ones that really interest me are the ability to use Mental Stress boxes to give you bonuses to your "spells". I don't want these things to get super complicated and slow down gameplay so I will only use that. I don't need spells, focus items, or those other things.

So after tweaking it and bouncing the ideas back and forth with someone else a few times I figured out exactly how it should play out from a gameplay standpoint.

Extra: Psionic Powers: Telekinesis (Shut up, the name needs work)
Permissions: One Aspect reflecting that you've unlocked your psionic potential
Costs: Skill Ranks (Will), -2 Refresh

People who have unlocked the psionic potential within their own minds are able to use Will to manipulate the world around them through sheer force of will. This Extra adds the following Actions to he Will Skill.

Overcome: Use Will to apply force to objects. This can be used in place of Athletics or Physique to overcome obstacles/etc. Allows use of skills like Craft from a distance at a -2 penalty

Create an Advantage: Use Will to Alter the environment or place physical impediments on a target. This could be things like Entangling Psychic Tendrils, Psionics Dust Storm, or Waves of Force.

Attack: Use Will to directly harm an opponent. Typically manifested in either pure bolts of force or in psychically launched objects.

Defend: Use Will to directly defend from physical attacks.

The psionic may also enhance their powers by taking points of Mental Stress. The Psionic may gain a number of additional shifts equal to their Will for 1 shift of Mental Stress on their power manifestation. You can buy additional Shifts on a 1 for 1 swap of Mental Stress. (E.G. A Psionic with a Will of 4 may take a 4 Shift Mental Stress hit to gain 7 Shifts on their next manifestation. Will 4 + 3 Extra Shifts = 4 Mental Stress Hit).

There are a couple additional rules that can be translated over from the Dresden RPG for shaping these abilities but we don't really need to go over them here. It makes for a good set of examples of Shift costs for a GM to work with though.

All in total his Starting Refresh will be a 1, so he's going to be having to deal with a lot of Compels every session in order to gain a decent stock of Fate points to use during gameplay. I don't actually see that as a downside though.

So with that figured out I think we have a very good baseline for Makass at the beginning of his adventures. Here's everything put together (I will make up a character sheet for him and post it, but right now you can deal with this):

Name: Makass

Aspects:

High Concept: Aspiring Psionic Powerhouse
Trouble: I WILL Be The Best, The Consequences Be Damned!
Phase 1 Aspect: Weak? I’ll Show You Who’s Weak!
Phase 2 Aspect: Shock and Awe
Phase 3 Aspect: You’re Wasting My Time, Chattel…

Refresh: 1

Skills:
Great    (+4): Will
Good     (+3): Intimidation, Lore
Fair         (+2): Deceit, Notice, and [Reserved]
Avg.       (+1): Resources, Investigation, Empathy, and [Reserved]

Stunts:
Make an Example Out of Him - Once per Scene, when Makass invokes his Aspect "Shock and Awe" while defeating an opponent, he may for the remainder of the scene he may use Intimidate as a defense action against combat actions against opponents who witnessed the take down.

Extras:
Psionic Powers: Telekinesis
Permissions: One Aspect reflecting that you've unlocked your psionic potential
Costs: Skill Ranks (Will), -2 Refresh

People who have unlocked the psionic potential within their own minds are able to use Will to manipulate the world around them through sheer force of will. This Extra adds the following Actions to he Will Skill.

Overcome: Use Will to apply force to objects. This can be used in place of Athletics or Physique to overcome obstacles/etc. Allows use of skills like Craft from a distance at a -2 penalty

Create an Advantage: Use Will to Alter the environment or place physical impediments on a target. This could be things like Entangling Psychic Tendrils, Psionics Dust Storm, or Waves of Force.

Attack: Use Will to directly harm an opponent. Typically manifested in either pure bolts of force or in psychically launched objects.

Defend: Use Will to directly defend from physical attacks.

The psionic may also enhance their powers by taking points of Mental Stress. The Psionic may gain a number of additional shifts equal to their Will for 1 shift of Mental Stress on their power manifestation. You can buy additional Shifts on a 1 for 1 swap of Mental Stress.

Okay so that looks like a good build and a great example for the translation. I think I'm going to do a few more of these in the next couple weeks. This was surprising fun. Sorry for how long this was, hopefully the next one will be less long winded as I won't have to explain some of the details.

Fate Character Creation: Makass, Part 1

So I’ve been having fun playing around with Fate’s character creation system for the past few days and have been going through the process of Turning Makass into a Fate System character. Not technically difficult, but it’s been interesting to figure out some of the parts of it in order to get what I wanted out of the system. Which is exactly what I was trying for with this exercise.

Character creation in Fate is pretty straight forward. You start with your character idea. This consists of 3 things, your High Concept Aspect, your Trouble Aspect, and your character’s name. Like I said, pretty straight forward and simple, right?

The thing with the two Aspects you’re determining here though is that because they are Aspects you need to come up with a way of wording them that will allow them to come up in gameplay often. It is part of what makes the character who they are and why they do what they do. The more creative and/or double edged the phrasing the better (For use in Compels/Invoking). Some examples of what I think are good High Concepts included in the book so far include; Infamous Girl with a Sword, Wizard Private Eye (I wonder who that is…), Scar Triad’s Patsy in Riverton, Reluctant Lead Detective, Monster-Slaying Accountant (Owen Pitt reference!?!) and Ambitious Low-level Thug.

Each one of those concepts has some way of being both Invoked and Compelled by the players and GM to not only encourage RP, but it also says a lot about the character as well. For Makass, I’m building him as though he’s just starting out fresh again. He is an ambitious young telekinetic with untapped potential. So for his High Concept I’ve chosen to use “Aspiring Psionic Powerhouse.” It is short, sweet and has multiple layers of use for Compels and Invocations.

The next step is to determine your character’s Trouble Aspect. This is basically what complicates your character’s life. In here there are two types of Troubles, Personal Struggles and Problematic Relationships. Personal Struggles are going to be things that the character is struggling with about themselves while Problematic Relationships are going to involve other people. The book lists things like Sucker for a Pretty Face, Tempted By Shiny Things, The Bottle Calls to Me, and The Manners of a Goat for Personal Struggles. For Problematic Relationships it gives Family Man, Debt to the Mob, The Scar Triad Wants Me Dead, and Rivals in the Collegia Arcane.

This particular aspect is more negative than the others and is meant for you to be compelled by it semi-often. (It can be used just like any other Aspect though, just because it’s “bad” doesn’t mean it isn’t useful to you) It is also not a trivial matter either. This is something that your character has to struggle to overcome over the course of a long storyline. You don’t want it to sound dull either. Yeah you could put “Alcoholic” down, but that doesn’t have the same ring as “The Bottle Calls To Me” does. The first sounds clinical, the second makes it sound like he’s got a real reason why it calls to him. What happened to cause this? Another example the book gives is “The Criminal Underworld Hates me” as the Trouble for someone with the High Concept “Lead Detective.” It calls it kind of a boring aspect. Which it really is. Of course the Underworld hates you, you’re a lead detective. How can you spice it up? Well, they recommend something like “Don Giovanni Personally Hates Me.” Boom! You have a specific character with an obviously personal reason for disliking him. It gives you something that can be resolved, a rival that will complicate the story, and a history between the two characters that you can build on.

So Makass has some things about him that are potential Trouble Aspects. First off, he’s an impatient, arrogant prick. That’s okay, but is really too general for a Trouble Aspect. He’s got a little bit of a case of psionic short man’s syndrome., another potential candidate, but that feels more like a general aspect to me rather than something that really complicates his life constantly. At this point in his life he has abandoned his responsibilities with the Pheonix Order to pursue expanding his powers on his own. The Order was never really established as an entity, just more as a general background concept. I always pictured them as a mostly-benevolent organization though and one that one wouldn’t be dealing with on a regular basis, so basing the Trouble on that doesn’t sound too appealing to me. His journey and story has always seemed more of a personal one to me anyways so basing a Trouble off of his relationship with an organization doesn’t feel right to me. But he is obsessed with gaining more strength to power and enhance his abilities to prove himself to said organization, and is constantly pushing himself to improve, sometimes at the detriment to his health and body. That feels like the right spot to start for me.

So he’s obsessed with power. That is in and of itself a good point to start with, but that seems a bit more evil than I’m wanting to make him, at least at the start of his journey. Just putting something along the lines of “pushes himself too hard” is also pretty weak and doesn’t seem to touch upon the darker side of his lust for power enough, plus both are pretty damn bland. So with those two extremes in mind, how do I come up with the right balance and wording? I’d go with “Has a Vegeta Complex” but that doesn’t fit the setting and only makes sense to those people who know DBZ well enough. Maybe a good way to word that is “I WILL be the best, the consequences be damned!” (Yes, with the Caps lock on). I think this appropriately captures his drive and obsession with the dark potential that lays at the edges of it all.

The next step is picking a Name, well that’s an easy one…

So, here’s how we look so far

Name: Makass
Aspects:
High Concept: Aspiring Psionic Powerhouse (signifies his abilities, his skill level, and his potential)
Trouble: “I WILL be the best, the consequences be damned!” (shows his obsession with expanding his powers and proving his strength no matter the cost)

Okay. that’s a really good start. Time to move on to the next step. In this new edition of Fate, the number of aspects a character starts with has been decreased from 7 to 5 (This includes Trouble and High Concept). So we have 3 more to create with this character. The idea behind this part of the process is to develop your character and their relationship to the world and the other members of the group. You do this using what they like to call the “Phase Trio.” An (obviously) 3 part process for exploring these. First step is Your First Adventure. What brought the character onto their current path? Second step is to randomly pass out your first adventure to a second person who then decides how they participated in that adventure. You decide how your character helped in that adventure and write up an aspect that reflects this. Step 3 is step 2 again, but with another character that you haven’t interacted with yet. Obviously this is designed to help connect the group in an organic and collaborative way.

Obviously this is really hard to do it exactly the way I just described in an exercise like this so I’m just going to not even attempt a half-assed version of it. Instead I’m going to try to explain the Aspects I’m picking and why. Maybe even give a basic description of what he’d do to justify that particular one.

So I previously mentioned his Inferiority complex/psionic short man’s syndrome and his Arrogant/Impatient Dickheadedness, so those are probably good things to turn into Aspects. Other things about the character are his willingness to use and abuse his powers for dramatic effect (and just because he can. He is also a firm believer in the concept of Shock and Awe, believing Intimidation and Fear are extremely useful tools in getting what he wants with less effort while still showing off his superior abilities. The using and abusing powers seems like something that can fit into all of the other potential aspects I’ve mentioned here so, if I word them right I can incorporate that idea into the character’s Aspects anyways.

So in our pseudo-phase 1, I come up with his adventure. This one is actually semi-important. In this he goes out with some other members of the order to face down some type of threat they’re sworn to defend against. He is either easily beaten by what they face, or his powers fail and it causes the deaths of others he is with. This is where he decides that the order isn’t doing him any good tapping into the potential he is told exists within him and starts to plan his departure. This leaves him with an inferiority complex related to his powers.

Implying any type of weakness in his abilities will make him want to show them off directly to that individual. Possibly through a direct exercise of his powers in an attempt to intimidate the person who slighted him. Now, Inferiority Complex or Psionic Short Man’s Syndrome are good starting points for this Aspect but don’t carry enough into the Invoke category for my tastes. Maybe it should be something he’d say, particularly irritated and defensive phrase. That might add the right edge of flavor to it. I think “Weak? I’ll Show You Who’s Weak!” is an appropriate statement. It combines the themes into an appropriately flavorful Aspect and lets it be used in as an Invoke more easily. It also adds a bit of flavor to his personality by giving a slight insight to how he speaks.

Pseudo-phase 2 is his interaction in someone else’s adventure. This is his first time participating with someone outside of the order so he’d likely want to establish some type of reputation quickly. This is where the Shock and Awe would likely show up. The phrasing of this one is already pretty good and can make for some good Compels as well as Invokes while being a phrase that creates a strong image in your head. So “Shock and Awe” it is.

Pseudo-phase 3 will be his 2nd interaction with the rest of the group. This seems like a good point for his attitude to come out, exposing just a bit more of who he really is to the other group members. “Arrogant, Impatient Prick” is a rather bland Aspect though. It also has very limited Invoke opportunities I’d think. So the phrasing needs to be worked on a bit. Hmmm… Well ,let’s think about this a little bit. Arrogance is overconfidence in ones abilities and/or status. So saying things like “Do you know who I am?” or “Do you know what I could do to you?” are appropriate. Those phrases also add that little bit of dickitude I’m going for, but they don’t quite reach that image of impatience I’m looking for here.

Impatience is obviously a lack of patience. So he wants things done quickly, so this implies a quote like “Why isn’t this done NOW!?!” or “I don’t have time for this” He wants it done by his command, completed quickly and all because he is better than those he’s telling to do something. OH! I know!“You’re Wasting My Time, Peasant…” is a good one. It implies he despises waiting, he sees his time as more important (possible inflated self worth), and he’s being a dick about it. Maybe replace the word Peasant with some type of derogatory term for non-psionic people. Maybe “Chattel,” yeah I like the sound of that one. “You’re Wasting My Time, Chattel…” is what I’ll go with for now. Impatience, arrogance, and dickheadedness in a phrase with a derogatory name for non-psionics thrown in for flavor.

Plus Chattel is a great word for this, “an item of moveable personal property” because he’s a telekinetic, get it!?!

Okay so that’s all 3 phases of the Phase Trio. Only one more step left in this process, but first let’s Recap where we are.

Name: Makass
Aspects:
High Concept: Aspiring Psionic Powerhouse
Trouble: I WILL Be The Best, The Consequences Be Damned!
Phase 1 Aspect: Weak? I’ll Show You Who’s Weak!
Phase 2 Aspect: Shock and Awe
Phase 3 Aspect: You’re Wasting My Time, Chattel…

I think that’s a good place to stop for today. Next time we’ll get into the hardest part of this for someone new to the system with minimal help, Stunts and Extras.

There's Something About FATE...

So I’ve been looking through the PDF of the new version of the FATE RPG and trying to get a firm grasp on the system. Everything I’ve read about it so far is wonderful and touches upon everything that I love about the RPG genre, which is primarily the story. The system is relatively simple and attempts to create a way to encourage Role Playing through some core mechanics. It looks like something extremely fun to do and reminds me of the wonderful times I had back when I was first being introduced to RPGs through Everway.

Basically the characters are based around “Aspects” which are simple depictions of your character’s personality, upbringing, etc that play into how they interact with the world. You can use an aspect to gain an advantage on a roll or give you a reroll by spending a Fate Point as long as it fits with the circumstances. Conversely, a character’s Aspects can be used in what they call a “Compel” to have them do something that the character would do, which in turn causes whoever was causing the compel to gain some type of advantage over you.. You can choose to ignore the Compel by spending a Fate Point or you can take the compel which gives someone the advantage, but also rewards the character with a free Fate Point.
I’m not going to go too deeply into the mechanics of it all right now because I’m pretty sure I did some of that already in a previous post somewhere back there when talking about the Dresden Files RPG, which uses this system as its baseline. There are some minor differences between FATE 3.0 and Dresden, but really they’re pretty minor differences in the long run and it won’t make much of a difference to talk about them here.

(If you want to read more about the system check out my buddy's blog or the FATE RPG's official website)

One thing I am wanting to do is to learn the character creation system of this game and to explore how flexible it is. To do that I am revisiting some of my old Everway characters and rebuilding them as Fate characters. Now, this isn’t exactly a perfect system here. Fate is something where there is a lot of interaction with the GM and other players to help ensure that the setting, group and abilities are all understood by those who are playing together and that all of their stories intertwine in a way that makes sense. Doing this with characters who are already established and have powers that are going to be a challenge to define without a GM giving their stamp of approval on them is going to be very difficult and may not be the best way to showcase the system right now.

That being said, it isn’t going to stop me and I’m going to attempt this exercise anyways so that I can learn the process and refine my own understanding of the system. Maybe I’ll even finish some more of the character profiles I enjoy doing so much along the way.

My next post will be my first attempt at this. I will take him through the steps the rulebook says, minus some of the interaction with other players stuff because it’s just me writing this thing up. I might attempt to bounce some ideas off people I know who are interested in this and reading the rulebook and gushing over it as much as I am (you know who you are!).

Anyways, I’m thinking that the first character to be converted will be Makass because he’s still one of my favorites and one of my most fleshed out characters from that time period.