Gameable Ideas 1

So I'm trying to think of what to do with this blog, and I'm not coming up with ideas. So I decided to try coming up with ideas for gameable content and I'm going to use this post as a dumping ground. Note: Please give me feedback. Do these ideas suck? Is this concept interesting? Is anybody listening? Etc.

Narcoworms

From exotic lands, a species of worm that feeds on plant matter and excretes a mildly toxic waste through its skin. The toxin is also an hallucinogenic narcotic. Over time emerged the practice of guiding a worm up one's nostril to expedite the toxin's delivery to the blood-brain barrier. Nothing short of pure ecstacy as you fall down on the floor and writhe for a while.

Worm farms have developed in the seedy underworld. Fat druglords keep spaghetti-like piles of them in jars with fragrant mulch, so that snuffing a worm will not be such a turnoff. Plush couches and pillows are provided so your body can writhe in the height of comfort

Game possibilities:

• Worm farms are a new threat to established pleasure merchants (opium dens, bordellos, etc.). PCs get to deal with consequences of the changing economy.
• A new side effect is taking hold thanks to a worm mutation. Some hardcore wormheads are getting turned into illithids.

Thieves Guild (Variant)

So every decent city has a Thieves guild. it's like having a Buffalo Wild Wings. For an interesting take on one, have the Guild be (tied to) a religious order. You see, being a thief is not about gaining something material, it's about depriving someone else of something they value. And some people value their material possessions more than they value their relationship with Insert-Deity-Here. The wealth that the Guild accumulates is redistributed to the congregation and faithful.

This approach can also add an extra dimension to NPCs within the guild beyond the usual thieving stuff. How closely do they follow the principle of giving back to the faithful? Are they more likely to target worshipers of a rival god? What about holy days; is it forbidden to steal on those days? Or maybe the deity forbids the use of poisons/blades/etc.

Fungolepsy

There exists a fungus creature that emits spores thrice per day, or whenever subjected to a slashing wound. there is a 20% chance that those in the immediate vicinity of the spores will contract fungolepsy.

The spores spread to various areas inside the body and do not interfere with normal body functions. However, they feed on melatonin in the bloodstream. For every day that a character has contracted fungolepsy, they lose an additional 1d6 minutes of sleep as the fungus spreads. They may not notice until a few days or even weeks have gone by. If your game does not have rules for sleep loss, roll a number of d6's equal to the number of hours of lost sleep. For each 5 or 6 rolled, you get a -1 penalty to all rolls, and you lose 1 hp from the total that you would have healed due to rest.

Once the daily sleep loss has accumulated to more than 4 hours (240 minutes), the character will begin to hallucinate periodically.  Once there is total (8 hours) sleep loss, the character will die in CON/2 days. To be cured of fungolepsy, a character needs to find a specific fungicide which is safe to drink.

Due to the varying nature of campaign worlds, the GM shall decide the effects of a character trying to use magical sleep in order to counteract the effects of fungolepsy.

Follow-up Goal for 2017

Ah, yes... regarding the previous post, I forgot all about another goal I had for 2017. That is, I would like to practice my fantasy drawing. Below are some examples of what I did in 2016.

So this the one that started everything. This was for +Adam Muszkiewicz's Iron Coast game (ACKS). I was using a +Dyson Logos B/X character sheet which had a big blank spot for a character portrait, and I felt it was a waste if I didn't draw something in it. I looked for a dwarf drawn by +Stefan Poag (my favorite contemporary pen-and-ink artist) and I found an inspiration image.

Edit: Found the sheet I used above. Click this link to go to Dyson's Character Sheet page, then scroll down to where you see "Elaborate B/X Dungeons & Dragons or Labyrinth Lord AEC Sheet"

Another Iron Coast image, this was my attempt at drawing the Shroom Sultan. [edited:] The Sultan rules over all the intelligent fungi in the area he occupies, and his presence defines the boundaries of the sultanate. He is personified here on a throne of sorts. The criss-crossing lines in the background are a poor attempt of representing the network of fungus that constitutes the sultanate/sultan.

Sort of an Iron Coast image, this sketch was inspired from that time when the party attended an Orroztalani feast and ate the succulent meat of a giant centipede, and we all had a telepathic conversation with our new temporary mind powers.

From one of my last sessions of ACKS, this was a wizard character for a Crusades-era game run by one of my fellow players in the Iron Coast game. Real life has torn me away from the group, but I understand the game is still going strong. Ultimately, I'm not sure if I'm a fan of the system enough to revisit it given the other games I have on my shelf.

I decided to try watercolor painting as well, although this Beholder is watercolor and the background is acrylic. I might try more painting in the future, but I didn't like this one so much, with exception of the how the teeth came out. Standard D&D monster, too, and not enough lighting consideration in the scene.

It was at this point that I thought I might actually be getting better. This was a generic pygmy dude, maybe appropriate for +Kiel Chenier's new Blood In The Chocolate now that I think about it... Anyway, this was done (a) without a pencil sketch first, (b) entirely with a brush instead of a pen, (c) using an ink wash for shading, and (d) entirely in under ten minutes.

My last real drawing of the year, this one started off by drawing some lines on a sketchbook page while I was waiting on a layover in some airport. I think it might have been Salt Lake City. Anyway, I finished up the inking that evening in the hotel room, just before Game 7 of the World Series started. This wasn't for anything in particular, but I can safely say I was trying to channel +Gennifer Bone while I was working on it. When I posted it, I got a lot of compliments on the feet, which is cool because I didn't use any reference images while I was drawing this one.

So yeah, I think I should try to keep up my drawing during the new year. Maybe it will also help my gaming.

First Post of 2017

Lo, it has been a long time since I've reached out with any news. Last time I was here I was comparing RuneQuest 2 and RuneQuest 6. Well, I've been away for personal reasons—namely, work has been exceptionally busy, we bought a home, and we had our first child. Weekends are completely dead to me due to parenting responsibilities, but I have been able to find a magnificent group to play RuneQuest 2 with. The main reason is that we only game for two hours, and it's on a weekday, which means I have a narrow window when I'm the only one awake. I might make future use of this window to try running my own game on a different weeknight, which leads me to my topic.

My RPG Goals for 2017:

Yes, here will be the space where I outline my goals for the coming year, and where I can turn my eyes in December to evoke substantial disappointment.

1. Run an actual campaign via G+.

I think that I need to decide what to run, then build up a group based on both my schedule availability and who might be interested in what it is I'm running. I feel like DCC might be the most doable, but I am actually considering a number of different systems.

• Dungeon Crawl Classics - For the slightly more off-the-wall play style, as well as the tremendous community that's been built up around the game. The only downside is I'd probably be running nothing but modules from Goodman Games. (Because I've purchased quite a few and I want to actually experience them).
• Swords & Wizardry - For the very flexible nature of the game, as was revealed to me by playing under both +Bill Webb and +Stacy Dellorfano at UCon 2016. Also has the benefit of having a lot of new material to work with, since I backed the Kickstarter at a substantial level. 
• Lamentations of the Flame Princess - For what is commonly considered the most streamlined, efficient incarnation of Moldvay's B/X Edition of D&D. Has some of the best adventure products available, in my opinion. Looking forward to reading and incorporating +Jeff Rients' Broodmother Skyfortress content, as well. I ran Tower of the Stargazer at UCon, although I feel like I didn't quite do it justice.
• RuneQuest - Has the advantage of being a completely different system while still counting as OSR. The downside is that everyone who knows anything about Glorantha knows more than I do. I would probably take the system and make a completely unique setting. Downside is that I still have to compare RQ2 to RQ6 in order to get a feel for which edition I'd want to run.
• Empire of the Petal Throne - Thanks to +Brett Slocum, I experienced my first ever Tèkumel game at UCon, and the setting intrigues me. Sort of like an Everything-But-Europe post-apocalypse, almost reminiscent of Legend of the Five Rings' Rokugan. +James Maliszewski is not helping things by posting about his very awesome-sounding EPT game. Sub-goal of 2017, now that I think of it, is to get to know +Victor Raymond.

Now that I see everything laid out in a list, maybe DCC isn't such a clear front-runner anymore. But whatever the case, I want to actually follow through once I decide on something, rather than constantly waffling about what would make the perfect game.

2. Run something in at a table that isn't a con game.

Since moving to a permanent residence last year, I've finally set up some long-term roots, and I really should get a regular table group together. I've started making some connections, but of course things are slow for a number of reasons. First, obviously, is our baby. However, she is also the reason that the "office" (and likely eventual gaming room) is still a complete mess. Then there is the lack of gaming spaces in town. I feel like if I were closer to Ann Arbor, I could weasel my way into a public space for a "D&D" game every couple of weeks. Nevertheless, I have been making a few local contacts via social media, so maybe I will use that as a starting point, along with a flyer at the local comic shop.

3. Produce something to contribute to the DIY/OSR community

Unlike last year's GaryCon, which was highlighted by frustrated attempts at joining games run by people I really admire, this year I will instead be focused on running games. Half of my scheduled events are for an adventure idea I have, which I am calling The Temple of Laserface and the Kung-Fu Masters of the Fourth Dimension. It will either be a really fun time, or I will be so unprepared that I will fall flat on my face and the con will be a disaster. Assuming the former, I have wild dreams of further developing it into an honest-to-god published adventure, which would be my first real contribution to the community. (It should be noted that one of the Laserface games is going to be run in DCC and the other in S&W. I'd have to look at legal consequences of deciding to tie a published adventure to a particular rules system.)

4. Blog more often

Let's face it: this blog has not seen a lot of action. Maybe if I pare back my expectations on my writing output, I can make posting things here a bit more consistent. If I can think up a good amount of gameable content, maybe I can even blend this goal with #3. Let's face it, there are a lot of great blogs out there that regularly post things you can take directly for your game. In fact, here's a link to a page that's collected some of the best content that's freely available for a modern take on a Dungeon Master's Guide:

Scrapbook DMG

Let's Play Runequest - I: Character Generation

If you follow me on Google+, then odds are you’ve picked up on the fact that I’m getting into RuneQuest a bit these days. There are a number of reasons:

• I backed the RuneQuest Classic Kickstarter a while back. There was a lot of hype for a reissue of Runequest 2nd Edition, which debuted in 1980 and was arguably the most popular (and grognardy) version of the game. The brand has had a long and tumultuous history, culminating in the latest version of Runequest 6 and now Runequest Classic (which I am supposing is more or less synonymous to Runequest 2nd Ed., which of course is not to be confused with Runequest II, which was put out fairly recently by Mongoose Publishing and is the immediate predecessor to Runequest 6. Yeah, it gets confusing.)

• Runequest defaults to a Bronze Age setting. Yes! There seems to be a great divide in the RPG community between medieval fantasy (thanks to D&D) and a number of other genres, most notably science fiction. Sci-fi and modern games are pretty huge. What I don’t like about sci-fi is that there’s an underlying assumption that everything is explainable. We can build a hyperdrive because of these reasons. Fantasy is different in that the unexplainable (Magic, Dragons, Justin Bieber's popularity) is simply accepted. The problem, however, is that fantasy rarely ventures outside a pseudo-medieval setting, and occasionally into a modern (Dresden Files) or futuristic (Star Wars, if you ignore the “long time ago” bit as the movies start). I have a lot of fondness for pre-Roman history, so kudos to Runequest for breaking the medieval mold.

• It fixes a lot of the problems most of the people I talk to have with D&D. For whatever reason, Armor Class really infuriates a lot of players. This is because all of the reasons that a player character misses an attack are lumped together for simplicity. If you miss in D&D, you could chalk it up to an actual miss thanks to a deft dodge or a glancing blow off the enemy’s armor that doesn’t happen to do any damage. Many alternative systems (like RQ) get around this by giving an active defense roll and/or having armor absorb damage.

• It’s both old-school and not. RuneQuest followed closely on the heels of D&D and Traveller as one of the earliest role-playing games. However, when compared to D&D, Runequest is completely devoid of character classes and instead focuses on skill rolls. A d20 is forgone in favor of a percentile roll (d100). Combat is (reportedly) gritty and realistic. It sounds like it could behave somewhat like GURPS...

Speaking of GURPS, it might be the perfect introduction to why I’m even writing this post in the first place. Theoretically, everything is runnable in GURPS. All you need is to spend points on some character concept and before you know it, you’re free to roll a 3d6 skill check from now until forever. The problem is there’s a lot of work to do in the beginning, and you have to have a character concept that you’re working towards. Contrast that with old-school D&D, where you had better not invest more than five minutes into character creation, because it doesn’t take long at all to roll 3d6 a bunch of times, and it will really feel like a waste of time after your level 1 character dies fighting a Dire Mosquito.

With this in mind, I decided that while I’m waiting on my RuneQuest Classic book to arrive, I at least have the PDF version, so I should try making a character to see how it’s done. Furthermore, since I have copies of both RuneQuest 6 and the upcoming RuneQuest Classic thanks to the Kickstarter, I can compare the character generation systems of both (again, guessing that the upcoming Classic version is very close to RuneQuest 2E.) My hope is that this will help me get used to both systems and see if either is simple enough to incorporate into my regular I-Want-To-Run-This game system arsenal.

RuneQuest Classic - Characteristics and Abilities

This seems pretty simple, with everything being 3d6 in order. Except that I’ve got different characteristics to roll: STR, CON, SIZ, INT, POW, DEX, and CHA. These are pretty much their D&D equivalents, with some exceptions. Size is entirely new, Intelligence has nothing to do with magic, and Power has everything to do with magic.

So I decided to roll up a character. Let’s call him Nabua. Rolling 3d6 in order, I get:

STR 6 / CON 10 / SIZ 11 / INT 12 / POW 9 / DEX 9 / CHA 11

So, apart from being somewhat weak in Strength, I have a fairly average character. RQ Classic now says I have to look at these and calculate some abilities—basic adjustments to simple skills: Attack, Parry, Defense, Perception, Stealth, Manipulation (i.e., intricate tool work), and Knowledge. Your hit points and damage bonus are calculated at the same time.

What's really cool about these aspects is that they each depend on multiple characteristics. For example, stealth is not purely dependent on DEX, but also SIZ, INT and POW. Size is easy to understand—it's easier to hide if you're small. I won't get too into things, but suffice to say that these abilities are far from one-dimensional.

Unfortunately, all the charts are for naught as Nabua apparently gets no natural bonuses to any abilities. He's also got no damage bonus and a total of 10 HP. But anyway, that's all there is to it. Just look up some adjustments on tables for your character, and those modify your basic skills (whatever those are by default...)

RuneQuest 6 - Characteristics and Abilities

The modern version of RQ is very much the same, except that not everything is 3d6. For both Size and Power, you roll 2d6+6 for humans, which indicates (apparently) that humans tend to be more massive and more intelligent than your average RQ race. I thought that this was quite a nice touch—it reminds you that humans are only one of many distinct races in the world, each with its own unique qualities, but it still gives us a collective pat on the back for being generally smarter than the rest of them.

I wanted to create the same character I would have created using the RQ Classic rules, so I took the same die rolls and applied them in the order that the RQ6 book calls for them. With that in mind, Nabua now has the following RQ6 characteristics:

STR 6 / CON 10 / SIZ 13 / INT 12 / POW 12 / DEX 11 / CHA 9

So overall, a bit similar, but with a few extra points here and there.

Ability calculations are quite a bit different, but each is still dependent on multiple characteristics:

Action Points: 2
Damage Mod: -1d2
Experience Mod: 0
Heal Rate: 2
178cm tall, 87 kg weight
HP: 5 Head, 7 Chest, 6 Abdomen, 4 Arm, 5 Leg
Luck Points: 2
MP: 12
Move rate: 6m
Strike Rank: 11.5*

*—there's some ambiguity with the strike rank, because I'm not sure whether I should be rounding it up or down, or keeping it as a non-integer rational number.

Now there might seem to be a lot of things in this list, but it's only one more than the list I glossed over when doing my RQ Classic version of Nabua. There's something that kind of irked me for the longest time, though, and I couldn't quite place it until just now: With the exception of damage bonus and hit points, everything from RQ Classic was skill-based. With the introduction of things like "action points" and "luck points" being mentioned, it hints at more complicated mechanics.

The reason I'm so mechanics-averse is mostly due to prior experience both as a player and a GM. Some of the best role-playing I've seen has been in situations where the only mechanics invoked was a simple universal check, sometimes just to see what number came up. (E.g., roll 1d20 in a rules-light D&D game. Roll 3d6 in a GURPS game. Roll a d% and let's see what you get.) Meanwhile, mechanics-heavy games such as FATE or D&D 4E present games where the presence of the mechanics distract from the fiction... Anyway, I can forgive all this because so far the character generation is still pretty quick, about the same speed as I'm going through RQ Classic.

RuneQuest Classic - Money and Equipment

OK, switching back to RQ Classic, we see a brief section on how to improve your characteristics, which is essentially how you pay for training. Skipping over that (since Nabua doesn't have any cash yet), we see a section on Money and Equipment. Learn to pick up some d100, because this is when you start using them. I get lucky and roll a 93, meaning I'm a Poor Noble. I roll another d100, and I see that I get 325 Lunars every year until I'm 21 Score! (Note that since this seems to be a fixed stipend of some sort, I'm assuming you don't re-roll the value for every year. You could get anywhere from 5-500 Lunars that way, which is a rather wild fluctuation.)

Anyway, this is a perfect time to say how much I love random tables. Without the game forcing me to roll for it, it would not have occurred to me to play a poor noble. Or if it did, it would be after a long period of deliberation, during which I rejected other options for a character. With having my character's background dictated by the game, it immediately sets the imagination in motion. Why is my poor noble Nabua adventuring? Is he simply bored? Has he stumbled on some arcane secret inside his family library and strives to know more? Is he determined to avenge his cousin, who was kidnapped by someone who thought his family had more than they did?

The character concept is something that always has to be considered in a system that lacks character classes a la D&D. I'm sure that there are probably some random tables out there that help generate character concepts like these for systems where there are no classes or templates. It would make a fantastic aid for games such as GURPS, where you could sometimes struggle to come up with an idea for an interesting character.

Anyway, the book gives me some simple lists of equipment depending on my character background, and with that I head straight into the Combat and Mechanics chapter. That was an easy session of character generation! Let's go back to RQ6 for its wrap-up:

RuneQuest 6 - To be continued..?

Going back to RQ 6, I get to calculate my Standard Skills by simple formulae that are based on my characteristics (which, by the way, is a process that still hasn't been spelled out for me in RQ Classic.) For example, my First Aid skill is INT+DEX, expressed as a percentage—easy peasy. In addition, an additional skill is the Combat Style, which varies based on setting. For example, a Scythian horse archer and a Greek hoplite would both have different proficiencies in combat, but they would be contained within their respective Combat Styles. Furthermore, who's to say that a Greek hoplite couldn't assimilate into Scythian culture and start learning (probably really slowly) to be a horse archer? All it would take is adding and developing a second Combat Style. Awesome.

And then I see that I have two more chapters to go before character creation is done. Chapter 2 is Culture and Community. Chapter 3 is Careers and development.

Damn it.

I've heard that RuneQuest combat is gritty and deadly, which is great. But I've just passed the fifteen-minute mark with these character generation steps (not counting the writing I've done for this blog post,) The more time I invest in the generation of Nabua, the more I lose if and when that character dies. I find that in a lot of modern RPGs, character death is almost unthinkable in practice because people are too damn attached to their characters. I'm at a great point in the RuneQuest process where I've got enough detail to go on and have (I believe) enough balance on the daring-cautious spectrum to be a good adventurer. If the Game is going to have a Song of Ice and Fire-style mortality rate, I can envision getting mighty pissed off when we have to stop the story every time a player character dies so that a new character can get rolled up.

But for now, I'm going to try to withhold judgement. It took a long while for me to get the free time to produce this lowly blog post, so I'll have to finish the RQ 6 character generation process another day...

The I Want To Be a Wizard Dillemma

This will be a D&D-centric post, but it will address what I call the “I Want to Be a Wizard” dilemma. Very often, I will approach a game as a player with a certain loose character concept in mind, i.e., a class if we’re going to play D&D or a similar game. Some people like to play fighters or magic-users exclusively, whereas I just want the freedom to choose what I want to be. All the more interesting character details tend to fill themselves in as the games progress, but I like to be able to choose my starting point.

So, right up front, one of the game systems I really enjoy is GURPS. It is a remarkably simple system to play in once the game is going, because all of the requisite work is front-loaded into character creation. You start with a strong character concept and build the game mechanics according to it, such that you have an accurate representation of the character. The downside is, there’s often little room to let those characteristics come into existence organically through play. It’s also nigh impossible to have a “pick-up” game of GURPS, even if your GM has gone to the trouble of making Templates to replicate classes. Often, a clear campaign idea has to be established from the get-go before you can start generating characters.

Therefore, as we dismiss GURPS and instead focus on systems that are akin to D&D, we notice the familiar trend of player attribute scores ranging from 3-18 (as a result of a 3d6 roll). Each possible class has an associated principal attribute that will matter above all others for the majority of class-based actions (Fighters need Strength, Wizards need Intelligence, and so forth). So of all the six ability scores, you’re going to want one to be higher than the other if you want to play a particular class.

Now, the most straightforward way to get around this issue is to simply arrange your six results to taste, rather than roll each attribute in order. This is probably the way most people ended up playing, but with the “old school” movement, there seems to be some impetus to stay consistent to the original letter of the law. However, there have been some interesting ways around the 3d6-in-order rule that allow for some character freedom.

The earliest days probably saw the rise of the super-attribute: roll 4d6 and drop the lowest die. This is referenced, I believe, in the 1st-Edition DMG itself. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong.) It tends to promote much more competent characters, less susceptible to death in an exceptionally lethal game system. For a detailed look at the stats, check out AnyDice and their analysis: anydice.com/articles/4d6-drop-lowest/ ...But beware, for down the road of the super-character lies the realm of PC preciousness and invulnerability. Death should be commonplace, shouldn't it?

Perhaps the most fun variant on character generation exists in Dungeon Crawl Classics with its idea of the "character funnel." Essentially, each player starts with multiple (usually four) 3d6-in-order characters, with the last one standing being able to graduate to a first-level adventurer. There's more rules and opportunities for advancement there, but it's a novel approach that exposes a new truth about 3d6 character generation. D&D's random character generation engine has a key flaw in that it only has a sample size of one. That is, while there are exceptional failures and exceptional successes for every attribute, the mean should be 10.5 for each. However, a single sample could fall anywhere on the curve. With four samples, you get a better chance of an average or better-than-average starting point for the type of character you'd like to play. As an example, you may very well end up having two "normal" characters, one "weak," and one "strong" that you'd prefer to play over the others. Depending on the game, that character may survive, adding an extra dimension of randomness.

I think this is an idea that should be explored in more depth in other systems. While I love DCC, it does gravitate toward being a rather off-the-wall game, and it could be a hard sell for a group who wants something more down to earth. But the idea of multiple instances of character creation may be gaining traction in other systems. Here is the optional "Multiple Characters" rule from Adventurer Conqueror King System, which is:

As an optional rule, at the start of play, each player generates five characters and selects one primary and two back-up characters. The remaining two characters are given to the Judge to use as NPCs to populate the campaign setting. If the primary and backups are all killed, the player generates five additional characters, again picking three and giving the Judge two. This ensures that the player always has a variety of characters to choose from to find one he likes, and gives the Judge some additional NPCs to populate the world.

This offers an interesting variation that helps mitigate the problem of limited sample size. The only issue is that rolling 3d6 thirty times can get tedious. I might end up tinkering with some other ways to throw around 3d6 rolls to see if I could keep the high sample count while lowering the overall number of die rolls.

Have you run into problems with "3d6 in order?" How do you typically handle attribute generation in your games?

Drop It Like a D6

[A very brief post as I try to generate a small amount of content and keep the blog alive. Seriously, I have my fair share of ideas but not enough time to transcribe them into words.]

So, Z used the cover of [redacted] to make a 2-dimensional multi-use table. I know, this is old news because [redacted] was published in 2008. Still, humor me, because it's a revelation to me as I'm just now coming back to the RPG world.

Essentially, when you roll a die, traditionally you get one random value out of the result: the number on the face of the die. However, when rolling on a finite 2D surface such as a piece of paper (or in Z's case, the cover of a book), the die will land in a particular spot, which itself could have significance. All of a sudden, you have three random values instead of one. There's the face value of the die, but also the relative x and y position (or horizontal and vertical if you're averse to algebra).

This has vast implications. Instead of rolling up something's random hit points, for example, you can roll up its hit points, armor class, and number appearing - all with one roll of a die. Given enough familiarity with interpreting the result, it has the potential for speeding up random rolls immensely.

Traditionally, the most common form of random roll has been the random encounter table: roll to see what creature or NPC the party encounters, if any. However, with the possibilities offered by the die-drop table model, there's a nearly endless supply of things you can come up with because of the multi-dimensional nature of the roll.

I think it might be a fun idea to try and create my own die-drop table. I think I'm going to start with a treasure generator. If you have any ideas of what you might want to see in a die-drop table, maybe comment below and give me brainstorming material!

What I Got From Fate: The Good Part

This being the Internet, there are a lot of people around who argue about stuff. the community of RPG players is no different, and I would imagine it's probably more intense than most in terms of emotional investment because games are little nuggets of pure joy in an otherwise crap world of strife. So, the fights that we have as a community tend to be very passionate.

Right now, I don't think there's a game system as a whole that's more divisive than Fate. (Note that I'm not calling it FATE, because it's not an acronym or initialism of anything, as GURPS is.) Opinions on it tend to gravitate toward the extremes--either it's the fantastically innovative pinnacle of the RPG form, or it's the worst example yet of a mechanical mockery of what RPGs are. I don't know, insert your own hyperbole here.

Personally, having run a game Fate, I will say I don't really like it.

Let me start off with some caveats: I know that a lot of people play Fate and they really like it. I tend to be an open-minded guy, so I am open to the possibility that maybe I was just doing a horrible job GMing the game. I have also heard that some prefer to play Fate Accelerated Edition to Fate Core, which was the version I was running. Again, I'm going to point out that I'm forming my judgments with relatively little experience. I've also not played any Fate games that are heavily intertwined with settings, such as The Dresden Files or Atomic Robo. So it may be possible for me to like Fate, but I'm not going to run a game any time soon.

I ended up starting a campaign that was a story of a group of carnival freak show performers in a steampunk setting; think Victorian-era continental Europe. We played about four or five sessions before I realized that Fate was killing the game. I took the characters and re-built them in GURPS, which was the system we used for the remainder of the campaign.

Let's start with the good part about Fate. When I played Pathfinder and other such games, we tended to build our individual characters and then throw them together with little consideration for each other apart from their function. You know the lines. Who is the healer, who is the "tank," etc. This type of mentality is the first step in a game where you are running a glorified stat block as opposed to an actual character.

Fate forces you to come to the table for an introductory session that plans how the campaign is going to go: GM and characters alike. I knew that I wanted the characters to be members of a freak show, but those were my only conditions. My agenda was otherwise blank, and so we arrived at the steampunk fantasy idea after going around the table and talking about what we all thought would be fun. By our establishment of the Aspects (capitalized to emphasize I'm talking about the Fate mechanic) of the world, I also got a big cue as to what flavor the game was going to have. I realize that any old RPG can have this collaboration session, but Fate incorporating it into the rule book really emphasizes how player consensus is crucial to a campaign's success.

What's even more awesome about Fate is the character creation. The first task you are given is to come up with your High Concept, your essence, your defining phrase. In Fate, you are not just a Rogue, you are a Daring Swashbuckler of Venice, an Infamous Cutpurse, or a Disgraced Turncoat. Because the mechanics depend on descriptive but flexible Aspects, you get a lot more character definition. The same is true of your Trouble, a secondary Aspect that defines your downside. Flawed characters are interesting characters, and even if a character is seemingly perfect, everyone struggles with something.

In order for the game to even function, Fate demands that the characters be fleshed out. This fleshing out ensures that you're not just consulting your array of numbers and modifiers that you just so happen call a character.

As if that weren't enough to generate characters that were more interesting than 90% of D&D characters out there, Fate then calls for the Phase Trio (a name I dislike because it sounds way too ambiguous and theoretical). Essentially, each player comes up with three bits of backstory--at the table alongside everyone else. The first bit starts to establish each individual character's history, but the second and third are stories where the other characters are involved. As a result, the beginning of the actual campaign sees a group of characters that are all interconnected in some fashion. They don't have to form your standard D&D Trope Party, but you likewise don't have a collection of individual lone wolves, either.

(Then there's a whole bunch of skill crap and stuff, which is the remainder of character creation, but I've already addressed the best part.)

I think that the preliminary session of this campaign was one of the greatest, because we already had a good sense of who the characters were going to be as the game progressed. The only downside I can see to this approach is that sometimes I like to ease into a character concept and let it develop over a span of play sessions. Of course, the danger is that the character will forever remain a faceless amalgamation of statistics, which has happened far too often throughout RPG history.

What I got from Fate is the realization that in some form or another, I should approach game creation and character creation from a standpoint of open-endedness and collaboration. There is no reason to come to the table with a game prepared only to discover that no one's interested in playing, and there's no reason that the players have to be a bunch of randos who meet in a tavern.

Next time, I'll discuss what happened when our Fate game got going, and why I had to switch systems. Until then, does anyone read this? Comment if you do.