Looking Deeper in to FATE Core

As I have continued to absorb FATE Core I actually think I might have reached critical mass, that point at which I feel I have studied the rules and understand the underlying concepts well enough for me to tackle running the system. This is hard to do with FATE, a game system that eschews most of what I take for granted in how an RPG works. That said, I feel I genuinely grokk the four-part action economy of the system, the notion of aspects with their invokes and compels, the very important Fate Point economy and why it works like it does, and I've even been satisfied to see that the quasi-myth of FATE as the game where no one dies unless they decide it's good for their story has been dispelled; FATE Core offers up advice on different approaches to this question, but ultimately it both provides the most compelling framework for situations in which death is inescapable even as it suggests that allowing for more options than death is more important to the coherence of the story being told.

I've grabbed about all of the FATE Core supplements and can safely say that the many different worlds that Evil Hat has compiled for the game run from the incredibly useful (Venture City Source book, worth it for the great superpowers rules, or FATE Freeport which is essentially "D&D adapted to FATE")  to the interesting but very much mixed bags that are the various Evil Hat published "Worlds..." series, such as Worlds on Fire, each of which contains at least four distinct and often very different settings using FATE Core. Then there's the Setting Toolkit and the Adversary Toolkit, both of which contain lots of useful content though I have refrained from getting too involved there until I properly absorb the core rules.

So now the question is: what setting to create, and how? As a GM who lives for setting design I am not precisely the target demographic for FATE Core, which feels to me more like it is aimed at GMs who find setting design tedious and want to farm it out to the players....or RPGers who come from a different experiential angle to gaming (the Indie gaming side) in which there was no preconception about world design as a GM art/process, allowing them to relinquish control of that part of the experience to turn it in to a collaborative effort with the players.

I am not 100% sure I can totally do that, or that the players necessarily want to do that.....but I may consider trying it out anyway so I can experience FATE Core as intended. It does seem to me to require a strong level of improv, and possibly an ability to do improv by riffing off of someone else's ideas. Maybe I'll just find a pre-published FATE world I like and run with that.

I also thought about using an existing setting, such as Lingusia, and enjoying the results. It's a world my core gaming group is familiar enough with to riff off of within the constraints of the existing setting, it support the sort of character-focused story-driven game play FATE Core is known for with minimal or no effort (I propose that running 13th Age is not unlike running FATE Core in terms of the story focus experience, just with more math and numbers) and it's familiar turf, which means teaching how to work aspects, skills and stunts will be easier.

If I use it for my Ages of Lingusia campaign then I'd need to work out a definition of core schools of magic, and decide if equipment will have any additional effect as extras. Given how fluid FATE is in its resolution of effects I feel like for the first game de-emphasizing equipment is a better idea; this is a system where what you're fighting with or using is far less relevant than how you are using it and how it relates to the story, so going hardcore into the "equipment as trappings of your description" feels like a better way to emphasize the unique differences of the system.

I'm currently hip deep in an ongoing Call of Cthulhu campaign and my regular D&D 5E sessions (with Traveller on hold but returning soon) so I don't have a lot of room now, but maybe in a month or two I'll propose a 3-5 session FATE Core experience for the group. When this happens I'll be sure to post the results....!

FATE Core: More on Character Generation (tiefling wizard)

Here's an example of a FATE character for my established Ages of Lingusia setting. This shows how you can create a tiefling wizard in FATE Core without necessarily having to jump through hoops. There are several sample magic systems provided in the book as Extras. The one with specific schools appealed to me the most so I used their examples as a template for the necromantic chaos mages of the Black Circle. Anyway, here's a FATE Core swords & sorcery example:

Setting:                 Ages of Lingusia (Age of Strife)

Name                    Denethor Targellan

Description        A tiefling warlock of black leathers, reddened skin and a fiery disposition

Aspects

High Concept:      World Weary tiefling of the Black Circle

Trouble:                 I accept rejection with furious wrath and burning fire

                                I am enchanted and repulsed by sorcerous women of power

                                I can respect any humanoid who respects me

                                My comrades are my stable foundation of sanity

Skills

Great (+4): Lore (Black Circle)

Good (+3): Notice, Provoke

Fair (+2): Physique, Will, Shoot

Average (+1): Rapport, Fight, Stealth, Deceive

Extras

School of Power: The Black Circle

Permission: one aspect that names the order

Costs: Aspect slot (for permission), skill ranks, refresh

Aspects: The Servants of Chaos are Given Deceptive Power, Power is Won Through Betrayal, Only Sacrifice to the Demon Lords Brings True Power

Skills: Change +4, Destroy +3, Create +2, Learn +1

Magical Stunts:
Necromancy (+2 to use any of the Black Circle’s skills against the dead)

Chaos Imbuement (+2 per scene to use any of the order’s skills to change a target)

Not Yet Learned: Divination of the Abyss (once per scene to reroll a learn skill and keep best result)

Stunts (Refresh 2)

I’ve Read About That (burn a fate point to use Lore in place of another skill)

Specialist (necromancy) (Gain +2 on Lore checks in this subject)

Danger Sense (Notice is unimpeded by environment when detecting threats)

Physical Stress  3              Mental Stress    3              Consequences  3

The Phase Trio:

While traveling in southern Hyrkania after being driven from Blackholm by fanatics of the Church of Naril, Denethor encounters a mysterious castle of azure stone in the Bluesky Mountains. A witch named Denajia meets him at a campfire, to seduce him to her castle….but despite his intrigue he resists. She sends forth orcish raiders to capture him and place him in her dungeon!

(I am enchanted and repulsed by sorcerous women of power)

While in the dungeons of Denagia, Denethor meets Twisp, a Halfling rogue who fell afoul of the witch as well. His earnest acceptance of the tiefling leaves him refreshed at the basic humanity….of halflings, at least. Together, with lockpick and spell, the two escape the tower.

(I can respect any humanoid who respects me)

Later, while traveling on the road, Twisp and Denethor meet the half-ogre Buruum, who is heading to the free city of Malas, where he has heard any humanoid is accepted as given, and the money flows freely in the arenas. They have a glorious battle against Hyrkanian soldiers on patrol and decide that Malas is a fine destination.

(My comrades are my stable foundation of sanity)

Design Notes:

The design above is under the same rules as the last character, but now for a tiefling mage instead of a human space jockey. The big difference is that I have enhanced detail on the School of Magic which is an extra option for this character. The Extras work in lots of different possible ways in the book, and I could have picked a different approach, but I like this one the best. In essence, the extra has a cost (in this case it requires the lore skill, an aspect naming it, and a refresh cost for more than one stunt from the college of magic). I defined three stunts for the college, so there's one yet to be earned.

In actual play, the skills of the college will default for the four defined magic skills, but if the Lore of the chaarcter is higher than the default skill then he uses his lore. This means our tiefling is actually operating at a +4 on all magical effects. Because these function like skills, it means that an ordinary use of a magic skill may not require an invoke or compel since they are not aspects....but the college also places aspects (and stunts) on the character, which he must accept. So as an example "Power is won through betrayal" could be used by the PC to invoke a perk when using a magic skill, or by the GM who sees an opportunity to suggest a compel....it's all fair game.

This system is fascinating in how rife with potential it is for unique effects. It is also making my GM senses tingle, since I have a couple players who could (possibly would!) try to abuse the hell out of a system like this. When considering this, I am cognizant of the fact that the invoke/compel process and limited number of fate points in the game is actually built to curb exactly that sort of thinking....so if a player decides to invoke his aspect "Only Sacrifice to the Demon Lords Brings True Power" by blasting his hapless henchman to fuel his destruction skill check, then I can feel just fine by calling on a compel to recognize that "Power is Won Through Betrayal" leads to his apprentice seeking to spike his drink with poison later...

Messing with FATE Core: Character Generation

After a very, very long time I am finally warming up to what FATE has to offer, specifically FATE Core, the generic edition of the game from Evil Hat. FATE is not an easy game system to understand, especially if you are used to a more traditional/old school approach to gaming, but it's a system which offers a ton of interesting potential for unique settings that are otherwise hard to do in more conventional game systems, is great for pickup games and collaborative designs, and most interestingly is designed around a core conceit of cinematic/storytelling conventions as key to the experience. Movie logic, if you will, is more important in a FATE game than verisimilitude in design.

Anyway, I recently got inspired to work more with FATE Core when I picked up a copy of the rules and then (many months later!) finally read them. Now I'm kind of hooked on the idea of running this. To try it out I worked out a character to get a sense of how the design works, what things such as aspects (and the associated Invokes and Compels mean) and how FATE Core handles a range of genres. Although it's got a genre Toolkit book out, the FATE Core rules seem pretty well able to handle this as written.

I based the first character design in a setting I ran many years ago for GURPS and then later retooled for Traveller. Ad Astra is a futuristic universe with lots of potential for crazy and unusual high-concept sci fi, so it feels like a good choice for some SF-based FATE gaming. I may revamp prior entries on it for an updated FATE version soon (once I'm done learning the system, anyway!)

To make the test character simple I aim for a pilot. Here's what FATE Core created....I'll talk about how in the notes afterward.

World Ad Astra

Name Tane “Solar Rider” Jones

Description  A rough and world-weary traveler with a scarred right eye, sandy blonde hair (usually short cropped), wears a dusky blue flight jacket from his old Human Commonwealth days.

Aspects

High Concept:     Freelance pilot of the IF Wildstar operating in Human Space (Freeworld Zone)

Trouble:               Driven to fight fascism and oppression wherever he sees it

Phase Aspects:    Don’t Tell Me the Odds

      Some of My Best Friends are Aliens

      Repay My Debts, No Matter the Cost

Skills

Great (+4): Pilot (starship)

Good (+3): Drive (vehicles), Shoot (energy weapons)

Fair (+2): Shoot (slug throwers), Resources, Provoke

Average (+1): Rapport, Physique, Notice, Fight

Extras

 The Independent Freighter Wildstar (Aspects could include: "Souped-Up Engine; Turbo-Lasers; Armor Plated Hull) 

Stunts (refresh 3)

Pedal to the Metal

Provoke Violence

Called Shot

Physical Stress  3              Mental Stress    2              Consequences  3

The Phase Trio Story:

Tane stumbled into freelance piloting while working for Exocorp on the terraformed moon world Eodus Prime. He was recruited by locals to help run guns to freedom fighters working against the oppressive corporation, which was backed by Kephran interests. While working to fuel freedom fighters he stumbled across two allies, including the Praektorian rogue Gossamer and the Anageni engineer Teski, who helped him repair his ship during a major firefight from a blockade (Don’t tell me the odds). Gossamer and Tane worked together on a ground operation to help extract guerilla fighters pinned down during the “Automated Offensive” of 2250, a major leap for Tane as he had a general loathing for most non-humanoid species until then (Some of My Best Friends are Aliens). A year later Tane was involved in the strike on Commodus Prison, where he helped free both Gossamer and Teski after they had been captured (Repay my debts, No Matter the Cost).

Design Notes:

FATE builds characters out of the following materials: Aspects, Skills, Stunts and Extras. The Aspects are essentially character descriptors, but the rules provide a lot of context for what these mean and how to make them work.

One Aspect needs to be the High Concept, which you could imagine is the "class+background+archetype" you might see in other games such as D&D. A "Tiefling Warlock Outlander" in D&D could also use that as the High Concept Aspect for a FATE game. In our sample, I went with "Freelance pilot of the IF Wildstar operating in Human Space (Freeworld Zone)." This says the following: he's a pilot, he's got a ship (more on that later), and he's known to operate in the zone, which if this were a collaborative character generation session would likely have been established by the GM in the initial setting discussion phase.

Next up you need a Trouble Aspect. This is the second of five aspects and it needs to be the one which will drive your character into interesting and plot-laden situations. The rules caution against limited trouble aspects....and I imagine a trouble aspect like "Is too awesome to describe adequately" should be vetoed unless the GM wants to read between the lines that the "PC is blinded by his own hubris and false sense of accomplishment." In our case I picked "Driven to fight fascism and oppression wherever he sees it," since that sounds like an easy way to drive conflict: when my dude Tane sees someone oppressed, some system failing the little guy, he is compelled to act.

The next three aspects are defined by creating the "Phase Trio" story, which is a narrative that talks about how he came to be who he is. It's designed in the base rules to create connections with other player characters, but if you have only one or two PCs, or are limited for time the rules provide direction on what to do in those cases as well. For my purposes I went ahead and imagined a couple other PCs in this process just to get a fully functioning Phase Trio story worked out. Each of the three remaining aspects need to reflect some element of the story as presented....this encourages players to get creative, especially if they want specific aspects for their design. I revamped my choices a couple times before settling on the ones I selected...the idea is to make them interesting for both invokes and compels.

These aspects need to show some versatility, because they will be subject to what are called "invokes" which are where you use the aspect to justify a helpful bonus as well as "compels" which are where you use the aspect against the PC in an interesting way (such as the GM saying, for example, "Tane, you are now in an alien bar where the Spulgrot are drinking nectar from the Humfly, which is kind of nerve-wracking since even though Humflies are allegedly non-sentient, they scream just like tortured babies and puppies when being drained by the chitinous spulgort. Would you like to accept a compel to see if you can really negotiate unbiased with the spulgort gangster in the bar while drinking his humfly?")

If you use an invoke, it costs a fate point. If you accept a compel, you gain a fate point. Fate points are limited resources, so essentially you are getting a chance to do something cool later on by accepting your limitation now. The player may also want to see the compel in action since it might lead to a more interesting story, or have consequences in the game that are still desirable....even if the means of getting there require accepting your character's failings.

This, needless to say, is interesting stuff.

Skills are a lot more straight-forward, and FATE Core provides a default skill set with advice on customizing. Each skill includes example Stunts, about which more in a minute. Skills for PCs are ranked from +5 to 0, with zero being untrained. There's a specific formula for skills at the start of char gen, witha "pyramid" of talent dictating what you get. It's a perfectly fine system....but you can tweak the allotment up or down if you are increasing (or decreasing) the number of skills relevant to the setting. The example character is based on the default expectation.

FATE Core's basic mechanical approach to all tasks is to roll four FATE dice, which are labelled with two "-" symbols, two blanks and two "+" symbols. Add the "+" and subtract the "-" and you have your die roll. Then, you add skill bonuses and a +2 bonus if invoking an aspect (you can also invoke an aspect to re-roll). If you exceed the target goal, which the GM sets from +1 to +8 then you are successful. Fail, and you get more interesting and unintended results.

Anyway, stunts are a way to pull off specific effects in the game, which in turn can affect skill checks or aspects depending on what is going on and what the stunt is. The examples in the book provide about 3 per skill, and give you a good idea of what the range is. You could conceivably use these as-is is with minimal or no adjustment for setting or genre. A new PC starts with 3 stunts, and you can get up to 5 if you are willing to reduce what is called your "refresh," which is how many fate points you start with (and regenerate). So the more stunts you can do....the fewer fate points you have to invoke with, and the more you need to accept compels to fill out your points.

In my example, I picked three "from the book" stunts for Tane Jones. Basically he can push his starship (or any vehicle) to the limits of its speed, he can piss off people easily, and he can take a called shot at a moment's notice like nobody's business.

Extras are a catch-all for literally all the extraneous trappings of a genre you can imagine. I've thrown the starship here, with suggested aspects, but I'm still absorbing this chapter so more to come. Needless to say, Extras are basically "characters" which you stat out according to whether they are actions, things, perks, NPCs, or "other." For example, magic, super powers, gadgets, weaponry, vehicles and more all fall under the Extras category.

In the end, character survival in FATE Core is calculated by physical and mental stress, which start at 2 and go up if you have certain skills (physique and will). Consequences are layered in 3, with each one getting progressively worse. You get a consequence with a major risk or failure, and these can be things ranging from "Madness induced by Cthulhu" to "sucking chest wound" and usually disappear after a designated period of time (sessions or even scenarios).

Anyway....more to come....I am quite intrigued at FATE Core and also appreciative that I am at last starting to grokk how this system works. FATE Core is far and away the best iteration of the system I have encountered, and makes much more sense then some other FATE-powered games I tried to delve in to.

FATE Core is PWYW at rpgnow.com, so if this sounds interesting, you should check it out!

FATE Core System - Print Find of the Weekend

My local new & used bookstore has a small section for RPGs and is essentially one of only three non-big-box locales in Albuquerque where it may be possible to buy any RPGs at all. It's also one of the only places in town where you have a chance of finding used games. Recently, thanks to one of the staff who has taken a strong interest in the RPG scene lately, it started carrying some contemporary products.....including FATE Core!

I snagged this today, and have been perusing it at length. I have been told by cohorts deeply enmeshed in FATE that Evil Hat, which started FATE (spun off from Fudge) with Spirit of the Century is honestly the best place to go to learn how the system works. So far I think this is proving true of FATE Core....it is extremely well written. I've had copies of the free version provided to me before, but ultimately I am still a print kinda guy when it comes to reading rulebooks, so snagging this edition is a real boon to expanding my interest in FATE.

I have felt that a big obstacle to getting into FATE in the past for old veteran gamers like myself has been the unfamiliar terminology coupled with the fact that FATE's mechanical design is aimed at achieving very different effects than traditional RPGs tend to go for. I remember reading Legends of Anglerre, where an example of mechanics included a case where a GM could introduce a fleet of pirate ships attacking a harbor, but a player could invoke an aspect where it was revealed that she was actually a sister of the pirate lord (or something to that effect). Cool concept, but demonstrated that the core conceit of the GM in FATE was really different from other traditional RPGs....not least of which being you don't want to define that pirate lord too tightly if players can effectively negate adventure content you have created through judicious use of aspects. I also recall reading the combat example in that book as well as Diaspora, and coming away perplexed at what was even going on; the jargon was counter-intuitive to even understanding what I was reading, which was a bit of an unsettling experience. To contrast, I still recall the "example of play" cases in D&D and AD&D 1E quite well; what I remember most about the Diaspora examples was, "I don't know if I'm actually reading English or a technical manual for a language that is just very similar."

But it's probably just a learning curve issue.  FATE Core also provides some better examples than I have seen in other FATE books, including cases where it does not appear that the GM must adhere to the plot-altering aspect just played by a player; in fact it advises players need to fit their aspect's play within the context as provided. I also noticed that FATE Core actually deliberately ditches a few of the older jargon terms, making me think I'm not the only one who had trouble connecting to them.

FATE definitely seems easier to grasp for long-absent gamers returning to the fold, especially if they grew disillusioned with D&D or (even better) never came into the hobby via D&D in the first place (i.e. arrived via Vampire: The Masquerade or some other route). That said, it seems to me that there's a very robust and interesting experience in FATE, and I think it was smart of Leonard Balsera and co. to produce this new, clean, updated edition that is also highly multiversal in approach.

I currently have at least one player who really likes FATE in the Saturday group, and everyone already knows this is going to be my year where I try do do at least 50% of my gaming in "non D&D" systems because of burnout and all that nonsense. Since I still can't find anyone willing to actually run FATE locally, maybe I will at last step up to plate and see if I can master this system....

Anyway, if you're curious about FATE Core take a look here at it's free SRD content. I'll post more once I've fully absorbed my read-through and try to work out some content/ideas of what to do with it.