I don't completely disagree, but the aspects that are supposed to impact the setting are the setting aspects. Character aspects are supposed to impact the character; weak compels aside, providing a difficulty slider is essentially their function. That's the whole point of maintaining a fluid Fate Point economy.
A character whose aspect was "I Am a Walking Armory" is both easily compelled (any time they walk through security, fr'ex) and can invoke it for a pretty large range of effects.
Again, not all aspects are going to be good for every game. The person who really suffers for a bad aspect, however, is the player. You shouldn't, as a GM, be compelling against an aspect that is weak just to keep the Fate Point economy fluid for that player. They need to recognize that their choices have consequences, and choosing an aspect that is 90% beneficial is not going to net nearly as many compels as the one that is 90% hindering. But there's a sweet spot in there, too, and those are the best aspects.
Now, there are aspects that transcend just the character: Librarian of Alexandria, for example. This essentially places the entire library at the character's disposal all of the time (for the low, low cost of a Fate Point), but it also means that people are going to be after him because they want access to the library. Or he occasionally has to struggle not to snatch books for the library. Or art. Or people.
Just because, at first blush, an aspect doesn't seem to provide great fodder for compels doesn't mean that's true. Nor does it mean a character having an aspect (or two) that are basically purely beneficial is bad either. They just need aspects that do a lot to hamper them to keep the economy going.
Re: Ryan Macklin; he has a very set idea of what Fate Core is in his mind and I think it bothers him a lot that the game has evolved past him. This is not a trait unique to him as a game developer. You see this very frequently in MMOs, which often begins a self-defeating cycle of patching "mechanics abuse" that eventually robs the game of its magic. YMMV.
The reason the character has aspects in the first place is to bring different storyline situations into the game. If I, as the GM, decide to highlight "Guy With Guns" or "Walking Armory" for the session, it's going to be a pretty stale set of compels coming down the vine for that aspect thematically.
Unless the character has some kind of constant, dramatic pressure for being armed to the teeth (which for the life of me I can't really think of how to bring that into play as anything other than an Inconvenience button, which is why I think it's weak, but please provide counter examples because I'm probably just tired) it's a lame duck
It cuts both ways, a character constantly spending fate points to have guns/holy water/garlic/whatever is a wasted opportunity for something meatier when that thing could have just been represented by a stunt
I think attempting to determine the efficacy of a compel absent context is a losing proposition.
If the security checkpoint is between the character and, I don't know, the chance to save their mother the impact of the compel is substantively different than if you simply throw random security screenings at them everywhere they go.
See, I think when you mechanically divide it up it's clear what the role of a stunt is versus the role of an aspect.
Stunts improve your odds with a single Skill, which means a narrow set of circumstances.
Aspects should improve your odds in a fairly diverse set of circumstances across multiple Skills, but also risk hindering you by tying you up in plot tape.
So tell me again how having a +2 on your Resources to have an arsenal is not a narrow application of a skill?
I guess my whole point in this is that unless your Walking Armory aspect is providing real meat in the story it's a wasted slot, and I try not to let players go with wasted aspects for very long
I'm not saying it's not. But that aspect would provide bonuses in Fight, Shoot, Intimidate...if that's really what the player wants, just let them know compels against it are going to be pretty infrequent.
FWIW I never bothered with "highlighting an aspect;" at least not a character-specific one. The game doesn't actually suffer for it, and spotlights show up in a decent mix if you've got a group that's good about sharing them. Skill overlap being more or less inevitable, I mean.
Shrug, I'm coming from a perspective of having run games for different groups of people, having figured out what works the best across all of those different games and groups
It's also going to change based on your preference. I, and the players I've run for, tend to have more fun when they see their aspects (all of them) actually changing and shaping the story
Also when I talk about highlighting, I'm not talking about highlighting in the sense that say, Apocalypse World highlights stats
I'm talking purely from a GM's perspective going into a session and looking at my players' aspects and putting a star on/highlighting one I think is interesting given the general storyline I'm moving forward in the session.
"Oh, Harry Dresden is going to be going up against the Winter Court sidhe today at a party. I think I'll highlight 'Not So Subtle, Still Quick to Anger' and see how much mileage I can get out of that today."
That's a very basic example taken right from the novels, and I could find many more where it translates
All that said, that's why I've been saying YMMV on this technique--I know plenty of people don't use it, it just allows me to be lazier and still put out a great session
I'm waiting for the shouts of "I hate you!" simultaneously, followed by the long passionate kiss, followed by the embarrassed silence and goofy smiles afterwards. You guys are every Teen RomCom ever!
I'm waiting for the shouts of "I hate you!" simultaneously, followed by the long passionate kiss, followed by the embarrassed silence and goofy smiles afterwards. You guys are every Teen RomCom ever!
We have pretty similar outlooks, but we tend to have completely diametric views on the smallest details. Which is GOD SO INFURIATING LANA.
That article isn't really talking about this kind of thing. It's talking about having too many Aspects.
If something is a fundamental part of the character and can have positive and negative consequences, I think it should be an Aspect. If it is purely positive, and a secondary feature of the character, it can be a Stunt.
You could make the character both ways, but the way he described it sounded like a fundamental aspect of the character's narrative, hence Aspect.
And if you wanted 'newbie' to somehow not be a pejorative, you probably shouldn't written it in that sentence, which was dismissive.
I called it a newbie trap because it's a trap newbies to the game often fall into? Sorry you got offended, I stated after the fact it wasn't intended as a pejorative because I realized it may have come off as such so I don't know what else you're after by taking another shot
EDIT: And I think we already made it to the end of the topic and I said like four times YMMV and it's not gospel sooooo
Only thing more terrifying than an owlbear is an owlbear with the Fused Abomination template from Chaositech. You could have, like, an owlbear with a flumph on its head, or an owlbear that has a gorgon instead of a lower body, or an owlbear merged with the dreaded gazebo (I think that makes it immune to magic missiles).
Me, I would just stitch my owlbear to my tyrannosaurus rex, because people are always teasing the T-Rex about his little arms. People who are about to get owlbear'd.
Upon reflection and reading what I've just written, I realize that I should probably take less cold medicine at a time.
No, you need more! New 4E campaign, Owlbear'd! Everyone is an Owlbear, and the world after their feather claws.
I'm game. Who gets to be Owlbear Wizard?
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Turns out I got so much interest in Shadowrun, that I was able to make 2 entire groups and run 2 campaigns on a biweekly basis. So one game one week, the other the opposite. One team dealing with a growing rebellion against individuals who control all of the best tech and cyberware in Shanghai, China. The other group dealing with a corporate led plot to create some kind of terrible new hybrid human crossbreed using terrible magics.
At some point, these groups will intersect in interesting ways and it will be fun to see if I can make it work well.
Turns out I got so much interest in Shadowrun, that I was able to make 2 entire groups and run 2 campaigns on a biweekly basis. So one game one week, the other the opposite. One team dealing with a growing rebellion against individuals who control all of the best tech and cyberware in Shanghai, China. The other group dealing with a corporate led plot to create some kind of terrible new hybrid human crossbreed using terrible magics.
At some point, these groups will intersect in interesting ways and it will be fun to see if I can make it work well.
Parallel play is an art to pull off. They're going to be chasing each others' shadows for a while.
I did that one time! The two campaigns took place in Denver and Pueblo, and we were running them in parallel. The final encounter with both groups together was an epic confrontation with the Blood Mage Gestalt in an active volcano with a bunch of Aztechnology Jaguars and blood mages attempting to recreate the Great Ghost Dance. The nordic astral adept (an adept who can ONLY astrally perceive or project) with a weapon focus two-handed sword managed to take out a Force 15 blood spirit with an incredibly lucky roll and an incredibly poor roll on the spirit's part. The adept died shortly thereafter, but his sacrifice was pretty awesome.
Really, the most difficult part was managing the logistics of trying to get both gaming groups in the same room at the same time. Also, it was literally a two-scene adventure, where the two groups got together and shook hands, then the very long slog through combat at the end. Several of the PCs died, in addition to that adept, but everyone knew that it was the end of both campaigns.
Only thing more terrifying than an owlbear is an owlbear with the Fused Abomination template from Chaositech. You could have, like, an owlbear with a flumph on its head, or an owlbear that has a gorgon instead of a lower body, or an owlbear merged with the dreaded gazebo (I think that makes it immune to magic missiles).
Me, I would just stitch my owlbear to my tyrannosaurus rex, because people are always teasing the T-Rex about his little arms. People who are about to get owlbear'd.
Upon reflection and reading what I've just written, I realize that I should probably take less cold medicine at a time.
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Time for another report of my Trail of Cthulhu game, where paranoia and trust are both rife... and in short supply.
Masks of the Dreamer: Hellfire Auction
In my opinion there are two key aspects to a game based around horror:
1) Tension. The fear of things that might happen and the slow build up to the terrible truth behind things. Everything builds up to the ultimate moment of anagnorisis where the truth finally shatters any illusion of a sane and fair reality.
2) Trust. Can the players truly trust one another? Is anyone working against them? What IS the agenda of other players in the game? While you need everyone to be working together for a coherent game, you don't need everyone to be willingly to freely share all they know or to be entirely trusting of others. After all, someone could be a cultist all along or something worse.
In Masks of the Dreamer there were some interesting developments after the finale of the Rending Box. For one thing, the players imaginations really became very invigorated by the development of the magic system I have been implementing into the game (more on that soon in a separate post!) and I had numerous questions asked of me. It also emerged that some of the players suspected others of strange things and when the book they had received last session from their contact Randall went missing, the Ordos Draculis, suspicion amongst the players was rife.
Now was an excellent time to introduce a fantastic Nights Black Agents mechanic, Trust.
In a Nights Black Agents game they present an option to enhance suspicion amongst players called Trust. In effect, Trust is a mechanic where the players sit down and independently give one another a pool of points, which represents how their characters feel about one another. When all of my players arrived to the session I immediately stood up, asked everyone to move into another larger room and then spread them out entirely so they couldn't easily see what one another were doing. I then loudly announced that someone had turned against the party, in other words someone was working on an agenda contrary to their own.
A traitor!
This naturally sent quite a lot of confusion amongst them and I then explained what they had to do. In front of them I had some prepared bits of paper with the other characters, and what they had to do was assign "Trust" pool points amongst one another according to how their characters felt about the others. They had three totals: 3 points for who they trusted most and 1 point to give to two others. Any trust points not given to another investigator were completely wasted. Without giving them a lot of time to consider things, I started a 2 minute timer and said after that I would collect the things: Any points not on there were permanently wasted.
This had a truly wonderful effect: For one thing it made them a bit more paranoid and clearly a bit on edge as to what was going on. Secondly, it wonderfully built tension and has created an interesting dynamic where players try to limit information that might be a potential liability to them. It also showed me (as the Keeper) how the players thought about each others characters in an interesting manner.
Anastasia, the shopkeeper ended up with the most trust: 10 in total. Followed by Keith with 6, Maggie with 3, Jenn with 3 but Damian only picking up 2 points! I decided that a simple visual representation at the table was to put gold dice next to each player and work the mechanic like this: Whenever a player makes a check of any kind requiring a roll, they need to give a quick explanation of how the check makes sense (EG my character is calmed by Keith's presence and trust in my abilities under pressure*) and then "spend" the die. If they are right and that character in the scene does trust them, they get a bonus. If they are wrong however they get no benefit but no overt penalty and effectively "Waste" the point in trust. The small twist I implemented over NBA is that the investigators have to guess at who does or doesn't trust them, solely by the way they roleplay!
Suitably paranoid by the introduction of this new mechanic, prompted from failing the Paranoia Test from the previous session (it fits so perfectly!) I continued with the session. To start with, Tracy Wong came around to the store to visit the investigators and share some information she had helped dig up on this "Hellfire Club" for them. The long and short of it being that they are a collection of English and European occult groups, who loosely associate with one another in the form of this club to talk business, discuss their occult political situation and otherwise interact in a "non-hostile" environment.
I use scare quotes because naturally, it is anything but and there are powerful individuals aware of the investigators now (nobody enters the Dreaming Dark without being noticed by someone or perhaps even something). Tracy gave them a dire warning that they were being watched by unpleasant groups and that certain individuals were going to potentially take action. This upcoming Auction was not just an opportunity to gain some important mythos knowledge and items: It was also a potential way to make brand new enemies. These occult groups take losses of objects or tomes they desire as deep personal affronts to themselves.
Now, after the events on Rending Box I wanted the investigators to have some kind of direction as to how they could bias the auction in their favor and earn allies. Hence, I reintroduced Randall to the game and had him come to make them an offer of assistance. Randall, like the players, had a distinct agenda and wanted a specific item from the auction. Just like the investigators, Randall knew there was another party interested in the same mythos tome - a copy of the King in Yellow that was supposedly complete. He also happened to know exactly where his particular opponent was staying in London.
He thus proposed a simple thing: The Investigators "removed" his problem from the equation and he will help balance the score at the Auction - trying to help the PCs win the flute. This is an important offer as some of the other members from different orders often can procure nigh infinite resources (compared to the investigators at least). So if there is one way you can even the odds, as a certain Captain Kirk would approve of, then it's to cheat and go big at that.
To remove the Earl of Yoren, who Anastasia said was Oswald Crowley and yes indeed, a direct descendant of the legendary (and very real) British occultist Aleister Crowley, they needed to sneak into the secure estate he was staying at. The exclusive Carlton Estate is an upper market building in London, frequently hired out by dodgy fellows of all stripes and generally used during meetings of the Hellfire Club. Some initial exploration of the Estates servers quickly revealed this Earl had bought out the entire building for himself and was only using the upper penthouse!
Naturally it was time to sneak into the place and after they used some contacts in London's Historic Society, they quickly managed to figure out the floor plan of the building. This turned up a neat vulnerability in the normally impregnable iron fence, security and cameras: The power for the building was routed through an old transforming station nearby. It was out of the way, easy to break into and could easily disconnect the power to the entire building if interfered with. Naturally, you can guess what happened there as Damian went ahead and sabotaged it.
This resulted in a call to the electrical company, which one of the investigators caught a guard talking about and then an ambush of the two poor electricians. Some quick disguises later and talking past the security, they finally got into the apartment and began looking around. Naturally when I presented the floorplan for the building Anastasia and Maggie went for the bedroom, while Keith checked out the study with Jenn and Damian kept an eye down the hallway.
At this point everything had been going so easily and so it was time to reveal the little surprise in the bedroom. As the building was dark, other than some candles around the apartment here and there, the investigators did not realize there were two creatures in the bedroom, with lanky hairy legs, a body of shaggy hair and pointed snouts filled with teeth. Of course, when in full torchlight the two German Shepard dogs are a fairly mundane threat - but again the introduction and initial description was enough to really get some paranoid worrying around the table!
A quick, violent and bloody combat resulted where both Anastasia and Maggie ended up being bitten, until Damian rushed in with his secret trump card: He has a firearm. Unlike in a game set in the US, I've decided to make access to firearms and guns very difficult in general. So Damian pulling out the silenced pistol, which he got through contacts from a previous criminal history, was a huge moment. It also helped end the fight very easily and demonstrate the lethality of guns more than adequately as he killed one dog with a devastating shot to the head. The other dog ended up having a large amount of sleeping tablets forced down its mouth by Keith, giving them time to look around.
Knowing they came here with a job to do, the investigators decided to rather morbidly use the dogs blood and bits of flesh to help "prepare" several mythos like symbols around the room. They also quickly searched around and found a laptop with some interesting data within it: Turns out this Earl of Yoren was looking into the True Blue United Kingdom Parties financial activities, seemingly discovering they were either laundering money or had vastly more resources than they publicly declare. Right now this doesn't matter much, but one thing I love about having a campaign with a cohesive plot running through it is being able to drop clues or hints to things later on or the larger picture.
Anastasia also found some interesting notes that the Earl had left and grabbed them before they had to make a quick exit: Security wasn't about to ignore dog barking forever and they managed to sneak back out without much incidence. At this point the session was about 20 minutes from the end and there wasn't really enough time to engage with deeper scenes, so I decided to bring forward an interesting complication: One of the investigators sources of stability and important contact in London Metropolitan Police got a strange threat.
The warning, simply staying "We're Watching" and covered with weird symbols was enough to make him very paranoid. Bearing in mind Brian was involved with helping the investigators uncover a police cover up of a serial killer in London, he was understandably straight up spooked. He appealed to Maggie that he was going off the grid entirely and that she should not go looking for him: Putting the potential source of information and stability at risk (Maggie would lose both the 3 stability and the important Cop Talk contact!). Naturally Maggies reaction was very human, immediately - but over the phone - telling him that they should meet.
Naturally the other investigators were like, "Oh no don't do that! He'll be under surveillance!" but it was too late and after thinking about it, I thought that mistake added to the tension and drama. So I made it stay and so Maggie made the meeting over the phone (by accident and panic) and Brian hung up going "Dark" to see her then. Now the investigators have to make a choice in exposing themselves to save Brian or do they simply take this as a loss to go looking for another contact?
Either way, I can't wait for the next session where this will be answered!
*I actually forgot this requirement much to my chagrin at the time.
I am enjoying the Trail of Cthulhu write-ups, and they may have influenced my decision to buy a pdf of Beyond The Mountains Of Madness, a monstrously long CoC campaign sourcebook I'll almost certainly never run.
I am enjoying the Trail of Cthulhu write-ups, and they may have influenced my decision to buy a pdf of Beyond The Mountains Of Madness, a monstrously long CoC campaign sourcebook I'll almost certainly never run.
I have intentions of buying the Horror on the Orient Express, but will probably never find the time to ever convert it to Trail of Cthulhu and run it. My Trail game is a bit of a hybrid now of NBA, a little bit of Esoterrorists (the Dreaming Dark is where monsters come from in that IIRC) and the core of the actual Trail of Cthulhu book by this point. This trust mechanic has worked so well and they were very obviously unsettled by the entire affair and now I dropped in the group chat about a players inquiry about summoning monsters...
Something annoying about the Chaosium website: there's no mention of what edition the supplements are for, so with seventh edition just out I dunno whether re-releases are sixth or seventh.
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited February 2015
Seventh has some major and important departures:
1) They have made most combat stuff a contested roll, so you roll to hit vs. a defensive stat of some kind. This slows things up a fair bit.
2) You also have complication dice, which are a bit like an advantage/disadvantage mechanic from DnD but just as clumsy and ill fitting. You basically get extra D10s to add to or subtract from a roll.
3) They have a large number of chase rules in the book, which is good: Any CoC or ToC game spends a lot of time running from things.
4) Luck is decoupled from POW now and does some weird stuff kinda like inspiration from 5E.
5) They've nicked the best idea from Trail of Cthulhu possible: Sources of Stability, or at least an equivalent Source of Stability like mechanic.
6) They replaced the Call of Cthulhu story in the book for the Dunwich Horror. Seemingly an odd choice, but in reality Dunwich Horror, which features a group of investigators taking on the monster in the story is actually closer to what Call of Cthulhu is in practice.
It is generally very straightforward to implement old scenarios into Call of Cthulhu 7th though. It's certainly less work than going from CoC to Trail or vice versa.
So Saturday saw another stepping stone session in our Strike game. Given the holiday only two-thirds of the group made it but we managed to take a couple of big steps forward.
We explored the MMO's fast travel system, which I am like 90% certain we haven't actually figured out yet because it's essentially a series of non-Euclidean routes that intersect each other at points roughly equating to that of a giant tree. Actually getting the hang of it is probably going to require figuring out how to read the game's proprietary alien language.
On our way out of the fast travel system (which, amusingly enough, looks for all the world like a magical subway station, aesthetically) we were ambushed by PKers which we chose to confront in a Team Conflict rather than tactical combat for reasons, not the least of which is no abiding interest in killing them for being bad at choosing targets. We handily won in the first round, smashing both their Advance and their Defense, sending them running off in separate directions.
My character's Impatience is starting to become a driving trait of the group's approach to problems. They can only deliberate so long before he decides what to do, so they either have to make a decision quickly or hope that he agrees with their arguments. I fully expect the other Complications to come into play here as we have more opportunities to interact with the broader game. Only two of the characters know anything of substance about the game's lore. Everyone else is mostly oblivious to it in favor of either understanding PK mechanics or Raid mechanics. Except one guy, who is so ignorant of the lore that it's literally one of his Complications, which is bound to be hilarious in the long run.
Also I learned the first new skill of the campaign by spotting the PK ambush at the top of the stairs, which I'm not going to lie is a very fulfilling feeling.
The simplified 1d6 roll for everything is, honestly, a bold compromise. You don't flat out fail often, but you're not always succeeding. Twists put a lot of pressure on the GM to come up with good ones, but I recently re-read that section and it suggests players supply their own Twists and the GM can either say "nah I've got something else" or roll with what the player suggested. I think that will take a lot of pressure off the GM. One of the Twists we got was a character believing they'd deciphered the alien language grammar (but that would be impossible in the context given to me, which is that all of the runes were place names). Another was a character completely destroying one of the doorways. That one perplexes me. Does that mean the doorway is just destroyed at this node, or is it now destroyed at all nodes? We can't tell. We just don't understand enough yet to know. (The fast travel system used to just involve a menu.)
I think Morrus' rough cut on the numbers offered to freelancers is basically the bottom line. Even if you can produce 2000 words a day (which is doable, for sure) you also need to SELL those 2000 words a day. This doesn't make for a very good living, even in places like Florida or Alabama where living is cheap. I think we've got a decade until it's almost entirely passion projects that people do on the sideline to their real job.
To put this in perspective, the rate for some of the work I've done in translation and scripting is between $0.12 and $0.29 per word. At some point -- with POD and direct delivery of pdfs via digital storefronts -- the math just isn't going to make sense.
The most I've produced is 17,000 words in an 8 hour day (that's 35wpm, I checked when the editor said how much I had delivered) and I was working within an established framework I knew really well. I don't think I could write that much about RPGs in a day, as much as I love them. The mechanics considerations alone demand more thought than that.
VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I think we're already to the point of it being mostly passion projects. Some companies are making money, sure, but I think the flood of indie games we're seeing is mostly driven by people self-funding, crowd funding, POD, or just releasing their shit for free.
I think we're already to the point of it being mostly passion projects. Some companies are making money, sure, but I think the flood of indie games we're seeing is mostly driven by people self-funding, crowd funding, POD, or just releasing their shit for free.
Yup. I think the authors who produce on a constant basis will shift to Patreon, too. A steady $3000/mo to produce work that interests them is a hard bargain to turn down.
I had a fairly long post typed up, but I apparently typed it in the search bar because I was on a phone and am an idiot.
The gist is that I think we're moving into a pretty good place for people who are already in the hobby. Games for gamers by gamers, with each being hand-crafted by someone with a good amount of experience and a specific vision of what they want to make is a recipe for some good stuff.
My primary concern with that model, though, is that it also sounds like a recipe for insularity if we're not careful. Because nothing about a marketplace filled with kickstarters, patreons and unfunded online passion projects is going to bring new blood into the hobby. Eventually, we might just be trading derivative ideas back and forth between people who have been having the same discussion for decades. Which is a way we can go, I guess.
Basically, I'm concerned that we're going to be running out of entry vectors for new players that aren't brought into the fold by someone who's already in the hobby.
I had a fairly long post typed up, but I apparently typed it in the search bar because I was on a phone and am an idiot.
The gist is that I think we're moving into a pretty good place for people who are already in the hobby. Games for gamers by gamers, with each being hand-crafted by someone with a good amount of experience and a specific vision of what they want to make is a recipe for some good stuff.
My primary concern with that model, though, is that it also sounds like a recipe for insularity if we're not careful. Because nothing about a marketplace filled with kickstarters, patreons and unfunded online passion projects is going to bring new blood into the hobby. Eventually, we might just be trading derivative ideas back and forth between people who have been having the same discussion for decades. Which is a way we can go, I guess.
Basically, I'm concerned that we're going to be running out of entry vectors for new players that aren't brought into the fold by someone who's already in the hobby.
I think that is how people get into the hobby, though. I know that some people dove in head first, but it seems like far more people know someone who plays/has played and then a group forms. Our hobby is definitely getting smaller, but I think that's a result of so many choices in entertainment rather than any trend in the marketplace.
Posts
A character whose aspect was "I Am a Walking Armory" is both easily compelled (any time they walk through security, fr'ex) and can invoke it for a pretty large range of effects.
Again, not all aspects are going to be good for every game. The person who really suffers for a bad aspect, however, is the player. You shouldn't, as a GM, be compelling against an aspect that is weak just to keep the Fate Point economy fluid for that player. They need to recognize that their choices have consequences, and choosing an aspect that is 90% beneficial is not going to net nearly as many compels as the one that is 90% hindering. But there's a sweet spot in there, too, and those are the best aspects.
Now, there are aspects that transcend just the character: Librarian of Alexandria, for example. This essentially places the entire library at the character's disposal all of the time (for the low, low cost of a Fate Point), but it also means that people are going to be after him because they want access to the library. Or he occasionally has to struggle not to snatch books for the library. Or art. Or people.
Just because, at first blush, an aspect doesn't seem to provide great fodder for compels doesn't mean that's true. Nor does it mean a character having an aspect (or two) that are basically purely beneficial is bad either. They just need aspects that do a lot to hamper them to keep the economy going.
Re: Ryan Macklin; he has a very set idea of what Fate Core is in his mind and I think it bothers him a lot that the game has evolved past him. This is not a trait unique to him as a game developer. You see this very frequently in MMOs, which often begins a self-defeating cycle of patching "mechanics abuse" that eventually robs the game of its magic. YMMV.
I'm telling you your compel of walking through security is a weak compel
Unless the character has some kind of constant, dramatic pressure for being armed to the teeth (which for the life of me I can't really think of how to bring that into play as anything other than an Inconvenience button, which is why I think it's weak, but please provide counter examples because I'm probably just tired) it's a lame duck
It cuts both ways, a character constantly spending fate points to have guns/holy water/garlic/whatever is a wasted opportunity for something meatier when that thing could have just been represented by a stunt
If the security checkpoint is between the character and, I don't know, the chance to save their mother the impact of the compel is substantively different than if you simply throw random security screenings at them everywhere they go.
And yeah, without context it's difficult, but doable
Stunts improve your odds with a single Skill, which means a narrow set of circumstances.
Aspects should improve your odds in a fairly diverse set of circumstances across multiple Skills, but also risk hindering you by tying you up in plot tape.
I guess my whole point in this is that unless your Walking Armory aspect is providing real meat in the story it's a wasted slot, and I try not to let players go with wasted aspects for very long
Other GMs may have different experiences
I'm not saying it's not. But that aspect would provide bonuses in Fight, Shoot, Intimidate...if that's really what the player wants, just let them know compels against it are going to be pretty infrequent.
FWIW I never bothered with "highlighting an aspect;" at least not a character-specific one. The game doesn't actually suffer for it, and spotlights show up in a decent mix if you've got a group that's good about sharing them. Skill overlap being more or less inevitable, I mean.
It's also going to change based on your preference. I, and the players I've run for, tend to have more fun when they see their aspects (all of them) actually changing and shaping the story
I'm talking purely from a GM's perspective going into a session and looking at my players' aspects and putting a star on/highlighting one I think is interesting given the general storyline I'm moving forward in the session.
"Oh, Harry Dresden is going to be going up against the Winter Court sidhe today at a party. I think I'll highlight 'Not So Subtle, Still Quick to Anger' and see how much mileage I can get out of that today."
That's a very basic example taken right from the novels, and I could find many more where it translates
All that said, that's why I've been saying YMMV on this technique--I know plenty of people don't use it, it just allows me to be lazier and still put out a great session
If something is a fundamental part of the character and can have positive and negative consequences, I think it should be an Aspect. If it is purely positive, and a secondary feature of the character, it can be a Stunt.
You could make the character both ways, but the way he described it sounded like a fundamental aspect of the character's narrative, hence Aspect.
And if you wanted 'newbie' to somehow not be a pejorative, you probably shouldn't written it in that sentence, which was dismissive.
EDIT: And I think we already made it to the end of the topic and I said like four times YMMV and it's not gospel sooooo
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
Me, I would just stitch my owlbear to my tyrannosaurus rex, because people are always teasing the T-Rex about his little arms. People who are about to get owlbear'd.
Upon reflection and reading what I've just written, I realize that I should probably take less cold medicine at a time.
I'm game. Who gets to be Owlbear Wizard?
At some point, these groups will intersect in interesting ways and it will be fun to see if I can make it work well.
Really, the most difficult part was managing the logistics of trying to get both gaming groups in the same room at the same time. Also, it was literally a two-scene adventure, where the two groups got together and shook hands, then the very long slog through combat at the end. Several of the PCs died, in addition to that adept, but everyone knew that it was the end of both campaigns.
We're talking about cupcakes and bacon right now.
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
A T-Rex with the right to owlbear arms?
Masks of the Dreamer: Hellfire Auction
In my opinion there are two key aspects to a game based around horror:
1) Tension. The fear of things that might happen and the slow build up to the terrible truth behind things. Everything builds up to the ultimate moment of anagnorisis where the truth finally shatters any illusion of a sane and fair reality.
2) Trust. Can the players truly trust one another? Is anyone working against them? What IS the agenda of other players in the game? While you need everyone to be working together for a coherent game, you don't need everyone to be willingly to freely share all they know or to be entirely trusting of others. After all, someone could be a cultist all along or something worse.
In Masks of the Dreamer there were some interesting developments after the finale of the Rending Box. For one thing, the players imaginations really became very invigorated by the development of the magic system I have been implementing into the game (more on that soon in a separate post!) and I had numerous questions asked of me. It also emerged that some of the players suspected others of strange things and when the book they had received last session from their contact Randall went missing, the Ordos Draculis, suspicion amongst the players was rife.
Now was an excellent time to introduce a fantastic Nights Black Agents mechanic, Trust.
In a Nights Black Agents game they present an option to enhance suspicion amongst players called Trust. In effect, Trust is a mechanic where the players sit down and independently give one another a pool of points, which represents how their characters feel about one another. When all of my players arrived to the session I immediately stood up, asked everyone to move into another larger room and then spread them out entirely so they couldn't easily see what one another were doing. I then loudly announced that someone had turned against the party, in other words someone was working on an agenda contrary to their own.
A traitor!
This naturally sent quite a lot of confusion amongst them and I then explained what they had to do. In front of them I had some prepared bits of paper with the other characters, and what they had to do was assign "Trust" pool points amongst one another according to how their characters felt about the others. They had three totals: 3 points for who they trusted most and 1 point to give to two others. Any trust points not given to another investigator were completely wasted. Without giving them a lot of time to consider things, I started a 2 minute timer and said after that I would collect the things: Any points not on there were permanently wasted.
This had a truly wonderful effect: For one thing it made them a bit more paranoid and clearly a bit on edge as to what was going on. Secondly, it wonderfully built tension and has created an interesting dynamic where players try to limit information that might be a potential liability to them. It also showed me (as the Keeper) how the players thought about each others characters in an interesting manner.
Anastasia, the shopkeeper ended up with the most trust: 10 in total. Followed by Keith with 6, Maggie with 3, Jenn with 3 but Damian only picking up 2 points! I decided that a simple visual representation at the table was to put gold dice next to each player and work the mechanic like this: Whenever a player makes a check of any kind requiring a roll, they need to give a quick explanation of how the check makes sense (EG my character is calmed by Keith's presence and trust in my abilities under pressure*) and then "spend" the die. If they are right and that character in the scene does trust them, they get a bonus. If they are wrong however they get no benefit but no overt penalty and effectively "Waste" the point in trust. The small twist I implemented over NBA is that the investigators have to guess at who does or doesn't trust them, solely by the way they roleplay!
Suitably paranoid by the introduction of this new mechanic, prompted from failing the Paranoia Test from the previous session (it fits so perfectly!) I continued with the session. To start with, Tracy Wong came around to the store to visit the investigators and share some information she had helped dig up on this "Hellfire Club" for them. The long and short of it being that they are a collection of English and European occult groups, who loosely associate with one another in the form of this club to talk business, discuss their occult political situation and otherwise interact in a "non-hostile" environment.
I use scare quotes because naturally, it is anything but and there are powerful individuals aware of the investigators now (nobody enters the Dreaming Dark without being noticed by someone or perhaps even something). Tracy gave them a dire warning that they were being watched by unpleasant groups and that certain individuals were going to potentially take action. This upcoming Auction was not just an opportunity to gain some important mythos knowledge and items: It was also a potential way to make brand new enemies. These occult groups take losses of objects or tomes they desire as deep personal affronts to themselves.
Now, after the events on Rending Box I wanted the investigators to have some kind of direction as to how they could bias the auction in their favor and earn allies. Hence, I reintroduced Randall to the game and had him come to make them an offer of assistance. Randall, like the players, had a distinct agenda and wanted a specific item from the auction. Just like the investigators, Randall knew there was another party interested in the same mythos tome - a copy of the King in Yellow that was supposedly complete. He also happened to know exactly where his particular opponent was staying in London.
He thus proposed a simple thing: The Investigators "removed" his problem from the equation and he will help balance the score at the Auction - trying to help the PCs win the flute. This is an important offer as some of the other members from different orders often can procure nigh infinite resources (compared to the investigators at least). So if there is one way you can even the odds, as a certain Captain Kirk would approve of, then it's to cheat and go big at that.
To remove the Earl of Yoren, who Anastasia said was Oswald Crowley and yes indeed, a direct descendant of the legendary (and very real) British occultist Aleister Crowley, they needed to sneak into the secure estate he was staying at. The exclusive Carlton Estate is an upper market building in London, frequently hired out by dodgy fellows of all stripes and generally used during meetings of the Hellfire Club. Some initial exploration of the Estates servers quickly revealed this Earl had bought out the entire building for himself and was only using the upper penthouse!
Naturally it was time to sneak into the place and after they used some contacts in London's Historic Society, they quickly managed to figure out the floor plan of the building. This turned up a neat vulnerability in the normally impregnable iron fence, security and cameras: The power for the building was routed through an old transforming station nearby. It was out of the way, easy to break into and could easily disconnect the power to the entire building if interfered with. Naturally, you can guess what happened there as Damian went ahead and sabotaged it.
This resulted in a call to the electrical company, which one of the investigators caught a guard talking about and then an ambush of the two poor electricians. Some quick disguises later and talking past the security, they finally got into the apartment and began looking around. Naturally when I presented the floorplan for the building Anastasia and Maggie went for the bedroom, while Keith checked out the study with Jenn and Damian kept an eye down the hallway.
At this point everything had been going so easily and so it was time to reveal the little surprise in the bedroom. As the building was dark, other than some candles around the apartment here and there, the investigators did not realize there were two creatures in the bedroom, with lanky hairy legs, a body of shaggy hair and pointed snouts filled with teeth. Of course, when in full torchlight the two German Shepard dogs are a fairly mundane threat - but again the introduction and initial description was enough to really get some paranoid worrying around the table!
A quick, violent and bloody combat resulted where both Anastasia and Maggie ended up being bitten, until Damian rushed in with his secret trump card: He has a firearm. Unlike in a game set in the US, I've decided to make access to firearms and guns very difficult in general. So Damian pulling out the silenced pistol, which he got through contacts from a previous criminal history, was a huge moment. It also helped end the fight very easily and demonstrate the lethality of guns more than adequately as he killed one dog with a devastating shot to the head. The other dog ended up having a large amount of sleeping tablets forced down its mouth by Keith, giving them time to look around.
Knowing they came here with a job to do, the investigators decided to rather morbidly use the dogs blood and bits of flesh to help "prepare" several mythos like symbols around the room. They also quickly searched around and found a laptop with some interesting data within it: Turns out this Earl of Yoren was looking into the True Blue United Kingdom Parties financial activities, seemingly discovering they were either laundering money or had vastly more resources than they publicly declare. Right now this doesn't matter much, but one thing I love about having a campaign with a cohesive plot running through it is being able to drop clues or hints to things later on or the larger picture.
Anastasia also found some interesting notes that the Earl had left and grabbed them before they had to make a quick exit: Security wasn't about to ignore dog barking forever and they managed to sneak back out without much incidence. At this point the session was about 20 minutes from the end and there wasn't really enough time to engage with deeper scenes, so I decided to bring forward an interesting complication: One of the investigators sources of stability and important contact in London Metropolitan Police got a strange threat.
The warning, simply staying "We're Watching" and covered with weird symbols was enough to make him very paranoid. Bearing in mind Brian was involved with helping the investigators uncover a police cover up of a serial killer in London, he was understandably straight up spooked. He appealed to Maggie that he was going off the grid entirely and that she should not go looking for him: Putting the potential source of information and stability at risk (Maggie would lose both the 3 stability and the important Cop Talk contact!). Naturally Maggies reaction was very human, immediately - but over the phone - telling him that they should meet.
Naturally the other investigators were like, "Oh no don't do that! He'll be under surveillance!" but it was too late and after thinking about it, I thought that mistake added to the tension and drama. So I made it stay and so Maggie made the meeting over the phone (by accident and panic) and Brian hung up going "Dark" to see her then. Now the investigators have to make a choice in exposing themselves to save Brian or do they simply take this as a loss to go looking for another contact?
Either way, I can't wait for the next session where this will be answered!
*I actually forgot this requirement much to my chagrin at the time.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
I have intentions of buying the Horror on the Orient Express, but will probably never find the time to ever convert it to Trail of Cthulhu and run it. My Trail game is a bit of a hybrid now of NBA, a little bit of Esoterrorists (the Dreaming Dark is where monsters come from in that IIRC) and the core of the actual Trail of Cthulhu book by this point. This trust mechanic has worked so well and they were very obviously unsettled by the entire affair and now I dropped in the group chat about a players inquiry about summoning monsters...
Oh I do love this game so!
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
1) They have made most combat stuff a contested roll, so you roll to hit vs. a defensive stat of some kind. This slows things up a fair bit.
2) You also have complication dice, which are a bit like an advantage/disadvantage mechanic from DnD but just as clumsy and ill fitting. You basically get extra D10s to add to or subtract from a roll.
3) They have a large number of chase rules in the book, which is good: Any CoC or ToC game spends a lot of time running from things.
4) Luck is decoupled from POW now and does some weird stuff kinda like inspiration from 5E.
5) They've nicked the best idea from Trail of Cthulhu possible: Sources of Stability, or at least an equivalent Source of Stability like mechanic.
6) They replaced the Call of Cthulhu story in the book for the Dunwich Horror. Seemingly an odd choice, but in reality Dunwich Horror, which features a group of investigators taking on the monster in the story is actually closer to what Call of Cthulhu is in practice.
It is generally very straightforward to implement old scenarios into Call of Cthulhu 7th though. It's certainly less work than going from CoC to Trail or vice versa.
We explored the MMO's fast travel system, which I am like 90% certain we haven't actually figured out yet because it's essentially a series of non-Euclidean routes that intersect each other at points roughly equating to that of a giant tree. Actually getting the hang of it is probably going to require figuring out how to read the game's proprietary alien language.
On our way out of the fast travel system (which, amusingly enough, looks for all the world like a magical subway station, aesthetically) we were ambushed by PKers which we chose to confront in a Team Conflict rather than tactical combat for reasons, not the least of which is no abiding interest in killing them for being bad at choosing targets. We handily won in the first round, smashing both their Advance and their Defense, sending them running off in separate directions.
My character's Impatience is starting to become a driving trait of the group's approach to problems. They can only deliberate so long before he decides what to do, so they either have to make a decision quickly or hope that he agrees with their arguments. I fully expect the other Complications to come into play here as we have more opportunities to interact with the broader game. Only two of the characters know anything of substance about the game's lore. Everyone else is mostly oblivious to it in favor of either understanding PK mechanics or Raid mechanics. Except one guy, who is so ignorant of the lore that it's literally one of his Complications, which is bound to be hilarious in the long run.
Also I learned the first new skill of the campaign by spotting the PK ambush at the top of the stairs, which I'm not going to lie is a very fulfilling feeling.
The simplified 1d6 roll for everything is, honestly, a bold compromise. You don't flat out fail often, but you're not always succeeding. Twists put a lot of pressure on the GM to come up with good ones, but I recently re-read that section and it suggests players supply their own Twists and the GM can either say "nah I've got something else" or roll with what the player suggested. I think that will take a lot of pressure off the GM. One of the Twists we got was a character believing they'd deciphered the alien language grammar (but that would be impossible in the context given to me, which is that all of the runes were place names). Another was a character completely destroying one of the doorways. That one perplexes me. Does that mean the doorway is just destroyed at this node, or is it now destroyed at all nodes? We can't tell. We just don't understand enough yet to know. (The fast travel system used to just involve a menu.)
http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?2348-Pie-For-Everyone-Just-Sliced-Very-Thinly#.VOJpzy5iDOD
To put this in perspective, the rate for some of the work I've done in translation and scripting is between $0.12 and $0.29 per word. At some point -- with POD and direct delivery of pdfs via digital storefronts -- the math just isn't going to make sense.
The most I've produced is 17,000 words in an 8 hour day (that's 35wpm, I checked when the editor said how much I had delivered) and I was working within an established framework I knew really well. I don't think I could write that much about RPGs in a day, as much as I love them. The mechanics considerations alone demand more thought than that.
The gist is that I think we're moving into a pretty good place for people who are already in the hobby. Games for gamers by gamers, with each being hand-crafted by someone with a good amount of experience and a specific vision of what they want to make is a recipe for some good stuff.
My primary concern with that model, though, is that it also sounds like a recipe for insularity if we're not careful. Because nothing about a marketplace filled with kickstarters, patreons and unfunded online passion projects is going to bring new blood into the hobby. Eventually, we might just be trading derivative ideas back and forth between people who have been having the same discussion for decades. Which is a way we can go, I guess.
Basically, I'm concerned that we're going to be running out of entry vectors for new players that aren't brought into the fold by someone who's already in the hobby.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
I think that is how people get into the hobby, though. I know that some people dove in head first, but it seems like far more people know someone who plays/has played and then a group forms. Our hobby is definitely getting smaller, but I think that's a result of so many choices in entertainment rather than any trend in the marketplace.