Fictions & Fragments

Planning for Session 1 of Fate Accelerated (FAE) Caper,. I am likely to have 3 players and I have 5 roles. This is a game heavily based upon the TV show Leverage, which I have seen a ton of. As a review, the 5 roles are: Hitter, Hacker, Thief, Grifter and Mastermind. Out of these 5 roles, I think the Mastermind is the easiest to remove. I think it makes sense to abstract away the planning of the heist and treat the Mastermind character as an NPC who contributes a Game Aspect of "Planned for this". This allows all the players to benefit from the Mastermind's role without requiring someone to play them. Since there is still one role left over, I think that the same thing could be done with the remaining role. Hitter, Hacker, Thief and Grifter all have particular things they specialize in. The role not chosen can be represented with a Game Aspect of "Hitter", "Hacker", etc. If I had to choose a role to be represented this way, I would probably choose...

A show my wife and I really enjoy is Leverage. The writing is great, the show doesn't get too dark and the premise is fun. There is a Leverage RPG out of print which I recently found at a used book store but didn't find interesting. I decided I'd rather remake the premise in Fate Accelerated. I'm calling it Caper because it 1. is about stealing things 2. evokes a sense of fun and whimsy so that things don't get too grim. Fate Accelerated (FAE) is simple and easy to get involved in. It's been seen as the system for Rollplay Nebula Jazz and the Dresden Files Accelerated (DFA). It's just like Fate Core but with a set of Approaches instead of a series of skills. I've enjoyed the way that DFA implemented Mantles, which as Classes/Roles/Playbooks that add some focus to character creation. Roles For this game, I wanted to define a few roles that work like Mantles. They are directly taken from Leverage. The characters from Leverage each have very clear ro...

At this time of year, I always look around for cool games and projects. Here are a few things I've seen recently you could look at for gifts, provided you have a Role-Playing gamer in your household or network of friends. For Players Dice Everyone loves dice. Metal dice are an especially fancy option. Easy Roller dice are a proven favorite. They also have a lot of easy-to-read six-sided dice available in bulk. https://easyrollerdice.com/ Rolling Tray A rolling tray is a great addition to a gamer's arsenal. I've seen gain value for me as my young son starts playing games. Almost any board game or role-playing game would be made easier to play with a rolling tray. I went with a classy, durable hardwood tray for my recommendation. https://wyrmwoodgaming.com/product-category/products/dice-trays/ For Game Masters Dungeon World If you want ta fast, easy-to-play dungeon game, Dungeon World is well-written and a good take on the classic fantasy RPG. At $25 in print...

I love Harry Potter! At home we talked about the idea of a Harry Potter game, inspired by Mark Plourde as mentioned on the Cypher Speak Podcast. So here's 2 ways to handle it: as a Fate skill system. In Fate Core, the game expects 18 skills. Here's a trial of mapping Hogwarts school subjects to skills. Apparition Astronomy Arithmancy Care of Magical Creatures Charms Defense Against the Dark Arts Divination Dueling - replace Fight and Shoot Flying Lessons - replace Drive Herbology History of Magic - replace Lore Muggle Studies Potions - replace Crafts Transfiguration also non-school subjects Contacts Provoke Rapport Resources The school subjects cover almost everything I'd want in a Harry Potter game, but I wanted to be able to explain why the Malfoys are so well-known and connected without using school subjects, so Contacts and Resources stayed in from Fate Core. Additionally, Provoke and Rapport seem important for dealing with other wizards (and perh...

I've been interested in FATE for a while. It's a great premise for a game system but so different from games like D&D that I'm really taking some time to wrap my head around it. One of the great things about FATE is that there are so many great ideas in the base material! The Evil Hat Patreon/Worlds of Fate series has amazing ideas. The Fate System Toolkit and Adversary Toolkit are awesome products - in fact, the Regency Romance spread in the Adversary Toolkit will probably be the first FATE game I run, because it's something my wife has wanted for a long time. The hardest thing to understand how to do well in FATE is aspects. Suggestions in Fate Core is that aspects have both positive and negative connotations as well as boundaries. Instead of 'Strongest Man Alive', a good aspect would be 'Strongest Man in the State'. That final quality defines the possibility of conflict with other 'strong men' in other states. There are many other th...