D&D Fate Characters: Burn Them All

Today, I feel like making D&D Fate characters. Today’s theme seems to be attacking things with fire and high charisma.

Roland Flametongue

Hero Points: 3

ABILITY SCORES

• Str +2
• Dex +0
• Con +2
• Int +1
• Wis +1
• Cha +3

ASPECTS

•  Class—World Weary Warlord
• Trouble—Too Old for this Stuff
• Race—Fire Breathing Dragonborn

FEATS

• Because I Yell a Lot I get +2 when I use Charisma to Create an Advantage when Encourage/Bark Orders at My Allies.
• Because I Breath Fire I get +2 when I use Charisma to Attack when Using My Breath Weapon.
• Because I Have Natural Weapons I get +2 when I use Strength to Defend when Using My Claws to Parry.

DAMAGE

Stress

• 1
• 2
• 3

Consequences

• Mild (2)
• Moderate (4)
• Severe (6)

Serena the Sorcerer

Hero Points: 3

ABILITY SCORES

• Str +0
• Dex +2
• Con +1
• Int +2
• Wis +1
• Cha +3

ASPECTS

• Class—Sorcerer on Her Mother’s Side
• Trouble—So Many Irons in the Fire (Tends to Overcomplicate things)
• Race—My Mother Came from an Exotic Foreign Land

FEATS

• Because I Disguise Myself I get +2 when I use Charisma to Create an Advantage or Overcome an Obstacle when Using Magical Disguises.
• Because I Fireball My Foes I get +2 when I use Charisma to Attack when Create Magical Balls of Fire.
• One Feat to Be Determined Later.

DAMAGE

Stress

• 1
• 2
• 3

Consequences

• Mild (2)
• Moderate (4)
• Severe (6)

I Ran D&D with Fate, a Post Mortem

I just got back from a weekend excursion to visit faraway friends, and I managed to get some of them down to try Fate Accelerated Edition re-skinned as Dungeons & Dragons—approaches are replaced with the standard ability scores (which is not a new idea but it works), stunts are renamed feats (as they are functionally the same thing anyway), fate points become hero points, and I suggest to make race and class as starting aspects.

We started with the party (made up of a hobbit fighter, a half-elven thief, and a dwarven demon summoner) getting contacted by a envoy with a sensitive problem, the duke’s orphaned niece Serena has gone missing on the very day before she was to be engaged to some barely pubescent second son. The investigation was kicked off with a little demon summoning which lead to the brutal beating of a bard seen with Serena, and who was also a clown (the hobbit took an aspect and stunt related to hating clowns so there was a clown...a sad, sad clown) who gave up another clue, he has been extorted into luring Serena into a trap so she could be kidnapped.

They gained access to the scene of the abduction, a creepy and ill-expanded unused area below the duke’s castle, via the thief picking a lock. I had somehow forgotten that picking locks as a thing in D&D when I wrote the scenario, and the plan was for the group to search Serena’s room and find a journal that reveals a secret exit from the castle they can use to enter the dungeon. Even though the thief rolled a little low—I had the sudden realization that the lock probably wasn’t that good as very few people have any reason to try and open the lock, I couldn’t think of any good options for succeeding with a cost, and I thought derailing my plans was really funny—the lock opened.

Once they get down below, they met up with a mouse with a crown and a sword, the Mouse Prince, beside a pit. After some conversation (we discovered that the thief could talk to animals, which is to say she had an open aspect slot and put speaks with animals into it) they decided that the Mouse Prince is not to be trusted and is probably some sort of the improbable trap monsters. So, they threw a torch down the pit and yes, the Mouse Prince was some sort of improbable trap monsters. In the pit was the Rat King, a large rat with a crown and scepter of skulls whose tail is connected to the Mouse Prince—a variation on the urban legend rat king.

The fight was about three or four rounds long. I gave the PCs the initiative as they had surprised the monsters and I don’t like initiative rules. The fight included: Setting the Rat King on fire, compelling that on fire aspect to destroy the scepter, cutting the pair’s shared tail and instantly killing the Mouse Prince. Though I did forget to mention that even after the two free uses of On Fire, the aspect could still be used with a hero point.

After that, they found the remains of the would-be kidnappers (who had been blasted with fireball), went through a maze (which was just there because mazes are a trope they marked the walls and got through with little trouble), and found Serena disguised as a hermit camped by the exit (where they were supposed the start). They had already figured out that she was a magic user (her mother was a sorcerer from a foreign land), approached her and convinced her to join them after faking her death with the remains of the kidnappers, and taking the reward money after pinning it on the clown bard.

It was a quick, silly game but an enjoyable one with only a little hurriedly rules reference on my part. One of the players prefers a game with more concrete options, and I wonder if including the four basic actions (create an advantage, overcome an obstacle, attack, and defend) on the play-sheet (I made a character sheet with all the required rules for character creation and some of the other rules baked in) would have made things easier for her. I had left them off in an attempt to present the most accessible version of fate possible; though it is possible I went too far.

The players also seem to take to the build your own stunt system better than aspects, though I only omitted stunts that let characters do something without a roll once per day and adding new stunts by reducing refresh.

Share the Fun: "Magic Burst 4th Draft"

Here's a nifty magic girl game that Ewen Cluney has been working on for a while, Magic Burst. It's still a draft, but a very complete one.

The Catalogue

The Catalogue is an index of Unexplained Objects. These objects, seemingly at random, are aware of their surrounding and, given the proper motivation, able to act. What the object does is often tied to its function (such as a lighting causing spontaneous combustion) , but also its circumstances (such as the same lighter only torching lawyers because it was owned by a corrupt attorney who soured it against the profession). One might think of these objects as Karmic Rewards and Punishments.

As Procurement Agents for the Catalogue, the PCs are tasked to tracking down these objects, investigating them, and if need be, procuring them. As a privet enterprise, the Catalogue has no legal authority to claim these objects and only so many funds to deal with legal disputes, so getting the objects without entanglements is important.

To pay the bills, the catalogue also sells and trades the more benign objects to Keep the Coffers full.

In addition, some people are Born Different with features that one might find in a fantasy novel or cheep science fiction series such as pointed ears, oddly colored eyes, scaly skin, a tail, or a combination of multiple traits. This Weirdness is Normal for most people, even though it can't be traced to genetics or environment, and the traits variety enough to prevent easy classification.

Stunts

Because Violence Only Breeds More Violence, you get +2 when cleverly creating advantage or overcoming an obstacle when non-violently resisting or avoiding a violent opponent.

Because Nature Loves a Clown, you get +2 when Flashily defending when making a fool hearty risk that really isn't necessary.

Because Every Agent is a Part Time Therapist, you get +2 when Carefully creating an advantage when analyzing a unexplained object.

Anime Fighting Game

A few days ago, I started thinking about anime (in particular shonen series focused on fighting) rpg, and I figured I’d write up a quick game using that theme and post it up before my attention drifted elsewhere.

Building a Character

Moves: You have 12d6 to build moves, with a maximum of 6d6 in any one move. The number of dice is also the cost in endurance. The three types of moves are attack, defense, and hinder. Characters can take multiple actions in sequence but only if each new move has more dice than the last, so varying the costs of your moves is useful.

Attack moves deal damage. If the damage equals or exceeds the target’s toughness, the target is hurt. A target can be hurt multiple times if damage equals or exceeds the target’s toughness multiple times (a fifteen damage attack hurts a character with 5 toughness three times).

Defense moves are used in response to other moves to reduce their effect (subtract the defense roll from the other move’s roll). Defense moves are used in response to other moves, so they don’t follow the normal combo rules.

Hinder moves prevent a target from acting until the target spends endurance equal to the move’s roll / 3 (round up).

Toughness: You start with a toughness of 7. An attack must deal at least 7 damage to hurt you, 14 to hurt you twice and so forth.

Endurance: You start each combat with endurance equal to your character’s toughness, and regain the same value during ever turnover.

Escalations: You start most combats with none of these. If an attack move does enough damage to hurt you, you can either succumb to the damage (dropping out of combat) or escalate. Escalating adds one to your escalation, which adds one dice to all of your moves and adds one to your toughness, but it also adds a dice to the post combat fallout roll.

You can also escalate as a "one dice" move.

Combat

Combat starts with one character (most likely the character that throws the first punch) with initiative. That character can use a move and then they can pass the initiative to any character.

A combo occurs when a characters passes initiative to or between themselves. Every move in a combo must cost more than the last. The only way out of the rising endurance costs is a turnover, passing initiative to an opponent rather than an ally.

After a turnover, every character regains endurance equal to their toughness and all combos end.

NPC characters will often have preselected values to determine how many times they will escalate before succumbing.

Fallout

After combat, roll each character’s escalations in d6 and consults below:

0-3: No Effect

4-7: Start next combat with 1 escalation

8-10: Start next combat with 2 escalations

11-14: Start next combat with 3 escalations

15-18: Start next combat with 3 escalations without the normal benefits for those escalations

19+: Lose 1d6 Toughness. A character that drops to 0 toughness or less dies.

Generic Magic Girl

Through the beneficence of Cute Yet Mysterious Animal  Guide you have been gifted with a Transformation Trinket which allows you to shift into a Magical Alter Ego. You won't have long to learn to use your new powers, these sorts of things are only dispensed when A Crisis Looms; something that can only be fought with magic is threatening a world unaware that it is even in danger.

You may find your foes include other empowered individuals that aren't so different from you. These people are necessarily bad people, they might have reasons for doing what they are doing. Luckily, Defeat Means Friendship, though be careful because sometimes Redemption Equals Death as well.

Most of your foes will probably be minor foes that reflect some human failing in an completely inhuman way. These creatures might feed of  people's negative emotions, encourage them, or both. You'll probably encounter these creatures first wearing convincing human disguises that only drop when confronted, revealing their true forms.

In battle you should Call Your Attacks, especially when you use your Finishing Attack.

Stunts

Because No One Should Suffer, you get +2 when Quickly defending when a someone else is attacked.

Because You Never Fight Alone, once per game you can receive aid from a mysterious ally.

Because When You Have Magic Everything Looks Like a Nail, you get +2 when Cleverly creating an advantage  when using an attack in a unconventional way.

Online Games, a List of Sorts

At my current location the only options for internet access are dial-up, satellite, and DSL through a phone carrier other than the one the household currently uses. So, I have dial-up access, which means that for some tasks, such as downloading large files and playing online games, I have to bring my laptop somewhere where I can hook it into a better connection.

Sometime in the near future my location will be changing, and I will have better options for internet access, and will be able to download files, play online games, and do other things that require fast internet (maybe playing tabletop games over skype or google+ with distant friend provided I can find distant friends with the prerequisite free time to do so). Since a list of files I plan on downloading isn’t very interesting, here is a list of online games I’ve played some in the past and plan on playing more when I’ve moved.

Marvel Heroes: I kind of missed out on the Diablo phenomenon. When the first two games came out, I didn’t have a computer able to play them. My introduction to that sort of game came with Torchlight II and the predecessor (which I go with the pre-purchase of the former), which is also a fine game.

Marvel Heroes is the same sort of game, but with a characters and locations from Marvel comics. I’ve been playing Daredevil, though I have a level 1 Thing and Hawkeye waiting in the wings, which seems to be a problematic character as every time I play (which is rare) I have to rebuild my character as he’s be rebalanced in some subtle way that doesn’t actually change how I play him much.

The game isn’t particularly hard. My main strategy is to jump into a bunch of guys and spam an area attack until there aren’t any guys left with maybe some more thoughtful tactics if that doesn’t work. But that part of the fun of Marvel Hero for me, I have tons of games that challenge me, this is a game where run around beating bad guys up, taking their stuff, and listening to amusing quotes.

Infinite Crisis: Speaking of games that challenge me, Infinite Crisis is a DC Comics themed MOBA (a not particularly interesting acronym for games like LoL and Dota) and MOBA are not a genre of game I excel at but I’ve been playing it a little. There isn’t much to differentiate the game from other entries in the genre in the game play (though they did launch with more map variety than some other games which is nice) but through having multiple versions of famous DC characters from different universes. My personal stable of characters includes Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, Robin, Zatanna, Batman Noir, and Atomic Green Lantern (as far as I can recall).

As I said, I’m not very good at this sort of game, so I tend to be happy as long as I’m not the worst player in the match.

DC Universe: Yet another licensed game based on comic books, DC Universe is an MMO. It might be silly, but I really like that all of the quests have voiced introductions from one of the character’s patrons.

While I enjoyed the Legends PVP mode where you step into the shoes of famous DC characters for head to head matches against another team, I got a little sick of getting taken out repeatedly by max level heroes while trying to do my quests. Luckily, it is easy to switch between PVP enabled and not.

Guild Wars 2: Guild Wars 2 does some smart things as a MMO. The way levels work makes it so you never out level content and they add a lot of variety into each class by making every type of weapon provide a different set of command.

Also, I’ve heard good things about the PVP sections of the game though I’ve never played with them.

Defiance: An MMO that is also a shooter that is also an entertaining science fiction/western television show. I haven’t actually played the game yet. I picked it up during a sale and put it aside, but will probably give it a shot. I am slightly disappointed that more of the alien races aren’t playable.

Nuclear Dawn: A weird PVP hybrid shooter/ strategy game where one player on each team is given the role of commander, which lets them build helpful building and research player boosts while everyone else works to take points on the map to give the commander more resources to work with.

I might not play a whole lot more of it, but I think its work an occasional play.

Super Monday Night Combat: A hybrid shoot/MOBA that is sadly under populated. I really like it and in the past I have strong armed friends into playing this game with me.

I also might play some of the previous game Monday Night Combat if I can talk people into it. I like that I can play it offline, but the one mode open to that sort of play (a type of survival against waves of bots with multiple lanes) is only doable for me as a single player on the lower difficulties.

The games’ setting could make good fodder for a table top game that went into what happens the rest of the week.

Monster Hunter: I have a friend that is very much a fan of this franchise, so I plan on pick the most recent version for my WiiU so we can combine forces to more efficiently hunt monsters. Hopefully, I’ll be able to manage the controls on the WiiU better than the demo version for the 3DS.

Also, when Exalted third edition comes out, I have plans to do a Dragonblood game loosely based off the same premise with lots of encounters with big stompy monsters rather than Exalted on Exalted fights.

Borderlands 2: Because it’s give me an excuse to make another character (as co-op seems to work best when characters have similar level and story progression) rather than actually finishing the game.