Burn Everything Gaming

RPGs and more


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Creative Challenges

FATE Core is a wonderful system for creativity. It encourages GMs to create fantastic worlds and encounters, and it grants a lot of freedom to players to do whatever it is that they want to do. In fact, the scope of possibilities is so vast that it can be daunting.

If you’ve been playing any FATE games for a while with the same group, you may notice that everyone tends to get comfortable in a role after some time. I am not saying this is a bad thing. A good game SHOULD get easier to play with time. The less you stress, the less you mess.

But just in case you are looking for a chance to experiment with the FATE system and possibly stretch your imagination a bit, here are some challenges to think about trying in your next game.

Challenge 1: Create a Key Advantage

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Star Trek Fate: Starfleet Academy and the Command Structure

If you don’t know where to start, a good place is always the beginning.  The beginning for Star Trek is the Starfleet Academy.  Any non Vulcan or Vulcan/Human character starts the Academy at age 18 (18 skill points) and with a refresh of 3. Vulcans and Vulcan/Humans start the Academy at age 22 (22 skill points) and 5 Refresh.  While most fate games give you free choice as to what skills you can have and where, being in the Academy requires some skills to be at least at +1 (Average):

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Gaming out of a Dark Room

So last year I got addicted to the online game A Dark Room (couldn’t afford the app), and it got me thinking what a great Tian Xia RPG that sort of setting would make. I ended up planning out a couple of sessions, and while the campaign never got off the ground I thought I would share what I had to see if anyone could improve on the idea.

If you are not familiar with A Dark Room, Google it and become addicted!

Translating Mechanics

So I started out wanting to take the different levels of the game opening up and relating them to the intro of this Tian Xia game. Here is what I came up with:

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Star Trek Fate: Skills

As with any normal FATE game, this universe needs skills. I tried to keep physical skills and social skills at a similar number because I want this game to be even between physical conflicts and social conflicts.

Skills:  Physical=9, Social=9, Mental=4

(p)Athletics = Physical Initiative. Agility and running
(s)Contacts = Who you know, hearing rumors
(p)Craftsmanship = Making and repairing mechanical things
(s)Customs = Understanding groups of people. Languages known.

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Dragon Age RPG for Your First Game

The New Year is just around the corner, just brimming with potential. So I thought I would post something aimed at potential new gamers! I am amazed at how popular tabletop RPGs have gotten during my lifetime. People love to play, as well they should. And the industry is booming with more games and expansions and accessories coming out all the time!

That being said, roleplaying games can sometimes be intimidating for people that have never tried it before. Sure if you have a local gaming store to get plugged into or a cousin that is a long-time gamer, getting plugged in is easy. But if not, even if you have a group of friends that would enjoy playing together, it is hard to know where to begin.

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Thoughts on Running a Political Adventure in FATE

As a GM, I am constantly trying to push myself to try new things with planning encounters, adventures, and campaigns. Sometimes it works out great (opera house). Sometimes it turns out terrible. But every time I try something new, I feel like I get a little better at running games.

This week I have been working on a FATE political campaign, which has always sounded fun and has never looked easy. The adventures I run are usual story challenges with combat scattered here and there as necessary. Political campaigns add multiple levels of plot complexity, with choices having long-reaching consequences.

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Star Trek Fate: Life Spans

Star Trek has a wide variety of species with a wide variety of life spans. In keeping with the simplicity of FATE, I decided to have a mechanic that only deals with 2 different life spans (3 technically if you want to include immortal beings). The first is the normal life span of just over 100 years.  The 2nd, is a life span of around just over 200 years. A species would naturally fall under the first life span unless otherwise noted in the Species Trait.

I also decided to tie Skill rewards and Refresh awards to age. Though, there will always be special instances where a player can earn additional Refresh for their Character. Characters that live the usual 100 years start out at age 18 with 3 Refresh. For characters that live 200 years they will start out at age 22 with 5 Refresh. For most of a characters life every year will get them a new skill point. So, if you want to quickly create a Captain that is 50 years old you can already know that he is going to have 50 skill points and work from there.  As a character gets older the rate at which they earn Skill will slowly decrease.

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Star Trek Fate: Species

The universe of Star Trek is filled with a diverse number of species. While not all of them have had significant screen time, many of them have had enough where we can get an idea about the traits of that species. Here, I try to capture these traits in my FATE core version of Character sheets.

If you aren’t familiar with FATE core, it is an RPG system that focuses on character Aspects and Skills.  You can find out more here:

http://www.evilhat.com/home/fate-core/

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Forced to Opera by the Fae

One of the great things about roleplaying games is that they offer us a chance to share amazing experiences with other people. As a GM, I am constantly pulling puns and story ideas from my childhood. Sometimes I try to disguise these ideas, but more often than not the source is so obvious that it becomes part of the joy.

Back when I was running my first real Dresden Files RPG Campaign, I decided that I wanted to do an opera scene like the one found in Final Fantasy 6 (my favorite electronic game to this day, though Chrono Trigger is an insanely close second). So I took the script from the opera, made some changes to fit the actual adventure, and waited for a chance to have fairies kidnap the party and force them into the play.

The results were one of my favorite gaming sessions I have ever run. The players sang and read their lines when they were onstage and plotted how to escape (and not die in the death scenes) when their characters were behind the curtains. I really wish we had been recording sessions back then.

While a lot of the session notes have been removed, the actual script for the opera and a few of the details are included in this first set of notes. Hopefully you can get a feel of how much fun it was to play.

-Joshua

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