If it's inconsequential, then how does it deserve a FATE Point? From what I read of previous posts, it's implied that FATE Points are rewarded when a character gets screwed over.echoVanguard wrote: The three-stooges-power-turbine is something Frank talked about in the previous DFRPG thread - essentially, that characters spend time between life-or-death encounters compelling their own aspects to generate Fate Points to use in the aforementioned encounters. Usually these compels take the form of the characters having paint buckets fall on them or getting amusingly mistaken for a repairman before catastrophically and repeatedly failing at simple but meaningless tasks for comedic effect. The end result of this is that the game devolves into a two-act play - Act 1 is "Everyone Has Embarrassing But Inconsequential Things Happen To Them" and Act 2 is "The Heroes Hit The Bad Guy For Massive Damage And Win".
echo
How's Starblazer Adventures?
Moderator: Moderators
Running Starblazer Adventures/FATE 3.0
This last few years at cons, I have been running and playing mostly FATE games, and especially Starblazer Adventures. I have to say that I am consistantly enjoying GMing and paying FATE much more than any of the other rulesets available to me.
Some observations and advice:
1) Ditch d6-d6 in favor of 4dF.
Unless you're playing something like Paranoia, where rational expectations are in fact treasonous, the swinginess of d6-d6 makes the game unplayable. With 4dF, players can make sense of the world, and their character sheet.
2) Embrace player co-authoring.
What makes Starblazer in particular a nearly ideal RPG to run at conventions is that as GM, I present a framework for the game, and the character creation process not only informs me what kind of game they want, but the players also create many of the story elements for me. For example, in the first phase, players tell me their species and their homeworlds. Even those who choose humans from Earth will describe the location of their first adventure. By the time character creation is over, the players have generated at least a dozen locations, organizations, species, creatures, artifacts, and NPCs, giving you a framework for what's to come.
3) Listen to what the players are trying to tell you with their character sheets.
When a player chooses to emphasize specific skills, they are telling you what kind of scenes they expect. If they choose aspects tied to an NPC or organization, they expect those to fit into the story somehow, even if it's just as background leading to the premise of the adventure.
4) Only make a framework, fill in the details later.
I try to make as few decisions up front as possible, and as play progresses, I try to preserves my options until I need to cash them in.
For example, I had decided that large scale AIs were off-limits for this campaign setting. But one of the players, having misinterpretted the name of a star, Mekbuda, as the name of a planetary scale AI, Mech Buddha, insisted that this must be the object of Dr. Omega's next scheme. And so it was!
5) Trust the players.
You'd be amazed how much easier it is to produce an entertaining and memorable experience at the table when you can push a lot of the creative work onto them. Not only will they come up with angles and complications that may have escaped you, but sharing the load really does make the work much lighter.
I usually budget 90-120 minutes for character creation, followed by 30-45 minutes to sketch out a framework for an adventure that engages all the players, then 4-6 hours to actually run the adventure to its climax. All in all, about 6-8 hours.
6) Aspects and skill checks are the meat of the game, stunts can mostly be glossed over.
One thing most or all FATE designers suck at is writing stunts. A stunt must be strictly better than an Aspect, otherwise it should just be an Aspect. In practice, I often just wait until a player wants to do something reliably that their character sheet does not strictly support, and then offer it to them as a stunt or three, depending on its awesomeness.
7) Have a group pool of FATE points
With 4-6 player characters on the table, there will be about 50 aspects to consider, plus aspects on game elements, such as scenes, organizations, vehicles, creatures, and so on. It's nigh impossible to drive the game forward and consider possible compells for dozens of aspects at the same time, so I draft the players. I put a pile of FATE points in the center of the table so the players can compell each other's aspects without spending their own points. With more eyes watching out for playable aspects, the FATE economy flows, and so does the story.
8) Keep running conflicts fairly short.
Rarely should a fight, chase, or drama go more than 3 rounds. FATE conflicts are pretty easy to win, once you get the hang of it, and repeated long conflicts are boring. What's interesting is how the conflict gets resolved, and what complications that leads to.
9) Play Bulldogs instead.
Unless you are playing a campaign where the FATE fractal rules would be used (e.g., organizations and constructs), Bulldogs from Galileo Games is much cleaner. 4dF, smaller skill list, better species and gear rules, single stress track, and about a quarter of the page count.
Smeelbo
Some observations and advice:
1) Ditch d6-d6 in favor of 4dF.
Unless you're playing something like Paranoia, where rational expectations are in fact treasonous, the swinginess of d6-d6 makes the game unplayable. With 4dF, players can make sense of the world, and their character sheet.
2) Embrace player co-authoring.
What makes Starblazer in particular a nearly ideal RPG to run at conventions is that as GM, I present a framework for the game, and the character creation process not only informs me what kind of game they want, but the players also create many of the story elements for me. For example, in the first phase, players tell me their species and their homeworlds. Even those who choose humans from Earth will describe the location of their first adventure. By the time character creation is over, the players have generated at least a dozen locations, organizations, species, creatures, artifacts, and NPCs, giving you a framework for what's to come.
3) Listen to what the players are trying to tell you with their character sheets.
When a player chooses to emphasize specific skills, they are telling you what kind of scenes they expect. If they choose aspects tied to an NPC or organization, they expect those to fit into the story somehow, even if it's just as background leading to the premise of the adventure.
4) Only make a framework, fill in the details later.
I try to make as few decisions up front as possible, and as play progresses, I try to preserves my options until I need to cash them in.
For example, I had decided that large scale AIs were off-limits for this campaign setting. But one of the players, having misinterpretted the name of a star, Mekbuda, as the name of a planetary scale AI, Mech Buddha, insisted that this must be the object of Dr. Omega's next scheme. And so it was!
5) Trust the players.
You'd be amazed how much easier it is to produce an entertaining and memorable experience at the table when you can push a lot of the creative work onto them. Not only will they come up with angles and complications that may have escaped you, but sharing the load really does make the work much lighter.
I usually budget 90-120 minutes for character creation, followed by 30-45 minutes to sketch out a framework for an adventure that engages all the players, then 4-6 hours to actually run the adventure to its climax. All in all, about 6-8 hours.
6) Aspects and skill checks are the meat of the game, stunts can mostly be glossed over.
One thing most or all FATE designers suck at is writing stunts. A stunt must be strictly better than an Aspect, otherwise it should just be an Aspect. In practice, I often just wait until a player wants to do something reliably that their character sheet does not strictly support, and then offer it to them as a stunt or three, depending on its awesomeness.
7) Have a group pool of FATE points
With 4-6 player characters on the table, there will be about 50 aspects to consider, plus aspects on game elements, such as scenes, organizations, vehicles, creatures, and so on. It's nigh impossible to drive the game forward and consider possible compells for dozens of aspects at the same time, so I draft the players. I put a pile of FATE points in the center of the table so the players can compell each other's aspects without spending their own points. With more eyes watching out for playable aspects, the FATE economy flows, and so does the story.
8) Keep running conflicts fairly short.
Rarely should a fight, chase, or drama go more than 3 rounds. FATE conflicts are pretty easy to win, once you get the hang of it, and repeated long conflicts are boring. What's interesting is how the conflict gets resolved, and what complications that leads to.
9) Play Bulldogs instead.
Unless you are playing a campaign where the FATE fractal rules would be used (e.g., organizations and constructs), Bulldogs from Galileo Games is much cleaner. 4dF, smaller skill list, better species and gear rules, single stress track, and about a quarter of the page count.
Smeelbo
How Aspects and FATE points work in practice
Frank makes much of the Stooges Hijinx strategy for FATE, but this is a poor use of the game mechanics. When a player chooses Aspects and Skills for his character, he is telling the table what kind of scenes he would like, and what his character intends to do during those scenes.
So Memorial Day weekend at KubliCon, I am running "Star Patrol--Freedom in the Galaxy: When AtomiTech lifts America into Space, we find the Stars Chained in Cruel Servitude to Queen Tyrannia. Our Historical Documents ignite the Torch of Liberty, bringing FREEEDOM TO THE GALAXY!"
We have enough context for players to form reasonable shared expectations, but not a lot of details. Here is some of what the players gave me:
Lance Rockwell: +5 Art, +4 Leadership, Contacting
"General Domestics brings you The Voice of Freedom!"
"The Truth is what Freedom needs it to be!"
Kleshekka: +5 Endurance, +4 Engineering, Stealth
"4' long, tool using centipede"
"Goes where others cannot, eats what others will not."
Grorg: +5 Endurance, +4 Might, Weapons
"Large, thick skinned, Radiation resistant lizard man"
"Say Hello to my Vibro Maul!"
"A Slave No More!"
Just here, the players have given me an organization, General Domestics, two alien races and their homeworlds, several hooks, and a good idea about what kind of scenes I should throw at them. The resulting adventure, "A Congress of Rebels," revolved around uniting the disparate races formerly enslaved in the Tyrannium Mines.
To be edited later, battery low....
So Memorial Day weekend at KubliCon, I am running "Star Patrol--Freedom in the Galaxy: When AtomiTech lifts America into Space, we find the Stars Chained in Cruel Servitude to Queen Tyrannia. Our Historical Documents ignite the Torch of Liberty, bringing FREEEDOM TO THE GALAXY!"
We have enough context for players to form reasonable shared expectations, but not a lot of details. Here is some of what the players gave me:
Lance Rockwell: +5 Art, +4 Leadership, Contacting
"General Domestics brings you The Voice of Freedom!"
"The Truth is what Freedom needs it to be!"
Kleshekka: +5 Endurance, +4 Engineering, Stealth
"4' long, tool using centipede"
"Goes where others cannot, eats what others will not."
Grorg: +5 Endurance, +4 Might, Weapons
"Large, thick skinned, Radiation resistant lizard man"
"Say Hello to my Vibro Maul!"
"A Slave No More!"
Just here, the players have given me an organization, General Domestics, two alien races and their homeworlds, several hooks, and a good idea about what kind of scenes I should throw at them. The resulting adventure, "A Congress of Rebels," revolved around uniting the disparate races formerly enslaved in the Tyrannium Mines.
To be edited later, battery low....