Strange FATE (Kerberos Club: FATE Edition)
Jan 20, 2012 14:15:35 GMT -8
Post by Deleted on Jan 20, 2012 14:15:35 GMT -8
Faticore/Jon from NC here, had an email read in S7E1 regarding a FATE variant, and thought I'd replicate some of it here for general and mechanics discussion:
"Strange FATE is tied to the Kerberos Club setting originally written by Benjamin Baugh for Wild Talents (woot!), but adapted by Mike Olsen (who was doing, independently, a Supers FATE conversion) to FATE. It's a great setting based around an alternate nineteenth century where the supernatural and other such shenanigans return to earth rather quickly, and that has all kinds of great repercussions such as Her Majesty's 13th Lupine Rangers, Dinosaur Cavalry, and the question "What if the Confederate States of America started losing the civil war and started worshiping Cthulhu?" This setting you'll get for the price of admission to the Strange FATE variant. Now into the meat of that. I'll add that the setting is tied a bit to the variant FATE, but the setting specific pieces are incredibly easy to strip out as they are almost entirely part of Aspects.
It has a few nice things to add to the FATE repertoire, I'll unfairly condense it down to a few major changes though, and liberally quote the section from the book on what's different:
1) Characters can use their skill points to build "Unique" or "Strange" skills representing their super powers and/or special talents. The game has a web of skill trappings (that's the bits of a skill like strike, shoot, climb, jump, contacts, lift, etc) which cost a certain amount of points each to build into a specific skill. For example, a prostitute character could build a power called "Lady of the Night" which included taunting, contacts, seduction, wealth, haggling, and even knife-fighting.
2) Strange and Unique skills can have "Power Tiers" ranging from Normal (the default), Extraordinary, all the way to Godlike. For each power tier higher than an opponents in combat, you replace one of your FUDGE dice (the plus, minus, blank dice) with a d6. So if a hero with "Extraordinary" tier "Man of Steel" skill punches his enemy with "Normal" tier dodge, he rolls 3 fudge dice and a d6 to attack, while his enemy only rolls 4 fudge dice. It helps to differentiate between different power levels among superheroes. So essentially your skills are measured on two axes, power tier relative to other people's skills, and skill level (From +1 to +4) against other characters' skills in the same tier.
3) You can get unique skills cheaper by taking extra "bad" aspects tied to your Unique or Strange skills called Complications and Convictions - a lot like extra Trouble aspects in Dresden Files RPG - so you could get your "Lady of the Night" skill for cheaper by taking the complication aspect "Lady of Ill Repute."
4) In place of stunts are Gifts, which serve basically the same rules-bending role, but there are only six "generic” Gifts instead of dozens of specific stunts found in some other FATE games. Gifts are things like weapons, which unless you spent refresh on them are simply window dressing for your character.
5) Finally, In addition to the usual personal consequences, player characters can also reduce stress by taking Collateral consequences, which essentially offload stress from the character onto the world around them. Think of them as collateral damage. They're very fitting for a Superheroic-ish game with blurred morality where one of the major themes is managing the public perception of the supernatural/superheroic."
I realized I didn't quite describe Collateral consequences well enough, too. They're a pool of shared consequences that the PCs have access to, and can be things like the player getting thrown through a nearby storefront by a villain and thereby affecting the environment.
So, discuss away! I think of particular note is the idea that this is the first FATE variant I've seen that has the 'hero system problem' where the GM has to regulate what's available. For example, if you've got three PCs with mundane tier defensive rolls and one with a Godlike Tier physical immunity, then you're going to have some encounter planning difficulties.
I'm happy to play system pimp and answer questions, as well.
"Strange FATE is tied to the Kerberos Club setting originally written by Benjamin Baugh for Wild Talents (woot!), but adapted by Mike Olsen (who was doing, independently, a Supers FATE conversion) to FATE. It's a great setting based around an alternate nineteenth century where the supernatural and other such shenanigans return to earth rather quickly, and that has all kinds of great repercussions such as Her Majesty's 13th Lupine Rangers, Dinosaur Cavalry, and the question "What if the Confederate States of America started losing the civil war and started worshiping Cthulhu?" This setting you'll get for the price of admission to the Strange FATE variant. Now into the meat of that. I'll add that the setting is tied a bit to the variant FATE, but the setting specific pieces are incredibly easy to strip out as they are almost entirely part of Aspects.
It has a few nice things to add to the FATE repertoire, I'll unfairly condense it down to a few major changes though, and liberally quote the section from the book on what's different:
1) Characters can use their skill points to build "Unique" or "Strange" skills representing their super powers and/or special talents. The game has a web of skill trappings (that's the bits of a skill like strike, shoot, climb, jump, contacts, lift, etc) which cost a certain amount of points each to build into a specific skill. For example, a prostitute character could build a power called "Lady of the Night" which included taunting, contacts, seduction, wealth, haggling, and even knife-fighting.
2) Strange and Unique skills can have "Power Tiers" ranging from Normal (the default), Extraordinary, all the way to Godlike. For each power tier higher than an opponents in combat, you replace one of your FUDGE dice (the plus, minus, blank dice) with a d6. So if a hero with "Extraordinary" tier "Man of Steel" skill punches his enemy with "Normal" tier dodge, he rolls 3 fudge dice and a d6 to attack, while his enemy only rolls 4 fudge dice. It helps to differentiate between different power levels among superheroes. So essentially your skills are measured on two axes, power tier relative to other people's skills, and skill level (From +1 to +4) against other characters' skills in the same tier.
3) You can get unique skills cheaper by taking extra "bad" aspects tied to your Unique or Strange skills called Complications and Convictions - a lot like extra Trouble aspects in Dresden Files RPG - so you could get your "Lady of the Night" skill for cheaper by taking the complication aspect "Lady of Ill Repute."
4) In place of stunts are Gifts, which serve basically the same rules-bending role, but there are only six "generic” Gifts instead of dozens of specific stunts found in some other FATE games. Gifts are things like weapons, which unless you spent refresh on them are simply window dressing for your character.
5) Finally, In addition to the usual personal consequences, player characters can also reduce stress by taking Collateral consequences, which essentially offload stress from the character onto the world around them. Think of them as collateral damage. They're very fitting for a Superheroic-ish game with blurred morality where one of the major themes is managing the public perception of the supernatural/superheroic."
I realized I didn't quite describe Collateral consequences well enough, too. They're a pool of shared consequences that the PCs have access to, and can be things like the player getting thrown through a nearby storefront by a villain and thereby affecting the environment.
So, discuss away! I think of particular note is the idea that this is the first FATE variant I've seen that has the 'hero system problem' where the GM has to regulate what's available. For example, if you've got three PCs with mundane tier defensive rolls and one with a Godlike Tier physical immunity, then you're going to have some encounter planning difficulties.
I'm happy to play system pimp and answer questions, as well.