Tabletop RPG Podcast and Roleplaying Resources

Month: April 2016 (Page 1 of 2)

Questions of Fate

Having run two Fate Core games in the last month where I’ve really tried to use all the rules properly, I noticed a few rules questions have come up in-game. I’m memorializing those here to make sure I research these and also alerting the group so others besides myself can read up on how these should work. 🙂

Rules Questions

  • What are the results of a success-with-style roll on a skill check vs. passive opposition (e.g. a skill roll that isn’t combat)?
  • What are the results of a success-with-style roll on an opposed roll that isn’t combat?
  • How do you handle allied NPCs? Can you use Mob rules or is that only for enemy NPCs?
  • I was sketchy on what skills you can use for Defend and how/when you can use something besides Athletics to defend.
  • I believe someone said Free Invokes could only give you a +2, not a re-roll. Is that correct?
  • A Star Trek rules specific questions — how should skills work when Extra’s are piloting an enemy ship?

Math/Logistics Questionpic2087747_md

I noticed that players sometimes get confused when tallying up their skill modifier, adding any stunt bonuses, adding the dice results, and comparing against the GM’s opposing number. If that were the end of it, it would be OK, but as we turn in the Fate Point tokens, and folks spend additional Fate Points to do re-rolls, we sometimes forget how we got to those original numbers. I’m wondering if there are some best-practices like putting all your Fate Point tokens on a special mat so you can track how many Aspects you’re invoking or some other way to help players and GM alike keep track of the math as you progress through your evolving numbers to get to your final results.

Updates:

Star Trek TOS: The God of War

Last night’s Star Trek game was one of the most enjoyable games I’ve run in a long time! Partly it was my own love of the Star Trek setting, partly it was the enthusiasm of the players (notably Robert with his props and wardrobe), and partly it was the cinematic nature of the Fate RPG which I think was a great fit for this setting.

The Characters

Lt. Cmdr. T'shani

Lt. Cmdr. T’shani

We had the following characters:

  • Capt. Lorn Harper (Human, Commanding Officer) — played by Robert
  • Cmdr. Arlin Cross (Human, 1st Officer) — played by Mason
  • Lt. Cmdr. Mac’Vor (Half-Vulcan, Chief Engineer) — played by Todd
  • Lt. Kelly Bishop (Human, Comm Officer) — played by Martin

We also had one notable NPC — Lt. Cmdr. T’shani (Vulcan, Chief Medical Officer) — who for some reason received a lot of attention in the game. 🙂

The Story

The story opened on Stardate 41661.7, where the U.S.S. Ares was exploring an uncharted system on the fringe of Federation space.

USS Ares 1

U.S.S. Ares

Energy signatures indicated a recent battle. The crew of the Ares investigated and learned that a Human-looking peaceful race called the Coborati were attacked by a warlike neighboring species called the Bellani. The Bellani were 3 meters tall with soft features and elongated necks and limbs, led by a mysterious figure called “The Oracle” who was said to be their “God of War”.

After a starship battle with the Bellani, chief medical officer Lt. Cmdr. T’shani, along with a few other crew, are captured by one the Bellani ships which then jumps to warp.

The U.S.S. Ares then travels to the nearby planet Cobor. The Federation crew hatched a plan to use a captured Bellani scout ship to infiltrate the Bellani homeworld, rescue T’shani and her companions, and unravel the mystery of the God of War.

Eventually, assisted by Bellani resistance fighters, the crew managed to insert themselves into the Bellani prison where T’shani and companions were held. The companions were then summoned to appear before The God of War. Obtaining their phasers smuggled in by the Bellani resistance fighters, Capt. Harper led a fight against The God of War. After sufficient taunting by the Federation crew, The God of War in his anger began to lose his shape. He was a Changeling, not a Bellani, who had duped the Bellani people for many years! As the fight ended, the Bellani government officials realized they had been deceived and renounced their erstwhile ‘god’ and entered negotiations to enter the Federation and forsake their warmongering ways.

Rules Observations

I’ll make a separate post on rules that we need to look up or master. The Starship rules worked well I think, with the Fate Fractal making it easy to run the combat using ships treated as characters. The ‘Shields’ house-rule letting you know ‘shields are at 94%!’ was a nice bit of flavor which mapped to the Stress boxes as you tracked damage.

Roleplaying

There was some great roleplaying! Things I remember:

  • Mason played a character with a ‘Lady’s Man’ aspect. His distraction when seeing the attractive Alani (a Coborati officer) led to him botching a control panel repair job, which resulted in the reactivation of a previously suppressed transponder inside a rescued Bellani escape pod reactivating. Shortly thereafter, 7 Bellani warships emerged from Warp and confronted the heroes. Later, Mason’s character acted on an aspect and wandered off to explore the back-alleys of Cobor, only to be confronted by Alani’s jealous husband. I love how Fate mechanics tie into getting yourself into trouble 🙂
  • Robert was in great form doing a Shatner-style captain. I loved it! His props were second to none as well.
  • Todd worked his ever-impressive Scottish accent for his engineering role.
  • I was impressed with how quickly Martin picked up on the Fate rules. He slid into great, genre-specific roleplaying. Loved how his attempts at Empathy and negotiation served as the foil for the trigger-happy, Kirk-style Capt. Harper!
StarTrek1

Visuals on the game table.

StarTrek2

Started using fluorescent markers on the plexiglass with no battlemat — works great to draw zones and not get distracted by Chessex grid mentality.

StarTrekPose

Someone’s In-Character Tonight!

StarTrek3

Wow! Look at these props! They make noises and everything!

A Giant Problem

IMG_0081[1]Harren Fireleaf rules in Fire oak, but for how long?  He convinced the Fire oaks to betray all other Oak Kin, and at first the act was profitable.  centuries of old grudges against the other Oaks allowed the payback to be sweet.  But soon, Randolph Fire Oak decided the cost was too high.  honor and a sense of family was lost, and no amount of profit could compensate.  But Harren, cousin to the ruling family, anticipated this weakness, and after consultation was a one Milas Homar, moved a robust group of Hill Giants to a nearby hill fort, to watch over and guard the Fire Oaks.

Push came to shove finally, as Randolph announced the end of the alliance of the fire oaks and the Hill Giants, upon which Harren had Randolph arrested and taken to the Giant Stedding as a prisoner.  derrick, oldest son of Randolph, barely escaped the Orc, Bugbear, and Hill Giant patrols, and made his way to Silver Oak.  There, was no expectation, but only hope, he asked the party to aid him in the liberation of his father, and thus, all Fire Oaks.  The Prophsy of the Oak gathering foretold that all the Oak Clans would reunite, and depart these lands.  Justin and Kurst agreed to come to the Fire Oaks aid on one and only one condition.  That the Fire Oaks would help lift the siege of Silverthorne, and allow all the Oaks escape.  They agreed.

Upon their arrival at Fire Oak, the party quickly dispatched a group of bugbears, and restoked the everlasting Fire Oak Flame (that had almost been extinguished).  Harren fled to the Giant Stedding, where the party followed. Storr, the intrepid and tentative rogue, scouted the Stedding, to find overwhelming numbers of Giants, Harren Fireleaf, and another human, the Old Man in White, in the Stedding.  Awoken and losing surprise, the party set upon a battle to end all battles, taking on one giant after another.  Who knows what the result will be…

The Society of the Nine Knives

IMG_0090[1]The Oaks discovered that Milas Homar, banker extraordinaire, supplier of fruit in bozes throughout Westcrown and Westmarch, may not be the friend people keep telling the party he is.  Yes, Milas Homar evidently sent a team of assassins to infiltrate the Society of the Nine Knives.  After uncovering the conspiracy to murder the Silver Oaks, and the conspiracy to let Orcs and bugbears into Silverthorne, the other shoe dropped.  Yes.  Milas Homar has been manipulating the Nine Knives and the Orcs and the Dragonborn to cause chaos and destruction.  And who has profited from the warring and Chaos?  None other than Milas Homar, humble proprietor of the Lock and Leave Bank in Westcrown. now the party must undo the damage, if there is still time.

The Great Wylie Apocalypse

It’s been a rough month! I’m ever so thankful for everyone’s concern and support. Here’s a quick recap on the notable apocalyptic events of recent weeks.

March 24

I live in Wylie, TX. My wife Janine and I wake up around 10:30pm to hear what sounds like a freight train bearing down on us. Hail was coming down in various sizes, much of it quarter or golf-ball sized. Entire ground was white with hail. Was so loud we did not realize till after the fact that we had double-paned windows both upstairs and downstairs that were shattered as a result. Some hail bounced across the gameroom and was at our stairwell — traveling over half the width of our house inside.

The next day there were dead birds everywhere, victims of the deadly, large hail.

In the aftermath, we took stock of the damage. We’ll have to:

  • Replace our roof
  • Replace our gutters
  • Replace several windows
  • Replace most of our window screens (it looks like werewolves were clawing to get inside)
  • Replace many of our blinds
  • Replace our pergola (it was twisted and damaged and we had to tear it down for safety reasons)
  • Sandblast and refinish our wood fences (looks like someone took a machine gun to them)

All this work is underway and our insurance is paying for almost everything, but it’s still exhausting to work with so many contractors, etc.

hail3 hail2 hail1

March 31

A head cold was making the circuit among my sons, and I eventually got it around March 31. We have plastic sheeting duct-taped around our many broken windows, but despite that the outside air flows freely in the house around the edges, which is really bad for my allergies and asthma. I think that was a contributing factor to what happened next. It couldn’t get any worse, right?

Wrong.

April 4

April 4 my cold turned into pneumonia. Spent most of the week in bed just trying to breathe.

April 11

Mostly over pneumonia at this point, not contagious but will still take a few days for my lungs to clear up. Then we had another round of hail! Our house was unscathed, but my sons got caught in it.

My oldest son Matt was driving (with my son Paul in the passenger seat) in Wylie about 5 minutes NW of his place (10 minutes SE of my house). Rain had not yet hit, but on the edge of the impending storm, BASEBALL-sized hail started raining down on them. One piece of hail hit and knocked completely off the rear-view mirror. Another few hard hits shattered the rear windshield. The front window was a spider-web of cracks at this point. It was a pretty dangerous situation.

Matt knew if the front window gave way they’d be in a world of hurt. They were in a rural area and visibility was near zero, but Matt knew there was a school nearby, so he did some crazy driving (including hopping a concrete curb and possibly damaging the car) in order to get to safety. They ended up in the lee (non-wind) side of the school and escaped further baseball sized hail. Their car looks like someone took a baseball bat to it, but aside from Matt having one cut on his arm from broken glass, our boys made it through this safely.

Boys Rear Window

Boys’ Car Rear Window

Boys' Car Front Window

Boys’ Car Front Window

Neighbor's Picture of some of the Hail

Neighbor’s Picture of some of the Hail

April 12

My friend Jeff from my gaming group who also lives in Wylie found his trampoline over in his neighbor’s yard — tossed around by the wind! I believe he’s otherwise unscathed.

Jeff's Trampoline

Jeff’s Trampoline

Wylie schools are closed due to the latest hail damage. But, everyone is safe! I hope our family is done with adventures for a while!

Now adding dealing with a totaled car to our long list of repairs. :-0

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