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Category: Fate (Page 2 of 2)

Fate's Evil Hat Street Team

November 5, 2013 /

PrintEvil Hat, the makers of Fate, have a new program to promote the Fate platform. It’s called the Evil Hat Street Team.

The concept is simple. We have five Street Team challenges listed below. As you’ll see, the list is really varied. Our goal was to make sure that every person in the Evil Hat Community can easily complete at least one task if they choose to do so. There are tasks that are affordable and tasks that are quick, tasks that happen online and tasks that happen at your Friendly Local Gaming Store.

And the reward for participating?

All participants will receive a PDF
 of Shannon Appelcline’s Designers & Dragons: The 70s, when it becomes available. This RPG history profiles some of the industry greats like TSR, and we can guarantee that you’ll want volumes 2-4 when they come out. You’ll also get an ebook of Dinocalypse Now by Chuck Wendig. This novel has everything: excitement, pulp adventurers, and psychosaurs. And at the end of this event, we’re going to pick three runners-up, who will receive a free download of their choice from the Evil Hat store. And one grand prize winner, who gets to choose between two prizes: Option A: Up to $50 worth of products from the Evil Hat store, plus one set of Fate dice (your choice). Option B: All the downloads. That’s right; you get every downloadable PDF we have available at the end of the event.

http://www.evilhat.com/home/announcing-the-evil-hat-street-team/

 

Review: Fate Accelerated Edition

November 5, 2013 /

photo 3Both Fate Core and Fate Accelerated Edition ‘versions’ are amazing products. I put ‘versions’ in quotes because, as Fred Hicks (from Evil Hat Productions, which puts out these products) will tell you, Fate Accelerated Edition (or FAE for short) is simply a build of Fate 3.0, and compatible with Core. Of the two, Fate Accelerated Edition will be my go-to edition. Here’s why:

  • It’s a short book. At 50 pages, it’s very digestible.
  • It’s only $5. Buy a bundle and give them out like candy to your game group.
  • It’s concise. Easy to use at the table; and makes for a great ‘Player’s Handbook’.
  • It plays well with Fate Core. The GM can import any rules from Fate Core they want, but players don’t need the large, more expensive Fate Core hardback to play.
  • It has 6 ‘Approaches’ — Careful, Clever, Flashy, Forceful, Quick, Sneaky. Easier than Skills to master.

Approaches in FAE work well as is, but I like to hack this and instead use the standard D&D / d20 Ability Scores. FAE allows this easily without missing a beat in gameplay.

Below is a 4×6 card character sheet for FAE using the 6 D&D Ability scores instead of approaches. Hints are under each ability for how and when you’d use that ability. Having used the 6 abilities since the late 70’s (roll a d20 under you ability to succeed at that skill, etc.), and seeing other d20 folks converting to Fate struggling with approaches (“What do I roll for a perception check?”), I really like this hack. I hope you enjoy this character sheet. Eventually I’ll do a 8.5×11″version of it as well. 🙂

What are you waiting for? Grab a ‘pay what you like’ copy of Fate from Evil Hat Productions and start playing!

fate-abilities

Download Stan’s 4×6 Card Fate Character Sheet (hack to use 6 D&D Ability Scores)

 

Review: Fate Core

November 5, 2013 /

photo 4I’ve been playing Fate off and on for about four years, starting with its earlier incarnation: Spirit of the Century. I’ve now started playing the new 3.0 version of Fate, an OGL and Creative Commons licensed version of the game expressed in both Fate Core and Fate Accelerated Edition.

First, the core elements of Fate, and why I like it:

  • Puts the focus on roleplaying and the story side of the game.
  • Works best without miniatures since you are sharing narrative control with the players, and they can actually create elements of the scene (an overly detailed map sometimes can get in the way of this player agency).
  • Has ‘Aspects’ which are phrases such as ‘Lady’s Man’ which give you rewards for roleplaying.
  • Pulp-style mechanics (for example, characters are ‘Taken Out’ rather than dying after exceeding their wound thresholds).
  • Point-buy system for skills (Fate Core) or approaches (Fate Accelerated Edition) mean players are well balanced.
  • Allows mega-quick NPC and ‘mook’ creation.
  • The ‘Fate Fractal’ allows you to stat out anything from ships, armies or planets using a simple common mechanic. Essentially you treat everything like a character, and give it flavor with Aspects.
  • Has the best genre emulations of any system I’ve seen. I’ve emulated settings such as Watership Down, Pirates of the Caribbean and Star Wars — each is a breeze to set up and run with the flavor of that setting captured perfectly.
  • Has templates for easy stunt creation (stunts are like feats in D&D or edges in Savage Worlds).

  • Has mechanics called ‘dials’ to customize the rules to match custom settings.

  • The most hackable game system I’ve every seen. Fate Core and FAE are basically ‘toolkits’ from which you assemble your own game.
  • Both Fate Core and FAE are ‘pay what you like’, even free, from Evil Hat Productions or DriveThruRPG.
  • Comes in hard copy, eBook (MOBI or ePub) and PDF.

Both Fate Core and FAE ‘versions’ are simply amazing. I put ‘versions’ in quotes because, as Fred Hicks (from Evil Hat Productions, which puts out these products) will tell you, Fate Accelerated Edition (or FAE for short) is simply a build of Fate 3.0, and compatible with Core. Of the two, Fate Accelerated Edition will be my go-to edition. In my next post I explain why.

fc-trimmed

 

 

 

Fate Character: Korak

July 26, 2013 /

Played a great Fate game last night set in the Hollow Earth type setting. Below is the character I whipped up (adapted from the original ERB character).

Korak

John Clayton prefers to be called by his ape name Korak. He is the son of ape man Zargan (the real life inspiration behind Edgar Rice Burrough’s Tarzan.). Although a Viscount and heir to the Greystone estate in England, Korak eschews civilized life to follow the ways of his father Zargan, who raised Korak in the jungle depths of Africa after his wife Jane (Korak’s mother) died at the hands of WW I’s German invaders. Deceit being a peculiarity unknown to his father’s ape forebears, Korak is perennially gullible.

Korak

  • High Concept: Mighty Jungleborn Savage!
  • Trouble: Gullible
  • Other Aspect: Instinctive Animal Reaction
  • (Optional Aspects: Thin Veneer of Civilization, Call of the Wild)

APPROACHES

  • Carefully: Average (+1)
  • Cleverly: Average (+1)
  • Flashily: Mediocre (+0)
  • Forcefully: Good (+3)
  • Quickly: Fair (+2)
  • Sneakily: Fair (+2)

STUNTS

  • Savage Tactics: Because I was raised a savage, I get a +2 when I Cleverly create advantages when acting as the Lord of the Jungle.
  • Beastmaster: Because I am attuned to the jungle, once per game session I can calm, control and have basic communication with jungle mammals.
  • Jungle Weapons: Because I was raised to survive with primitive jungle weapons, I get a +2 when I Forcefully attack when using a knife or spear.

REFRESH 3

 

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