Jul 16, 2015 6:56 am
Character creation is done using the Venture City Stories rules. If you do not have access to that book the details are presented below.
When you make your character, do so according to the rules in Fate Core, but with one exception: you also get powers.
Powers are a lot like stunts, except bigger, flashier, more powerful, and more complex. Each power you build costs a certain number of stunts, but don’t worry about not having enough! We’re giving you three bonus stunts on top of what you normally get from Fate Core to use exclusively for building powers. To add to your powers or build new ones, you can also spend refresh and use your normal allotment of free stunts as you would when building normal stunts. The three free stunts you’re getting in this adventure have to be used for powers, though. Most characters have a single power. Some might have two, but that’s where
it tops off. Powers are big and complex enough that more than two would be a bit unwieldy. What you can do, however, is build multiple effects into a single power, creating a power suite that does a bunch of related things. Here’s how
building a power works.
Concept
Figure out what you want your power to do. What is your character’s shtick? What’s the big flashy thing you do that other people can’t do? Figure this out in general terms. Maybe you’re inhumanly fast, or super strong, or you can fly, or you shoot energy blasts from your hands. You might have a power useful for doing many things. You might be telekinetic, for example, which suggests you can push people around and attack them with force blasts, lift heavy objects with your mind, create a shield of force, and fly by levitating yourself. These are all related abilities, so they’re all one power. If you’re telekinetic and you can heal with a touch, though, those might be two different powers.
Break It Into Stunts
Break each power down into its component abilities. What specific things do you want to be able to do with your power? Boil these down into mechanical effects and phrase them like you would stunts. Each stunt-like ability that you create costs you a stunt. You can spend multiple stunts on a single ability, making it extra-powerful. Also, because you’re crafting a superpower, you have license to do things that stunt might not otherwise let you do. You could use a stunt to fly using Athletics, or fire eye-beams with Shoot, for example.
For clarity and uniformity: an ability that a skill normally can’t do is worth one stunt (ie Flying with Athletics), a +2 bonus to a skill is worth one stunt, adding a range of up to 3 zones is worth one stunt. If your idea doesn’t seem to fit these parameters, run it by me and I will figure it out.
Add Special Effects
A special effect is an extra-special thing you can pull off when you succeed with style. Whenever you succeed with style on a roll that utilizes one of your powers, you can forgo the normal benefits of succeeding with style to add one of your special effects instead. You can also spend a fate point to add a special effect to any successful roll, even if you’ve already got a special effect attached to that action. Special effects always happen in addition to the normal effects of success. Your power starts with two special effects. If you want more, you can buy them with a stunt or refresh; each stunt or refresh you spend gets you two more
special effects. If you need special effects, use the following list. If our suggestions don’t suffice, you can create your own special effects using this list as a guideline.
• Forced Movement: You move your target up to two zones.
• Area Attack: Attack everyone else (foes and friends) in the same zone as your target using the attack value minus two (so if you hit your target at +6, everyone else would defend against +4). Attacking everyone in a zone at full strength is a collateral damage effect (page 25).
• Inflict a Condition: You add an aspect to the target, which you can invoke once for free.
• Extra Movement: You can move up to two zones for free.
• Physical Recovery: You recover from all physical stress.
• Mental Recovery: You recover from all mental stress.
• Extra Action: You can remove shifts from your action and apply them to a different, related action as if you’d (performed and) succeeded on both. You can never succeed with style on the second action, and its opposition (i.e.,
difficulty) can’t be higher than that of the original action.
Remember you get two of these per Power that you create. They are replacement options for Boosts you get on exceptional successes. You will have the choice of either the +2 boost/free invoke/extra damage or one of these effects. I feel this is a pretty good list, but if some other idea occurs to you, run it by me, I’m sure we can work it out.
Add a Drawback
All powers come at a cost, and all superheroes have a weakness. Decide what yours is, and phrase it as an aspect. A drawback is an aspect like any other, though you should phrase it so it’s easier to compel than to invoke. Each power gets a drawback, not each individual stunt within a power.
Basically this means characters in this game will have two or more Trouble Aspects. This one should be directly related to your powers however. And like the text says, one Drawback per Power.
Add a Collateral Damage Effect
Super-beings throw a lot of power around, power that often has unintended consequences. Sometimes city blocks get leveled; sometimes innocent bystanders get hurt. Your collateral damage effect is an extra benefit—something super-potent you can do with your power. The potency of this isn’t strictly numerical; pick some powerful narrative thing you can do, like affecting everyone in a scene or ignoring all the damage that comes your way in a round. Use the sample characters to get ideas for what collateral damage can do (page 26).
You can choose to use this effect at any time, but using it comes at a cost: you inflict a situation aspect on the area around you that represents the collateral damage you’ve caused. The GM gets to determine the exact nature of that aspect each time you use it.
Finally, I am more than happy to hash out ideas with you, as I’m sure the other players are too. We are shooting for characters that fall somewhere between X-Men and Avengers in power level. Slightly above "street level" but not "World Shattering". The Hulk or Superman are Omega metahumans and are not playable characters (for many reasons, but we are talking power level right now). You can play scaled down versions of those type of characters, you won’t likely be throwing Sherman tanks around like baseballs.
When you make your character, do so according to the rules in Fate Core, but with one exception: you also get powers.
Powers are a lot like stunts, except bigger, flashier, more powerful, and more complex. Each power you build costs a certain number of stunts, but don’t worry about not having enough! We’re giving you three bonus stunts on top of what you normally get from Fate Core to use exclusively for building powers. To add to your powers or build new ones, you can also spend refresh and use your normal allotment of free stunts as you would when building normal stunts. The three free stunts you’re getting in this adventure have to be used for powers, though. Most characters have a single power. Some might have two, but that’s where
it tops off. Powers are big and complex enough that more than two would be a bit unwieldy. What you can do, however, is build multiple effects into a single power, creating a power suite that does a bunch of related things. Here’s how
building a power works.
Concept
Figure out what you want your power to do. What is your character’s shtick? What’s the big flashy thing you do that other people can’t do? Figure this out in general terms. Maybe you’re inhumanly fast, or super strong, or you can fly, or you shoot energy blasts from your hands. You might have a power useful for doing many things. You might be telekinetic, for example, which suggests you can push people around and attack them with force blasts, lift heavy objects with your mind, create a shield of force, and fly by levitating yourself. These are all related abilities, so they’re all one power. If you’re telekinetic and you can heal with a touch, though, those might be two different powers.
Break It Into Stunts
Break each power down into its component abilities. What specific things do you want to be able to do with your power? Boil these down into mechanical effects and phrase them like you would stunts. Each stunt-like ability that you create costs you a stunt. You can spend multiple stunts on a single ability, making it extra-powerful. Also, because you’re crafting a superpower, you have license to do things that stunt might not otherwise let you do. You could use a stunt to fly using Athletics, or fire eye-beams with Shoot, for example.
For clarity and uniformity: an ability that a skill normally can’t do is worth one stunt (ie Flying with Athletics), a +2 bonus to a skill is worth one stunt, adding a range of up to 3 zones is worth one stunt. If your idea doesn’t seem to fit these parameters, run it by me and I will figure it out.
Add Special Effects
A special effect is an extra-special thing you can pull off when you succeed with style. Whenever you succeed with style on a roll that utilizes one of your powers, you can forgo the normal benefits of succeeding with style to add one of your special effects instead. You can also spend a fate point to add a special effect to any successful roll, even if you’ve already got a special effect attached to that action. Special effects always happen in addition to the normal effects of success. Your power starts with two special effects. If you want more, you can buy them with a stunt or refresh; each stunt or refresh you spend gets you two more
special effects. If you need special effects, use the following list. If our suggestions don’t suffice, you can create your own special effects using this list as a guideline.
• Forced Movement: You move your target up to two zones.
• Area Attack: Attack everyone else (foes and friends) in the same zone as your target using the attack value minus two (so if you hit your target at +6, everyone else would defend against +4). Attacking everyone in a zone at full strength is a collateral damage effect (page 25).
• Inflict a Condition: You add an aspect to the target, which you can invoke once for free.
• Extra Movement: You can move up to two zones for free.
• Physical Recovery: You recover from all physical stress.
• Mental Recovery: You recover from all mental stress.
• Extra Action: You can remove shifts from your action and apply them to a different, related action as if you’d (performed and) succeeded on both. You can never succeed with style on the second action, and its opposition (i.e.,
difficulty) can’t be higher than that of the original action.
Remember you get two of these per Power that you create. They are replacement options for Boosts you get on exceptional successes. You will have the choice of either the +2 boost/free invoke/extra damage or one of these effects. I feel this is a pretty good list, but if some other idea occurs to you, run it by me, I’m sure we can work it out.
Add a Drawback
All powers come at a cost, and all superheroes have a weakness. Decide what yours is, and phrase it as an aspect. A drawback is an aspect like any other, though you should phrase it so it’s easier to compel than to invoke. Each power gets a drawback, not each individual stunt within a power.
Basically this means characters in this game will have two or more Trouble Aspects. This one should be directly related to your powers however. And like the text says, one Drawback per Power.
Add a Collateral Damage Effect
Super-beings throw a lot of power around, power that often has unintended consequences. Sometimes city blocks get leveled; sometimes innocent bystanders get hurt. Your collateral damage effect is an extra benefit—something super-potent you can do with your power. The potency of this isn’t strictly numerical; pick some powerful narrative thing you can do, like affecting everyone in a scene or ignoring all the damage that comes your way in a round. Use the sample characters to get ideas for what collateral damage can do (page 26).
You can choose to use this effect at any time, but using it comes at a cost: you inflict a situation aspect on the area around you that represents the collateral damage you’ve caused. The GM gets to determine the exact nature of that aspect each time you use it.
Finally, I am more than happy to hash out ideas with you, as I’m sure the other players are too. We are shooting for characters that fall somewhere between X-Men and Avengers in power level. Slightly above "street level" but not "World Shattering". The Hulk or Superman are Omega metahumans and are not playable characters (for many reasons, but we are talking power level right now). You can play scaled down versions of those type of characters, you won’t likely be throwing Sherman tanks around like baseballs.