Questions and miscellaneous chatter

Here is where I'd like anything that doesn't seem to go in other areas of the forum.

I've read the Venture City Stories supplement, and will now get stuck into your setting-specific stuff. I also need to brush up on Fate Core character generation in general. I'm really looking forward to see how Fate works via forum play. I have high hopes that the narrative approach of things might make it work really well.

I feel that it does work well here. I've played a few different games on other play-by-post sites that have all died out, mostly because people get busy.

Yup, it seems like the core problem of rpgs - whether you play face-to-face, by Skype, or forum: people's schedules!

I've read the materials and really like them - I love the idea that everyone has some sort of mutation. Also cool that we're going for some cooperative world-building.

Yeah. I feel like a Gm should lay a little ground work but let the players put up the "walls" of the world so they have more invested in it. When everyone has their own little corner the game is more fun. They get to say "Hey I made that." Whenever it gets brought up.

Do you want us to make new threads for each character creation, or do we just throw stuff out in the creation thread?

My thought is to do the concept work in the creation thread...Step #2. But I'd like to do a 'phase trio' in the game thread for each character. So once you have your High Concept, & Power concept you can start a thread in the play area for your character and we can do the phase trio for each character. The time frame for each h of those will be within the last 6 weeks since you got your powers and you can explore how you learned to use them a bit.

Does that sound like it will work?

From where I'm standing, yes! I suppose we also have to have an idea of who we were before the change, which may or may not be highlighted in our initial aspects?

Oh yeah! Excellent point. I'm sorry I didn't think to spell that out. I imagine gaining superpowers would be life altering (it would be for me being a comic/gamer nerd) so you have a lot of wiggle room with your character's Aspects. If they are throwing themselves into this "hero gig" then aspects may reflect that, if they are trying to maintain a regular life and be super powered then Aspects should reflect that. The timeframe of the story allows for either scenario in my opinion, but I leave it up to you to decide. I have seen people discover a new thing and dive headfirst changing nearly everything about themselves to embrace their new passion, or let it grow slowly over time and only years later do they (and those around them) realise how much they have changed.

So keep that in mind when designg characters as well.

Do we work up our skills and superpowers before we go into the phase trio?

You should have superpowers more or less figured out and general idea of how you want the skills to be arranged. Since there isn't any rolling in the phase trio, you don't have to worry about how skilled your character is but you should have an idea of what his skills are. A back alley street fighter will have fight, physique and athletics most likely. A software engineer would have different skills, most likely. The powers should be on display at some point in the narrative, but if you have mechanical questions we can work those out as we progress'

Ok, and we're using the default Fate Core list with no amendments? In Venture City there seems to be a Bureacracy skill too. Also should I write up skills for my organisation as per Venture City?

Specifically: Which skill should Dave use for his computer stuff? Lore? Crafts? Are we renaming those? Or are we going to have a Tech skill or similar?

Trying to think of a higher concept for my person. Our team is already pretty mental heavy but I have a few thoughts on party composition:

1) I could take the role of the tanky bruiser type. One idea I have is a former trucker who's fists turn into mack trucks. Another would be the pure defense monster like the Thing. That may be fun to play around with.

2) I could take a different type of mental role. Tech and Psionics are both very specific areas and my thought is an Awakened Mind that has deep wisdoms and focuses on Psychopompic or druidic powers; I call him The Warp. The inspirations I have for that guy come from some art by Martin French.





3) Something completely different?

I like The Warp. Is sounds really cool, and I honestly think a team of mental powerhouses isn't an issue as long as we all have our distinct roles.

I like both concepts. Its up to you which you want to go with. They both make sense. That second image with the crows is really looks awesome.

I'm prepared to challenge purely mental based characters if that's what you guys give me.

Those are good questions that I had not considered. I would like opinions from the group I think. I feel like we could add a Tech skill to cover interactions with computers and the like on the "software" level, leaving Crafts for the actual construction of the machines. I have two friends that are both IT professionals. One of them has built every machine he has ever owned, the other knows enough to diagnose hardware problems but wouldn't be the guy to go to to build a computer from scratch. The point of that little story is to say I feel like there is a difference between the two. Then again, Lore could cover the software knowledge angle and Crafts the building angle. But would using Lore that way diminish it for academic usage. We could just add specialties to these skills, so it would read Craft(electronics) or Craft(weaving), or Lore(academics), Lore(networking)? The default option would be to just trust each other to keep it on line with the background of the character. If you aren't good at basket weaving, don't use the full bonus from the skill.

I can go either way really, it doesn't change much either way. If there are other skills in question that you feel are missing from the list lets talk about them and see if we need to adjust.

Oh and for Bureacracy, I would say Rapport or Lore work well depending on what you are doing in the Bureacracy. But it could be added if everyone wants to add it.

I think my vote would be to reskin, but not add extra skills. That goes for Bureacracy too - a boring name for something covered by Rapport and Lore already.

I suggest we rename Crafts "Engineering", and Lore "Knowledge" and be done. Extra detail can be added with stunts, and we can trust players not to exploit the broadness of skills to something which makes no sense for their character. On the other hand I think adding the Lore (academics), Lore (networking) makes things too narrow from the get-go, making it unbalanced with the other skills which are left broad.

I had a look at dfrpg: They have "Craftsmanship" (=Crafts), "Scholarship" (=mundane Lore), and "Lore" (= supernatural Lore), but the latter is not relevant for us. But maybe people prefer the "Craftsmanship" and "Scholarship" labels?

So now that I have that done, do I move on to statting my guy out? Or do we do the phase trio?

Yes. The answer is yes to both questions.

I think we have some good ideas of who the characters are, so you are welcome to start a thread for you self. I think the main front page of this game forum would be good. You all should have permission to post a new thread. Use the title Phase Trio -[character name]. That can be either the "super hero identity" or the "real world name" your choice. Remember these simple guidelines.

* This will take place after the incident known as Prometheus's Fire so your characters have their powers.

* You will be narrating an interaction between your characters, it doesn't have to be the first time you've met (but it could be!). As a potential plotseed for this narration I'll just remind you all that your characters are going to be working for the police (to start with anyway, if that fact changes during play I'm fine with that, its just the initial launching point plot.)

* When you write your portion, the goal is to create a "moment" that defines something about your character that can be used as an Aspect. Remember that Aspects need to be at least partially double-edged. You want then to help and hinder your character over time. 'Fighter' isn't great because it is limited. 'World's Greatest Brawler' helps in fights and gives the character a reputation to use when socially applicable, but it can hurt them when every punk who thinks he/she has a shot at the title comes crawling out of the woodwork to challenge them, or when authorities show up and assume your character started the fight.

* Time is fluid. I want to give an example here using our character, this doesn't have to be true. Isaac, the telepath is the first recruit to the program and is responding to a report of Starpower robbing a bank. Afterward it could be discovered that admin-x helped with the tech side of the crime, so Izaac goes to Enigma systems where he meets Dave for the first time and they learn about another admin-x plot to distibute hacked cell phones. It then turns out that the warehouse storing the bad cell phones is in The Warp's neighborhood, so he gets involved in taking down the gang that is working for admin-x. This could be a week or two of time...its not important as long as all the stories connect.
Then when The Warp does his he can start with busting up a gang and Dave and Isaac can come in as backup.

As to "stats" yes this is also a good time to start choosing skills and powers and other stunts you want your character to have. The Venture City Stories doesn't really give examples of Stunts that aren't superpowers, but you are allowed to have them. So The Warp might have a Parkour Stunt that isn't a part of his powers, but gives him cool abilities he learned before Prometheus. Just remember you don't really want to spend all 9 points because it will hinder you during play, generally speaking.