[OOC] The Out of Character Lounge

Welcome! Discuss anything out of character here, including in-game questions, rules. See also the character creation, and content boundaries threads.

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- Respect different walks of life.
- Keep language moderate.
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Boundaries
- Keep the tone lighthearted
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- Keep language moderate
- [Let us know if you have any other boundaries either here or in the boundaries thread.]

Hi All:

The Fate Accelerated Rules are here:
https://fate-srd.com/fate-accelerated

One of the things I find most intimidating in Fate is approving potentially "Rules Breaking" Stunts. Fortunately, the Accelerated edition keeps stunt options down to 2 types: "Bonus stunts" or "once per session" stunts.

In play-by-post, sessions will probably be arbitrarily identified by each encounter or event in the story. So, I gather I'll let everyone know when they get their "refresh" back at different parts of our story.

The "Masters of Umdaar" Fate world has a lot of examples of stunts in the style of 80s "Saturday Morning Cartoons" and 80s Swords & Sorcery movies, provided they could be adapted to a more classic fantasy or fairytale setting (nix the mutant and sci-fi stuff.) In this Fairy Tale world, instead of mutant powers, you might have a fantasy weapon or a magic talisman, pixie dust, or clockwork function, that could provide similar stunts.

For example, suppose you have a magic talisman that was passed down in your family for generations and was given to you by your grandmother:

* Because of my Protective Talisman, I get a +2 when I Quickly defend myself against monsters or magic.

Other examples:

* Because I am made of clockwork and can spin around quickly, I get +2 when I Flashily attack in close combat.

* Because of my sturdy club, I get +2 when I Forcefully attack in close combat.

* Because of my innate Pixie ability, once per game session, I can turn myself invisible for the duration of the scene.

Greetings! Thanks for the invite, Sean!

Welcome @Harrigan!

Hello everyone!

Welcome @TheGenerator

Hello all! :) This should be fun and a solid learning experience for a FATE newbie like me. :)

Welcome @sifu_g!

Hello to all, and thanks for the invite

Welcome @YullyBear

Hi everyone! Bear (ha!) with me this week -- I'm traveling for work and time for posting is tight... I'll try to keep up.

Hi @Harrigan Thanks or the heads up. No worries. This game is officially M W F, so pretty casual; and we're still familiarizing ourselves with some rules. All the same, looking forward to getting the in-character hook rolling and looking forward to you jumping in soon too.

Character posted. And I did use one aspect to hook into another PC, kind of a common practice in Fate. See what you all think.

I cannot choose my character in chapter 1.

@YullyBear Try now.

Could you add the option to submit custom character sheets? I didn't realize it was set to only one system and created my character sheet from the repository of sheets on the forum.

If I need to remake my sheet with the specified system, let me know.

@TheGenerator Oh... I think so. Try now?

@YullyBear Let me know if you'd like to convert yours to "Custom Sheet" as well.

I put my character in a tavern to start with. Hope that's ok. If not, let me know and I'll edit. :)

Great first IC posts. I'm picturing The Idiot Sandwich tavern at Bearokaraistis. EDIT: Assuming no one objects.

@TheGenerator Well, that one went completely over my head :-) -- I had to look that one up. I never saw that show.

Please, do not hesitate to correct me on my English if need be.

@TheGenerator That's a clever tip. Thanks!

I figured it was some kind of urban slang or pop culture thing. From an outsider's perspective seem pretty mean.. but I know reality television is all about silly exaggerated drama I suppose.

You speak very well @YullyBear. Okay, no problem.

Happy to help :)

Yes, Gordon Ramsey's insults have become a bit of a meme. It's 'his thing'. They are definitely very mean, but I guess people know what to expect when going on a show with him?

How's everyone's week so far?

Can't complain. Getting over being sick. Busy day today, but the weekend is in sight :)
How about you?

Went by fast. People are going back into our office for the first time in 2 years next week. We're supposed to help everyone with their equipment. Expect it's going to be crazy :-\ In the meantime, weekend sounding good :-)

I did exactly that 3 weeks ago 😅

On my side, people are back only 2 days a week since last September or October, cannot exactly remember; the rest o the week we work from home.

Long, week -- on the road for work and loads of extra-curricular events with teams I haven't seen in a long time. Sorry to be slow. Catching up this weekend!

Totally fine.

No worries :) thanks for the heads up

So this branching path we are all faced with? Could I do something mechanical here with maybe my High Aspect?

I was thinking perhaps the "guided by father's spirit" or "skilled ranger" would be appropriate, if only to confirm the tarot card reading. As far as mechanics, I'm tempted to think that drawing a tarot card as well as getting a hunch from a spirit guide could just be role played for free in this case -- since aspects are "always true."

But if any of you wanted to go deeper than that and try to actually detect tracks (the type of creature tracks) or get nature lore about exactly what might lie ahead on each path, then that could warrant an actual dice roll (and then stunts and/or invoking aspects with fate points could add bonuses.)

Please bear with me as we work our way through the mechanics the first few times :-)

EDIT: For example, if you wanted to "detect tracks", then I suspect your stunt could apply (roll fate dice on sneaky (+2) and then another +2 for the stunt)

@Harrigan is familiar with Fate mechanics and he's welcome to advise us here as well.

As a side note: My tarot card was not meant as an action to find the correct way forward. It's only the path Ivario is guided to. This might be the wrong way, but it could contain something of interest :) It could also just be the less dangerous path.
That's why I didn't ask to roll anything.

I've been thinking about the mechanics of fortune telling. If Ivario could look into the future, he would be able to see the party taking the left or right path. But he would have no way of knowing if that was the correct choice. He can only see the choice that was made. I think it wouldn't be much fun if he knew the answer to everything.
I hope that makes sense to everyone :)

Checking if I understand the rules correctly.
Would it be an "Overcome" action to find the right way?

Edit: And you would just roll without a counter-roll from the GM. If it's 0 or more it succeeds?

Sounds perfect. I expect there can be a lot of simple acts of role play that don't require a roll.
Sounds good to me. Probably can't go too far into the future. Any attempts to go further ahead in time and the results would get fuzzier, the target number harder. And you would probably never be 100 percent sure of what you think you saw anyway.
I also think Overcome makes the most sense since we're trying to overcome the inconvenience of twisty trails in the forest.

Actually I would set a difficulty (target number) on the ladder depending on how hard I think the specific task is. I haven't decided yet if I should generally tell this number in advance or keep it secret. Maybe just a matter of style? EDIT: I'll probably announce the target number most of the time.

Fate's meant to be a very open and collaborative game -- I can't think of a single instance when you shouldn't announce the difficulty up front. Players are allowed to spend Fate Points after the fact to increase their results, and remember that the results are not binary -- there's discussion and decisions to make about failing vs. succeeding at major cost and the like...

Thanks @Harrigan. That makes sense. I also noticed back in Fate Core, it has a box about "when you tell them the difficulty, justify the choice."

@All Allowing some time for everyone to catch up. I'll post IC tomorrow (most likely.) Thanks everyone.

Yeah. Setting difficulties can be a bit of black magic. I have some go-bys I use in my own games that I won't share just yet -- don't want to influence you unduly on this stuff...

@YullyBear, I'm a bit confused about your character's love/hate relationship with bears. So Beartrand is scared of bears, right? But you say
So, do you mean that our characters think that you Beartrand likes bears even though he does not?

If so, I will have Ivario ask Beartrand about it.

Yes when he is scared it looks like he is brave and want to go forward, a sort of a way to hide his fear.

So he is very scare of bears, but it looks like he's eager.

Ah, got it :) Thanks!

Is Ivario in range to hear the Ferryman's question?

I suspect so, that you're all near one another.

Late here now, but I'll post tomorrow :)

No problem. Sleep well! :)

Maybe Innis has heard the Ferryman mutter to himself about something he needs? If it's ok, I'll try a roll. Mostly just to see how rolling works in this system ;)

Yeah, I think that's a fun plot idea @TheGenerator Though chances of there being a "smoking gun" thing that Innis remembers him saying is a bit of a long shot, so I'll set the difficulty to Great (+4). If you make it, then it could become a "Ferryman's Secret" aspect -- also might be able to use stunts, teamwork created advantages, fate point invokes to get a higher result on this roll too -- yay first roll! EDIT: I think this is 'Create Advantage' perhaps via 'Clever'... go ahead and roll and we can always add bonuses if possible.

I hope I did the roll right. But it failed anyway.
If I understand the rules correctly, I can invoke an aspect for 1 fate point to do a re-roll (I'm not sure if I want to, though :P)

Looks good :-) You might be able to justify stretching the "Knows Many Secrets" aspect by way of Ivario being a fortune teller; but even if you did spend one point to invoke, it would only give an additional +2 (for total of 3), so still wouldn't quite make it -- and I don't think any of your stunts would apply in this case (?) Alternatively, you could spend a point to do a complete re-roll -- then, if you happen to make the 4 target number, the 'Ferryman's Secret' aspect could potentially be used to bribe/blackmail/trick the ferryman, for example (and we could then make up the exact nature of the secret.)

I'm going to catch up on @Beartrand and @Vincent's posts later tonight -- maybe they could get a roll in too. For example, Beartrand might be looking at "persuasion" roll.

https://fate-srd.com/fate-accelerated/aspects-fate-points#invoking-aspects

Thanks for explaining! :)
I'm going to stick with the miss.

Looks like @YullyBear got a good roll (!) -- with Vincent and Yarbi to back him up.

Going to be a busy day for me here, but I should be able to post later tonight -- our story will continue: will the ferrykeeper offer a "pay later" deal (and will there be a catch?)

Cool :)

Fun site, you tell the computer what you want as a character drawing and the AI creates it for you ! (artflow.ai)

Hi All: Checking to see how the pace, duration, etc is for everyone with this 'one-shot.' I have a few encounters planned for the dark forest. Anyway, hope everyone's having a good week.

Struggling to keep pace in all my games at the moment -- just one of those periods at work. Feel free to autopilot a little as needed. I've thought about dropping as I don't want to hold the rest of you back -- sorry to be slow.

No problem at all. And no pressure. Happy to have ya. I officially put it as 3 posts a week (give or take.) I was more worried about my pace as GM or that it's taking too long to get to the 'wonderland' (act ii) part of the story, being a 'one shot'. I was thinking of maybe autopiloting some of the traveling and making camp stuff but can also keep it a little slower. Thanks for the feedback.

That sounds awesome. EDIT: Probably make that Fair (+2) target -- since you're taking the time to do the ritual.

The pacing seems fine for me. No complaints ;)

@Harrigan I think that means you 'succeed with style'. Will look into that tomorrow after work.

Yup. Generally with CaA that would mean the resulting aspect has two free invokes.

Hi All: I'm enjoying reading today's posts. Looks fun. Had a pretty busy day, but I should be able catch up and post IC tomorrow.

@YullyBear I suspect that would be an Attack action since you're actively twisting the twig, so I believe I would roll an opposed roll for the tree's Defense, which I can do tomorrow.

@Harrigan I personally would call that Clever, as such I believe you have a "Master's Spellbook" stunt you could use if I'm reading it right.

@TheGenerator Sure, you could do a Flashy "intimidate" roll; perhaps this could Create an Advantage of 'Intimidated Sprites' -- as they realize that Innis has skilled friends nearby.

I added my roll to my last post :)

@sean_don4 : True attack is a better vision of the action

Cool. I just realized I forgot to give a difficulty (ladder, target number), but will come up with one later today. That's a pretty good roll.

Yes, I'm pretty happy with that roll :)
Succeed with style seems to be 3 or more shifts.

I think I can create a situation aspect now. Here's a suggestion:
"Misdirected Threat"; The pixies see Ivario as the most dangerous of the bunch and pay less attention to the others.

Let me know if that's ok, but also feel free to change it.

I suspect that could work, as long as it works in the narrative. I've updated the 'spoiler' section with your aspect (abbreviated.)

EDIT: Signing out for tonight, but will be back tomorrow night.

@sean_don4 should we describe our own successful/failed rolls, or is that something you'd rather do?

To everyone; there's one free invoke of the situation aspect. You're welcome to use it.

You're welcome to narrarate PC actions/results according to success/failure. That's one of the fun things about fate I think. :) I'll continue to cover the Npc side. Btw i suspect you're right about the 1 free invoke. Thanks for that :)

Awesome, let me know if I do anything that doesn't fit. I can always change or remove things.
Would that turn your 7 into a 9 to succeed with 2 styles? ;)
Those things won't know what hit em.

There's not usually any kind of succeed with style x 2 -- and in this case, we won't know if I succeed with style, or succeed at all, until the difficulty is set or the sprites make their roll.

Ah, and now I see they did make their roll... but I don't know that we have their final result. Esther's was 9!

Great IC descriptions all around. This is a fun scene (!) (enjoying this.)
I just re-read the part of FAE that talks about creating monsters/badguys (in this case: 'mooks'): so, if loosely base the Sprites on the 'Sky Shark' example, I figure perhaps the Sprites should get a +2 for being "Good at Flying" (giving them a total of +3) -- which is effectively negated after having been distracted by Ivario's orb :-) That's a shift 'Severity of damage' of 6 against the Sprites (Succeed with Style x 2?), but honestly the CaA + Attack combo has already totally blown away any Stress boxes they had (I gave them 2 stress boxes per sprite (3 total each?)), so perhaps this would take them out (I'll narrate this soon) -- assuming I'm handling their stress correctly, then truly they didn't know what hit them.

@Harrigan Please correct me if I'm wrong about how Stress works with the badguys in this case.
EDIT: Question: Would the 2nd stress box absorb 2 stress, and the 1st box absorb the remaining damage? Thx in advance. EDIT: FAE says "You can only check one stress box for any single hit..."

Looking forward to posting IC soon; I'll narrate what happens next with the sprites and the remaining fighting tree tomorrow night.

So to dial in the difficulty here, understand those those Sky Sharks in example are the toughest of the three mooks presented -- because of their stress boxes. Having two each, these are mooks than can take a hit or two if they are not hit with overwhelming force.

Mooks don't have Consequence slots like PCs or Major NPCs, so the only way they can avoid being Taken Out by shifts of harm is to use their stress boxes. But check this out, from the SRD:

What Is Stress?
If you get hit and don’t want to be taken out, you can choose to take stress.

Stress represents you getting tired or annoyed, taking a superficial wound, or some other condition that goes away quickly.

Your character sheet has a stress track, a row of three boxes. When you take a hit and check a stress box, the box absorbs a number of shifts equal to its number: one shift for Box 1, two for Box 2, or three for Box 3.

You can only check one stress box for any single hit, but you can check a stress box and take one or more consequences at the same time. You can’t check a stress box that already has a check mark in it!

So having two stress boxes means a sprite can absorb one shift into the first stress box, or two into the second. They cannot do both. Mechanically, this means a hit of three shifts of harm takes the out. They could put 2 against the second stress box, but the 1 remaining shift will do them in.

In this case, with two sprites, you can use the "Groups of Mooks: rule in FAE, or some folks just grab the rules from Core and say that each additional mook adds +1 stress box. So your two sprites, together, would have three stress boxes. Esther's result was 9 with the free invoke on the distracted so these guys are toast regardless unless they roll *big* on the dice. If they have Flying +1 and rolled +2, their result is 3, leaving 6 shifts of harm. Three can be absorbed by stress box #3, meaning the remaining harm knocks them out of the scene. Some GMs would just take them out outright, others might say each member of the mob then takes one shift to knock out. (So since there are two of them, one remaining shift would knock out one of them; two or more would knock them both out.)

Make sense?

Thank you @Harrigan! I think so. I'm stilling wrapping my head around it -- basically if it takes more than 3, it's taken out because the rest cannot spill into a consequence? Thanks again.

Correct. And no PC or NPC or other entity can use more than one stress box at a time. If you do the math in a nickel and dime fight, this also means you'll eventually be ticking those 'better' stress boxes with single points of stress as well.

Hi All: I'll do my next IC post over this weekend. Looking forward to it.

Thanks for the updates, Sean.
I'm enjoying the story so far :)

I'm happy to hear that. Hopefully my contributions to the story are reasonable. By the way, wondering if I should announce a "milestone" by this time...

I hope to post IC as soon as tomorrow after work. Hope everyone's having a good week.

@sean_don4, do you mean it's a pond specifically for enchanting, or just a very pretty one?

I meant very pretty :-) ... but it could have other properties or secrets.

Ok, I thought that was what it was, but you never know
Hehe :)

So I've been re-reading the rules on "milestones"...

Realized that we probably should have been doing "end of session" or "minor milestones" at every new "part" or so. If anyone wants to shift anything around per the minor milestone rules, we could do that.

Also, reaching the dark forest probably should have been a 'significant milestone', which I believe means everyone can raise the bonus of one approach by 1, assuming I have that right.

https://fate-srd.com/fate-accelerated/getting-better-doing-stuff-character-advancement/

You can play fast and loose with the milestones -- and even totally ignore them for a one-shot like this.

Cool. Thanks. I'll leave the option open if anyone's interested in learning more about them.

BTW, it's unknown if the giants are friendly or hostile. Innis doesn't know them personally. They could be good/gentle giants... they are big in any case.

EDIT: Maybe there's a spell to be-friend or charm the giants (!)

I feel like it's a bit soon to be upgrading stats. Maybe when we find the oracle or help Innis?

Sounds good.
@Harrigan Hmmm... just the right scroll while on the run sounds like could be a bit harder. Might you have a more commonly used scroll spell in mind? Otherwise, since it's a bit of a scramble under pressure I'm thinking perhaps Great (4) on the ladder -- not including fate point invokes, etc.

@sean_don4 & @Harrigan
Question: I have the aspect Sometimes accidentally spills embarrassing rumors about his companions. Now that I understand the rules a bit better, maybe I should change this to Sometimes accidentally spills embarrassing things about himself. That way it can be used by another player to compel my character.

Do you think that would be better?

Better may be not, funnier definitely !

Maybe, if you like it better. I think it's fine to change it if you want in this learning game.

Both work, they're just different. Could also just be Sometimes accidentally says embarrassing things...

alright, I'll do that so it's flexible. Ty.

A quick heads-up. I'm traveling this week, starting tomorrow (8th) to sunday (12th) I'll be less active here. I should still be able to pop in a few times during the trip.
If you need my attention, please ping me on discord or send a PM.

Thanks @TheGenerator. We can take it a bit slower this week. Safe travels.

I think for my advantage, the crystals resonate with my orb, causing a sort of natural connection. Suggestion for aspect:

[ +- ] aspect

crystal entanglement: the crystals is the cave and Ivario's orb are resonating, causing a strange connection between them.

Okay. Only thing I might add is: how does the connection help create an advantage: Would it still provide a kind of magnifying close-up view (make it easier to navigate what's underground/underwater?) EDIT: Perhaps that's what you mean by 'enlargement'?

Scratch my last post, I was mistaken about the rules. I thought the shift meant a stronger outcome, but it's just 2 invokes instead of 1. Sorry about that.

Just the magnification through my crystal orb will be good. :)
I'll leave the wording up to you, Sean

Given the probability so far, let's say a silence spell would only affect one individual target at +2. Silencing the whole bridge be more difficult. A bad roll could have the opposite effect. Otherwise sounds good to have other solutions.

@YullyBear, is there a way for the party to find out about your bear skins? As long as you haven't told us about it, we can't really suggest ways of Beartrand helping with bear abilities. (as our characters)

I feel like Esther and Ivario have been in the spotlight more so than Beartrand. So you should definitely take a turn! :)

I had some ideas about how a bear could help in this situation. Feel free to use or ignore them as you wish :)

Hehe, alright. I'm sure you'll figure it out :)
Ivario will help where he can!

That's an interesting idea. Innis will first need to provide some special instructions as to where and how to find such potions in her home if there are any intact. There would just need to be a sure way to make Beartrand silent across the bridge.

By the way, with Fate, there should be no problem 'splitting the party' (no major mechanical downside to doing that) -- if that's where you want to take the story.

I should be able to post Innis's response to Beartrand's questions tomorrow night :-)

Hi All, pretty amusing development. I esp like the tarot cards (!) They're fun. I should be able to post IC tomorrow. Hope everyone's week was good.

Thanks for the heads-up, Sean! I'm having a lot of fun too :D
My week is alright, just another working week ;) . Hope you're having a good one as well. Looking forward to your post.

Good to hear that :-) I got home really late today, but I'll definitely post this weekend -- teddy, the creature under the bridge, Innis's house and pet. My week was not bad, outside of having some car troubles this week and having to get a few rides.

Teddy vs Teddy Bear !

Gang,

I hate to do this, but my schedule is such that I need to trim some games -- I'm over-committed, and I've got some projects of my own that are gnawing at me to get started on. So I'm going to step back here -- it was fun and I enjoy playing Esther, but I'm frequently dragging the pace down and you'll be better off with a replacement at this stage. Cheers to all, hope to game with you again!

Hi @Harrigan: No problem. And no pressure here. For what it's worth, I don't think you were dragging at all -- rather, I think I was probably going too fast. Thank you for all your help and tips in our 'learning fate' process. Esther is a great character BTW. Hope to game with you again!

As for our "one shot", I'm not sure how much longer -- at least until we make it to the Oracle maybe. Then we'll see what we'd like to do after that.

Cool. Please keep going! I don't want my refocusing to affect this great little game!

Sad to hear that, @Harrigan. But understandable :)
Good luck with your other projects!

Same thing here

Cheers everyone! See you around the site!

Hi all. We're nearing the end of this 'one shot' and I only expect a few more events, though you never know what could happen. Hope it's enjoyable. I've been having a good time playing with everyone. The player characters are creative and fun. And I think we're learning a few things about Fate.

Any thoughts about Fate, play style, or the setting? And I'll think about what kinds of games we might want to play in the future. My thought is this one shot has been a tad rail roady, so I'm thinking something more open world or hex crawl in future games.

Anyway, looking forward to more IC posts. Hope you're all having a good week.

It's been great fun so far. In terms of the dice, I think I prefer the PbtA system with miss, partial success and hit over the way Fate does it.
What I do like is the aspects system. Both for players as the situational ones. I'd like to see how a compel action would work, but the opportunity hasn't presented itself (yet).

I'm not sure if I'd join another game after this one finishes. I've signed up for a few more since we started here, so I'll have to see how busy it gets.

Either way, it was some lovely GM work, Sean! I especially liked the pictures and portraits you added. I kept thinking "where do you find those?"
I don't mind the railroading, it's just an introductory game anyway and I felt like the pacing was good. Not too much lingering in one spot.

I'll post IC later today

Thanks! I think PbtA is indeed simpler and easier to understand -- although I really liked the freeform character creation via Fate -- the Fortune Telling Gypsy with an Orb and the Human who can turn himself into different Bears are very creative and add a lot to the game. I also kind of like the possibility of freeform spell casting (for lack of "playbooks", having a ladder/difficulty in Fate kind of makes freeform casting possible, because a GM could always set the difficulty to 8 or 10 if a player tries to cast some really overpowered spell.)

Waiting to see if @YullyBear is going to post IC. In any case, hope everyone is having a good week.

Yes, I see what you mean. Though, not all PbtA games work with playbooks. So there's definitely options for freeform characters and spell casting.
It was challenging for me to not have a difficulty for tasks (like in D&D and in this game) at first, but the way PbtA solves it is with the consequences. If you fail a weak spell, something mildly bad happens. If you fail a powerful spell, you can lose a limb or something. It's a different way of thinking.

My week is going well. Busy at work but fine otherwise. How about you?

Sure, that makes sense, regarding spells. Actually I think I recall Monster of the Week has a freeform magic system as well.

This work week has been pretty normal so far. Weather was a little confusing though, with really hot days, then a random thunder storm came out of no where. Otherwise good.
Edit: late here now but good chatting.

Sean, can I still invoke an aspect to turn my +4 into +6, or would I need a new roll to get the bears to take on the thing under the bridge?
I'm not sure if I have an aspect that fits the situation, though.

Yes you still could. In the few Fate games I've played, it's usually "roll to see what you get, and then modify by invoking aspects if needed" (spend fate points.) You're welcome to try to stretch one of your aspects for the situation. Alternatively, since this is a-sync play, I think it would also be fine to Create an Advantage after the fact, and then add that to your previous roll. EDIT: Suggestions are welcome for use of Esther's magic, etc.

I'm thinking about running my own FAE game next week. I have a few friends coming over for a one-shot evening. One of them asked for a sci-fi setting, so I bought the FAE pdf and also the Fate Space Toolkit. So thanks for introducing me to this, Sean! :)
I think we're better off pretending Esther isn't there anymore, no? Or has she just become an NPC now?

That sounds fun :) I'm still wrapping my head around some of the Fate concepts and its ways of doing things. I also like pbta mechanics.
NPC. The fire power is there, but in the background.

I should be able to post IC again tomorrow. I guess if the bear gargoyle fight proceeds and works out then Beartrand needn't be compelled, he can stay on the other side, and you all could keep the silence potions for later.

It might be fun to do it anyway. Maybe Beartrand gets scared and runs away. Then the party has to go looking for him. Though, that would extend our game. If we want to wrap up shortly, we can skip it.

I tried looking up YouTube videos about it, but most of the things I find are about Fate Core. It's not very different, but different enough to not explain some of the FAE things.

Looks like that is what's happened :) Hopefully the group will find him just on the other side.
Later tonight, I'll share some videos I've come across that I thought were pretty good.

Well, there used to be some actual plays of Fate Accelerated for Batman and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that I remember liking, but it looks like those videos are no longer online...

Nevertheless, there is this one for Masters of Umdaar, which cover some basic concepts.

https://youtu.be/MnVu3U_-34k

If you searched YouTube, you probably saw this tutorial: it's for Fate Core, but still pretty good for FAE as well.

https://youtu.be/70njl8wahRA?t=68

Some of the main differences is
1) Fate Core uses Skill and Fate Accelerated uses Approaches, and
2) Fate Accelerated doesn't really have the concept of Extras; rather, officially, anything that could be an "extra" (magic item, tech item, etc) would instead become either a Stunt (pay a refresh to keep the item as a stunt) or it just becomes a normal aspect. (Of course rules for Extras could easily be imported into a FAE game if a group desired that.)

Fate Condensed is worth checking out too: it's somewhere in the middle of Core and Accelerated in terms of complexity, but I think they also cleaned-up some of the wording and made some explanations a bit more intelligible. All 3 are pretty much the same game and should be inter-compatible as far as I know.

Then there's the Fate Facebook Group, Fate Reddit, and Fate Discord Channel for any help on rules.

See also
https://fate-srd.com/actual-play/

Thanks for that info, Sean! Very helpful.
I checked out the actual play page and ended up finding "Nebula Jazz" with Adam Koebel and Jesse Cox. I really like Adam Koebel as a GM. Too bad he did some things that got him basically kicked out of the TTRPG media circuit.
So I've been watching that one to get a good idea of how to play irl.

You're welcome. Hope it helps. (Yeah, I'm aware of the PR trouble he got himself into and how the apology didn't go over well. It is too bad -- he seemed to be a good designer , had a lot of positive energy, and the event seemed to give Dungeon World a bit of a bad rap. Didn't seem to hurt the popularity of PbtA overall though: the Dungeon World Reddit and Discord are quite active.)

Overcome does not create an aspect, but the +4 -> +6 you got previously naturally created the aspect of the story where Gargoyle is Distracted by the bears; so I'd be Ok with seeing the +6 roll as a CaA instead. Your recent roll to Overcome crossing the bridge does not create an aspect, but I'd allow you to use the 1 free invoke that you could have gotten from the +4/+6 roll (had we treated it as a CaA.) But this is your story too, so whatever feels right to you :-)

I'm fine with doing it this way :)

@TheGenerator Good question. I like your thinking. Notice that the Fate rules are a tad sticky about self-compels...
I take this to mean that to really earn a Fate Point (via self-compel), a player has to role-play themselves into a complication (worthy of a fate point as a kind of compensation for the price paid) (or use it to resolve a decision that is critical to the story.) So there's a fine line between that, and simple role-play flavor. Although the rules use of the word 'drama' is a bit open-ended -- as degrees of drama can vary widely and be subjective.

It would seem this compel creates more of a complication for Beartrand than Ivario, or at least it might not be very dramatic as Ivario will likely stop as soon as he sees who's really there... unless perhaps it leaves Ivario in a berserkers or troubled state of mind, perhaps? (these are just suggestions.)

(Question: would Ivario really be worried about the church out in the dark forest? Not saying it couldn't be so -- certainly he could be worried, if it's a kind of irrational paranoia that he has. Even if rationally he knows that no one from that church should likely be that far from home.)

Would you be able to describe how this self-compel creates a complication for Ivario?

In fact, the expanded rules in Fate Core offer the following template for self-compels. First determine if it's a Decision or an Event self-compel. I think this counts as event, so it suggests this template...

You have __been condemned by the church__ aspect and are in __potential ambush__ situation, so it makes sense that, unfortunately, __ ?? __ would happen to you.

(On the other hand, I could also see self-compels as a good way to explore the depths of one's own player character.)

This would have been a great question for @Harrigan. I might ask around on Fate forums about it too.

EDIT: For now, if you can fill in the ?? blank, then we can go from there.

I think you're right. When I read it again it does state that pretty clearly.
I can't really come up with a good way that it would get Ivario in trouble. But I do think Ivario would make the wrong assumption of the church being after him and still kick the stump. It would not give me a Fate Point, though.

I hope YullyBear doesn't mind the kick :)

Does that seem alright to you?

Sounds good :)

I am a fluffy bear, I should not be too bruised. :o)

@sean_don4 does Beartrand have to defend my attack?

No, I'm not sure that he has to. He could: strictly speaking (in terms of written mechanics) (and since Ivario intends real harm), if Teddy Beartrand where to pop up and actually attempt to teddy ninja block the kick (Defend action), then it could do some real damage (lose some stuffing, bust a button-eye, etc)...

But narratively speaking, I agree with @YullyBear that most likely (being a fluffy bear) he would probably just bounce along the field -- which could be kind of funny.

Also since Ivario kicked the tree stump and not Beartrand directly, Beartrand could continue to just take cover from the attack (instead of engaging with a Defend action).

Maybe Ivario will recognize Beartrand's voice (is he talking to himself?)

Alright, that makes sense.

Yes he is talking to himself in a soft voice to summon some courage.

I won't be able to make an IC post today. Feel free to continue the story.

No worries. Thanks for the heads up.

I'm traveling this weekend. I should be able to post tomorrow. Hope everyone's having a good week.

Have a good trip, Sean!
Just a normal work week here. Hope you're well too :)

Oh, I had my RL game of FAE on tuesday and it was great fun! We didn't manage to finish a one-shot so we're doing a second episode hopefully soon. We decided to play in the borderlands universe. Lost of cool options there. I'm thinking of giving guns an aspect, which would fit well in that universe.

That's awesome! That would be pretty intimidating for me, to do face-to-face live game with Fate, but perhaps I can get to that point eventually myself. I'm glad it worked out well (!) I've never heard of borderlands, the sci-fi setting, but it looks like there's a lot to work with there.

Going out on a bit of a limb here: I have an idea of what the oracle will be, but do either of you suppose she should be good, actually a bad/evil character, or indifferent (neutral)? EDIT: or could be a surprise.

I like the idea of the oracle being neutral, preserving the balance in the world.
Maybe she can give us an ultimatum. Like Save the village but lose ... or Don't save the village and gain ...
Perhaps we can negotiate a deal somehow.

Thanks @TheGenerator. I should be able to post IC tomorrow.