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.

So from what I am getting from the book, for the Phase Trio, I am writing the first part of mine and then adding a section to each of their sections. In each section I write, I should interact with their characters and be developing an aspect for myself.

Yep. That's the gist of it.

Would my telepathy use Will or Empathy when reading minds? What about when I'm trying to put thoughts in peoples' heads (Provoke vs Will)? It would seem that Izaac is imposing his Will over people in the latter case, but I don't know. It also seems like his mental powers cover so many skills that I don't know what to prioritize because I'm not sure how his powers would effect each skill.

FWIW it seems rational to me to figure out what your top skill would be, and then most of your stunts/powers around that, like the wizard in the Fate Core book using Lore for magic. So for my character I've decided to use Burglary, as my main deal is getting into places and systems. I think the Fate Core book recommends Will for psychic abilities in general.

In the character thread I've posted my whole character crunch so far for comparison and general commentary!

Of course I'm not the GM, so...

Interesting thoughts. In other games there would be an obvious attack and defense stat. Maybe even a whole rules set for mental challenges. We are building from scratch. So I have a three ideas and I would like more input from you on which you would like...or like to tweek and use

#1: We just use Will for everything regarding "Mental Combat". This is the most simplistic approach and leaves no gray areas to worry about.
#2: You choose an "Offensive" skill and a "Defensive" Skill. Provoke makes sense for a lot of offensive actions...either Stress or getting someone to do what you want, while Will makes sense for defensive actions, protecting your own mind and others.

#3: Making your mental powers three pronged. Power=Provoke, Finesse=Empathy, Resistance=Will. So if you were trying for a "direct assault" on someone's mind it would be a Profile roll, if you were manipulating someone in a subtle way it would be a Empathy roll, and if you were defending against someone else with mental powers it would be a Will roll.

#4: Or just choose which skill makes the most sense at the time. An empathy roll to Overcome a persons attitude and make them less hostile. A Rapport roll to Create and Advantage and make them like you. Provoke to directly assault their minds and Will to defend when they attack back (assuming they have the ability.) This provides the most versatility, allowing you to use the skill that makes the most sense at the time.

So let me know if any of these work for you. You could change the specific skill on any of them if you felt a different skill makes more sense to you. I would say #1 & #2 cost 1 stunt point because you are just making a skill do something slightly beyond what it normally does. #3 & #4 would be worth 2 because you are adding to several skills, but because each skill is not fully "upgraded" and applicable to every situation you don't have to pay 1 stunt for each.

Based on what we've talked about I think Will as your highest skill doesn't make sense, but if you go with option #1 it does. So its up to you if you like any of these ideas. If these inspire something new that I haven't thought of then write that up and I'll look at it.

What about something similar to option 2, but instead of attack/defense it's force/finesse or stealth? Will for anything that's an open confrontation, and Empathy for trying to slide something in unnoticed.

I personally like #4 as that would allow for the most flexibility in how different heroes may attack.

Works for me. Will = Forceful actions, Empathy = Sneaky actions. I like that he is potentially better at one "mode" than the other. I think it really works for the character as well. Even if the difference is only a single number.

One last question. Do his psionics count as one "Power" and telepathy and telekinesis and lockdown etc. are all part of one thing? I'm asking so I can figure out if I need two special effects for all psionics or if I need 6 special effects (2 for each active ability in the set).

I think that's up to you. In comics I've seen examples of each...telepathy and telekentics as one power or desperate and each is usable even if the other isn't.

I feel this is fair because each power comes with a Drawback that I can use whenever I want, but the special effects are options only if you get an exceptional success. I (or you) can trigger a Drawback much more often than the special effects.

So you have to choose how many Drawbacks you want to deal with.

I think limit it to two power sets overall. The telepathy and mind lock are one, the telekenetics could be another...but you could have them as one

Ok, I'll make the special effects less specific then.

OK gang. I'm ready to start the main story proper. Kenny & harlandski, neither of you have added to The Warp's Phase Trio yet. Otherwise characters seem complete. We will start with the first official day on the job, but you can still get your final aspects figured out.

Where there anymore questions?

My bad. I knew I was forgetting something. It should be good now.

OK, so we just filled the last two player slots. Ninjawhat & Protonmule, welcome aboard.

We have the first three characters basically finished, so hopefully we can work the others in quickly. Please ask questions as needed. You can read from the forums so far what we have covered. I will launch the first scene soon and you are welcome to jump in when you think you have an idea, or we can insert you later, whichever works.

Hello Ninjawhat and Protonmule!

I'm not too happy with Dave Evans' / Cyber's story and aspect* from The Warp's phase trio, so I'm happy to delete that, meaning one of you can link up with the Warp. It would also mean I could link up with one of your characters.

* @foolsmask - the aspect "Easy does it" doesn't really add much to my trouble of "Hyperconcentration"

@harlandski - OK, we are still in the early stages so I have no issue with you changing things up some.

Hey guys, pretty excited about these ideas so far! I've been reading the forums, and I'm considering my character, and I'm thinking something physical, since the mental is pretty much covered in the group... I considered social, but a lot of that fall into telepathy, etc. So I'm thinking of a few different ideas...I've always liked Bishop and Gambit from X-Men. The energy absorption and release idea has always been something I like... I also read a lot of Dresden Files, and Harry has these rings on his hands that store kinetic energy, until he releases it. I also like the idea of a "T-1000" type power, almost similar to the video game, "Prototype". My concept is to start with a quiet, meek teenager, who takes a lot of crap from a lot of people, and give him massive physical power of some kind. I like the idea of the internal struggle between personal gain and whats right, the temptation of power, so to speak...

Hey ninjawhat. Yes, I think you're right - we could definitely do with someone physical. Also getting power when you get a beating is a cool idea. I love the Dresden File books too.

OK. I'm back. I guess the Kaleth made some changes to the back end of the site and it made a lot of people have trouble posting, me included. But its fixed now.

@ninjawhat - I like the idea you have there. Bishop was one of my favorite characters back into he day. I haven't read X-men regularly for a long time. My comic buying habits changed a lot when my wife and I had our first kid, I buy two big piles a year now. I don't get to follow stories much. I don't even know where Bishop is in comics anymore. Gambit is fun but never got a good treatment that I read. If you don't mind additional suggestions for inspiration there is also Strong Guy. He has, or had...I don't know his status currently either, the power to absorb kinetic energy and get huge muscles. His drawback was that his skelton was completely normal though. So if he got to big he would collapse under his own mass. He also got a healing factor so when his bones broke, he could come back next issue without any questions.

I want to gently guide you away from one avenue that could come up based on your post. You might already be aware of what I'm going to say. I am unfamiliar with Prototype, but I think the T-1000 is referring to the the Terminator, so I get the idea. It sounds like you want someone extremely tough, and that is great. There is Armor that can be actual armor or really tough skin or a force field or anything in between. It reduces any physical stress your character would take by it's rating. I am OK with a character having this as a power, but would want to start with a limit of Armor:4 to keep things on a certain level. There will be chances to increase over time.

So what I'm saying is I don't want you to have an "unstoppable" character, but a "relentless" type would be fine, someone who can be slowed down, but will eventually get back up and keep going. So I hope this sounds good to you still. Looking forward to hearing more.

Oh and dontnforget to add some flavor to Fuller City by making a Place and Face also

Strong guy sounds like a good place to start! Along the lines of T-1000, its the mutable/malleable aspect that I'm interested in, although I suppose a small amount of toughness would be inherent with that, but I'm getting more excited by the energy transfer stuff haha. I'll look into strong guy, and work on a place/face as I solidify my background more today

Oh right...T-1000 was the liquid metal robot. T-800 was the Arnold model. Guess I lose my nerd card for a while. Shape shifting is also a cool ability. But you do what you want, I don't want to force your hand.

I've decided that I'll pretty much model my powers after Bishop...

"...the power to absorb energy, either ambient energy or that directed towards him, and to project that energy from his body in the form of concussive blasts. Bishop can also store absorbed energy within his personal reserves, whereupon the energy increases his strength and recuperative abilities, as well as affording him a measure of invulnerability..."

So some mild toughness, extra strength, and healing when he's got some extra energy stored, but other than that, pretty straightforward... I'm going to work on who he is and a place/face, now.

Excellent

I need to finish up my character sheet and firmly decide on my powers. Are we doing the collateral damage rules from the supplement?

I was just wondering about that, myself.

The rules where you guys can do super awesome stuff at the price of damaging things you may not have wanted to? Yes, yes we are.

@ninjawhat Your character sounds cool the way it's shaping up. I look forward to getting stuck into your phase trio when you get to that stage. I'll go ahead and delete my entry from Warp's trio too, to make room for you if you'd like.

Sorry, guys, I meant to have more done by now, but I got called into work yesterday and today... But yeah, that sounds good!

I'm going on holiday/vacation for three weeks in an area with patchy Internet access. I will do my best to post daily, but if you don't hear from me for longer than usual, you know why.

I know this is awkward, as we are set to begin. The good thing about Fate is that my default course of action is pretty well described by my aspects, so feel free to NPC me for that time, or else have me busy at work for the opening part of the adventure.

Just to say that I have tolerably good Internet connection where I am on holiday, and am getting used to using my phone for posts (a bluetooth keyboard helps!) So, don't let my news of possible absence hold anyone back.

*Hype for the beginning of this game intensifies*

Ok. I broke my phone on Friday, and i was at Gen-con so I was unable to deal org that issue until now. But I am back up and running. So give me a little bit of time and we will get this underway.

Ha ha, I wondered if GenCon might be behind it - and the general sluggishness of games on the site this week. Hope to make it to the USA to attend one year!

Are we still going?

Has the game died or are we just on hiatus?

Alas, I haven't seen foolsmask for a while in this or other games we play here. But he doesn't have the "zzz"s by his name, so there is hope that he could return.

I too hope for foolsmask's return.