Categories
Game Group

Aces and Eights resources

Our upcoming game is Aces and Eights, and we’ll be playing members of a wagon train heading west. Since there’s a lot of changes from real world history, and it’s a new system to us, I thought I’d dig up some links.

The history of the continent is wildly different, due to a much earlier civil war. This annotated map does a good job of showing the various countries and conflict zones. This timeline is a very short “one page” of differences that setup the map above.

The download page has excerpts from the rulebook and many other interesting references, including objects to hide behind in a shootout, silhouettes, a stage schedule, the alternative history excerpt, and so on.

There are two bits of errata linked on their website: Basic Combat and Wounds Modifiers Primitive Ranged Weapons.

The revised chapter 6.5, detailed backgrounds, is a PDF. It has the 01-92 “parents legitimate” fix, and probably a few more. Kenzerco also posted up tutorial videos for the combat system. For a couple of nice combat reference PDFs, see this post.

From RPG.net, there’s a quick example of play that went pretty well. (If you scroll down, you get the 7 session story.) The play log and characters are here. They just started a sequel game here.

Despite extensive searching, I haven’t found good third party or personal guides to the system. I know that I often appreciate different explanations and guides– sometimes the third time, you hit on the formula that explains it perfectly.

Categories
Game Group

Next Game Selected

Today we met and discussed the options for our next game. After much debate, we decided that the next game we play will be Aces and Eights. We’ll get together next weekend and create characters. We will make characters as a part of a wagon train, heading west to seek a better life. We’re aiming for a detailed campaign– somewhat complex and a little detail oriented to start with.

Next weekend, we’ll get together at 3 pm, watch an episode of a western show to get on the same page, and make characters ready to head west.

Categories
FATE Games

More on compels

From the mailing list Xarlen asks

The way I conceptualize Compels, it’s really easy to toss in complications in the middle and the end of the various stories. That’s when there’s clear conflict and the player has to make their choices.

But it’s also important to get the PCs some juice before things are ratcheted up to that point. In DF, players WILL start with low refresh.

So, how do you really toss compels and make complications at the beginning? Aside from the old “You have an Arch Nemesis As an Aspect, here’s a fate point for them to pop up later.”

Fred answers,

Compels are a tool for how I add pressure to the early events of the story.

My basic storyline might be “okay, so there’s been a murder, and you’ve got to solve it”, but compels would be how I add, “while trying to keep your marriage from falling apart” and “before the police catch up with you, since you’ve been framed for it”. Pressure becomes the motive that drives things forward.

Jan gives his own example,

“You’re a ‘Hot-Headed Kinetomancer’? Okay. So: You’ve been enjoyed a quiet evening in your local haunt when this group of low-level talents walk in, laughing among themselves about some in-joke. As they sidle up to the bar, you hear one of them crack a joke at the expense of your mentor, and that _really_ gets your bile up. Go ahead.”

In effect, start with the compels on generic things — temper, financial (“In Debt to a Loan Shark”) or social situation (“My GF hates what I do”). FATE is spent, action is had, and all things are good.

Categories
FATE Games

Dresden: Lots of Q&A answered

Fred linked off to a great site, where they are discussing their playtesting experience with the Dresden Files game. It sounds like it’s solid– they had a lot of data and thorough system backing, which makes me think that the GM is going to have lots of guidelines and rules to help out.

An overview of the RPG books is here.

Categories
FATE Games

Assessments, Declarations, and Manuevers

From http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FateRPG/message/16305

Assessments, Declarations, and Maneuvers are all the same action, the way I look at the system. As individual applications, they’re framed differently. Assessments ask the GM to come up with something that in the story-space is already true, just discovered. Declarations empower the player to come up with something that was already true. Maneuvers empower the *character* to assert something new and now true.

Fred

And from Grant: If the GM is amenable, an Assessment may also allow a player character to ‘discover’ an element that the GM hadnĀ“t even thought of previously. In this manner the Assessment works like a Declaration (see below) with the player stating that his character has identified a weakness, Aspect or other feature. The GM sets a Difficulty for the Skill roll to see if the character was correct in his Assessment, or whether he was mistaken. If the roll fails, the GM may wish to impose a temporary Aspect on the assessing character to reflect this, for example ‘Mistakenly believes the security cameras to have a blind spot’.

Pulp theft caper

Categories
Misc Roleplaying

A bit of everything

Comics: Too Fat to be a Rockstar (Weekly), Guilded Age (MWF), Math Comics

Chris Chinn’s Blood and Ink gathered– http://bankuei.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/blood-ink-play-guides/
Quick: Character webs– http://www.rpggm.com/blog/2009/09/25/building-better-npcs-iii-character-webs/
Picking the price of success– http://buriedwithoutceremony.com/2009/10/20/the-little-things-in-life/

Mouse Guard AP#3– http://rpg.brouhaha.us/?p=1884
AP #4– http://rpg.brouhaha.us/?p=1920

Cool D&D Stuff: Bendy Dungeon Walls– http://www.dark-platypus.com/bendy_dungeon_walls.htm

Looking out for the story leads to constipation at the table. Story does not need to be preserved or looked out for. It is not a just hatched chick that needs everyone to be careful lest it is trampled. Just play the damned game, make choices that are brave. Look at your character sheet, let your character surprise you and story will just happen. — Judd, http://githyankidiaspora.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/the-myth-of-story-preservation/

Hardening WordPress– http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/oct/23/wordpress-exploit-scanner-hardening-hacker

Men/Women– http://www.rpggm.com/blog/2009/10/19/unintentional-sexism-in-rpgs-even-women-do-it/
http://www.dungeonmastering.com/tools-resources/character-sheet-cross-dressing

Categories
FATE Games

FATE one-shot advice

(From the FATE mailing list: this post)

I posted most of this earlier to this list, so look through the archives for that thread, as there were other good hints. But here are my tips for one shot/con games.

Characters –
I would shy away from full chargen at the table. My local group loves to spend a whole evening generating characters, but it’ll take too long in a convention slot.

Use partial to full pregen characters. Don’t choose stunts at the table, again it will take too long. Either you pick them before or go stuntless, by choosing good aspects(which is the path I prefer).

At a minimum choose the top skills (the +5, and the 2 +4s for each characters). Let them fill in the rest, but also allow them to put them in in play so you can get going.

Pregenerate several aspects for each character. Make sure you have a list of them and write down possible places in the adventure that you’ll be able to compel them. You won’t be able to track more than one or two aspects per player at a table of 6 for very long. Have some compels up your sleeve and any others are gravy.

Cut their fate points to 5, and compel early and often. Explain self compels, and try to get them to the work for you.

Use the faster damage rules on the wiki if you want to speed up combat.

The Adventure –
In a 4 hours slot with pregens and 5 players I usually get either 3 bigger or 4 smaller encounters. Not much more.
Be sure to design the adventure so that you can drop whatever is needed out to get to the Big Bad at the end. Players are more forgiving of plot problems than not getting to the triumph stage.

Start them in the middle of something. Ignore the “meet in the bar/clubhouse/ diner and plan” stage (players will overthink it, and spend too much of the precious game time looking for things that aren’t there.) Get them into the action as soon as possible.

Jeff

Categories
Games Roleplaying

EndGame Minicon

The minicon was interesting– in a good way, mostly. I played three new games over the course of the day. The store, EndGame, was awesome!

The first was a pre-release version of Mythender, which I’d never heard of before. It was run by its creator, Ryan Macklin, who is working on the Dresden RPG for Evil Hat. [Though I didn’t make that connection until lunch afterwards.] I played Roland, Charlemagne’s knight, beside two other characters– Merlin (King Arthur’s adviser) and a hero who had slain gods in Europe, hoping to end untimely death forever.

The mechanics were a little complicated, and the game was a little transparently preachy, but it made for a neat one-shot. I suspect a 3 session campaign is as long as it’d ever go, but it was interesting. Afterwards, I had sandwiches with the other players at a shop just down the street. (Ryan’s offhand comments about “Dresden” finally clued me in to who he was.)

The 3 pm game [Burning Wheel] that I had signed up for was canceled by the GM– I think I was the only player who had signed up. I got into a game of Scooby Doo with the Inspectres RPG engine. It was fun and very different– clearly, my memory of the cartoon was hazy in comparison to the other players, but we camped it up and had a lot of fun. The session was very fast– we completed an 8 Franchise die mission in the first two hours. Since the next slot wasn’t until 8, the GM came up with a second plot after a ten minute break and we played it through. It wasn’t as good, but it was still very enjoyable.

When we finished, we crossed the street to the English brew pub across the way. I had a couple of sausages and sauerkraut– it was tasty.

Then I wandered back and joined the 8 pm game of Wild Talents. It’s an ORE game, and the GM had an interesting twist: it was set on the Germanic frontier with Marcus Aurelius as Emperor. We got stuck on a [self created] riddle for a while, but enjoyed roleplaying roman citizens with unusual powers and investigating in the depths of Germania. It was the most traditional of the three games, and was quite fun for being straight forward. As we cleaned up, the GM told us about a very separate path we could have chosen. It would have been an interesting scenario too!

Categories
Game Group

Next Game: D&D on the September 11th or 12th?

Next weekend is Labor Day weekend, and we won’t be meeting. What does your schedule look like for the following weekend– Friday the 11th and Saturday the 12th? Does Friday work? What times work for you on Saturday (if any)?

Categories
DnD My Game Ideas Roleplaying

Background campaign work

A peek behind the curtain at some campaign prep ideas from my campaign, a while ago.