So, I have sort of promised to run some Fate games at my local FLGS.  I used to run Pathfinder Society there several months back but grew tired of it pretty quickly.  I’ve been singing the praises of Fate to one of the owners since well before Core was announced to the world and even more so since the Kickstarter went live.  He’s onboard and even ran a short-lived Mass Effect game himself.  But, it’s come time for me to put up or shut up so I am going to run a series of one-shots to show the power, fun, and flexibility that are inherent in Fate.  I am going to run some FAE, some “straight” Core, and some hacked setting to show off the system. 

After re-watching G.I. Joe: Retaliation, G.I. Joe: Resolute (amazing, if you haven’t see it), and rereading a bunch of comics (both the old Marvel stuff and the newer stuff from Devil’s Due) I’ve decided to work on that setting first.  My general inclination is to use Core for this but I really want to try and use FAE.  I really feel like it’s a great hack for emulating 1980’s style Saturday morning cartoons.  So I am going to start with FAE and see if it scratches the right itch, if not I will go back to Core. 

Step one is choose the Joe’s that will be available for the mission.  My plan is to have characters that represent each Approach at Good (+3), which means twelve Joes for my roster. 

Here’s my short list:

Duke

Scarlett

Snake-eyes

Roadblock

Flint

Lady Jaye

Tunnel Rat

That leaves me needing five more.  What I will probably do is stat those guys out and see what “roles” I need to fill and then pick characters based on that.  Or just switch to Core and build all of my favorites…we’ll see. 

For Aspects I am going to try and emulate the file cards that came on the backs of the toy packages.  I used to read those over and over as a kid and, at one point, had them pretty much all memorized (I’m thinking about listing that on my resume).  Their High Concept will be take from either their “role” at the top of the card or their Primary Military Specialty (or both when they are the same).  Their Trouble will come from the narrative on their card, the information from their entry in the Order of Battle comics, or my knowledge of the character.  Finally the rest of their aspects will come from the text on the card and their Secondary Military Specialty.  I’ll probably Photoshop up some fancy looking character sheets that look like the old toy cards too. 

I am also thinking of bringing in the Organization rules from Atomic Robo because they make a lot of sense in this case.  Also Mike Olson used them for his RoboForce hack and it seemed like another cool Fate thing to show people.  

That’s all for now, more to come soon.  I am going to flesh out a character or two and post them up here when I am done.  I am going to do both Core and FAE to see which I like better. 

Thinking about settings. And hacking. And hacking settings.

One of my goals with this blog is to work on some personal settings of my own creation (potentially with the help of players and readers) and to hack existing settings. The hacking bit, while certainly not innovative, can be pretty helpful in REALLY figuring out the rules and getting a better understanding of the Fate system. This type of learning is even more helpful when it comes to making my own settings. Once I figure out the best ways to hack the rules to fit someone else's fiction, I'm better equipped to fit them into mine.

So, what am I going to hack?

Star Wars, of course. It's almost required to hack any system to play Star Wars.  I have a pretty specific game I'd like to play with Fate and Star Wars, so the hack will be focused towards achieving that goal and not to emulate everything that's ever been done with the setting.

I'd also like to give Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time world a shot. It's a fun world with a pretty impressive group of characters and a magic system that's always been tough to nail down, mechanics wise.

Supers, likely of the Marvel variety. I've always been a Marvel guy and I think Fate Core is a great system for supers.

I've got a few ideas that I think would translate well into Fate Accelerated Edition, so they may wait until I have my hands on that beauty.

What about personal settings (asked no one)?

For that have three planned.

A fantasy world. Certainly not Tolkien, but my own thing. If nothing else it will be my real attempt at a world building exercise, likely with reader input...assuming I get some.

A modern setting of Supernatural meets the X-Files meets Charles Stross' The Laundry series. This one may have to wait until FAE and/or Atomic Robo come out or it will likely see major revisions as a result...which is OK too.

Something sci-fi. My son loves sci-fi stuff and (after many years of prodding) he's also in love with Fate so we'll probably do this one together.

Finally, something along the lines of Grimm by Fantasy Flight.

So, there are some more of my plans for this blog. Not the most profound post ever but I don't want to give up on this thing so any post is better than no post.  As I said before I am still working out a schedule and a format for this thing, so please bear with me while I figure that all out.

Also, as of this writing, there are 5 days to go on the Fate Core Kickstarter, so get a pledge in if you haven't already.

A new year, a new blog...

So, blogging is a new thing for me.  It's something I've toyed with before but never actually done.  I know I have things to say, but I can never seem to find what it is I want to talk about.  I've entertained the idea of blogs on cooking, comics, gaming, general nerdiness, and a few other ideas but nothing has ever gotten off of the ground.

I am a big fan of gaming.  Gaming of all types, really, but my favorite genre is roleplaying games.  I like to create worlds and characters, tell stories with them, and occasionally put pencil to paper (or stylus to Cintiq) and create images that go along with them.  My favorite roleplaying system, without a doubt, is Fate by the amazing folks over at Evil Hat.

My love affair began in 2007.  Soon after my family’s moved to Texas I walked into the local gaming store (friendly and/or professional were suspect in this case) looking for something new to read.  Browsing the gaming shelves I found a 6x9 tome with yellow letters along the spine very much in the style of the Raiders of the Lost Ark font that read, Spirit of the Century.  Pulp heroes in an extremely narrative, very collaborative, RPG?  I was in from the word go.  I picked up the book that day and read it cover to cover and was immediately hooked. 

Since that faithful day I have purchased and read every iteration of the Fate rules that I could get my hands on.   From Strands to Kerberos Club and Dresden to Diaspora, I have read (I think) them all.  In fact, whenever I pick up another RPG or start the process for planning a new campaign, I almost always start thinking about how I can do it with FATE and I almost always come up with something.  

In August 2012 Mike Olsen from the AMAZING Spirit of the [Blank] blog and contributor to many an fantastic Fate titles announced he would be publicly playtesting the Atomic Robo Role Playing Game (AARPG).  I signed up immediately and was able to get in on round two, which was really exciting.  One of my favorite comics (seriously, check it out if you haven’t) mixed with my favorite RPG (going through a revision), written by my Fate hero…I simply couldn’t pass it up.  I don’t get a lot of gaming time in, but I was lucky to run a few sessions and it was great.  The players had fun, I had fun, I couldn’t wait for more…and I didn’t have to wait long. 

In November 2012 Fred Hicks announced the impending Kickstarter for the newest version of the rules, Fate Core.  The Kickstarter launched on December 3^rd and I achieved minimum funding it was seemed like 45 minutes.  The Yahoo! group went super nova and Google+ got a community dedicated to the game. 

So, I decided to start a Fate blog.  Yeah, I know, it’s not the first but there’s always room for one more.  I have a few plans for this thing.  I am going to use it as a place to discuss my plans for a couple of campaigns I want to run, I want to do setting and character conversions, I plan on doing reviews of products (past and present), and work on converting older Fate stuff into Core.  The plan is weekly posts, but I’d like to do more and dedicate specific days to specific topics.  If there’s something you’d like to see, let me know. 

So, please bear with me as I get this thing up and running.  I am working on a format and some graphics for the page and updates will come soon. 

Talk to you all soon.