Another option for Orland might be something like Makes the Hard Decisions, based on what happens in it, especially if we go for the revised version.
Serra probably is going to get the Aspect Blood Begets Blood from her ties to Amaziah's story, as she ultimately opts not to seek out the violent solution to her friend being hurt. :)
I don't mind some conflict at all.
I remain a bit confused.
Do I get an Aspect for my initial story, and one for my addition to Serra's story?
If two, I like
British sense of humor
and
Makes the Hard Decisions
If only one - well, that is tougher, because I think both fit well.
Your first assumption is correct, Orland. In all, you will end up with 3 more aspects (added to your initial 3, for 6 total). You get one from your intro story, one from the phase you add to someone else's, and one more from the third part that you add onto Azariah's I believe.
Got it; I will go for British sense of Humor and makes the hard decisions
I will need some input into how to invoke or be compelled on hard decisions.
I'm still here just in a mix of not really knowing what to do and real life but I guess a messy post is better than sitting on my hands, will get something up tonight or tomorrow sorry for the wait
@ Nora - I like your stories! Although (disclaimer time), I am far from an expert.
These all look great! I can tell that people are stressed about it, but you're doing well. We're getting pretty close to having everyone tied together a bit, and providing me a lot of background to work with. I appreciate that.
You'll note that Serra and Orland are designating aspects that come out of their participation in the stories (1 from your own, and 1 from each crossover for 3 total). It's a good way to discover or highlight some different aspects of your character.
However, if any of you are feeling daunted by that task, feel free to leave some of those last aspects blank. We can discover them during play if you'd like, and depending on how on top of it I am in a forum context, I may suggest some as relevant things come up.
Am I missing something, or am I caught up? I know I need to respond to Nora after Huey does.
Nope, I think you're caught up!
I haven't heard anything from Huey for a while. We may have lost him in this phase :(. I'll send him a message and see if he's still around and interested.
I'm still around, I just wasn't able to continue Nora's story until she posted it a few days ago. I think I'll have my continuation up tomorrow.
No worries! Perfect, then we're pretty close! I love these stories and all, but I'm really excited to all be playing together. Thanks everyone for sticking through this process.
Amaziah (1) - Serra (2) - Orland (3)
Huey (1) - Amaziah (2) - Serra (3)
Nora (1) - Huey (2) - Amaziah (3)
Orland (1) - Nora (2) - Huey (3)
Serra (1) - Orland (2) - Nora (3)
I think this is all caught up :/. Just looking for a cap from Amaziah and one from Nora.
-----------------------
Huey, I really like Restraint is Hard, and Failed Peacemaker, but I'm struggling with how to make use of The Bartender Dislikes Me. The only way I can see it fitting in is if I really lean hard on the bartender as an antagonist, but I'm not sure how you would invoke it for bonuses. Any thoughts on where you would see yourself invoking it?
I love, however, that it's a relational thing. I wonder even if we could spread it out to indicate something like enemies in high places. That, perhaps, could be invoked to show a preparedness or degree of caution on your part.
I'm new to the system, so I might have made a mistake there. If the bartender does something to me, that probably wouldn't be an opportunity for a compel, since it's not me acting.
So how about changing it to "Makes Enemies Quickly"?
How about enemies in low places?
Amaziah's suggestion is wittier, but does it solve the problem with invoking?
Yeah, I think Amaziah's suggestion works great! You could theoretically invoke that the same way I saw enemies in high places--for preperation or caution, or even knowledge of "low places". "Of course I'm knowledgeable in this, I've got a lot of enemies in those ranks."
Fine, then I'll take "Enemies In Low Places."
I hope that I don't end up actually being an antagonist. I keep setting myself up in opposition to the rest of the party. Not sure why that is happening. I don't think I'm doing it on purpose. I think my subconscious is just feeling defiant due to some real life issues.
Haha, Amaziah, I wouldn't worry about that too much. I'll bring other antagonists that can fill that roll. Think of movies or TV shows with "antagonistic" protagonists; kind of like Sawyer in Lost.
Nora, I think you did well. So don't worry about it. The big question though is, "What does this tell us about your character?" It seems to me that perhaps you're somewhat introspective, or stick to the fringes, or something like that. In these phases you're doing more than placing yourself into a story, you're telling us all something interesting about your character!
To Everyone: We're good to go! I'm compiling the information for my own notes and running the ideas through the mill. If I don't have a start up by the end of the day, it'll be up by the end of tomorrow. Thanks for sticking through the process, and I'm really excited for this and to give some of you a taste of how Fate works.
And we're rolling! Opening scenes are up, and the party is currently split but likely to convene in the near future.
As a side note: as Serra knows, I've spent a lot of time immersed in the Powered by the Apocalypse mindset of GMing, so I'll probably ask questions at times that I don't know the answer to. If I've asked you a question, answer it however you'd like so long as it doesn't contradict anything previously established, and it's true.
As always, let me know if you have any questions; and if you stumble into anything that needs a roll of some sort, I'll let you know.
Nora, I think you did well. So don't worry about it. The big question though is, "What does this tell us about your character?" It seems to me that perhaps you're somewhat introspective, or stick to the fringes, or something like that. In these phases you're doing more than placing yourself into a story, you're telling us all something interesting about your character!
If you are referring to aspects these are what I had in mind so far:
• I Don't Do Subtle• Bully Of Bullies
• Caught Up In The Past
If you are referring to my posts being bad and not giving enough character:
Sorry I'll try to improve.
Nope, you let me know exactly what that showed: you're caught up in the past. Perfect.
Orland, to answer your question about checking out the rings, you have a couple options. If you're just curious, Serra already has the gist of it--that the rungs are used to attach mechanisms/pulleys for ensured safety descending or maybe pulling objects up. So no need to roll, you guys get it already I believe.
HOWEVER, if you have some cool idea beyond that... something you'd like to reveal that they're actually for, Fate can do that! Say what you think is actually going on here and roll (most likely brains) to Create Advantage. It's kinda mind-bending to grasp at first, but we cooperate in the story telling in this game. If you make the roll, you're right and get an aspect to use from that. If you don't, I'll set up an aspect to be used against you.
Does that make sense?
For instance: If you were tied up to a beam in some underground mine (totally unlikely, right?), you could make a Tools rule to say that you're studying the beam for a Crack in the Foundation. That may not have been a thing the GM had thought of at all before that point, but as a player your claiming it's a cool idea and that your character, as someone who really knows how things work, would be able to spot that sort of thing.
If you make the roll, it's an aspect now that you can invoke for free as a bonus to get out. If you botch it, I'd still make the aspect --there's still a Crack in the Foundation like you said -- but that's going to make it harder for you to get out... you know, without bringing everything tumbling down on you.
@GM - I was wondering more about the rungs - why so many and why so close.
But I think you answered that as well with a later post - some are rotten, some are not.
Ahh yeah, the crevices in the wall to climb down. You guys don't know why yet, but there's more than you need. The first one is about a foot and a half below the rim, so it's hard to see in it currently.
Feel free to ask any manner of questions. I'm not trying to withhold information, and in a forum it's hard to gauge how well my intentions are getting across.
I'm creating a Relationship Map to help me keep track of connections in town and potential hooks/character triangles. I've linked it in the header above the threads as well.
It's currently a work in progress, but you can check it out and make any suggestions if you see something missing or a better option.
It is nigh unreadable on my phone, atm. :(
Also, I worry about hogging too much of the spotlight. How often should I roll/be willing to roll? Cause I just realized the incense smoke is probably a good time to check if it's magicks!
As one who gets the game, this could be a good chance for you to showcase how it works. I think a lot of the other players' hesitance right now is due to feeling lost. This game can feel overwhelming at first.
So I wouldn't worry about hogging the light currently, at least until people start getting the hang of it.
I don't think it is a problem for Serra to be leading at this point.
I am struggling to pick up the flow of the game - perhaps some more explanation what you mean by some of the buzzwords (like Serra passing the invocation?) means until we get the point.
I am struggling with the level of narrative required, as well as when to roll or when to invoke one of my stunts or attributes.
Last, I think pbp makes it hard to teach a game (like this, anyway). I didn't find the rule book all that clear, and there is no back and forth conversation to teach the play. It can be hard to read all the text and make sense of the lingo (for me, anyway). But we will get there eventually.
I am having a hard time reading the relationship map on my screen - it just looks sort of fuzzy when I blow it up enough to read.
Each skill has multiple uses. The game is broken up into multiple 'ways' to use a skill. While the game outright says 'This skill can't be used for attacks', I think it's safer to say it should 'rarely be used for attacks', directly. I.E. With contacts you could, in theory, call in the cavalary, or rustle up a posse to ostensibly do just that. But if you didn't do so beforehand, you may be left spending a fate point to adjust the scene.
But before I get ahead of myself: I've used two types of rolls so far: A discovery, where I ask the DM what his intent is on something that's interesting, and a create advantage, where I suggest a use for a piece of the scene (which can be just about anything, generally).
When you create an advantage, you create something that can be used later. For good or ill. So something like a 'narrow corridor' could be used to brace against the ceiling as the monsters passed below you. But at the same time, when you're running from a ghost, the narrow corridor can be used to compel you to run in single file (which is only a good compel if there's a reason not to). You can go 'this makes sense to me, how about I can easily climb the well because I can reach both sides.' and spend a fate point to get a +2. Or you can go 'The monster can't really dodge in the confined space of the well, so it should be an easy shot.' and spend a fate point to get a +2... so on and so forth. Anyone can use the advantage once it's there. Typically it's a good idea to set yourself up for success before doing something, unless the GM gives you a time limit - or you suspect there might be one.
When you create the advantage, you get to do it for free without spending the fate point. What's more, I can freely give away that +2 to anyone that I want. I'm not certain I can do it after the roll, but I think I can. And if you want it, you can have it :) It might turn out badly for me (or someone else) later, but I will always be happy to share Serra's discoveries. Unless I actively state I'm hiding them. :)
Got it. Well, I didn't spend a fate point, so we will see how falling works out!
I can see where it is easier to remember advantages, and who has them for what reason, in a face to face game. It is certainly more challenging for me in the pbp format. It will get easier as I learn the system.
Yeah, in a face to face game, you'd use cards. That might be something worth keeping on a separate document that's easy to peruse. :)
Another thing that could be done is listing it in one of your headers when you have a free invoke on something.
I also can't read the map. It has very low resolution and can't be read, and when I download it, it takes me to a page that requires signing in, but doesn't show the map.
Having a document with cards represented would be a great idea. I'll work on that when I have some time. And yeah, that relationship map is a mess right now. It works great on the computer where I created it, but it isn't sharing well. I'll work on that as well.
And yes, Orland, you can definitely pick Brawn for one of your +1 skills. It looks like only 2 of the 4 are defined. So that would bring you up to a -2 on the roll.
Also, I'm a huge fan of failing forward, so on just about any failed Overcome roll, I will give you the option to succeed at a major cost. However, in this case your objective was to get to the bottom, which you will achieve regardless... so yeah, success at a cost.
And I apologize, but things got pretty busy today, so I'll have to update tonight :/
Instead of the relationship map in the tab, I've linked a cheat sheet for Fate Core. This should make easy reference for any odd parlance or mechanics. Once I create a document with Aspect Cards, I'll link that up there as well.
I really liked the idea of a document with cards that show the current aspects and who they belong to (right now if it shows your character's card, that's who the invocations belong to. Let me know if you think it would be better to save that for when an aspect is actually ON you--like consequences or other Created Advantages.)
Here is the current card map for the Huey/Orland/Serra group: Aspect Cards
Here is the key, for understanding any of the symbols that may not be intuitive: Aspect Map Key
*I'm also slowly creating that relationship map on Kumu. It's a much better site and you guys will be able to edit it as well once I've got it going.
The table is actually very cool.
Unrelated to those (except by Tangent), I was thinking of Aspects and such. It may have been intended, or this could even be mildly insulting, but there are two songs that come to mind for me with Amaziah: "I've got Friends on the Other Side', which is a killer aspect all on its own (alternate name: A Man, Possessed, if you want to play up the Cheval), and The House of the Rising Sun. Which might be why I like the Morningstar so much as a name. Very evocative and bakes the sin straight into the crust. :)
As for the Aspect that I got from Hueys, I wasn't really feeling it very strongly, so now I'm leaning more towards 'Headstrong, Head First'. It seems like a really good aspect and interacts well with being active rather than passive. Plus, it's compel fodder. Which I'm always gonna be wanting more Fate Points.
On a wider tangent: I was talking to a friend about the game and something came up that I wanted to bring up here. Aspects are incredibly important. And I'm sure everyone has gotten that. They tell who your character is! But there's more to that. It tells what you want to play and what you want to see. If you find yourself getting compelled to do things that seem like a horrible idea often that you don't want any part of, it may be ideal to adjust your character or even replace it. It's better to not stick with something you hate and hope it gets better, in my experience (though, I rarely pull that off, clean).
So if you wind up with something you don't find fun, bring it up.
On a non-tangent: Losing is okay. Fate points shouldn't be spent to simply not fail. They should be saved to succeed when you really care about it. To shrug off a compel when it would take something you want more, away. Like the freedom of movement involved with 'not having a broken leg'. But we're expected to fail at things, even occasionally the things we're really good at. So just try to keep that in mind!
I like the table and cards. Good visual to help bring it all together.
Huey's position is my fault. After you stated you were going to climb down, I attempted to pause that action by re-stating something I didn't think I had made clear enough--that there were greater dangers to climbing down than just the physical component, which now hopefully you know are those caged snakes.
I was far from clear on my intentions. My assumption was that I would offer you a compel to do what you said, with obvious consequences, for a Fate Point; but if you bought out of the compel you would still be up top, having not rushed down like a hero into a mysterious but dangerous situation.
But clearly several of you missed that intention. So yes, you are down at the bottom. Usually that would require a roll, so those that are working to understand this game shouldn't wrack their brains to figure out why he didn't roll where others did. The simple answer: GM error :)
I will continue to work more on making things as clear as I can, since in this context it's not easy to have that simple dialogue that usually clears up any misunderstandings.
I am traveling on business folks, so I only have,a phone for posting for a few days. Feel free to bot me as necessary.
Let me explain what happened with the poison/venom :).
I tried to do this earlier, but forgot about it this time. Because we're on a forum, it's difficult to do the back-and-forth that would occur at a table as one roll exceeds another and fate points or invocations are spent. So most of the time, I will try to set up contingents when I'm prepared to spend them (e.g. If your roll exceeds this, he will invoke "blahdy-blah" to try and raise the mark.)
In this case, I set up the obstacle to overcome, but I forgot to mention that I would certainly use the 2 free invokes on it to hinder the roll/raise the challenge (especially since they would be lost if the aspect is overcome).
Orland's attempt at creating an advantage also granted the venom another free invoke it could use. So unless you were willing to spend a lot of your own fate, it's incredibly unlikely that the venom would be overcome without a cost (since those 3 bonuses effectively raise the challenge rating to +8!)
But I often prefer the option of success with a cost. So in this case, Huey still removed the venom--there's no fear of it damaging you now or in the future. But the cost is a lingering mark, since the source is somewhat supernatural.
So what is a lingering mark?
And an invoke is effectively a +2 or -2 on the die roll, depending on who does the invoking (player or GM)?
The lingering mark, in your case is physical (the snake bite) but mostly spiritual. You'll see more of what this indicates as the game goes on, but those serpents have more to them than simply snakes in cages. You've overcome the poison, which is great, but you're still spiritually marked by the situation. To overcome that will take some more effort in the fiction.
And good question on the invoke. It's one of those pieces of game vocabulary that gets pretty confusing at the beginning. You can invoke ANY aspect in play, using a Fate Point, for a bonus (which I'll list shortly). However, you may also earn free invokes by creating advantages (either creating a new one or utilizing an aspect already in play). This is a way to cash in on those bonuses at a later time without paying any fate points.
Invoking an aspect means you may do ONE of the following:
- Reroll all your dice (which statistically is only beneficial when you've rolled -2 or worse on the Fate Dice)
- Add a +2 bonus to your roll
- Pass a +2 bonus to an ally (which is how you guys were 'sharing' free invokes earlier)
- Add +2 to the challenge rating of a passive obstacle
- Declare a story element
This is true of all invokes, whether it is a GM or a player that they belong to. But anytime you invoke an aspect, whether with a Fate Point or free invoke, that player must justify how that aspect is able to affect the roll within the fiction. (e.g. If you created a 'Distracted' aspect on an opponent, that would be easy to justify any bonuses to you affecting that person as well as any allies doing the same; however, it wouldn't help you, say, climb a wall any better... bad analogy, but you get the point)
So in the previous case, overcoming the poison was only a +2 challenge. But that aspect had 2 free invokes on it belonging to the GM (me). When Huey overcomes that aspect, I lose any of those invokes on it, so it would be ridiculous NOT to use them if needed. Since I did need them, they were used to raise that opposition by +2 for each invoke used--boosting the opposition to +6.
The GM also got a free invoke on the advantage you tried to create (a failed create advantage still can create an aspect, but the opposition gets the free invoke), when cutting your arm. That got invoked as well to push the opposition up to +8, which is nigh insurmountable.
But good news, even on failed overcome rolls, there is often the opportunity to succeed at a major cost. In this case, the cost is that you remain spiritually marked, though the venom is removed.
I hope some of that makes sense. I really do remember how confusing this all was when I started.
Right on Serra, compel coming in full this evening when I have time to write it out.
Completely off topic, but this is a discussion post.....
Is anyone going to GenCon in Indianapolis this year? August 17 - 20.
Something like 16,000+ events so far - mostly games. Probably RPGs and Boardgames split for the most events.
So conflicts are run with a turn order, much like Pathfinders, so that should seem familiar. Instead of rolling for order, it's determined by Survival stats for Physical Conflicts (which this would be). According to stats, this is where everyone lies:
Huey (+3)
Nora (+2)
Father Lazarus (+2)
Orland (+1)
Amaziah (+0)
Serra (+0)
Mud Spirits (+0)
If we were playing at the table, this would be the order (however, some of the Mud Spirits will get to go first on account of surprise).
You've likely noticed from other games that turn order gets clunky in PbP, where you'll have someone waiting to post, but it isn't their turn. To remedy this, All PC slots in the turn order are open for ANY PC to use.
So in this case, the turn order will be:
PC
PC
Father Lazarus
PC
PC
PC
Mud Spirits
Once you've taken a spot, you won't be able to act again until next round; but this allows any player who's ready to take the next available spot and should minimize waiting.
I also advise that you work with the assumption that ALL FREE INVOKES for the PCs are open to everybody, regardless of who they actually belong to. So if you can justify using one of your team's invokes, feel free to do so.
If you create an advantage and earn an invoke that you want to keep for yourself, please designate it as such. So then we can be confident that anything not specifically noted as personal can be shared with whoever might need it.
Does that all make sense? Once I get the map up I'll take action for some of the Mud Spirits and include Amaziah's conversation, then we'll roll into the conflict.