[Interest Check] Fate Core - Gun-smoke and Brimstone


Recruitment


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Fate Core!? Yeah.
I'm just checking to see if a story game like this would be viable on these boards. That's all for the moment.

Theme Music

Quote:

"All this country needs is a little more water and a better class of people to move in."

"Yeah, they say that's all hell needs."

1871 - You and yours got it in the neck good. Ain’t that always the way it goes? That flannel-mouthed demon had an offer too good to be true, which you were too enticed to pass up. Now, nearly a decade down the trail, that four-flusher’s got your world up the spout, and Hell itself is damn close on your heels. But that doesn’t hold a candle to what you can dish out in return, and I wager you’re fittin’ to euchre the devil himself; soon as you can figure how. Safe trails.

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This game is a High-Octane, Supernatural, Spaghetti Western Son-of-a-B**ch, ridin’ a crazy horse called Fate Core.

Spaghetti Western - A style of Westerns (gunslingers, outlaws, wide open ranges, and lawless territories) characterized by gritty noir style antiheroes, darker plots, and over-the-top action. It's somehow pulpy with larger than life heroes as well as deadly.

Supernatural - Demonic bargains, clairvoyants, shamans, mythical beasts, voodoo practitioners, undead, mystical relics, werewolves, forgotten gods and cultists... yeah, everything you can fit into that grisly trough. It's not everywhere, and most people convince themselves that those stories are hogwash and tall tales, but you know it’s the Simon pure.

High-Octane - While this is heavy role-play by nature of a story game system, it's going to be relatively fast paced and hard hitting (for a story game). Character development happens during the action, as I don't intend many opportunities to catch your breath. Do that when you're dead. I also have next to no intention of keeping this historically accurate to the period. I foresee quite a few blatant anachronisms, and maybe an occasional accidental one, but there’s no way you’ll mistake it for anything but a western.

Tom Mix wrote:
"The Old West is not a certain place in a certain time, it's a state of mind. It's whatever you want it to be."

As for Fate Core, the core rules can be downloaded here at whatever price you deem fit; and there's a fantastic SRD. We’ll stick fairly close to that, but we’re not exactly playing according to Hoyle. I’ve got some modifications to throw in to really dial in the setting and better suit a PbP format. But as long as you twig Fate Core, you’ll slide into this without any problems at all.

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Oh yeah, and if you're looking for a concept on what Fate Core embodies -- what sort of mindset am I looking at in this system? -- check out:

Learning Fate Systems from a d20 Background
The Fate Mindset and Paradigm Shifts

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Again, just testing the water here. Any Questions, shoot! Pun Energetically Intended!


I don't have a lot of experience with Fate as a whole; I only really have a working idea in the Dresden Files setting.

Really excited to see you back, as I really enjoyed your Ragnarok game. So this is a definite dot. Western isn't really my Jam, but having watched Wynona Earp in the last week, I could definitely get behind supernatural western. :)

Gonna read up on this ruleset. Gonna start with that really handy looking 'd20 background' link!


Count me in!

Even got an idea for a character that ties into some local history where I live.

How accurate are you planning on making this? Or to put it another way, how forgiving of anachronisms are you planning to be?


I have interest. Got a few ideas bubbling in my head for a character.

I don't know the Fate system but would be willing to learn (have been wanting to learn it for awhile now). I enjoy other games that are narrative driven rather than rules driven (probably prefer them, actually).

What sort of posting rate do you expect? I am limited pretty much to evenings during the week where I live due to my work schedule and internet access.

One problem I have seen with narrative games is that there is a LOT of narrative - and that gets tricky to keep up with sometimes in a pbp environment where that narrative become a bunch of reading and remembering, rather than social interaction.


Dot but with no fate experience


Hotaru:
Tofa! I'm glad you said something about where we've played together, because I would have been wracking my brain trying to figure out where I recognized your name from. I'm pretty sure we played in some other DW games as well! And yes, Wynona Earp, from what I've seen, is a fantastic inspiration to draw from and set back in the 19th century!

Adam:
I'm so forgiving of anachronisms in this, I'd actually encourage them. I've got a fairly decent handle on this history, but I really would want to pull in a lot of modern culture/fashion/outlook to flavor it. Don't worry, historical accuracy is out the window - which may throw off some as well I suppose.

Orland:
Hmm, posting rates I tend toward one a day on weekdays. I know not everyone hits that, but I will commit to that myself with a fairly strict standard (I find that even if nobody else has posted, if the GM posts everyday it goes a long way to keep things moving through the stalls).

Story games tend to be more conversational too, which sometimes drags it as the correspondence is more about understanding the narrative/intentions rather than just plopping down rolls.

And yeah, I'm trying to get my head around what you're really asking with that last question -- so that I can answer it well. Obviously the story vs. hack-n-slash ratio will be quite different than wargames or dungeon crawls, but I don't suspect that's really the question. Is your question referring more to the dilemma of amateur authors spewing walls of text concerning their pet world and the nuances of politics and historic precedence... (or something of that sort)?

If that's the case, then hopefully I can put your mind at ease. I'm no author, nor do I aspire to be. And Fate (at least the way I run it) is intended to be quite collaborative. I certainly have hooks and ideas I want to throw in, and enough of a foundation to get you guys started that you won't be staring at a blank page that says 'ghosts' and 'cowbows', then expected to make it bloom. But it's just rough scaffolding. We all make the world together, and learn about it as we make it up.

But on the other side of that, I am far more interested in why and how you're doing something than the what. If that detail is what turns you off to some narrative games than I fear I may frustrate you :/.

When I ran Dungeon World games I always encouraged players at the start to be constantly asking themselves "how" they were doing something before they posted it. Simply denoting an action is awesome for rules-centric games, because we know what those actions mean and it can move us forward. But in a narrative game, the how is what we really need to deal with it - in fact, it's what indicates how the rules get implemented. I don't want, "I bribe the guard for information." I prefer, "I slide up to the guard and pass a couple coins into his pocket with a smile. 'You look like a man who sees a lot,' I whisper, 'and I'd wager you're fairly under appreciated for it.'"

I don't need novels, but your intentions are HUGE in Fate. So that stuff matters to me. Does that (ironically long winded) reply answer part of your question? What do you see as the difference between long "narrative" and "social interaction?"

Zoey (and Orland): I love new players and introducing this system, honestly! However, I'd really stress the need to work on learning the system rather than have me just explain things when they come up. I am more than willing to explain, guide, and remind -- but it's no substitute for actually reading the rules yourselves. The core rules are available at whatever price you want, so you can get them free for now and throw some money in later if you find you like it.

Any time I've seen someone try to learn a game (any system) without actually reading through the rules and working to learn it themselves, instead hoping the GM will tell them what to do and when, that person ends up getting frustrated and bowing out because they feel utterly lost (no matter how much the GM helps). So I will gladly show anyone the ropes and I consider myself a highly patient and gracious person in this area. So you won't bother me with it at all, but you'll aggravate yourself without some reading on the side.


On the note of stuff to check out, here's another worth perusing when you have a few minutes: The Book of Hanz

It's several short musings that were originally posted to Google+ by a guy working through shifting his understanding from D20 and rules centric games to something with more of a narrative focus. Like the links above, you don't have to check this out, as the rulebook alone is the more important read. But if you have a couple minutes, it's more than enough time to read a musing or two, and could slowly work your way through it if interested.


I'm also adding my interest. I've read the Fate rules but never played.


@GM - I am only worried about everyone posting reams of text and trying to keep up with it on a daily basis. Reading text is much more challenging to absorb vs. discussing in a face to face group format.

Regardless, I am willing to give it a whirl.

As I look up the rules, there is the core set plus a bunch of other optional books - a toolkit and a couple of world books - do I need anything other than the core?

I will keep working on my concepts and see what I come up with while I read the book(s).

I will use this avatar as I work up a character.

Scarab Sages

I like the setting idea and I'm a big fan of FATE. I'm interested to see how it will work out in a pbp, as well. So, count me as interested!


@Mog: Yup, I was in a lot of games with you. I really enjoyed dungeon world and jumped on board with soooo many games that wouldn't exist outside of that system. Fate seems like another good setting to do that in, and I really like the compel system. I love the dramatic tension it offers.

Re: Book of Hanz: 82 pages is not 'a few minutes' XD. But I'm digesting bits and pieces of it.

How much of the world's premise have you already set?

Have you settled on an overall scope you'd like to adhere to?

Do you have any primary character slots you would like for us to avoid filling or are you more than happy for our characters to take up any role, trope, or misfit that we like, and then fill the world in around them?

Are there any themes you would expressly like for us to avoid/any that you plan to play up? (I.E., if I plan to play a 'woman in a typically male role', will that clash with the setting? Should I expect rampant sexism in regards to her job, or should I expect the locals to accept it as normal for their particular town?)


Orland: Oh yeah, I get what you're saying then. You're most likely to get a wall of text from me when I'm setting scenes, but I don't imagine it will be a constant thing from everyone else. I'm glad you're willing to give it a shot.

As for other books, I wouldn't worry about anything but Fate Core. The Toolkit gives you a bunch of ways to hack it or tweak some dials - which I'll be doing in some minor areas, but I'll make those all clear! Fate Accelerated is a slightly different system, a bit less crunchy, but not what we'd be going with. None of the World books or other settings are necessary either, as they cover specific settings/worlds/etc.

Also, since it looks like there's enough interest to do this, we'll create characters together (Phase Trio in the rulebook). I'll outline some other tweaks too, but any concepts you all may be running through at the moment are great!

Picciui and Aptinuviel: Glad you're interested. And as for PbP, there's some tricks I've picked up that could help in this format. I'm sure they don't iron out all the kinks, but they'll help.

Hotaru: Oh yeah, I didn't mean that the entire Book of Hanz was a quick read. Not even close! But each of the musings is really worthwhile, and when I first read through them I took them one at a time when I had breaks. So each one is a few minutes... and there's lots.

As for world's premise or scope, everything's pretty loose because I want to make sure that it's something everyone buys into - so I prefer to cement that together. This game (as the setting should be, I believe) will be all about your characters. So little can be determined before I know who you all are playing and what your characters are about/after.

I'm currently working with the date listed above (1871) as it's a little less than a decade after the Civil War ended, since I like the mentality and dissonance of that period. The continental railroad has connected the country by rail, and we're past the strictest "frontier" style of westerns, but still incredibly lawless and sparse. In general, I like the general level of technology and culture in that window.

As for the questions that follow, nothing within reason really is off limits. You don't need to confine yourselves to a specific ethnicity, gender, social class, morality, or anything else. What I intend to bond you together will supersede any of those. As for a woman in a man's role, totally do that if that's your thing. Will you encounter a lot of sexism, likely quite a bit (unless that sort of thing really just doesn't interest you--then meh, we'll drop it). But I wouldn't treat it as unheard of or scandalous to the point of becoming a pariah.

I intend to break a lot of those cultural rules myself. Anticipate women in power, as well as Native Americans, African Americans, Chinese immigrants, whatever--who will face adversity because of it, but should be far more prevalent than that era would ever allow. As I mentioned to AdamWarnock, I intend to be liberal with some anachronisms, mixing current outlooks or styles with that traditional standard.

Hell, I feel like I'm explaining so much about it now that I might as well set up a genuine recruitment thread (right?). People are already mulling over character concepts, and I never want to stall that kind of momentum. So it looks like we've got enough interest to make this work.

I'll have a recruitment post up either tonight or tomorrow evening that does a much better job of explaining what little structure I've got in my head for you all to run with, and what I'd be looking for from you as far as character concepts. Feel free to still ask questions if you have them, but that's where you can jump in with your ideas.


Sweet, got a character concept ready to rock.


Alright, official recruitment ---> Here

We can let this thread sink.

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