I considered changing it because some people think it means things I'd rather they not, but it was pointed out to me that this is also true of anything I could possibly change it to.
@MaurycyZarzycki Aside from the old SotC version? Find a Kickstarter participant who's willing to treat you as a beta test player in his group and thus a valid target for sharing the materials.
@BESW Great! Say I want to have "No Victory Without a Price" theme/aspect. It seems like a good phrase and something I'd like to tell stories about, but I get stumped when thinking of how it'd actually get used. At best I can think of compelling it to suggest doing something will take time/effort/price, thus offering a free fate point when players do so.
@MaurycyZarzycki Hey, @MaurycyZarzycki, would you like to some time help me test-run NPCs in a conflict before I pit them against my regular group? [grin]
@BESW I guess what I'm struggling with is, there's no way I can see of using it for dice rolls, only for vague roleplaying compels that would have otherwise been me saying "sorry, you can't do it with a roll, it'll take a month." Now I'd get to add "...but here's a fate point". Doesn't seem very exciting.
How does poison work in FATE?
Secret, previously administered poison (say, in a drinking class) is an aspect that, like most investigation aspects, doesn't expire 'next turn' but will sit and wait.
Extremely fast poison can just be thought of as damage on the weapon, it does damage when it hits. ...
@Magician Any time someone's taking an action in which victory will come at a cost, they can get a bonus to the roll.
Any time someone's taking an action where victory will not have a cost, rolls to oppose it can invoke the aspect.
It's got to be kept in check, of course, and the group has to understand what's meant or it'll get abused. But that's kind of how FATE works anyway.
The thing about making it an aspect is that the players can choose to buy off your compels: so when they take a compel, they're buying into the complication.
That would suggest that they can go "no, screw that, we'd like to do it now, and all it'll cost us is a fate point". Which is only good for small things.
Also, never forget that you can also invoke for effect: "BECAUSE there's No Victory Without a Price, IT MAKES SENSE THAT <something happens or is in effect>."
@Magician Two things: first, raise the stakes. You can offer two and three Fate points for a truly epic landscape-changing compel, forcing them to offer two and three Fate points in return to buy off the compel.
Second, if they've got no Fate they can't buy off the compel.
@JonathanHobbs Depends on the role the poison has in the story.
Your typical poisonous creature in DFRPG maneuvers to drop Poisoned on the target, and the target rolls a defense against the creature's Fists rating each round the aspect remains.
It lasts until the end of the scene or until someone makes a counter-maneuver to remove it (difficult equal to the roll that placed the aspect).
@BESW It's strange. If it's not an aspect, I can just say "it takes a month of your character's time to accomplish this." I don't mind sweetening the pill in this case by compelling it, or even raising the stakes if need be, but in some cases players refusing the compel would not make sense, story-wise.
If you are willing to start replacing rule subsystems to improve the drama, then you could take a leaf from the FATE Fractal (see more) and model suffering from the disease with a skill challenge.
Model as Skill Challenge
Since the default rules for skill challenges aren't as good as they could...
@BESW Interesting. I wonder how stable that is towards optimizing characters who spend fate points. Either way, "month" in this case was just an example. It might as well be "it takes substantial amount of gold" or "destroys your reputation".
Even in DFRPG, which is highly liberal with starting FP, if you start play with 8 FP instead of a handful of stunts you'll quickly run out and have to beg the GM to compel you.
@Magician FPs are expected to ebb and flow like the tide throughout each scene.
But characters whose only source of bonuses and effects is FP will run out much faster than characters with stunts that provide passive bonuses in certain situations.
(Even though the former start with more FP than the latter.)
One of my players wants to build a "Lucky Man" as a future PC, and it'll be interesting to see how that goes.
Sure. But given FP and some quick thinking, players who can apply two aspects to an important task that would otherwise take a year, would bring it down to a month. Or a month to a day. Which is seriously non-trivial.
The only time you get FP for something other than "complication or bad thing happens to you" is at the start of each session: if your current FP total is lower than your "starting Refresh," gain FP to bring it up to your starting Refresh.
@Magician Yes. With enough FP, nearly anything is possible.
But then you're out of FP, and the GM can compel you and you've got nothing to say about it.
(And you don't get the FP until the conclusion of whatever it is that's causing you to get it.)
Maybe instead of just putting an aspect on the game, No Victory Without a Price could be its own character.
Now instead of just a thing that provides compels and invokes, it's an entity, a force with volition.
@BESW Sure. We're getting off-track here, though. Still trying to wrap my mind around compels of crucial things. Essentially, it seems that GM shouldn't compel something they definitely want to happen, because it may be rejected. Which means using compels to award fate points because something related to an aspect happens is not right.
Even a compel isn't directing a PC to take a specific action; it's bribing the player to have his character act in a fashion that emphasizes a specific aspect.
Also, even if a player buys off a compel, he can still take the action... he's just telling you that the action isn't a complication to the story.
Example: A rich teenager's parents are trying to drag him to a fundraising dinner. The GM compels his Grudging Son of Prosperity aspect, suggesting that the kid should go.
The player pays a FP to buy off the compel, but goes to the fundraiser anyway: he'll go, but it's not going to complicate the story.
Alternately, the player could accept the compel but refuse to attend the dinner: he's emphasizing the "Grudging" part of his aspect, and requesting that his playing hookey be made significant.
@JonathanHobbs I'll star that just for the name.
@Magician In my experience, and based on Actual Plays I've read, players don't refuse compels.
Refusing a compel depletes a precious resource and makes things boring.
Right. So compelling characters makes sense. It's their personality or circumstance or luck that affects their actions or events that befall them. If they refuse, they act differently or luck goes the other way, no big deal. But when compelling "universe" or "plot" to affect characters ("it will cost you to accomplish this"), refusal becomes strange.
@BESW Oh, sure, most of the time. Unless they really-really want something, as the case may well be.
@Magician There is an example in TDFRPG, Your Story - GM compels an aspect of a player to kidnap him without a fight. If he accepts the compel he is kidnapped without second thought. If he pays to refuse the compel, the bad guys still try to kidnap him, a battle unveils and the end effect might be that he is kidnapped. Or he could try to negotiate with them to be kidnapped with... benefits :D
I think I'm zeroing in on my problem. Tough choices are great. Compelling into a tough choice is great. Refusing compel to avoid tough choice is... not fun?
@BESW I've just read that Alternate Core Skill Challenge. I like it a lot. I also like the idea of not just healing diseases with Heal... though I feel that punishes someone who took Heal, a bit.
Say... PCs are at the end of a quest, and are faced with a choice: use McGuffin to save a village, or to achieve personal goal, something they've been after for a while. A great time for No Victory Without a Cost, because that's the theme and that's what it's about and just take a fate point, dammit. But if PCs refuse that compel, suddenly they've refused the central choice that made the situation interesting. They have their cake and eat it too.
But I can expect such things to be where game's theme comes up most prominently. Basically, making a theme an aspect allows players to avoid it. I'd rather they embraced it.
I wish @simongill were here. He'd do better at understanding this.
@Magician Making a theme an aspect will make the players seek out situations where they can invoke it to their advantage.
One of my game's themes is Winter is Coming, meaning that the Winter Court is making a move on the Summer-Court-dominated area we're playing in.
Winter Court is not someone you want to be anywhere near, but because there's this theme, any time the party's in that kind of situation the FP fly more freely.
Or, with fairly negative aspects like NVWC, where they can gain FP from it - that's how I'd expect it to be mainly used. Which means it can be mainly avoided if players want to. I understand that ideally it'll all be part of FP economy and won't really matter.
I need to read a chapter or three on themes as aspects, clearly. And yeah, Bronze Rule looks interesting. I can see it being used on Laws of Magic or Paladin Code.
@Magician One example of the Bronze Rule is Things.
Like, the TARDIS is obviously a Bronze Rule subject... but so is the Stargate.
(It has stress and takes consequences, it has aspects that can be invoked or compelled --like maybe Unfathomably Complicated-- and it occasionally makes skill checks and attacks.)
FATE 3.0 seems to be a nebulous kind of thing that ebbs and flows from game setting to game setting, and is only now being codified in the Core.
My sources are a combination of wikis, twitter references, things people have said in this chat, some blogs and vlogs, that kind of thing all cobbled together.
As I understand it, they built 3.0 for DFRPG, used SotC as a proof-of-concept, and then moved toward the FATE Core as a way of releasing it publicly.
> He was first slated to work on The Dresden Files RPG, but as Fred and Rob gained a better understanding of how challenging that task was going to be, given that they were new to the game publishing thing, they changed direction to a smaller project: Spirit of the Century.
They are in this castle, they open a door and... WHAM! Unhallow area with Silence tied to it engulfs the party. They recognize the spell and see the altar and several guards, included a beholder with its central eye closed. Truth is, this is the room with the Forbiddance we've already been talking about, but the silence alone is scaring them.
They close the door and plan. They have no silent spells, no useful spells without verbal component. They'd like to hallow an area with dispelling to temporarily counter the silence each round (not sure if this works) and fireballing into the area and I still have to think what to do to avoid that. Probably a readied action to shut the door works
the other solution would be to get an NPC that could provide a silent dispel
another way would be to cast disintegrate on the ceiling of the lower level, to let the altar fall. They need to get the right spot.
I don't want to railroad them towards the "social" solution but should that be chosen, what would be a good way to let them realize there's a Balor that can do that in town? (They know the Balor is there, I don't want to be like "you could ask him" thus solving myself the problem)
I'm trying to get the enemies learn and use their knowledge to win their "defend the boss" mission. Problem, they need to protect her for a month or so and the party is famous for waltzing a lot from room to room. This room, they woke up, they went there and they had to retreat to memorize different spells
Dispel magic can also dispel forbiddance... Iwonder if the evil party will bash the door opn to silence the only room from where they can cast hallow easily
Urgh. This is getting back into philosophical territory.
A level 1 commoner with enough money and an understanding of metagame mechanics can defeat anyone who doesn't have an understanding of metagame mechanics.
Well it's the classic D&D-on-computer campaign, but at a certain point you get in touch with an entity that feeds on souls. You can kill alementals and spirtits to feed it, or a bar goes down faster than it replenishes with rest.
Exodus Knife - Level 12 Uncommon This insubstantial silver blade appears to cut through solid walls. Wondrous Item 13,000 gp Power - Daily (Standard Action) When you use the exodus knife to trace a doorway onto a solid object, it opens a portal into an empty extradimensional space 4 squares wide, 4 squares high, and 4 squares long. While the door is open, anyone can enter, see into, or affect the extradimensional space. Only creatures inside the space can open or close the door (a minor action). Once closed, the door becomes invisible to anyone outside the extradimensional space. Cre…
@Zachiel Is it a wandering monster if the hallway happens to have a guard that patrols it every hour? [shrug] Be creative, have the mausoleum be just creepy enough to prevent healing surge recovery.
My level 1 adventure featured wandering through kobold-infested wilderness to try and stop regular kidnapping and murder. There was a combined tension from not knowing if the kobolds would find them first, and from wanting to stop them before more people got kidnapped.
We just went through one that if you took an extended rest you made a saving throw and if you failed you lost a surge until the end of the current adventure
and now that they are doing the ONE edition (forged from gold, that has words in deep speech around the edge when you drop it in fire), it serves the bottom line
"We'll rekindle excitement for the Classic gameplay, and prime the 4e players for D&D Next! (Can we say 'kindle'? Will the Amazon valkyries descend on us in our sleep?)"
"Or maybe we'll remind people why D&D Next is going to blow chucks."
@Zachiel Hallow/Unhallow interactions would be a valid question. Include the specific instance as an example, but leave it open for general "How They Interact" answers.
If you want to focus on a particular instance... kinda depends.
the problem is what happens if you cast an area dispel on a unhallow zone. The hallow is instantaneous so it can't be dispelled but what about the linked spell?
Both in 3e and 3.5e D&D, the hallow and unhallow spells are instantaneous spells and, as such, they cannot be dispelled in any way.
While they are active, they can also radiate a single spell from a small list, which lasts as long as the (un)hallow spell is active.
It is not clearly specifie...
@waxeagle Because it's not obviously different from other "How do I acquire a physical RPG supply?" questions, and nobody's bothered to comment explaining why they think it should be closed?
@starwed I'd argue that 3.5 has little to no simulationism. It just claims to have them, but it is lying to you.
@Zachiel why 3.0? 3.5, for all it does have multitudinous problems of its own, is a vast improvement over 3.0, and all the core material (and then some) is available legally and freely online.
I'd like to part from modules but... the stories are cool (until the PCs ruin everything). And I'm not used at doing things myself.
I guess the bad habit has consolidated in the last 8 years, depriving me of most of my fantasy.
I like the exotic imagery of the modules. The depiction of big, impressive rooms in the Indiana-Jones-temple style. The strange meddle of races (a cross-breed between a chain devil and a marilith! Cool!). Then it goes on the table and dies in 2 rounds.
KotS is a little weird. The original module is worst than the free pdf version on the WotC website but the "I'm the main reason of my demise" BBEG is still there
If you are willing to start replacing rule subsystems to improve the drama, then you could take a leaf from the FATE Fractal (see more) and model suffering from the disease with a skill challenge.
Model as Skill Challenge
Since the default rules for skill challenges aren't as good as they could...
Both in 3e and 3.5e D&D, the hallow and unhallow spells are instantaneous spells and, as such, they cannot be dispelled in any way.
While they are active, they can also radiate a single spell from a small list, which lasts as long as the (un)hallow spell is active.
It is not clearly specifie...
