@JonathanHobbs Personally, I have a philosophical preference for approaches; skill lists define and delimit the kinds of actions you can take unless they're crafted really carefully.

A glance at a skill list will tell you the kind of game you're in: D&D 3.5 is a game in which knowledge is hoarded and physical ability takes precedence over mental skill.

So for a system like Fate where narrative is supposed to inform mechanics (rather than the other way 'round, like D&D or Ars Magica), it feels strange to have skill lists. Even though they're more like guidelines, and groups are encouraged to adjust them to fit the desired experience, the very existence of a skill list imposes mechanical limitations on the way players think about their actions.

Are approaches skills, but in FAE pre-defined form?

Approaches do the same, but in a much more narrative-encouraging way: instead of "What do my skills say I should do to get the highest bonus and how can I massage the narrative to accomodate that meta-mechanical desire?" players find themselves asking "How do my approaches say I should act to get the highest bonus?"

@JonathanHobbs Skills are more D&D-like: Athletics, burglary, crafts, lore, shoot, stealth, etc.

"Things I'm good at doing."

They provide the same benefits to rolls as approaches, but approaches are the way you do something, not what you're doing.

So in Core if I fire a gun at someone, I roll Shoot.

In Accelerated, if I fire a gun at someone flashily, I roll a different approach than if I fire it sneakily.

Nearly all applications of the Fate engine use the skills system. I'm under the impression that approaches were invented specifically for Accelerated, as part of streamlining it to the very barest nature of Fate.

Would I be able to run a Fate Core game where all characters have approaches instead of skills..?

I think so.

It'd be a lot less crunchy.

I think skills are better for long-term campaigns.

Approaches are good for forcing players to characterize their PCs instantly and interestingly.

But skills have a broader set of applications that approaches would be stretched to compensate for.

There's just more pressure on the group to make sure the skill list is defined appropriately for their game.

@JonathanHobbs there are also some mechanical limitations of only having 6

leveling up gets a little silly pretty fast.

that

afk, but pinging me can bring me back.

and good narration can put almost anything into one of your top three approaches

@BESW Oh! I can create my own skills? So I guess in a magic system, I'd have to consider whether I want a "magic" skill, or 3-4 magic skills categorising things somehow (like: black magic, white magic, red magic and green magic; or the four elements, or...) and then add those to the skill list?

@JonathanHobbs I think the guidance is that a skill is a lot heavier weight

Or you could go a more DFRPG route: it uses Concentration and Discipline in tandem to determine the power you can summon and the power you can control.

adding 3-4 magic skills would be very heavy weight

(And then it leverages Lore for some side bits.)

As a general rule, DFRPG magic functions to let the caster replace the use of an ordinary skill he doesn't have with a set of castery checks.

@BESW No high-magic wizard duels?

@JonathanHobbs Oh, my, yes.

@JonathanHobbs yes, but it hurts

@C.Ross I'll have to read more about that then.

Simple non-combat version first:

If you'd normally need Investigation +5 to find a clue at the crime scene, you could call up 5 shifts of caster-skill to find the same clue magically. You'd also have to roll to see if you can control 5 shifts of magic, and you'd take one stress regardless of whether you controlled it or not.

@C.Ross Hurts players, or hurts characters?

So casters in combat can use their caster skills to attack and defend very well (you can get higher numbers more easily with casting than with normal skills because your damage is based on the total score of the attack, not just the shifts), but with the potential for losing control of the power at their command... and every spell you cast deals you at least one stress.

@BESW Wow, alright. I... suddenly understand maybe how ritual casting works and why it's such a big deal to prepare. If it works the same way.

Since you'll need to tag a lot to draw out a lot of power, and then a lot again to control it?

@JonathanHobbs characters. The caster and the target. A lot.

@JonathanHobbs Pretty much, but that's actually why rituals are safer... sometimes... than evocation.

@C.Ross Right. Yes. Stress and consequences and not being able to take very much of either before people start being taken out or legs start being broken...

Because while throwing a fireball requires you to make one massive check for power and another massive check for control, in a ritual you have the time to accumulate that power 1 shift at a time, which is much easier to control.

@JonathanHobbs we had a caster nuke an enemy, but hurt himself so much he had to take a severe consequence to only talk in rhyme.

So a ritual can get a LOT more juice than anyone could ever get in a single roll, and in relative safety if you know what you're doing.

But if it ever gets out of hand... that's a LOT more juice than anyone could handle.

Sending you the Magic System Toolkit.

afk again, ping if needed.

And I'm guessing someone could actually interfere with your concentration and cause you to be unable to handle it suddenly?

I have it

Oh. Right. Yes. That would actually answer a lot of questions about that specifically - including how to make a system which wouldn't leave Grindelwald and Dumbledore both crippled mentally and/or physically after a few exchanges of spells.

@JonathanHobbs now that's the DFRPG system, FATE Core has other suggestions as well

in the example campaign the "wizard" just makes a Lore role with no resource cost

but the limitation is he can't do anything with a spell that a fighter couldn't do with a sword

In his fireball he gets the same number of shifts, he just splits them up

night all

Yes--one thing DFRPG employs is "more options" for casters: like splitting an attack between multiple targets, or blanketing an entire room.

As a parting observation, the great thing about making a 90 year old wizard, is that it's quite easy to justify 20 odd years spent skilling up without learning any spells.

I do hope this villain doesn't die in character creation. That would be... annoying.

@BrianBallsun-Stanton "Oh, that was my wicker period."

@BrianBallsun-Stanton :-)

What wretched fiend has dared revive the VoP and Monk questions best left dead?

@BrianBallsun-Stanton Ars Magica lets characters die during character creation?

That sounds pretty hardcore.

I'm impressed.

@Lord_Gareth Clearly Discord was here.

@JonathanHobbs ...Really? That sounds frustrating, pointless, and like sloppy design to me.

@Lord_Gareth See, you say those words and Hobbs hears "hardcore."

> I compel the fact that Brian is a very thorough moderator. These comments need to go. He should edit this question...

[blink] Which question?

Er, answer.

He was burninating more comments and had to roll a useful one into the answer.

Indeed!

and Discord is down one fate point.

@Lord_Gareth It sounds pretty funny to me actually. Sounds like it could well be frustrating sometimes, but I think I can have a little bit of faith in the game's designers that it's not pointless or sloppy.

Mind you, doesn't grill one bit with character generation systems I've been exposed to, but those were character generation systems for a different game.

@JonathanHobbs Discord gets compelled a lot though; his Trouble is Overconfidence Overcomplicates.

@Sam as the author of top-rated answer to optimizing a Monk, which definitely has a lot of negative things to say about the class, yes, it's not half bad in gestalt, where its mostly-passive abilities are suddenly a plus, and you can combine its perfect saves with full-BAB and a large HD if you want, or else with spellcasting.

@Lord_Gareth So, what's new?

We live in the future.

Wifi at 30,000 feet.

@Problematic No, when we have free wifi at 30k feet, then we'll be living in the future.

I suppose so.

Also, websockets. I apparently don't have those.

@ObliviousSage I disagree, when we have "Free" Wifi at 30k feet I will be living in a cardboard box.

@ObliviousSage don't hold your breath

Besides, it takes a full flight before the cost of the wifi provided via datalink to the plane in flight even begins to be covered by the price.

It appears to be a facts-based question but I don't know the system at all. Seems like it should have a positive or negative answer.

it should resolve to a simple yes or no. but Im just starting out with that system. only a few short gaming sessions of it under my belt.

I have read the book a half dozen times, but am still confused as it is a complex book.

@Novian that's about how I feel about nWoD. I ~know~ the rules, but yet I'm constantly questioning my knowledge of them and how they apply to situations.

indeed

@BESW mmm burninating

my work is progressing

@BESW it is easy to go to either extreme and the line needs to be drawn somewhere. I don't believe my one opinion will alter things to how I believe them - but the site is a collective effort. Even though mods have more responsibilities than I, I'm not content to simply defer.

If it came down to "when you and the mods disagree, the mods win by default" then no one would see me on this site anymore