Fate chat and game room

doppelgreener

00:10

@Pixie it sounds like this is stuff along the lines of... everyone knows magic, if they had to spend their actual stunts on knowing magic, they won't have any room left for creating their own character. right?

or they all just automatically know skills X Y Z

Pixie

00:26

@doppelgreener Yes, or to run with this example, "every PC knows magic because knowing magic is what makes them a PC."

doppelgreener

right.

so the answer is, definitely give them all this stuff for free, because without that you can't mechanise the fiction you want.

now that they have all this stuff for free PLUS all this other stuff they'll be picking out as part of making their character, everything is fine. y'all can now tell the stories you want to tell.

it is important to recognise that bit!

Pixie

@doppelgreener Cool. That's what I was leaning toward, but my inexperience made me uncertain as to the impact of handing out free stuff. But it's free stuff that makes the game, and it didn't seem right that people should have to invest resources into something that makes the setting run.

doppelgreener

handing out free stuff is fine, so long as the players aren't overshadowing each other.

like... having a bunch of grade schoolers, then Mister T, in a combat-oriented close-quarters fighting game. Mister T would overshadow all the grade schoolers and they'd be comparatively useless at all the core challenges.

Pixie

Yeah. This would definitely be an automatic thing (everybody gets the same thing, but in their own preferred flavor). These are cases where the setting is one which might allow for different character types, and I'd entertain it if someone really wanted to do it, but like I said, it's so darn unlikely that they would in the first place.

doppelgreener

(But then again, this is a game with Mister T and a bunch of grade schoolers beating up people. That is an amazing plot. What the hell kind of grade schoolers are these, what are they mixed up in? Probably they'll be overshadowing him in other tasks....)

Rad. So, balance is usually not a big deal in fate, and you have now enabled Fun, and have not negatively impacted Fun.

The remaining question is, does this make it any harder to challenge them, and do you need more tools at your disposal for challenging them?

Pixie

00:36

@doppelgreener This is primarily my concern, since I'm not accustomed to what is required to challenge people. But I will likely figure this out as I go, as needed.

doppelgreener

Yeah you will.

Pixie

If I get to run anything anytime soon, anyway. :P Real life is becoming increasingly difficult with my usual group. But I just like thinking about it. Like, I was trying to puzzle out how to best handle Digimon, because that would be rad.

doppelgreener

Atomic Robo's answer to "one PC wants to be more powerful, because their concepts NEEDS it" is to give the GM extra fate points, as BESW suggested. Specifically, the GM has a special fate point that refills every scene (not just each session!) with fate points proportionate to how much each character has gone into overdrive.

Pixie

Ahh.

doppelgreener

2 more stunts than usual = 2 fate points are in that pool at the beginning of that scene. three characters do this = 6 fate points in that pool.

so the players have more powerful characters, but the GM has the tools to make them need to be more powerful.

Pixie

00:40

That makes sense.

BESW

(Actually, it is per-session. The GM's pool refreshes with 1 FP/PC each scene, but at the start of each session they get another pool with 1 FP for each stuntworth of effect over the default number that PCs get. They can move points into the regular pool from the special one as needed.)

doppelgreener

@BESW oh!!! i didn't realise that was the case. <_< thanks for the correction!

So also the important thing to recognise is that this is only handling power increases over a usual baseline

Atomic Robo characters are comically very competent experts and very powerful people. The people who are even more powerful than that baseline are the ones that provide the GM with these fate points.

Pixie

The games being more high-powered isn't a problem whatsoever because that's the nature of the genres I have in mind anyway, I just need to be able to keep things interesting. People need stuff to do with those powers. xD

BESW

"Balance" is a very loosey-goosey thing in Fate.

doppelgreener

If I rolled generic Fate Accelerated NPCs, we could say it's a superhero game, and that Quick 3 means someone's almost as fast as The Flash, all is well. enemies have a similar power level in order to challenge them.

BESW

00:44

So long as everybody gets to be awesome, you're good.

doppelgreener

nobody would need to expend extra resources just because they're that powerful, they'd have to expend extra resources in order to be more powerful than that.

Pixie

That is the goal.

doppelgreener

Yay!

So the only thing you need to worry about is appropriate challenges for these powerful player characters. That's the only real 'balance' concern you have to worry about with free stuff: once I give them all these things, is it going to be any harder to challenge them?

if they can't be challenged, they can't feel awesome.

or they will but it will be kinda boring.

like "oh hey more peasants to stomp on."

Pixie

Right! It is really all about me being able to give them ways to be awesome that are comparatively challenging.

doppelgreener

Mmhm!

That's it.

Pixie

00:51

Extending Digimon as an example, no Digimon ever evolves except in situations in which they and their human friend are going to get squashed if they don't. :P

BESW

I suggest that you enlist your players as co-conspirators in the quest to challenge the PCs.

Pixie

@BESW Definitely. I don't have any qualms about that, other than their being equally new to the system.

doppelgreener

01:09

suddenly I remember the few episodes of Digimon I saw and it was pretty awesome seeing them digivolve >_>

more awesome than seeing pokemon evolve, because of the circumstances

BESW

...I've never seen any *mon.

doppelgreener

they're super different. (personally i prefer digimon as far as the TV shows go.)

Pixie

Yes, they are very different. I prefer Digimon as well. Pokemon's great, but more repetitive.

I've been rewatching Digimon Adventure recently because a new series with the same characters is coming out soon, and watching the subs for the first time. Though the subs on Netflix are... really bad. I'm bearing with it. :P

I then came across a companion-themed homebrew for Fate, and now I keep thinking of how neat Digimon would be in Fate, if kinda hard to pull off.

The problem is you essentially have two PCs. Digimon are full characters. They talk, they make their own decisions, they sometimes have entire character arcs. They also do all the fighting. But the humans are no less important.

doppelgreener

01:29

@Pixie digimon also gives the digimons more independence, iirc

Pixie

Yes. Pokemon, besides legendaries and other major exceptions, are just intelligent pets, no matter how cool they are. :P But Digimon are autonomous.

doppelgreener

Digimon has nemeses who are digimon, there are digimon who're like "go on! get outta here! i'll stop them!" to their owners, there are digimon who use combat moves because they know it's the right time, not because Ash said "use thunderbolt! now, use thunderbolt! oh no, dodge!"

Pixie

They form villages and factions, they build structures, they at one point manage a continent-wide surveillance system for one of the baddies.

doppelgreener

i could understand the trainer having a birds-eye view and being able to be a great tactical advisor, but i did not much like the fact that in the show the pokemon apparently had almost no tactics beyond what their trainers announced.

Pixie

@doppelgreener And then you have Digimon like Leomon, who fight on behalf of the Chosen Children (when not being manipulated by Evil Plot Device) without being able to digivolve. They just do it because they want to.

doppelgreener

01:31

@Pixie Yeah!

@Pixie the protagonists for the most part just have one digimon each though, right?

Pixie

@doppelgreener Yep, one protagonist is paired with one Digimon, at least in Adventure. The games are all different, and sometimes I draw inspiration from them too (I've run freeform Digimon RPs in the past). They just have allies, otherwise.

doppelgreener

i played one of the digimon games

Pixie

@doppelgreener Oh I missed this. One of my absolute favorite things in Digimon is how Gomamon uses Marching Fishes. It's great.

doppelgreener

it was where you played as a digimon, and started out as that little t-rex dude, and then you digivolved into like... all kinds of different digmon.

you became different arbitrary digimon.

Pixie

@doppelgreener Which system was this for? It might be the one I didn't play. Was it Gamecube?

doppelgreener

01:38

i was pretty sure at the time that was how digivolving was not supposed to work.

i think it was this one:

Digimon World

Digimon World (デジモンワールド, Dejimon Wārudo) is a video game by Bandai on the PlayStation, released in 1999, about the Digimon virtual pets. It was followed by various sequels released for the PlayStation and other platforms. The storyline focuses on a human brought to File City on File Island by Jijimon to save the island. Digimon have been losing their memories and becoming feral and the city has fallen into disarray. The goal of the player, who is represented by a young boy whose name is given as "Hiro/Hero" (this is a common Japanese naming convention for RPG protagonists), is to save the island...

Pixie

Ohh, I love that one.

doppelgreener

no, wait, maybe not

Pixie

You can get Agumon or Gabumon to start with depending on how you answer the questions at the beginning in it.

doppelgreener

that one has trainers... and it does not appear to have you digivolving through arbitrary digimon

Pixie

Games 1-3 have you play a human with one or more Digimon, same for DS, Dawn, and Dusk. I think... the Gamecube one has you play as Digimon.

Maybe it came out on other platforms though. I forget. I missed it.

doppelgreener

01:41

hmm.

I think it must have been Digimon World, because it was definitely a Playstation game.

I just remember having Agumon, and then I did some stuff, and then Agumon divivolved into a different digimon who was definitely not a digivolution of Agumon in the show.

Pixie

Yeah, in most other Digimon things, you have multiple paths.

That's actually the origin -- Digimon started out as a combat-focused Tamagotchi equivalent.

The idea is they're data, so they can reconfigure in different ways depending on outside factors. This is actually touched upon in the show with SkullGreymon.

doppelgreener

Huh, okay.

Suddenly I'm beginning to think I should go back and watch the show...

Pixie

So in the first Digimon World game, you had to keep a balance of things like care mistakes and stats to get certain Digimon. It was very hard. xD

BESW

I'm looking at what Netflix has. It sounds like something I could watch while I work.

Pixie

I am biased because it was a rather important part of my childhood, and upon rewatching, I see the seams. I'd still recommend it, though.

The dub, though I love it, is one of those early 90s "let's make everything funny" dubs, so keep that in mind if you watch it. They have both sub and dub. (And Tamers is an entirely different series from Adventure.)

BESW

01:50

So, Netflix has three Digithings on streaming. "Digimon: Digital Monsters" (1999-2001, three seasons); "Digimon Adventure" (1999-2001, three seasons); and "Digimon Fusion" (2010, one season).

doppelgreener

@Pixie Wha... what kind of dub is that?

Silly voices or something else? I'm not sure this is a phenomenon I'm familiar with.

Pixie

Digimon: Digital Monsters is the dub of Adventure, the first show. Digimon Adventure is the original sub. Fusion... huh, I thought they had Tamers. Fusion is a much later series, and that's probably the dub.

@doppelgreener Inserting jokes everywhere, inserting sassy narration, changing character personalities a bit (everyone is kind of meaner)...

Inserting dialog where there wasn't any before so you can add more jokes.

BESW

Sounds like you'd recommend Adventure, then?

Pixie

@BESW Yup! I can't not recommend Fusion, but I haven't seen it. Tamers is also very good, and it may be free on Crunchyroll still, but it must be gone from Netflix.

The thing to note with the Netflix subs of Adventure (which are the only official ones available) is that they are not great. They are perfectly understandable, but they are not ideal.

doppelgreener

@Pixie TT____TT

i'll watch the sub thx

so it's really...
- Digimon, the first series, watched as either...
---> the dubbed version, Digimon: Digital Monsters
---> the subbed version, Digimon Adventure
- Digimon Fusion, a different series

Pixie

02:00

@doppelgreener Yeah... to exemplify this, you need only compare the intros. This is a super long video, but just watch the first bit and witness "heavy rains flooded the middle east" vs "rivers of CHOCOLATE MILK!".

@doppelgreener Yep! There are a lot of different series as every new Digimon series is a completely new universe with a completely different cast. (Tamers had a slight link to Adventure, but the gimmick was Tamers was the "real world" in which Adventure was just a cartoon.)

doppelgreener

Ok! I will start myself off with the first series. :D

and Digimon Adventure specifically.

You said the subs are bad on Netflix..?

how bad are they?

Pixie

@doppelgreener Cool. I have a soft spot in my heart for the dub, and it does have some genuinely funny jokes, but the plot is much stronger in the sub. And they are quite readable, but they're stilted enough that my thinking is someone from the Japanese company actually did them (there is no subbed DVD of Adventure available; it's only on Netflix).

They can also be a little inconsistent, like you'll see things like them say "Piyomon evolves to Birdramon!" and then "Gomamon change to Ikakumon!" even though both are the same word (shinka, evolve). They sometimes will softly censor things, usually poop... but it's mostly censorship free.

And they also straight up translated Piccolomon to Picklemon for some reason. But that's the most egregious error I've seen so far.

doppelgreener

02:27

I will have no idea if they have errors like that :D

I am blissfully ignorant

@Pixie was that just your writing or is there broken English too?

Change rather than changes or changed

Pixie

@doppelgreener Haha. I can follow enough Japanese to know when subs aren't right. I can't translate everything on my own, but I can be like "wait wait wait." And I'm pretty sure I've seen both change and changes. I could be remembering wrong, though.

They're fond of saying "make/made the change" instead of "evolve/evolved" in dialog for some reason. My guess is they wanted to avoid comparison to Pokemon, which is why the dub had digivolve too.

doppelgreener

That sounds fair really

Pixie

Except they go back and forth between the two. xD But I'd say give the first episode a shot and see if you can handle it. There are better translations out there, but none official.

(The dub also had lots... and lots... and lots of translation errors, including the main character's name.)

I wondered for the longest time why they changed one Japanese surname to another. Then I realized... they mixed up the characters in Taichi's last name. It's Yagami (ya + kami). They translated it to Kamiya.

But now I'm on quite the tangent, whoops. I'd be happy to discuss further in NAB if you want, but perhaps we should return the Fate room to (currently nonexistent but still) Fate business. xD

doppelgreener

03:06

I will investigate! And maybe seek out unofficial subtitles, who knows!

Stack Exchange

07:16

0

Q: How severe should a Compel be if it's worth one Fate Point? Also, do players get more points from compels or having their aspects invoked?

If a Compel is the most interesting way to gain Fate Points, then how serious should it be? What kind of trouble does a character have to go through to get one? If it's too bad, they might end up having to spend that very fate point just to get out of trouble... Having your aspects Invoked for b...

trogdor

13:01

I also saw some of both of those shows

the pokemon show seemed to have a little too much repetition

almost everything that happened, at least in most episodes I saw, ended with pikcachu just wrecking everyone.

Digimon evolutions were pretty awesome

but I saw very few episodes

and I seem to recall that they went back to their "cute" forms which kinda bummed me out a bit

Pixie

16:40

@trogdor Yes, Pokemon is pretty repetitive, not only in the events of each episode (hint: Pikachu wins) but in the structure of the series. Ash finds a couple of friends and wanders around the current region getting gym badges and catching more Pokemon while letting a couple of them go. I liked it, but I quit watching sometime after Orange Islands, during Johto.

That makes it a heck of a lot easier to pull off in Fate though. :P I think I came across these companion rules that sparked my interest in doing Digimon in Fate while reading a question from someone playing Pokemon. These are mostly appropriate for Pokemon, with some tweaks that the question was addressing.

Pokemon also only have three evolutions max, and the evolutions are permanent, not counting the new megas they've introduced (which are a lot like Digimon, temporary).

Digimon, on the other hand... they go from Baby I (Fresh in the dub) -> Baby II (In Training) -> Child (Rookie) -> Perfect (Ultimate) -> Ultimate (Mega). That's five different stages of extremely different power scales, and that's not even counting any special cases. xD

Stack Exchange

21:09

0

Q: Why aren't you allowed to check off multiple stress boxes per hit?

It's not just a question of "have you done it in your game or not", but rather I'm wondering about the rationale behind the rules. What's the desired effect of this restriction and what effect on the game does it have if it's removed?

fate fate-core fate-accelerated stress consequences

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