Let's play Fate! (Pen & Paper RPG)

The Game Room
41

[QUOTE=RoOsh]
How do we do the Guest Stars thing? Do I get to guest star in those 2 players novels- do I make aspects or a storyline?
[/QUOTE]

Yep, you get to guest star in two novels, and two players get to guest star in yours. (feel free to trade cards by the way, if you come up with a neat idea; just make sure that everyone guests twice, and that nobody appears twice in the same novel).

The DMG suggests that for each guest star, you and the guest discuss possible ways said character could appear in your novel, after which you write 1-2 sentences about said character’s appearance. So this is storyline that you’re creating.

42

Alright, I’m still working on my Backstory/Aspects, so I’ll try to see what I can do by tomorrow.
But this Aspect thing is hard!

43

The Mountain Goat’s skills:

Superb: Burglary (Like you couldn’t see that one coming)
Great: Athletics, Stealth
Good: Resources, Alertness, Resolve
Fair: Deceit, Rapport, Sleight-of-Hand, Endurance
Average: Investigation, Contacting, Drive, Empathy, Knowledge: Market Appraisals

Oh, and Naf you misread the skills. There aren’t three contacting skills, there are just three special aspects that the SRD clarifies on how they would work. Same thing with the Athletics and Deceit skills. So you have a number of more skills coming to you.

44

For skills then: would i put “Two Gun Joe” as a skill? Or just “Guns”?
Which is a skill/stunt/aspect?

That’s what’s confusing me.

45

So Pollux and I show up in each other’s novels. (And a few others have the same situation.)

It makes sense, after all. Pulp typically had crossovers.

46

[QUOTE=Hoopy Frood]
The Mountain Goat’s skills:

Superb: Burglary (Like you couldn’t see that one coming)
Great: Athletics, Stealth
Good: Resources, Alertness, Resolve
Fair: Deceit, Rapport, Sleight-of-Hand, Endurance
Average: Investigation, Contacting, Drive, Empathy, Knowledge: Market Appraisals

Oh, and Naf you misread the skills. There aren’t three contacting skills, there are just three special aspects that the SRD clarifies on how they would work. Same thing with the Athletics and Deceit skills. So you have a number of more skills coming to you.
[/QUOTE]

Really! Sweet, that opens up SO many more possibilities for me. :cool:

47

For Arrmatey! and Pollux, whichever of you is ready first to guest star let me know, and we’ll flesh out how the novel will work.

Also, RoOsh and Pollux let me know when your novels are ready for me to star in.

48

[QUOTE=RoOsh]
For skills then: would i put “Two Gun Joe” as a skill? Or just “Guns”?
Which is a skill/stunt/aspect?

That’s what’s confusing me.
[/QUOTE]

You get skills according to the ladder. (see me and hoopy) Then you also get 5 stunts (that relate to your skills, or just any stunts I am not sure?) Aspects are kicking my ass too. It’s going to be tomorrow at the soonest before I have this all finished and fleshed out. I am more or less trying to develope all phases at the same time so things develope a bit more organically.

49

[QUOTE=RoOsh]
For skills then: would i put “Two Gun Joe” as a skill? Or just “Guns”?
Which is a skill/stunt/aspect?

That’s what’s confusing me.
[/QUOTE]

Guns is the skill.

Two Gun Joe is a stunt.

50

[QUOTE=NAF1138]
Then you also get 5 stunts (that relate to your skills, or just any stunts I am not sure?)
[/QUOTE]

If you have some way of justifying a stunt unrelated to a skill you have at average (remember every skill is typically mediocre for a PC in this setting), you could probably choose it, but as a general rule, it makes more sense not to.

51

ok, here is my second pass. I am thinking of swaping out Alertness for endurance and maybe Mysteries for Academics. I am not sure, what do you all think?

skills:

1 Superb skill: Investigation (He is primarily a detective after all)
2 Great skills: Guns and Fists (he is also a two fisted fighter)
3 Good skills: Contacting, Athletics, Deceit
4 Fair Skills: Alertness, resourses, slight of hand, stealth
5 Average Skills: Weapons, Drive, Empathy, Intimidation, Mysteries

52

For my stunts I think I will take

Martial Arts
Clever Disguise
Fast Reload
Scary
Scene of the Crime

Again, I am open to suggestions.

53

[QUOTE=Hoopy Frood]

Average: Investigation, Contacting, Drive, Empathy, Knowledge: Market Appraisals
[/QUOTE]

I misunderstood one thing. Apparently there aren’t any specific knowledge skills, they’re built into other disciplines. However, there doesn’t seem to be any skill related to mercantile transactions.

So you know what, if it’s okay with you Omi I’d like to have a skill for fencing objects. In other words, I’ll know both what an object is worth and where I could dump it (or hide it from the proper authorities). A skill like this is useful for my character and doesn’t really fall under any of the other skills.

Thank you.

54

Naf instead of Mysteries, you might want to take resolve.

Otherwise, you will be easily swayed by others, not a good quality for a spy.

You might also want to drop Intimidation and take Endurance instead. I see a spy using more finesse in his social interactions (either through deceit of rapport) rather than brute force. There just isn’t much suave about intimidation.

Also for those stuck on aspects, remember that objects can be aspects. For example, I’m planning on making Mr. Z a contact aspect. He also ties in with my fear of abandonment aspect. The DM can use both against me (in exchange for fate points). Mr. Z can manipulate me within reason, but seeing as how Mr. Z is a fairly honorable guy for a black-market businessman, he’s not going to take advantage of me for risk of losing me as a contracted thief. After all, he knows about my uncle screwing me over and knows that my resolve is strong enough that I’ll cancel our business relationship should he ever truly try something I wouldn’t go for. However, there’s still a lot of room for Mr. Z to control my character somewhat.

I’m also planning on having The Sword of the Clan MacGuffin be an item that my character regularly seeks out. A legendary artifact almost on par with the Holy Grail, it was though to be merely a rumor. Until my character found it, and then lost it. But that will be revealed in a later novel.

55

[QUOTE=Hoopy Frood]
Naf instead of Mysteries, you might want to take resolve.

Otherwise, you will be easily swayed by others, not a good quality for a spy.

You might also want to drop Intimidation and take Endurance instead. I see a spy using more finesse in his social interactions (either through deceit of rapport) rather than brute force. There just isn’t much suave about intimidation.
[/quote]

Oh, no. I’m not the spy. That was a suggestion for Pollux who asked for help with his backstory. I am a two fisted detective bent on righting the wrongs of the world(a la The Shadow) and chasing revenge for the murder of my wife and sidekick. I also have a silly amount of training in the far east due to me being a billionare playboy before my wife and sidekick were murdered and I was beaten and left for dead. But I also happen to be one of the best detectives around.

I was hoping to figure out a power for myself “to bend the minds of men” (again a la the shadow) with secrets from the far east, but I may drop that as being too complicated.

But resolve sounds like a good idea.

56

So I’m thinking, it seems the fencing of objects skill is basically just swallowed under resources.

So instead of that, I’ll take Weapons. He basically is only going to be throwing flash grenades or using tear gas or similar. He really isn’t into killing things.

And for my stunts:

Danger Sense
Acrobat
Criminal Mind
Mental Blueprint
Smooth Recovery

57

OK I think this is my final list.

skills:

1 Superb skill: Investigation (He is primarily a detective after all)
2 Great skills: Guns and Fists (he is also a two fisted fighter)
3 Good skills: Contacting, Athletics, Deceit
4 Fair Skills: Alertness, resourses, Endurance, stealth
5 Average Skills: Resolve, Drive, Empathy, Intimidation, Academics

58

[QUOTE=NAF1138]
Let me know if I am out of line, but based on what you said the first thing that came to my mind was that he was a rogue spy. He used to work for an agency, but now lives in hiding because he found out the system was corrupt… or something along those line.

Kind of James Bond meets the prisoner meets Bourne meets Dr. Who. So convoluted it could only happen in hollywood! :smiley:
[/QUOTE]

That’s funny, when I was tossing about my idea initially last night one of the things I thought was I wanted my character to be the James Bond without the action hero daring-dos. I think I’m going to run with this and make him a former spy. I’m going to expand on it when I write my full background, but here’s a brief summary of it:

Basically, after he graduated university he was scooped up by a secret intelligence organization called The Syndicate. (I think this name is sufficiently Hollywood cheesy, don’t you think?) The Syndicate wasn’t affiliated with a specific government, but was rather an intelligence-for-hire organization. The highest bidders would get the most information, if you catch my drift. After a specific event that exposed The Syndicate’s dark underbelly, my character (still nameless) went rogue and off the grid.

One of the things I’m going to emphasize about my character is that he despises guns. He’ll have gotten basic weapons and defense training through The Syndicate but he won’t touch guns.

Here’s the skill set I came up with for him:

  1. Superb: Gambling (Duh)
  2. Great: Academics, Rapport (He’s supposed to be intelligent first and able to use his mind/talk his way out of situations, so I think these are the best for that)
  3. Good: Alertness, Sleight of Hand, Resolve (all three of these goes well with outthinking/tricking his competition and staying cool under pressure)
  4. Fair: Science, Resources, Athletics, Empathy (Science is more intelligence/knowledge that he has: he’s wealthy from gambling and I thought my resources shouldn’t be higher than NAF’s since we both have our money legally, since he’s had spy training he’s going to be a little better than most at jumping and running and the like, and empathy also goes well with the theme of being able to talk his way out of things)
  5. Average: Fists, Weapons, Drive, Endurance, Contacting (all of these are from his spy training…since he’s gone rogue, however, his contacts will be less than a regular spy)

I wanted to stay away from using Deceit because while it fits the idea of outthinking opponents it doesn’t quite fit my character. Also, I wasn’t sure if I should include Contacting or Investigation as the last Average skill.

[QUOTE=RoOsh]
Of course, the fact that he’s got a penchant for fast cars, booze, and Ammo requires him to have a benefactor of some sort. So your two characters (**Naf **and Oil) could easily tie into mine if you found a reason to support my character’s “Explosive” lifestyle.
[/QUOTE]

I don’t know if my character would fit as a benefactor either. He despises guns and prefers wit over violence, so I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be willing to provide you with money. I thought about the possibility that you could be not telling my character the whole truth about where your money is going, but from the description of your character I don’t think he’d be able to outwit my guy in that manner. :stuck_out_tongue: Since you’re guest starring in my pulp novel though, I think we can figure out a way to work it. Maybe your guy saves mine and he owes him so he promises to help him out monetarily.

[QUOTE=Hoopy Frood]
For Arrmatey! and Pollux, whichever of you is ready first to guest star let me know, and we’ll flesh out how the novel will work.

Also, RoOsh and Pollux let me know when your novels are ready for me to star in.
[/QUOTE]

Will do. I’m gonna write up my backstory and novel tonight, but I had an idea for either your guest spot or mine. Since my character is fairly well off, I could be in possession of an item that you want/need, and I catch you in the act of burglary and challenge you to a duel of wits on whether or not you can keep it. Depending on how you want it to go, you can either outwit me and get to keep the item or I outwit you and you give it back, or I outwit you and you still take the item. I don’t know, we can figure it out. :stuck_out_tongue:

Also, NAF: Since we’re both wealthy and you’re guest starring in my novel, I feel like we can meet at a high-stakes poker tournament or something.

ETA: Why are all the Google ads on this page about Obama? :dubious:

59

[QUOTE=Pollux Oil]

Also, NAF: Since we’re both wealthy and you’re guest starring in my novel, I feel like we can meet at a high-stakes poker tournament or something.
[/quote]

I think that is a great idea!

Three reasons:

Location, location, location.

ETA: Nevermind, no one in this game is doing the Obama country thing. Maybe its the google default for now?

60

[QUOTE=Hoopy Frood]
So you know what, if it’s okay with you Omi I’d like to have a skill for fencing objects. In other words, I’ll know both what an object is worth and where I could dump it (or hide it from the proper authorities). A skill like this is useful for my character and doesn’t really fall under any of the other skills.

Thank you.
[/QUOTE]

Hmm, you’re right about that… I’m definitely OK with making a Fencing skill, but I need to think a bit about how to institute some limits: it should be fine for 90% of the loot the party will find, but I’m thinking that extremely obscure items (magical artifacts, pilfers from archaeological digs) might be tough to assess without seeing a specialist. (If that happens, though, your Fencing would easily return the identity of a contact who could help.)

Does that sound fair?

ED: Oh, and I like everything I see so far. I’m going to double-check all of the numbers tomorrow morning, when I’ve gotten a chance to sleep, but so far everything looks good.