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

The Game Room
81

You don’t have to have an aspect be two-sided, but if it isn’t, you should balance it with a one-sided the other direction.

For example, there’s really no negative to my being very agile and dexterous (i.e. Graceful as a mountain goat). However, there’s also no real postive to having abandonment issues. So although two-sided aspects are nice, you don’t have to make all your aspects two-sided as long as you basically have an equal number of boons and banes.

And just about any object/person aspect becomes two-sided if it’s something that can be left behind or forced. For example, if I’m in a situation where my car would be useful, the GM can force it to be in the shop, or to break down, or something similar. I am now forced to be deprived of an aspect, so I get fate points for it (or pay fate points to guarantee it’s still there). Same thing with the belt. If my belt is taken from me during capture, and I run into a situation later where I could use it, I get fate points for having to do without it. (Say for example, I’m locked up in a holding cell. Now, I get no fate points for not having the belt for escaping the cell, since naturally prisoners have all their stuff confiscated, and no captor is going to leave me my lockpicks. However, once I escape the cell, if I’m not given opportunity to recover the belt and tools, I am now forced deprived of them, which would earn me fate points because my aspect is nerfed.)

Mr. Z acts as both a boon and a bane as well. I can use him to help with getting missions and fencing goods, but he can also manipulate me into taking missions on that the DM wants.

Basically if the DM is controlling your aspect, you get fate points. If you are controlling your aspect, you pay fate points.

82

Cool, so what do you think of the above list?

(I will bring in Aunt Mable in one of the guest star books as another aspect. My hidden lair is proably a part of my alter ego aspect. So I still need one more for my final guest appearance, I need another bane it would seem)

83

RoOsh’s guest stars are… NAF1138, Hoopy Frood

Lemme know what ideas ideas your guys would have for popping up in my Novels.

A billionaire Playboy and the Spirit of Vengeance, whatever would they do with a Hollywood Stuntman/Gunslinger? Heh. I think the Spirit and The Grim Fandango might just get along, assuming they both have equally violent tenancies.

As for The Master Thief and the Stuntman- you might be more interested in The Dave/Stuntman aspects of my character for your Guest role.
Just as a foil/getaway driver my character could easily fill into that- or perhaps you needed a hired gun? If you can justify a positive reason for my character to do it [the crime], then he’d lend a hand. Especially if giving my character funding is an Outcome. We all have to eat you know? The Bullets don’t pay for themselves!

84

Thinking about aspects more, I want to change that one…
Maybe to a phrase:

Aspect 3: “This is a little something I learned from Ol’ Oil Can Himself”
Description: *Oil Can Harry was a master of explosions and pyrotechnics. This aspect can be used to help out with any tricks/setups/pistol shots leading to a possible flammable outcomes- maximizing the flammability without harming David.
This of course becomes a Liability when in the hands of The Dave. *

85

This is particularly important because of the play-by-post format: since we’re going to tend towards long “sessions”, there will be fewer chances for the entire party’s fate points to regenerate, so the bulk of your Fate is going to be gained through negative instances of your Aspects.

86

Well in that case Omi, as the GM, what is your take on my stated aspects? I am not married to anything and am would like suggestions on what I have going on with my aspects.

87

Two questions real quick whilst I work on things:

One, I was thinking of giving Sam an alien weapon, but I noticed someone else might have a Weapon of Destiny [tm]. Is two in the game too much? If so, I can steer things another way.

Two, I … Shouldn’t even say this, but I have a friend who’s jonesing to play this game now that I’ve told him about it. He’s not a doper, but he’s good people. Can we squeeze one more in? (I’m fine if the answer is no, but I thought I’d ask.)

Three, Hi, Opal!

88

@RoOsh

Let’s see, I guest star in a Grim Fandango book…

Hmm I think that the Dark Spectre and the Grim Fandango would get along well, and I have a feeling that Charles Montgomery would not like “The Dave” at all and vice versa. On the other hand Byron Johanson would probably get along with “The Dave” just great. It’s a shame he’s dead.

It’s your book I am going to be in, but maybe something that involves me investigating a murder that “The Dave” has been famed for? I head out and help clear your name in my Dark Specrte persona. Durring that time we meed in our various guises and we can have a whole lot of secret identity who is the real person hijinx. What do you think?

89

Well, since it’s your novel, it’s more of how my character would benefit you. Maybe the Grim Fandango decides to carjack me while I was on my way out to a job. And I’m stuck watching as The Dave and Grim Fandango battle it out all the while doing crazy things with my car.

Or maybe you need me to steal something for you and you find out about me via word of mouth. I’m still fairly new in the thieving gig, so my freelance jobs come pretty cheap.

Or maybe you have some connection to the Clan MacGuffin sword. (Which, on a side note, I’m going to change it from being stolen from Mr. Z, to have been fenced by him and the new owner who bought it is now dead, and the sword has once again gone missing.)

Let me know how you want to approach this, and I’ll help flesh it out.

90

Well so far with your aspects I see the following:

The Millionaire Playboy: Boon–using fate points to influence social situations; Bane–Drunkeness causing offense in social situations

Champion marksmen: Boon–using fate points to affect your gun performance; Bane–None that I can see

Spirit of Vengence: Boon–using fate points to influence situations where your sense of revenge is powerful; Bane–your sense of vengeance overpowers your rationality

Trained by Far East Masters: Boon–using fate points to influence athletics and combat; Bane–none that I can see

Nickle plated revolver: Boon–using fate points to have the revolver right where and when you need it; Bane–being deprived of it when you need it

Alter-ego: Boon–using fate points to protect your real history; Bane–someone finding out clues as to your real history

So right now you have +2 on the Boon side. Aunt Mable would be nice as a pure Bane. She’s someone you need to protect, who always seems to get into trouble. She doesn’t have to provide any benefit to you. Also, maybe she’s someone who knows your secret? It’s something you may want to consider. Your secret lair is a boon/bane mix, it gives you advantages, but it needs to stay secret. So with another pure bane, you should have a good balance. Your last aspect should be a balanced one as well. (Though, if you are tilted +1 one way or the other, it shouldn’t matter too much.)

91

Okay, maybe I was jumping the gun- Is the Clan McGuffin sword a weapon of legend? I wasn’t sure.

92

Depends on what you mean. It definitely is a legendary weapon, but it’s ornamental more than anything. Some say it’s even cursed. Plus, my character refuses to kill, so he’s certainly not going to ever fight with it. Also, look up the meaning of the term “MacGuffin”, and I think all will become clear.

93

Well I can see how you could bring negative interpretations of your Aspects in play, but the real question is whether those interpretations fit with the character you had in mind:

Aspect
The Millionaire Playboy: You nailed it yourself: the drinking, the comportment, the well-known face… there are a lot of ways this one could go wrong.

Aspect
Champion Marksman: Not much I can imagine here, but that’s fine; all-positive aspects have a place.

The Spirit of Vengence: Hoopy is right, you could pull a total Batman with this power.

Trained by Far East Masters: I can imagine a lot of fun downsides to this one, but I don’t think many of them would mesh with your character well: he might have a tendency to overestimate his abilities (“I was trained in the east… I’ll bet I could use yoga to wire the explosives better than our rigger is doing”) or to talk about it at inopportune times (DM: “The guard turns his back.” NAF: “I tell my companions in painstaking detail, complete with the funny accent, how my training is going to get me over the wall.” <10 minutes later> DM: “Ok, you’re still talking and the guard turns back. He is now staring directly at you. What do you do?” NAF: “Warn him that I was trained in the far east!”)

His Nickle plated revolver: A good way to get points might be using it in inappropriate and stupid situations (opening a bottle while the party is trying to hide), or simply using it when there are obvious, better options available (DM: “An elephant is charging right at you. You see an elephant gun on the desk next to you. What do you do?” NAF: “Shoot it with my favorite revolver!”).

So really, it’s a matter of whether or not you can come up with some reasonable downsides that will work in character.

94

Cool. I was thinking she would be the only one who knows my secret (for now). So I will go with her in one of my guest star books, and my secret lair in the other one. That’s got me leaning a bit far on the boone side still, but not too bad.

I get two aspects for each guest star book for 4 total right? So I still need two more if I am reading this right.

I can bring in

Guest star aspects:

“I work alone” as an almost pure bane since this is a team game we are playing.

Aunt Mable

His secret lair

and then one more

95

I think two WoDs shouldn’t be unmanagable… I’m waiting until we’re nearly good to go to assign Aspects to the bad guys, so I’ll just make sure they’re reasonably challenging.

As for your friend, he’s certainly welcome!!

96

That is one thing that I should mention. I am taking the character VERY seriously right now because he takes himself VERY seriously. Once things get rolling I have no problem with him being something a Batman parody. Like I said, I like the comedy thing. (The more I think of it the more I think it is really The Shadow I am going for, but the basic idea is the same)

I like the idea of him overestimating his abilities. He has let a lot of his training slip, so he might not be able to do some of the stuff he thinks he should be able to do. I also really like the idea of him using his revolver inappropriatly. I am also thinking that by the time we get to the campaign part he has mellowed a tiny bit. He starts to think of himself as the ledgendary Dark Spectre and talk about things like “my trademark nickle plated revolver”.

97

Alright, I like this but lemme put a few spins on it so it fits my character more.

This event happens right after Luke gets back from China. He’s just found out that The Syndicate is really up to no good and has some dark secrets so he’s just gone rogue. It’s not my mansion, it’s my father’s estate. You break in, when the alarm sounds there aren’t any guards, just me and my father. My father, while still believing that a man’s greatest weapon is his mind, also believes that it’s okay to have a gun to back up your mind so he has a big ol’ shotgun aimed at you. I challenge you to a battle of wits, you accept. Before it happens though Ol’ Lynxy shows up and takes the diamond.

I recognize her as a Syndicate informant, and wanting to get to the bottom of the mystery I’m more than willing to accompany you to get the diamond back even though it doesn’t hold any particular personal value to me. (Just another random thing I won in a high stakes gambling tournament.) Everything else happens as you say, until we get the drop on Lynx and the Syndicate guys. Somehow at least one of the Syndicate agents escapes, and I confront Lynx asking her if she’s given the location of my father’s estate to the Syndicate. She initially refuses to tell but I trick her into giving away that yes, she did tell them. This leads to me needing to rush back to my estate, where we part ways, only to find that the Syndicate’s already kidnapped my father.

That will lead into my idea for the second guest spot (Roosh).

I figure the two aspects I can get from this are:

Aspect 7: Cache of Winnings
Luke’s clearly obtained an assorted amount of rare items and strange winnings via his gambling. The upside is sometimes they’ll come in handy, the downside is if he’s not at his base he usually won’t have immediate access to them.

Aspect 8: Luke’s Father
This’ll be a boon and a bane. Like NAF’s aunt Mable, his father could get into trouble. However, I’m also envisioning his father as a sort of possible sidekick/companion. His father won’t have the same proclivities about guns, and Luke can use his father as a contact since his father will be at the home base.

98

“I work alone”: Actually I see this as both. While you will have problems getting along with the rest of us (bane), you can also use this to your benefit in solo efforts.

So I would say make your last one a pure bane.

But bear in mind, you never have to use a boon if you don’t want to. You could give yourself 10 pure-bane aspects. However, this would cripple your character because while you can use fate points in multiple ways, using them to activate a boon is very good.

On the flipside, you never have to take a Bane either. However, as our GM mentioned, you then won’t get fate points until the standard refresh, which can be a long time in PBP. So it’s no good to have Boons if you can’t use them.

It’s why I think this system is very nice with how it does this. Not only is a boon/bane balanced character more interesting, but too much toward one way or the other is inherently balanced by the lack of the usefulness of creating a character this way. It pretty much is impossible to min/max this system.

And for reference, this is how I see my Aspects playing:

He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.
–Boon: Use fate points to aid running away; Bane: running away when the payoff would be better to stay

Could make a decent living selling ice to Eskimos.
–Boon: Use fate points to influence social interactions; Bane: none

Graceful as a mountain goat.
–Boon: Use fate points to influence athletic skills; Bane: none

Jack Dawkins/Charles Peace eat your heart out. (AKA Larceny)
–Boon: Use fate points to influence burglary skills; Bane: Stealing things he might not really need to steal and anytime you’re breaking the law you take a chance

Why do all my mentors leave in some fashion? (AKA abandonment issues)
–Boon: None; Bane: Easy to manipulate him.

Killing is bad for business.
–Boon: Fate points can influence non-violent resolutions to potential combat situations or non-lethal attacks in combat; Bane–Killing is frequently easier to resolve combat with than non-lethal force; May get forced to kill for some reason

Trusty Utility Belt:
–Boon: right there when he needs it with the equipment he needs; Bane: if he can’t get access to it, it screws him big time

The Lost Sword of Clan MacGuffin.
–Boon: none; Bane: More than any single object in the world to steal, he wants this one. He will stop at almost nothing to get it. Especially since unless he’s working for Mr. Z at the time, it’s his to get and keep. The one time he gave it to Mr. Z was because he didn’t need to complete the real goal. Although he’ll never sacrifice a current job in pursuit of this (bad for business after all), any mention of this will instantly get his attention.

Trusty Escape Car.
–Boon: Fast means of getaway. Carries the stuff that doesn’t fit on the belt. Bane: It can break down, be stolen, or some other thing that makes it unavailable

Mr. Z
–Boon: Operates as a contact. Has connections; --Bane: He’s my part-time boss, and got me the advanced training I have. And being that I’m fairly new in the business, he has a lot of power over what jobs I get and how much I get paid for them. He typically takes priority over any freelance efforts as a result.

So I’ve got 2 boons, 2 banes, and 6 mixed.

99

Sounds great. Omi can consider our novels updated in regards to your corrections to my earlier post.

100

greetings all. I am ArrMatey’s friend and the game sounds really interesting. Thanks for having me.

I’ve got the Fate rules on my computer at home, so I’ll review them tonight and post character details then.

Initially I’m torn between a troll and a master of disguise.

For the troll, I was in costume when the change happened and got stuck this way.

I was a simple extra from a dozen different movies who was in the make up trailer when things went bad. I emerged a few minutes later with the ability to become anyone.