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Just finished “Where the Forest Meets the Stars” by Glendy Vanderah. My tear ducts still work. Very well. Recommend!
One disclaimer: other readers have criticized its depiction of depression, with cause.
Fallout Fate Musings
Jan. 24th, 2019 06:13 pmI started on a Fallout Fate adaptation based on conversations with another like-minded Fate player on Google Plus. Originally they had been considering the "Atomic Robo" route, focusing on their "modes" technique (https://fate-srd.com/atomic-robo/modes), as well as mega-stunts. In later discussions, there was talk of trying out "mantles" from the Dresden Files Accelerated Edition (like a very crunchy Fate Accelerated Edition).
One part of the discussion was how mantles could inform the concept of "Scale" in the setting (https://fate-srd.com/fate-system-toolkit/scale). Scale is mentioned briefly in the Fate System Toolkit, but is paramount to how Dresden Files Accelerated Edition handles disparate power levels. For that matter, mantles in DFAE are not built to be balanced to each other so much as to reflect the characters' narrative beats, obligations, limitations, scale, etc. GMs are encouraged not to even try to achieve power balance when coming up with their own mantles.
Some of these thoughts have been previously shared on G+, MeWe, and PlusPora.
Working Out Mantles
I started drafting a Ghoul mantle, and it became an exercise in determining how someone with that mantle was going to play the game, less than what sort of powers to give it. I brought out the idea of how intelligent ghouls will always, given enough time, turn feral, and made an isolation mechanism which offered temporary boosts to survivability, in return for the threat of their gradual devolution through Extreme consequences whittling their aspects down to reflect a more feral nature. I included a way to take that threat away, through positive interactions with intelligent creatures, self-care, or other things as narrative dictates.
I took another element from the Fallout board game: in that, the Ghoul piece starts out with a condition called "Reviled" which means... something... I forget, but then doing something worthwhile allows them to turn that around. I knew I was going to have a New Vegas style reputation/faction system, so I used that as the mechanism for reflecting how a given Ghoul would start out on the wrong foot with any random community, and have to prove themselves to receive a neutral reaction. I wouldn't make that happen with ghoul-friendly communities, of course. But now I have Isolation and community mistrust as Fate mechanisms for this mantle!
I also added a radiation battery to power healing/recovery, and there would be some optional stunts which could focus this in other ways (like being a Glowing One or some other stunts).
Here it is if you want to look at it: it is very rough, and perhaps overkill. Part of the writeup refers to a Reputation mechanic which currently assigns a collection of "collateral" style consequences to reflect each character's standing with a given faction or community:
Ghoul (Mantle)
Ghouls or necrotic post-humans are decrepit, rotting, zombie-like mutants. Intense and prolonged radiation has ravaged their skin, much of their flesh and in some cases many of their ligaments. Paradoxically, they also have greatly extended overall lifespans and are, allegedly, immune to (and even healed of damage by) background radiation and/or nuclear fallout (from http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Ghoul).
Unique conditions:
Watched (special): Ghouls are generally distrusted in most communities because of the fear that they become feral and start eating people. When a ghoul encounters a new faction or community (unless it is a ghoul-centered, or otherwise ghoul-positive community), they automatically start with the Watched consequence slot checked for that community. Any ghoul that successfully proves itself useful to a given community by overcoming this consequence is no longer under suspicion: they may not be respected, but they are allowed to stick around and pursue a living.
Radiation Immunity (special) [x]: This condition starts marked. A ghoul does not take damage from radiation-based attacks. Though uncommon, when a radiation attack is paired with another source of stress, such as a bullet or plasma, the immunity is reduced to armor:2.
Ghoul (special) [x]: This condition starts marked. A ghoul character will not be confronted or attacked by feral ghouls unless that character attacks first. (Probably better left as assumed in the ghoul's High Concept aspect, but it made sense with the mantles I was seeing in DFAE).
Radiation Battery (special) [] [] [] []: A ghoul has a special radiation battery track of 4 boxes. In any turn in which a ghoul is subject to a radiation effect capable of dealing stress damage to an otherwise unprotected creature, the ghoul marks a box of radiation. The ghoul can erase a box of radiation to power certain effects.
Isolation (special) [] [] [] [] [] [] [] []: A ghoul’s worst enemy is isolation, which directly contributes to the possibility of becoming a feral. A ghoul starts with an Isolation stress track of 8 boxes. A ghoul can mark an Isolation stress box to power certain effects. A ghoul can erase an Isolation stress box by positive interactions with other sentients, taking heartfelt joy in something positive, or other self-care. When a ghoul marks its eighth Isolation stress box, they clear their Isolation stress track and take an Extreme consequence (Fate Core, page XX), with the changed aspect representing their journey towards becoming feral. Once a ghoul has changed every one of its aspects using extreme consequences, it has become a feral ghoul and is no longer a playable character.
Core stunts:
Healed by Radiation: Outside of conflict, erase one point from the radiation battery to clear a sticky condition or a 4-point consequence, or erase two points to clear a lasting condition or 6-point consequence, provided the condition or consequence reflects physical injury.
Survivor: A ghoul takes strength from its independence. By marking a box of Isolation stress, they can invoke their High Concept for free.
Optional stunts:
Glowing One: Every turn, a glowing one marks a box on their radiation battery, even if they are not in an area of radiation. The glowing one can release its stored up radiation to heal nearby ghouls, even if they have been killed (but not if they have been dismembered, dissolved, disintegrated, or otherwise destroyed). For every point of of radiation the ghoul erases, that is the amount of stress cleared on each ghoul in the same zone, including the one using this stunt. May make Radiation Sink a prerequisite.
Radiation Sink: a ghoul with this stunt gains two more Radiation boxes. This can be taken multiple times. Am told this may be too many boxes for one stunt.
Feral Whisperer: Ordinarily, ferals ignore ghoul characters but are otherwise unable to interact meaningfully. With this stunt, a ghoul character can roll using an appropriate S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stat to Create an Advantage “Ghoul Cohort” on one or more neutral feral ghouls, which they can then invoke in order to provide commands to their new ghoul allies.
Alternatively, I might adapt a Boss stunt from the Fate Adversary Toolkit: Ghoul Whisperer: Once per session, you can use your ghoulish charm to recruit feral ghouls as reinforcements. These reinforcements take the form of either one ghoul with an attack and stress boxes rated equal to your Intelligence, two ghouls with attack and stress boxes rated one step lower than your Intelligence, or Fair (+2) ghouls equal in number to your Intelligence. When you use this stunt, you can spend one fate point to gain +2 to your effective Intelligence, to a maximum of Superb (+5), for the purpose of bringing in these ghoul reinforcements.
Old World Blues: A ghoul with this stunt was turned to a ghoul in the nuclear apocalypse, and has been surviving ever since. Mark a point of Isolation to invoke your High Concept for free when you Create an Advantage based on remembering something from before the apocalypse.
Black Humor: a ghoul with this stunt can mark a point of Isolation to treat a mental consequence as a consequence one step lower.
Preparation: a ghoul with this stunt can mark a point of Isolation to declare they have a device, supply, or other resource appropriate to the situation.
After this first draft, though, I wonder if I’m skewing way too far towards crunch.
Bulldogs had a good amount of crunch, and I am adopting some of its weapon abilities for the Fallout Fate adaptation.
Another article (https://www.worldanvil.com/w/fallout-fate-hack-KedasDnD/a/4-weapons-armor-and-equipment-article) brought up a good reminder of the zero sum escalation inherent in weapon/armor values, advocating instead for weapons and armor to function based on their defining Aspect and the narrative justification that brings, and seldom (if ever) giving an actual damage/defense rating.
Hope in Fallout
Another item that is sticking with me was a challenge (issued by a well-regarded game designer) that folks writing post-apocalyptic games try to focus less on the murder and chaos and looting, and more on the rebuilding, hope, and community. I had already planned to include rules about factions and communities, using ideas from “Burn Shift” (Fate Worlds), “Authority and Reputation on the World Train” (another Fate resource), and the faction reputation system from “Fallout: New Vegas”. To that end, I had already outlined a multi-threaded political battle for Fallout Nukeland (which I was running at a convention using the Retrocalypse hack) inspired by the Courier’s impact on New Vegas, a collection of pathways and benchmarks structured like an extended meta-contest, with each victory giving shifts of success or failure to different interested factions in the Nukeland area, and contributing to the region’s future.
So I feel good about working towards the spirit of rebuilding. I just have to set up clear and simple rules to encourage and support that play, while still giving enough crunch for those that need it, without making it overwhelmingly about stuff and killing.
Community Stats
On the subject of communities and factions, an importance part of Fallout New Vegas was negotiating with factions, and I wanted to build in rules that governed how to bring this to a Fate Core game. I am currently starting with the "Burn Shift" take on communities. As characters will be defined by approaches mapped to the Fallout setting's S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system, I wanted to use the same approaches to definite a given community's capabilities.
Each approach (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility) easily maps to something that could define a community, except L: Luck. I didn't think Luck made a lot of sense for a community, not like it does for an individual.
My current solution is to just dump Luck and call it Legerdemain (essentially, a community's aptitude for spycraft). My other option was to move everything around, find synonyms for things, just so Spycraft could occupy that lead "S" spot. I'm figuring having Legerdemain simply be the one element that doesn't quite match up to Luck.
I could also just keep Luck, or use it as that community's Refresh/Fate point pool (if it merits its own pool).
Reputation and Community Consequences
A character or group of characters can earn the ire of a given community by their actions. Depending on one’s reputation with a community, their people may simply refuse to engage in basic commerce and hospitality with that character, or they may attack on sight. Communities with a big enough grudge and resources to match may even start sending armed squads to harass the characters in the wasteland. Depending on the community, such squads can be community militia, roving gang members, paid mercenaries, or even trained assassins. There is no limit to the number of communities with which a character can have drama.
For any given community, a character has three Community consequence slots, each with its own severity: Watched (moderate, 4 shifts), Shunned (severe, 6 shifts), and Hated (severe, 8 shifts), which work like collateral consequences as well as conditions.
In a scene in which a character commits a transgression against a given community, they mark the lowest community consequence available (Watched, then Shunned, then Hated), ideally as part of a concession action, or to absorb stress during that scene, but always when there is narrative justification.
At the GM’s option, a character can use their one Extreme (8-shift) consequence slot as part of a concession action or to absorb stress during a scene in which they are dealing a major blow to a given community. This follows the same rules for extreme consequences laid out in Fate Core (page 166), with the changed aspect representing their new character-defining antagonistic relationship with that community.
One part of the discussion was how mantles could inform the concept of "Scale" in the setting (https://fate-srd.com/fate-system-toolkit/scale). Scale is mentioned briefly in the Fate System Toolkit, but is paramount to how Dresden Files Accelerated Edition handles disparate power levels. For that matter, mantles in DFAE are not built to be balanced to each other so much as to reflect the characters' narrative beats, obligations, limitations, scale, etc. GMs are encouraged not to even try to achieve power balance when coming up with their own mantles.
Some of these thoughts have been previously shared on G+, MeWe, and PlusPora.
Working Out Mantles
I started drafting a Ghoul mantle, and it became an exercise in determining how someone with that mantle was going to play the game, less than what sort of powers to give it. I brought out the idea of how intelligent ghouls will always, given enough time, turn feral, and made an isolation mechanism which offered temporary boosts to survivability, in return for the threat of their gradual devolution through Extreme consequences whittling their aspects down to reflect a more feral nature. I included a way to take that threat away, through positive interactions with intelligent creatures, self-care, or other things as narrative dictates.
I took another element from the Fallout board game: in that, the Ghoul piece starts out with a condition called "Reviled" which means... something... I forget, but then doing something worthwhile allows them to turn that around. I knew I was going to have a New Vegas style reputation/faction system, so I used that as the mechanism for reflecting how a given Ghoul would start out on the wrong foot with any random community, and have to prove themselves to receive a neutral reaction. I wouldn't make that happen with ghoul-friendly communities, of course. But now I have Isolation and community mistrust as Fate mechanisms for this mantle!
I also added a radiation battery to power healing/recovery, and there would be some optional stunts which could focus this in other ways (like being a Glowing One or some other stunts).
Here it is if you want to look at it: it is very rough, and perhaps overkill. Part of the writeup refers to a Reputation mechanic which currently assigns a collection of "collateral" style consequences to reflect each character's standing with a given faction or community:
Ghoul (Mantle)
Ghouls or necrotic post-humans are decrepit, rotting, zombie-like mutants. Intense and prolonged radiation has ravaged their skin, much of their flesh and in some cases many of their ligaments. Paradoxically, they also have greatly extended overall lifespans and are, allegedly, immune to (and even healed of damage by) background radiation and/or nuclear fallout (from http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Ghoul).
Unique conditions:
Watched (special): Ghouls are generally distrusted in most communities because of the fear that they become feral and start eating people. When a ghoul encounters a new faction or community (unless it is a ghoul-centered, or otherwise ghoul-positive community), they automatically start with the Watched consequence slot checked for that community. Any ghoul that successfully proves itself useful to a given community by overcoming this consequence is no longer under suspicion: they may not be respected, but they are allowed to stick around and pursue a living.
Radiation Immunity (special) [x]: This condition starts marked. A ghoul does not take damage from radiation-based attacks. Though uncommon, when a radiation attack is paired with another source of stress, such as a bullet or plasma, the immunity is reduced to armor:2.
Ghoul (special) [x]: This condition starts marked. A ghoul character will not be confronted or attacked by feral ghouls unless that character attacks first. (Probably better left as assumed in the ghoul's High Concept aspect, but it made sense with the mantles I was seeing in DFAE).
Radiation Battery (special) [] [] [] []: A ghoul has a special radiation battery track of 4 boxes. In any turn in which a ghoul is subject to a radiation effect capable of dealing stress damage to an otherwise unprotected creature, the ghoul marks a box of radiation. The ghoul can erase a box of radiation to power certain effects.
Isolation (special) [] [] [] [] [] [] [] []: A ghoul’s worst enemy is isolation, which directly contributes to the possibility of becoming a feral. A ghoul starts with an Isolation stress track of 8 boxes. A ghoul can mark an Isolation stress box to power certain effects. A ghoul can erase an Isolation stress box by positive interactions with other sentients, taking heartfelt joy in something positive, or other self-care. When a ghoul marks its eighth Isolation stress box, they clear their Isolation stress track and take an Extreme consequence (Fate Core, page XX), with the changed aspect representing their journey towards becoming feral. Once a ghoul has changed every one of its aspects using extreme consequences, it has become a feral ghoul and is no longer a playable character.
Core stunts:
Healed by Radiation: Outside of conflict, erase one point from the radiation battery to clear a sticky condition or a 4-point consequence, or erase two points to clear a lasting condition or 6-point consequence, provided the condition or consequence reflects physical injury.
Survivor: A ghoul takes strength from its independence. By marking a box of Isolation stress, they can invoke their High Concept for free.
Optional stunts:
Glowing One: Every turn, a glowing one marks a box on their radiation battery, even if they are not in an area of radiation. The glowing one can release its stored up radiation to heal nearby ghouls, even if they have been killed (but not if they have been dismembered, dissolved, disintegrated, or otherwise destroyed). For every point of of radiation the ghoul erases, that is the amount of stress cleared on each ghoul in the same zone, including the one using this stunt. May make Radiation Sink a prerequisite.
Radiation Sink: a ghoul with this stunt gains two more Radiation boxes. This can be taken multiple times. Am told this may be too many boxes for one stunt.
Feral Whisperer: Ordinarily, ferals ignore ghoul characters but are otherwise unable to interact meaningfully. With this stunt, a ghoul character can roll using an appropriate S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stat to Create an Advantage “Ghoul Cohort” on one or more neutral feral ghouls, which they can then invoke in order to provide commands to their new ghoul allies.
Alternatively, I might adapt a Boss stunt from the Fate Adversary Toolkit: Ghoul Whisperer: Once per session, you can use your ghoulish charm to recruit feral ghouls as reinforcements. These reinforcements take the form of either one ghoul with an attack and stress boxes rated equal to your Intelligence, two ghouls with attack and stress boxes rated one step lower than your Intelligence, or Fair (+2) ghouls equal in number to your Intelligence. When you use this stunt, you can spend one fate point to gain +2 to your effective Intelligence, to a maximum of Superb (+5), for the purpose of bringing in these ghoul reinforcements.
Old World Blues: A ghoul with this stunt was turned to a ghoul in the nuclear apocalypse, and has been surviving ever since. Mark a point of Isolation to invoke your High Concept for free when you Create an Advantage based on remembering something from before the apocalypse.
Black Humor: a ghoul with this stunt can mark a point of Isolation to treat a mental consequence as a consequence one step lower.
Preparation: a ghoul with this stunt can mark a point of Isolation to declare they have a device, supply, or other resource appropriate to the situation.
After this first draft, though, I wonder if I’m skewing way too far towards crunch.
Bulldogs had a good amount of crunch, and I am adopting some of its weapon abilities for the Fallout Fate adaptation.
Another article (https://www.worldanvil.com/w/fallout-fate-hack-KedasDnD/a/4-weapons-armor-and-equipment-article) brought up a good reminder of the zero sum escalation inherent in weapon/armor values, advocating instead for weapons and armor to function based on their defining Aspect and the narrative justification that brings, and seldom (if ever) giving an actual damage/defense rating.
Hope in Fallout
Another item that is sticking with me was a challenge (issued by a well-regarded game designer) that folks writing post-apocalyptic games try to focus less on the murder and chaos and looting, and more on the rebuilding, hope, and community. I had already planned to include rules about factions and communities, using ideas from “Burn Shift” (Fate Worlds), “Authority and Reputation on the World Train” (another Fate resource), and the faction reputation system from “Fallout: New Vegas”. To that end, I had already outlined a multi-threaded political battle for Fallout Nukeland (which I was running at a convention using the Retrocalypse hack) inspired by the Courier’s impact on New Vegas, a collection of pathways and benchmarks structured like an extended meta-contest, with each victory giving shifts of success or failure to different interested factions in the Nukeland area, and contributing to the region’s future.
So I feel good about working towards the spirit of rebuilding. I just have to set up clear and simple rules to encourage and support that play, while still giving enough crunch for those that need it, without making it overwhelmingly about stuff and killing.
Community Stats
On the subject of communities and factions, an importance part of Fallout New Vegas was negotiating with factions, and I wanted to build in rules that governed how to bring this to a Fate Core game. I am currently starting with the "Burn Shift" take on communities. As characters will be defined by approaches mapped to the Fallout setting's S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system, I wanted to use the same approaches to definite a given community's capabilities.
Each approach (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility) easily maps to something that could define a community, except L: Luck. I didn't think Luck made a lot of sense for a community, not like it does for an individual.
My current solution is to just dump Luck and call it Legerdemain (essentially, a community's aptitude for spycraft). My other option was to move everything around, find synonyms for things, just so Spycraft could occupy that lead "S" spot. I'm figuring having Legerdemain simply be the one element that doesn't quite match up to Luck.
I could also just keep Luck, or use it as that community's Refresh/Fate point pool (if it merits its own pool).
Reputation and Community Consequences
A character or group of characters can earn the ire of a given community by their actions. Depending on one’s reputation with a community, their people may simply refuse to engage in basic commerce and hospitality with that character, or they may attack on sight. Communities with a big enough grudge and resources to match may even start sending armed squads to harass the characters in the wasteland. Depending on the community, such squads can be community militia, roving gang members, paid mercenaries, or even trained assassins. There is no limit to the number of communities with which a character can have drama.
For any given community, a character has three Community consequence slots, each with its own severity: Watched (moderate, 4 shifts), Shunned (severe, 6 shifts), and Hated (severe, 8 shifts), which work like collateral consequences as well as conditions.
In a scene in which a character commits a transgression against a given community, they mark the lowest community consequence available (Watched, then Shunned, then Hated), ideally as part of a concession action, or to absorb stress during that scene, but always when there is narrative justification.
- Watched: A character that has marked the Watched consequence for a community will be treated with suspicion by most members. Shows of contrition or community service usually clear this up.
- Shunned: A character that has marked the Shunned consequence for a community will have trouble acquiring shelter, engaging in commerce, or otherwise getting any information from members of that particular group. Certain community members may still cooperate with the character, usually out of desperation, but possibly to get the shunned character to be a patsy for their own schemes. Getting off that community’s naughty list usually becomes its own scenario.
- Hated: A character that has marked the Hated consequence for a community will be met with open hostility and driven away when discovered within that community. As with Shunned, there may be community members who will secretly abet or otherwise use a hated character for their own ends.
At the GM’s option, a character can use their one Extreme (8-shift) consequence slot as part of a concession action or to absorb stress during a scene in which they are dealing a major blow to a given community. This follows the same rules for extreme consequences laid out in Fate Core (page 166), with the changed aspect representing their new character-defining antagonistic relationship with that community.
