Fate Accelerated Edition

+Scott Acker ran a demo of FAE (Fate Accelerated Edition) on sunday at my usual gaming haunt. We've played in several different games together and he knows the various incarnations of FATE inside out, so I asked him if he could set up a demo as I'd yet to play any FATE games. Like all too many people in this hobby,I have shelves of games that I've never played or run.

The demo was called "The Gothelrealm University of Esoteric and Arcane Arts‏".The setting was a Harry Potter Hogwarts-style university where the students are all supernatural beings. The classics were all well represented, vampires,ghosts,werewolves, fae,wizards and dragons all on the roll call.

I chose to play a werewolf. Scott gave us blank character sheets and some previously prepared "Aspects" (descriptions of the character that can be directly applied to the setting) and "Stunts" (special things we can do) to choose from. We also prioritized our "Approaches" (how we do things), such as "Quick","Careful" etc.

I haven't used Aspects before and it made a lot of sense to me in play. In some ways I found it reminiscent of "Unknown Armies" with its list of Passions. I liked having a "High Concept", a nice one-liner summing up who and what the character is in the game. Most of all, I liked have a "Trouble" Aspect. By choosing to use this Aspect in the game, you can be rewarded with a "FATE point", which you can then use later in the game to reroll dice, add +2 to a result or to add a detail to the game. I think this is probably the part that I enjoyed the most in that it encourages the players to make the story more interesting by making dangerous or difficult choices rather than focusing purely on winning.

The game flowed really well. I won't give details of the session itself as I know Scott runs this at conventions too. It had a strong gothic feel and I could see how a "Sleepy Hollow" game would work well with this. The characters were also very distinct archetypes, something else that I personally enjoy in games,especially as a player.

So having played this demo, I feel I've had a good taste of FAE. It's remarkably easy to play.I'd like to try it's more complex brother, "Fate Core", and some of the established settings too. If you haven't tried this and fancy a light, fast-paced game I strongly recommend giving it a look.

Cthulhu - From "Call of" to "Trail of"

I'm two sessions into my "Bookhounds of London" campaign using the "Trail of Cthulhu" system. Prior to that I'd been running games for almost two years using "Call of Cthulhu",so I've been reflecting on the differences between the two games and ideas for the future.

First of all, I never stayed close to the actual game system when I ran "Call of Cthulhu" or "Delta Green". There were very few rolls of the dice, typically only for combat moves or sanity checks. If the college professor in the group had a solid background in history (40% or more) I wouldn't ask for a roll. "Trail of Cthulhu",as a system, is a perfect fit in that regard. No skill rolls are required if you have a particular knowledge, the rolls are for general abilities like fleeing or scuffling.

Secondly,I am more forgiving than most Cthulhu GMs in terms of survival rates. You don't see "Total Party Kills" in my games, and while a good portion of the group won't survive the whole campaign, they will typically make it to the last session. "Trail of Cthulhu" again is a better fit, the group don't feel the burn of injuries and sanity loss until much deeper into the game.

Speaking of sanity, the slow burn rate also means that I've yet to see the in-game effects of mental instability in "Trail" unlike "Call", so I can't really compare the two at this stage. I do think that this makes "Trail" a good choice for an epic campaign like "Masks of Nyarlathotep", where party casualties are commonplace and can make it harder to keep ongoing threads.

"Masks" is on my list of things to run next year, adapted to "Trail of Cthulhu". I'm also thinking of running adaptations of some of the "Call of Cthulhu" scenarios that I've ran over the years. Some have already been done and can be found on the Pelgrane Press website. I haven't seen one for "The Condemned" or "The Sanatorium", both strong contenders for reruns, but I do have adaptations of "Tell Me,Have You Seen The Yellow Sign?", "The Cracked and Crooked Manse","Malice Everlasting" and "Edge of Darkness". All of those games have stayed in my mind and in different ways influenced the games I ran afterwards. I may weave them into "Masks" or have them stitched together as their own mini-campaign. It very much depends on who plays..I don't want the same players to have played these before, so "Malice" and "Yellow Sign" would be the best ones to do.

Has anyone else tried both systems or conversions from one to the other? Let me know!

Preparing an "Unknown Armies" RPG Campaign

Next month will see the start of my first campaign for the "Unknown Armies" RPG. I've run one-shots of this game several times and I love the system and setting. A proper campaign is something that I keep putting on a backburner, so now it's time to go for it.

I've decided to set the game in Las Vegas. I think it's a great fit, with the combination of hope,desparation and despair that inevitably prevails in a gambling scene, the seedy side of town, and the over the top glitzy facades.

Most importantly, everything that catches the eye about Vegas,everything that defines it, has been constructed by humans, for humans. Games of chance, luxurious hotels, all you can eat buffets, magic shows, nightclubs, fake cities,fake daylight (Caesars Forum), fake lovers....it's all there. "Unknown Armies" is ultimately a very human focused game, all about the consequences of what we do with power and obsession. What better place to play this out than Vegas?

The campaign will have a chaotic nature, so I'm keeping the story threads loose in this one. As the GM I'll be shaping the game around the actions of the players, so hopefully they'll land themselves in a lot of trouble. They will all be "Adepts", the magicians in this game world. They can make magical things happen because of their obsessions, so I'm excited to see which schools of magick the players choose.

I'm also following the guidelines in the rulebook in terms of choosing major characters and factions to give a little framework to the world, things for the players to react to. I like how the book describes the factions, but encourages you to define their relationships. This maintains a degree of unpredictability, especially for players who have played in this setting before.

So new turf for me next month,to run alongside my "Trail of Cthulhu" campaign. I'm excited about this and have no idea how it will all play out. Expect some interesting and bizarre posts on this in the coming months!

Nephilim RPG

"Nephilim" is a French roleplaying game that was adapted by Chaosium back in the early 1990s. Since then there have been more versions in French, with the Chaosium version ending after a few supplements were published.

For me, it's one of the ones "that got away". It's billed as an "occult roleplaying game", the players take on the roles of the Nephilim, magical beings who incarnate periodically through human bodies. There is a deep backstory and complex system, based on BRP. It's a field day for anyone interested in the occult, conspiracy theories or secret societies, with the enemies represented by the Knights Templar, Rosicrucians, the Thule Society and the dark Nephilim, the Selenim.

I think this game came along at the wrong time, and also suffered from a clear lack of focus. It has so many fantastic ideas and yet there isn't a clear sense of what should be done with the game. The Nephilim themselves are described vaguely, and the magic system is complex, though true to real-world occult concepts.

One of my favorite parts of the game is the past-life incarnations that are done in character generation. A Nephilim could have been a god in ancient Egypt, or a monk in medieval France. Your occupation, life and even how you died are all chosen or calculated. You accumulate skills and magical knowledge across each of these lives with the personal goal of reaching Agartha, transcendence. Add to that the symbolism of classic elements and the Tarot, and you have something unique.

Some of the supplements had great material though also made the system more confusing in some ways, and it's sad this wasn't revised and integrated into a new edition. I believe that some of the newer French editions are a lot more playable.

I'm now thinking of trying a hack of this game using Vincent Bakers "Apocalypse World" system, which would be a very personal project. I've never designed a game and this is the one that I always wanted to improve because I think it has so much potential. Look for that to surface next year!