FATE of the Empire

Well, I promised to let you know when the non-Kickstarter versions of Fate Core and FAE* were available, and it seems that "when" is "now".

No gorillas, but that creature on the punk-witch's shoulder could be a tiny monkey.
Or a ferret, it's a bit hard to tell.

As promised, the PDFs are priced at "whatever you want" - the link above has links to download ZIP files of both games (in addition to various character sheets and other miscellany), free and clear. After that, this page explains how to use Paypal to donate your chosen price directly to Evil Hat. Or, if you prefer, the games are also listed at DriveThru - also pay-what-you-want, with suggested prices of $5 for Fate Core and $2.50 for FAE.

Coincidentally, I recently came across another Kickstarter project that uses Fate Core as the ruleset for a particular setting - in this case, the steampunk world of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences novels by Tee Morris and Pip Ballantine. In particular, the novels follow the adventures of two agents of the titular Ministry, which protects the British Empire from the strange and bizarre - which, refreshingly, has here more of a mad science/conspiratorial slant to it than a supernatural one.

Unusually, The Ministry Initiative project is working on funding both an RPG and a fiction anthology, each available separately at different pledge levels (there are of course levels that combine the two). Time will tell if this approach was a good idea - with just over a week left, the project is only about half funded. Still, I thought the two two novels written thus far were pretty good, and the X-Files/Warehouse 13 type setup lends itself particularly well to tabletop gaming.

*That's short for Fate Accelerated Edition, folks!

Monster Hunter Interdimensional

The other day, Tim Knight of HeroPress made a post showcasing various adventuring parties from fantasy films and television shows. This in turn inspired Mike at Really Bad Eggs to make a similar list of the various cinematic versions of the Three Musketeers. That in turn got me thinking, about other often-gamed genres that lend themselves to ensemble casts. As I've recently been reading over the backer PDFs from the Monster Hunter International Kickstarter*, well, this was probably inevitable:

The B.P.R.D.

The Ghostbusters

The Scooby Gang

The Other Scooby Gang

Angel Investigations

The X-Files Unit

The Winchester Brothers

Blade & The Nightstalkers

*Which came out great, incidentally. When it's available for purchase I'll be sure to mention it again. 

The Cheap, The Free, and The Winnable

In a confluence of a few different events, it looks like a pretty good week for OSR fans in general, and Swords & Wizardry fans in particular.

First off, DriveThruRPG is spotlighting the OSR all this week, and is offering 15% off the dozen best-selling titles with the use of the following coupon code: OSRF711F2 . The available titles range from the classic D&D Basic rulebook to recent interpretations such as Adventures Dark & Deep, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperboria, and yes, Swords & Wizardry Complete and its Sword-&-Sorcery spinoff, Crypts and Things. There's also a smattering of non-D&D-derived products, such as Classic Fantasy for BRP (for all your Lovecraft/Tolkien mashup needs!).

Not to be outdone, Frog God Games has put their entire Swords & Wizardry line on a similar 15% off sale - most interestingly including their recently released Razor Coast setting books. Swords & Wizardry Complete is, of course, on their list, too - no word on whether the two discounts stack, but if they did Complete would come out to just a hair over $7. A real bargain, if you need that book, but both sales end next Sunday.

While I was reading up on the various retro-clones affected by the above, I happened across the website for North Wind Adventures, the publishers of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperboria. On it, they offer a number of free downloads to support the game, and while some seem to be specific to the Hyperborian setting, others - particularly the "Random Sword & Sorcery Adventure Generator" - look useful for any game in the genre.

Finally, for the next couple of days Tenkar's Tavern is hosting a "Favorite Character Death" contest, with various OSR-compatible publications from Neoplastic Press up for grabs. Not only that, but the company's most well-known product, Teratic Tome, will be put on a bigger and bigger sale the more people enter - and if enough people enter it, too, could become free.

Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day Roundup

Wow.

The vast outpouring of support for Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day was remarkable to behold. I'm not sure if anyone has a complete listing of everything that everyone posted - though Erik Tenkar has surely made a heroic attempt - but here's some of the offerings that particularly caught my eye:

I'll start this off by mentioning Gothridge Manor's "Mini Manor" adventure Screams without Faces. It is noted to be a "mature" adventure, and truth be told it's a bit more so than I usually prefer. That doesn't stop it from being very well put-together, not to mention filled with interesting ideas. Other adventures worth checking out are Call of the Xul from Lost In Time, Harnly's Hole from Rended Press, and The Vile Worm from Arcana Creations.

From No School Like The Old School we get a workup for a Lovecraft-inspired Sword & Sorcery setting, plus Swords & Wizardry versions of two races iconic to 4th Edition D&D - the "Chaos-born" and "Dragon Kin". Another new race, the Brokkans, comes to us from the appropriately named tehbadger, who has a free copy of Swords & Wizardry Complete to bestow on someone who shares a badger-folk character sometime in the next few weeks.

On the class side of things, over at Fear No Darkness we find rules for a Werebear (along with a variant Thief and a handsome-looking character sheet), while Tim Brannon shares some S&W-compatible updates for his Witch-class project.

Of course, tricked out new adventurers need something to test themselves against, and many S&WAD contributors were greatly obliging in this regard. One of my favorites is from Semper Initiativius Unus, which gives us stats for (among others) the Vespertilian, or Lunar Bat-Man. And just in case you find your character in that most annoying of situations - a grapple - Hex Generation has some very lightweight grappling rules just dying for a playtest. 

Last, but not least, iDungeonCrawl brings us a S&W GM screen that condenses various useful tables onto just a few easily-referenced pages.

And this was just a small selection of the mass of creativity and generosity revealed by Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day. Personally, I think a huge thank-you is due to all who participated, especially those mentioned above.

Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day Is A Go

Spearheaded by Erik over at Tenkar's Tavern, for the rest of today there will be a huge number of blogs posting about the Dungeons & Dragons retro-clone Swords & Wizardry. A full blogroll of the participants can be found at 2,000 Coppers, though I don't know how long that list will be up.

A product of Frog God Games, S&W comes in three different varieties, each in increasing complexity: the White Box Edition, the Core Rules, and the Complete Rules. The latter of these is also the basis for the recently-revealed and highly useful SRD.

Though there are many similarities to be among all the various retro-clones, Swords & Wizardry has a few tweaks that I especially appreciate. Firstly is the support for both ascending and descending Armor Class - I get that the descending system was the original and most people who actually play are used to it, but as a newcomer I find the latter easier to grasp.

Another interesting thing about Swords & Wizardry is the way that, for character building, Race is semi-detached from Class. I say semi-detached, for while S&W offers a bit more flexibility than the traditional Race-as-Class systems, it's still not quite at the level of later editions that allow any given combination, no matter how wacky. Of course, that's just how the rules are written, and with a bit of creativity it's perfectly possible for a player or Referee to account for any combination their heart desires - indeed, Swords & Wizardry make it easier to do than many other retro-clones.

Anyway, as a way of encouraging folks to check the system out there's a couple of coupon codes for 25% off Swords & Wizardry products out there, for use today only - for Frog God Games the code is SWApprDay, while for the SRD Store it's SWAD252013. There's lots of products beyond the basic rulebooks available at the reduced rate at both sites, so if there's something Swords & Wizardry-related you've been waiting for, today's the day to pick it up. Also, again, there's over a hundred different blogs discussing Swords & Wizardry today, and you can read all of them from over at 2000 Coppers.

FATE of the A-Team

So, the FATE Core Kickstarter ended late last month, easily hitting the last stretch goal and ensuring that the Fate Accelerated Edition of The Dresden Files will be added to Evil Hat's already crowded development queue. With nearly 14500% of the initial funding goal to play with, the only thing they need now is time.

While we're waiting, then, here's the rest of the A-Team, built using the Fate Core Preview. First off, it seems in my last post I left off Hannibal's Physical ([] []) and Mental ([] [] [] []) stress tracks, so there's that. Next, the rest of the team:

Lieutenant Templeton "Faceman" Peck

High Concept: Scrounges Anything Anywhere from Anyone
Trouble: Weary of the Mercenary Life
Aspects: Ladies' Man, Keeper of the Checkbook, You Just Hired The A-Team
Skills:
- Great (+4) Deceit
- Good (+3) Burglary, Rapport
- Fair (+2) Contacts, Resources, Shooting
- Average (+1) Athletics, Fighting, Investigation, Will
Stunts: Lies Upon Lies (Deceit), Best Foot Forward (Rapport),
Physical Stress [] []
Mental Stress [] [] []
Refresh: 2

Captain H.M. "Howling Mad" Murdock

High Concept: The Best Chopper Pilot In Vietnam
Trouble: Home is the V.A. Pysch Ward.
Aspects:  Zany Fantasy Life, Improbable Linguistic Skills, You Just Hired The A-Team

Skills:

- Great (+4) Drive

- Good (+3) Will, Athletics

- Fair (+2) Deceit, Fighting, Shooting

- Average (+1) Burglary, Investigation, Physique, Stealth

Stunts: If It Has Wings I Can Fly It* (Drive)

Physical Stress [] [] [] 

Mental Stress [] [] [] [] 

Refresh: 3

The "Grappler" stunt in action.

Sergeant Bosco "B.A." Baracus

High Concept: Bare-Knuckled Mechanic

Trouble: Named for his Bad Attitude
Aspects: Hot Rod Panel Van, Scared to Fly, You Just Hired The A-Team
Skills:
- Great (+4) Physique
- Good (+3) Drive, Fighting
- Fair (+2) Crafts, Shooting, Intimidation
- Average (+1) Athletics, Notice, Rapport, Will,
Stunts: Pedal to the Metal (Drive), Grappler (Physique), Take the Blow (Physique)
Physical Stress [] [] [] []
Mental Stress [] [] []
Refresh: 1

One thing I hope you'll notice right away is that all four Team-mates share an Aspect, a trick I borrowed from The Dresden Files RPG to provide coherence mechanically. I'm pretty sure it was tagged several times during the run of the show itself, usually to convince reluctant team-mates to take a particular job. Another thing that all four team members have in common is that their "Shooting" skill is only at Fair - this, too, was intended to simulate the show.

Something that surprised me during the process was how non-restrictive the limited number of Aspects and Refresh was. Coming from Dresden and Spirit of the Century, five Aspects and three Refresh - even with one free stunt!- doesn't sound like a lot, but it turned out to be plenty. I suspect that genre has something to do with this - one of the reasons Dresden has such high Refresh rates is that all those nifty mystic powers are paid for with them. Something relatively lower-key, like The A-Team, can work with the lower rate.

Anyway, this was a fun exercise for trying out FATE Core. For an actual game I would expect the skill list and stunts to be more heavily customized (the most recent addition to my blogroll, Fate of the Drowning Woods by Murder of Crows, has been playing with this quite heavily recently - go check it out!), but keeping the A-Team (mostly) within the draft rules was an interesting challenge, nonetheless. And hey, even if you didn't get in on the Kickstarter, word is that the Fate Core book will be coming out as a pay-what-you-want-including-nothing PDF - I'll be sure and mention that when it gets released!

*New Drive Stunt, If It Has Wings I Can Fly It: +2 to Drive whenever the vehicle in question is capable of flight.

Spirit of the A-Team

It wouldn't be an Evil Hat Product without a gorilla on the cover.

Being a fan of Evil Hat Games, I've been following with some interest the Kickstarter for Fate Core, which updates the FATE system used in Spirit of the Century and The Dresden Files, and making it generic to boot. I've not mentioned it before because A) I did a lot of updates for the Monster Hunter International RPG Kickstarter, and B) it didn't really need the help, fully funding in a matter of minutes and then shooting through a mind-boggling array of amazing stretch goals.

I'm serious about the mind-blowing part. After the core rules, a rules toolkit and sample settings book (this last so huge it had to be split into two volumes) all funded, Evil Hat pretty much turned to prefunding their entire 2013 production line through stretch goals. As a result, said stretch goals now included a new version of Dresden, two FATE adaptations of other companies' settings (Freeport and The Day After Ragnarok, to be exact, both excellent choices), and a whole pile of stuff for SotC*.

One of these is actually a revival of a project I had thought long dead - Shadow of the Century, taking the hyper-pulp world of SotC and advancing the timeline to the 1980s. Several icons from that time and genre are referred to as inspirations, including one of my personal favorites: The A-Team.

Since it may be some time before even the backers get to see SHotC, I've decide to take the FATE Core  draft rules for a spin, and see about stating up The Team. First up is Hannibal:

Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith

High Concept: “I Love It When A Plan Comes Together!”
Trouble: Still Wanted By The Government
Aspects: Monster Movie Actor, Soldier of Fortune, You Just Hired The A-Team
Skills:
- Great (+4) Will
- Good (+3) Deceit, Fighting
- Fair (+2) Athletics, Shooting, Investigation
- Average (+1) Burglary, Drive, Intimidation, Stealth
Stunts: Mind Games (Deceit), Indomitable (Will)
Refresh: 2

For the purposes of testing the rules I used the stock skill list and example stunts from the draft, but of course with a bit of thought both could be tweaked to heighten the A-Team feel. Actually, I've just thought of a great custom stunt for Murdock, whom I'll be doing along with Face and B.A. in a couple days.

*Seriously, the $10 pledge level for this one is a crazy-good value - it includes a PDF of every stretch goal funded, and funding is currently at 10,500%. At this point, it's basically a subscription to Evil Hat's output for the rest of the year and beyond.