Keeping the Fated off balance, think tank

[sephiroa]

Can we brainstorm some good NON-combat wrenches to throw into the Fated's plans? The system is designed so that people are going to have a lot of access to non-combat skills as well, so any ideas on "encouragement" to use them?

i did once in my demo's, on going challenge, build a trap, engineering+labor+acrobatics, was fun  

but for the others i have some idees on non combat skills, but not all

[DeleteAccount]

Well, a lot of what is talked here can be applied to not combat situations since it's mostly about keeping the Fated on their toes by not making them think instantly that being X with an 8 means that will always work, be it in combat, social situations or what have you.

 

Anyway, since non combat situations tend to be less standardized (you don't throw 4 faceless mobs for a verbal duel in a party, they tend to have a reason and disposition to be there) they are already more dynamic by design from the get go anyway and should be able to keep fated a bit on their toes.

 

I was thinking of maybe adding something similar to the Game of Thrones RPG where you have your "social wounds" which when depleted basically means you become flustered and pouty. So something like that for long social scenes could be fun, where a chain of failures would have a more lasting effect than just "rebounding in the next flip".

 

There is also the important factor, no matter the situation, where you have to account for the Fated blowing a 13 and solving pretty much any duel right there, so you need to have enough granularity in your situations so a single flip isn't too conditional, for example, the gambling example from before, just don't make the whole gambling scene with hundreds of script on the line be decided in a single duel, make it be an ongoing duel to get the big prices and have the TNs fluctuate every round depending on how the Fated decides to approach it.

[sephiroa]

edit: don't mind the huge mistakes i'm making in my grammar, english isn't my native tongue and i'm just awake

 

for long social conversations i would say, roleplay it out, and the moment they have to do something where failure is an option with some effects, i let them flip (with the noted TN modifiers with skills some posts back) and i do this with an ondgoing challenge, so even if you have a failure, another succes will "cancel" this (margins of succes etc) and i determine the difficulty of the ongoing challenge

example, john, hank and susan walk into a bar (this starts out as a very bad joke tough) they want to get some information of the big bartender. altough the bartender is a sturdy man, he is not of the brightest, so it will require "only" a total of 4 margins of succes or increment requirement
john a big sturdy guy himself, orders a bottle of whiskey/whisky (whatever you prefer) and starts gulpin it down to impress the bartender so the bartender will start drinking a bit himself, doing this will require a carouse check ( now a standard whiskey "only" is a TN of 5, but since its a bottle we will up this to 17, a diffucult check, but our john knew that he was going to do this, so he ate a big greasy burger before he entered, wich downs it to 14. he gets 15, 1 margin of succes (yeah i use margins of succes a bit different in ongoing challenges)
susan, a handsome young lady tries to seduce the young bartender and persuade him to let something slip after he has drank some himself, this will be a bewitch duel on his scrutiny, or WP check, scrutiny is the highest value and they both have the same rating, with al modifiers i say this will be a bewitch check of 10 because our bartender drank something and is more eager to listen to susan her boo.. i mean words. she has a 17 wich increases the increment to 3 now, 1 more to go.
while doing this, hank a very smart and convincing guy, starts gambling and try to cheer everyone up, so more drinks will be bought to bring our bartender in a happy mood.
since hank is doing 2 tasks at once, gambling and doing and doing some talking to people, we will say that for the gambling he will lose a bit more instead of winning (he wants to get more scrip into the hands of the people AND this will cheer them up since they won) and he will pay some drinks now and then. 
since this is a very simple duel it will set the TN to 8. hank got 12 that will increase the increment points to 4, thus resulting in a bartender that will slip some information.
more points will get them more information

i always play gambling in different TN values, never 1.
i write them down, and they fluctuate between 8 and 21 (depending on the money and people they are gambling with + the rank difference between the fated and the NPC's)

[LordZombie]

There are many ways to test the fated without combat. During one of my campaigns, the fated needed to  get a part from Colette herself. Being the showgirl she is, she made them all preform in a play first before they could have it. So all the fated had to decide on role and play out a series of different test based on the role. They also had to success together as a group to have the audience enjoy the show. It went over quite well. I put my fated in more story based challenges than anything due to combat being what it is.

[Omenbringer]

There are many ways to test the fated without combat. During one of my campaigns, the fated needed to  get a part from Colette herself. Being the showgirl she is, she made them all preform in a play first before they could have it. So all the fated had to decide on role and play out a series of different test based on the role. They also had to success together as a group to have the audience enjoy the show. It went over quite well. I put my fated in more story based challenges than anything due to combat being what it is.

I imagine that was an interesting and enjoyable session for all involved.

[LordZombie]

The best part was when the fool was suppose to deliver the punchline and flipped a black joker. Lucky they had so many successes, the crowd still liked it.

[DeleteAccount]

OK, another thing I was sort of thinking but that it's related to a degree to keep the Fated off balance.

 

Do you let them know the TN of what they need to do to succeed? For example, lets say they are interrogating a guy, do you tell them they need a TN 14 convince/intimidate flip or do you just tell them to flip and tell them if they succeed or not? And if they fail, do you now tell them what they need to cheat in or do you keep the TN foggy with allusions like "you need to push a bit more" or stuff like that? I'm thinking the best option would be to only mention the TN when they want to cheat, since they are supposed to be able to alter their fate and it's not like they will have 4 face cards in hand at all times, but I also don't know if it might remove a bit of the tension changing the situation into a number, though someone might say that the third failure without any decent drawing would be nerve wracking...

 

Anyway, how do you guys operate with this scenario?

[Mason]

I've just been giving my players the number.  My reasoning is that I'd rather challenge players with in-game challenges and conflict than out-of-game meta-challenges like playing "guess the GM's magic number." 

[DeleteAccount]

I've just been giving my players the number.  My reasoning is that I'd rather challenge players with in-game challenges and conflict than out-of-game meta-challenges like playing "guess the GM's magic number." 

Makes sense, will probably do it that way.

[Finnegan]

Personally I have made available the rankings for peon, minion etc as well as for routine, easy, etc. and give enough details for the Fated to determine how important who or what they're intarcting with is.
This means only I know the exact number but the Fated can still get a decent idea of what the TN is.

If they're interacting with a recurring character, chances are they have a good idea of his stats and can cheat accordingly. If it's not a recurring character, they'll only cheat if the challenge is important, and important challanges justify using high cards to succeed, so not knowing the exact TN isn't problematic. If it's not a character but a situation, they have a rough idea based on how routine/difficult the task is for them. Again, if it's important it warrants cheating high, otherwise it doesn't.

[vinush]

So, we tried the fate master having his own deck thing on Sunday with the following rules:

 

-If the Player Fate Deck or the Fate Master fate deck was shuffled all players got to draw a card.

-If the fate master touched the player deck they got to draw a card.

-The fate master had one cheat card per player.

-When the FM used a cheat card the player it was used against got to draw a card.

 

All in all, it made the combats more challenging without overbalancing the game.

[alemon]

I really like the idea of NOT flipping cards as an FM, just because the enemies do exactly what I want them to do unless the players stop them (instead of rolling ones and twos; I have bad luck). 

 

This seems like a fun idea though, especially for everyone who's used to rolling as a GM. I think I'd leave out the FM cheating just because of Fluff--the fated at the ONLY ones who can alter their destiny.

 

I think I might try this for a section of today's game, and let your guys know how it went (for a larger sample size)

[Omenbringer]

I really like the idea of NOT flipping cards as an FM, just because the enemies do exactly what I want them to do unless the players stop them (instead of rolling ones and twos; I have bad luck).

Static and predictable resolution is fine until either your players cant touch an enemy or they wade threw a swarm of mooks untouched and unafraid.

 

This seems like a fun idea though, especially for everyone who's used to rolling as a GM. I think I'd leave out the FM cheating just because of Fluff--the fated at the ONLY ones who can alter their destiny.

I probably wouldn't allow cheating for all ranks of NPC's. I would take a Savage Worlds approach and only allow it for "Wild Card" NPC's, those that are of sufficient importance to the story (Henchman, Masters, Avatars and select Enforcers).

 

I have found utilizing the existing static resolution system tweaked by the fated's drawn card altering the value up or down based on the "Severity" of the card and its suit to show some real promise on the low end. Unfortunately it doesn't help the upper end as much though.