Creation: Skills & Destiny

[Tom Roy]

I'm still reading the books. But I do have a question about skills:

Do you just pick the skills you want?

My fated has five Northern and six Southern numbers for skills. If I've missed where the book tells you what to do, feel free to point out the page.

I'm also curious about how you would interpret the tarot. I'm getting my own ideas, but can use some hints.

Here is my character tarot:

His station is Enforcer.

And it dreams of you

Frozen hearths crawl along the stone

For your borrowing is also your lending

You will wait until you should act

If the autumn bridge shakes in your bellows

I'm thinking there should be some icy goings on.

[Lucidicide]

Yup, just pick the skills you want. Page 59: "The player takes these skill values and assigns them to any skills he wishes" and page 60: "the player may assign to any skills he wishes, just like the northern position. These must be individual skills, and may not be added to any other skill."

 

So just pick the skills you want and give them points based off your flips, but don't add any together.

 

You're on your own for the Tarot :-P

[Tom Roy]

Thank you!

I'm so used to restricting rules on character creation I think I was stumped by the freedom.

I'm not doing too bad with the tarot. But it'll be a few days (or months) before I post my thoughts.

Cold nemesis methinks.

I'm going to see if I can post my cards. They're "normal" cards until I can order a proper fate deck:

Nope! Didn't work

[Mister Shine]

Your tarot is the reverse order. So it'll end with your station card.

 

Your DM would be doing the adventure hooks from the tarot, but for some examples from my party:

 

When Hope Drown in But 3 Tears - The Three party members were being held down by Sorrows who were crying overtop of them, slowly drowning them until they figured out they were in a dream state

 

As The Watcher Awaits Your Cry of Vengeance  - The party was doing other stuff but during their nights in the Badlands Torakages kept trying to Steal the plot maguffins they got in the previous mission. Just watching them during the day and during the morning one of the players literally yelled "I will have vengeance on this sneak thief" which really stroke the point home during the epilogue.

[Tom Roy]

Thanks Mister Shine!

I like how your tarot was interpreted. Especially the Sorrows.

So mine would actually be:

If the autumn bridge shakes in your bellows

You will wait when you should act

For your borrowing is also your lending

Frozen hearths crawl along the stone

And it dreams of you

That actually sounds better! I can get my head around that easier. I'll be back with an interpretation soon.

P.S. I'm actually both FateMaster and Fated at the moment. I'm going to run a one man exploration of where I'll be sending players. Which will help me learn the rules and accurately judge enemies strengths.

Lets face it I can kill myself many times and not worry. But if I kill a player game1 he/she won't be very happy. Neither will they be happy if it's too easy.

So my first game will be just me, my imagination and a deck of cards.

[Wakshaani]

One thing I've been doing for skills that really sells the character aspect more is this:

 

The first set of skills is your Core Skills. Use those to tell everyone who your character is as they grew up and before they chose their current path.

 

Teh second set of skills is the Endeavor Skills. Use those to tell everyone what your character has learned while training for "the job" and more recent parts in life.

 

This tells a *much* better story than just grouping them all together into a "Skill lump" and spending them.

 

So, someone with 3, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1 Core Skills, then 3, 3, 2 Endeavor Skills was clearly someone that was a tad unfocused and wibbly when younger, trying out a lot of different things but once they found the thing that they were good at, they learned how to focus and stay in the mix.

 

You might also have someone with 3, 2, 2, 1, 1 twice. Kinda the average skill load, and THAT person gets a story based on which skills are from which part of their life. So, someone whose core skills included Homsteading, farming, and surival was likely a pioneer, or the kid of a first-generation settler family, which colors their background one way, then their path (Let's say they became a Graverobber, just 'cause, and the Endeavor Skills are all about Necromancy, soulstones, and so on) tells a different story, or, rather, a different chapter in the SAME story.

 

I've found it to be far more interesting, personally. Give it a try.

[Lucidicide]

That's actually what the rules tell you to do, spend them one at a time as part of the narrative of building your character.

[Tom Roy]

Thanks Wakshaani!

My character being an Enforcer works well with what I wanted for him: Gunfighter or Mercenary. Having Pugilism along with Enforcer was awesome as it was what I imagined:

....a shooting brawling cowboy

Some skills I'm looking at are:

Pugilism (got it already)

Gambling (got to earn a living)

Navigation (he's a wanderer)

Wilderness (sleeps under the stars)

Pistol, Long Arms or both

Intimidate

Toughness

Carouse

Notice

Being the son of an enforcer, I can imagine his daddy teaching him how to deal with, track and catch criminals....

....dead or alive

Now he puts those skills to taking down Malifaux monsters.

[Tom Roy]

My character is ready! He just needs his Destiny now. Rather than repeat, here's a link to my blog post about Jedidiah Eastwood:

http://wyrdadventures.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/jedidiah-eastwood.html?m=1

Still working out his destiny

[Mister Shine]

You can use a skill of 0 instead of negative aspects, so your Df would always be at least 2.

 

Although I sorta feel like Papa Eastwood might have smacked Jeb around a bit to toughen him up, rather than teaching him bout those idgits at the bank (Swap Bureaucracy for Toughness/Evade? Get those derived aspects up a little?)

[Tom Roy]

Hmmmm, you might be right there. I added bureaucracy for the law side of things.

Yeah, toughness or evade. My feeling is toughness as he's not the most agile.

[Tom Roy]

So I've swapped Bureaucracy for Toughness. That's given him an extra wound. I'm happy to leave the negatives as they are for Intellect, Charm and Speed.

Might swap Navigating for Evade to up Defense....makes bit more sense.

But I now have his Destiny sorted and will get to work posting that.

[Tom Roy]

http://wyrdadventures.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/jedidiah-eastwood-fate.html?m=1

He has his fate now!