Sixteen Tons Question

[darthnoir]

In the next few weekends, I will be Fatemastering for the first time.  To give my players (and myself for that matter) an introduction to the basic mechanics of TtB, I will be running Sixteen Tons with the players using the pregens.    To prepare everything, I've assembled the Twist Decks for all of the pregen fated.  I've run across something I don't understand in the fated Yong Gin.  His fated deck is listed as having a set of 4 Tomes, a set of 3 rams, a set of 3 crows, and another set of 3 tomes.

The source books I own are: Fated Almanac, Fatemaster Almanac, and Into the Steam.

The Fated Almanac implies that all 4 suits must be represented in a Twist Deck while Into the Steam explicitly states this fact.

Is this a typo in Sixteen Tons?  I have the physical Free RPG Day version of it, so maybe it has been fixed in the digital copy.

Or, is there another source book that allows this sort of configuration of a Twist Deck?

[Shadowopal]

Yes. Misprint.  It is in the pdf version as well just pick one to be masks. 

[Bazlord_Prime]

On 10/22/2016 at 6:01 AM, darthnoir said:

In the next few weekends, I will be Fatemastering for the first time.  To give my players (and myself for that matter) an introduction to the basic mechanics of TtB, I will be running Sixteen Tons with the players using the pregens.  

About to start out on my FM career (?) with this same One-Shot, so just wondering how it went for you, and whether you have any advice or modifications for it? You know - of you can even remember an adventure you played two years ago!

[goddog]

I start my fatemastering 2 weeks ago. Nothing to say about sixteen tonns, but can give you a few tips about starting.

1. Prepare some side quests, small ones. If your players will not go through story. And prepare some tricks to return them back on the storyline.

2. Fill up the one shot more. Add some more FM even if they just a crowd, objects and equipment they can found. One shot give you a story, but its not filled enough.

3. Try not to say No to players. If the want to do something - let them do it. But if it's not good for story make their dids pointless or too complicated to success. 

4. And in general - be ready for unexpected moves from players. They usually not do what you expect))) 

As for me, I made a 3 session. Starting from the corebook, one shot Bad Blood and one my own. 

I hope its will useful. 

[Bazlord_Prime]

Thanks @goddog

We're all just starting out with RPG with this, so we'll take it easy with Sixteen Tons, and learn from our mistakes. 

I like the point about not saying "No", and I'll try to not be surprised if the Fated somehow do something weird, even in this adventure which looks pretty solidly railroaded. I suppose they might do something off the rails once they get into town... 

[EnternalVoid]

I will say the flip side, don't be afraid to say no either.  Sometimes players will find something that just is bad for the game or just don't work.  Of course that is where you can compromise but sometimes you have to say "That is not going to work.  But how about this...". 

An Example of this is crafting, if a player wants to made their own weapons and gear that is fine, but I would not let them spit out a Clockwork seeker in 1 hour of narrative time for only a quarter of the base cost.  Sure the rules don't give a time frame on how long it would take so nothing is saying you cannot do it, but that is the Fatemaster's job to decide if something is reasonable.  Another example, I had a player that wanted to join the 10T and become a Torakage, so I slipped in the chance for him during a session I had one of his fates come up.  Later he wanted get the Torakage special weapons with all sorts of modifications.  I took a look at the Torakage weapon's and most of them seemed like they were discounted costs.  The long bow for the Torakage is 5 scrip to the 10 scrip everyone else pays and the only difference is it does not have indirect and the Spear is basically the Polearm with Precise for way cheaper.  So I told him he could not buy them at those costs with modifications as his superiors are not going to hire a specialized smith to make his weapons *Not important enough and weapons like that are more traceable*, so he would have to go find a smith himself if he wanted them and pay more for it.

Another example would be when I was working with a player on a Manifested power.  They wanted the Teleport but the manner they wanted it I was certain was going to be abused.  So I said no to way he had it and then ended up offering him three solutions on how to have the power but what sort of limitations it would have *such as only during Narrative time or making it a manifested ability rather than a spell but be once per session*.

Part of my reasoning for this is you have to think about the other players as well.  You let someone abuse something in a bad way and it can affect the fun of the other players sometimes.