GM's Water Cooler: Using Aspects in Fate

Over the years of following Fate, and discussions about Fate (or FATE as it was known in 2.0 days), the common misunderstandings that come up most often are those over the use of aspects.

For those who are new to Fate, aspects are the core ‘facts’ that define your character. In the newest and shiniest version of Fate to date, Fate Core, aspects are defined as:

“An aspect is a phrase that describes something unique or noteworthy about whatever it’s attached to. They’re the primary way you spend and gain fate points, and they influence the story by providing an opportunity for a character to get a bonus, complicating a character’s life, or adding to another character’s roll or passive opposition.” (FC pg.56)

And this is exactly how they work in game.

Let’s say that you have an aspect like ‘Sticky fingers’ on your character sheet. This can either be Invoked in play for a bonus (pay a Fate Point and either reroll an undesired dice result or add +2 to the dice result you received), or Compelled by another player or the GM (you gain a Fate Point to take an action you might not have otherwise taken, or pay one of the character’s Fate Points to refuse the compel).

"I really shouldn't...but it's so shiny!"

In the former case, you are using ‘Sticky Fingers’ to improve your attempt to steal/palm an object. In the latter, you are effectively being forced to steal an item even if it’s not to your advantage to do so under the circumstances.

In a nutshell, these are the mechanics of the use of aspects in Fate. A good aspect is generally a ‘double-edged sword’*: it has both positive and potentially negative consequences for the character, and is thus ripe for both Invoke and Compel effects in game.

This part of the use of aspects is pretty well understood, and covered quite well in the Fate Core book as well as various discussion groups about Fate. Since it is a mechanic that it does not share with many other RPG’s, many groups take a while to get used to be ebb & flow of Invokes/Compels in play, but the overall operation of it seems to be universally clear once explained.

But this is not the only thing that aspects do: they also establish facts. Looking at Fate Core again:

“Finally, aspects have a passive use that you can draw on in almost every instance of play. Players, you can use them as a guide to roleplaying your character. This may seem self-evident, but we figured we’d call it out anyway—the aspects on your character sheet are true of your character at all times, not just when they’re invoked or compelled.” (FC pg.76)

And it’s that last part that seems to be the most ripe for misunderstanding for those playing Fate; even some writers who have designed games using Fate as the engine show some trouble with this aspect of aspects. 

Let’s say that you are playing a character with the High Concept aspect ‘Cyborg Gorilla Kung-Fu Master’. Although this aspect needs to be compelled/invoked to cause mechanical effects in game, the narrative truth of this is never in doubt. It’s always true that:

• The character is a gorilla
• The character knows kung-fu, and is known to be good at it
• The character has some form of cybernetic augmentation

There is ALWAYS a gorilla in Fate

The difficulty grasping the whole truth of this seems to regularly crop up in circumstances where an aspect in-and-of-itself seems to be granting exceptional abilities to one character that another might lack.

For example, George & Ralph are playing a space-opera game (George is always GM) where Ralph’s character is a robot (or ‘droid’ in game). Over the course of play session, things go wrong for Ralph’s character and he is shot out of the airlock without the protection of an escape pod.

A common - and I think 100% incorrect - way to handle this situation is how this is done in the example below:

• Ralph: "Well, I’m floating in space. But he's a droid though, he doesn't have to breathe, per his droid aspect." 
• George: "OK, well then pay a Fate point and you will be fine then.

In the above example, the GM is making the player pay a Fate Point to make his aspect true. But the player shouldn't ever have to do that: the aspect is already true, per the rules.

Instead, the interaction should look like this:

• Ralph: "Yeah, well he's a droid, so he doesn't have to worry about vacuum." 
• George: "Correct. But you are drifting free in space now..what's the plan?"

Droids don’t have to breathe & don’t suffer from decompression effects in George’s universe, so the droid aspect in and of itself already grants the exception. This is acknowledged by the table, and the game moves on:

• Ralph: "Well, my droid is 'packed with random gadgets'....I think one of those are boot jets." 
• George: "You've never had boot jets." 
• Ralph: "Yes, I did: I've just never used them." 
• *Ralph then rolls to create an advantage, succeeds with style* 
• Ralph: "Good thing I have my trusty old bootjets! I coast back to the airlock." 
• George: "..."

In both examples above a Fate Point spend wasn't needed to make an exception: the aspects themselves made the exception possible by being true.**

Ralph loves making robot characters, it seems...

The narrative truth of aspects is what makes them so very powerful in Fate. Although all aspects are equal in terms of how they impact the game mechanically, they clearly are not intrinsically equal in terms of the scope of the permissions that they grant, or in terms of opportunity for compels & invocation in play.

This means that when sitting down at the table to play a new game, especially one in a new campaign or campaign scenario everyone should have a clear grasp of what facts each aspect on a character sheet does and does not offer.

This is likely a new topic for discussion, but ultimately the concept of game-balance is really giving each player roughly equal screen time to shine. If one player’s aspects are granting that quite well, and another seems to be constantly struggling with their aspects to make any impact, then it’s likely time to revisit how those aspects or being used or maybe even change them to better suit the game.

Thanks for reading! I hope that this article was of help to anyone trying to grok the use of aspects in Fate. As a bonus, feel free to check out ‘Ralph’s’ character from the example above, R5-D4:

R5-D4 (Google Docs)

* (actually, double-edged sword is not a bad Aspect name in itself!)
** Also, Ralph is a total munchkin. ;-)

Character Highlight: Communism (FAE)

Often the best thing about a movie is its villain, and this applies to role playing games as well. Sometimes you need the perfect, unstoppable, monolithic BBEG to oppose your players. Who better, then, to grind them into submission than an inhuman, unrestrained, oppressive government?

Watch your players quake in fear when they go toe-to-toe against COMMUNISM.

That's one diverse adventuring party!

Aspects

High Concept: The Worker’s Utopia - On Paper

Trouble: Power Corrupts; Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely

Other: “In Worker-Owned State, State Own You!”

Approaches

+3 Forceful

+2 Sneaky, Careful

+1 Clever, Flashy

+0 Quick

Stunts

- Because I am A One Party System, I gain a +2 to Forcefully Attack when dealing with those ideologically opposed to me.

- Because I have Complete Control Over The Media, I gain a +2 to Sneakily Create An Advantage when communicating with someone through the media.

- Because I have a State Run Monopoly On Production, I gain a +2 to Carefully Overcome obstacles when I try to acquire any physical thing.

Refresh: 3

Stress: OOO

Consequences:

Long Bread Lines (2):

Reforms Aren't Working (4):

New And Untested Leadership (6):

Extras

Secret Police, Endless Supply of Poverty-Stricken Workers, Gulag, Checkpoint Charlie

Review: Fate Accelerated Edition (FAE)

GAME INFORMATION
Number of players: 3-6 Age of players: 8+ Length: 2-4 hours
Type of Game: Roleplaying Game Languages Available: English
Game Designers: Clark Valentine, Leonard Balsera, Fred Hicks, Mike Olson, Amanda Valentine.

***

It’s no secret that I love Fate Accelerated Edition (FAE). Looking at my posts on this site, over 90% have been Fate Accelerated builds.

But let’s get this out of the way first: I wasn't particularly enthused about this flavor of Fate when I first viewed it.

It’s not that I didn't and don’t like Fate: I've been a fan since it was FATE (Fantastic Adventures in Tabletop Entertainment). And it wasn't that I didn't like Approaches vs Skills either: I've never been the biggest fan of the Fate ‘Skill Ladder’ to begin with..it’s always felt rather mechanistic to me.

The problem I saw was that things seemed to be missing: where are the Extras from Core? Where are the rules - the sweet, crunchy rules - for exceptional things like magic, mecha, and supers?

Nowhere, seemed to be the answer. So I looked elsewhere for ideas on how to model characters and worlds. FAE seemed to be lacking what I wanted in terms of options, so it stayed as a download in my RPG file, unlooked at and unwanted...for several months.

But then something changed.

I started to regularly play card games again. Card games use simple mechanisms to model fictional realities: look at Magic the Gathering, or Warhammer Invasion, or the classic or most recent Netrunner games.

All of the above games manage to emulate their genre using rather simple rules. Looking at Fantasy Flight’s new Star Wars card game in particular, I was impressed how they made the game feel like Star Wars, both in game play and for individual cards.

Let’s look at everyone’s favorite space-princess with attitude, Princess Leia Organa:

Say what you like, bun-hair Leia's got soul

Since this is a card game, rather than having complex stats the character is represented by a few key icons and game-specific text:

• She has a Force Rating of 3 (those vertical silvery globes). The average is 1. The Force is strong with this one.
• She’s a member of the Rebel Alliance (Vader was right!)
• The black blaster icon is her fighting ability. She only has one; she’s not bad, but that’s not her strong suit.
• She can also help with achieving objectives (explody icon) and she can delay opponents as well (Pokeball icon), but only when the Force is With Her.
• She’s a Leader, and Force Sensitive; no Jedi, but the potential is there.
• Here’s the part I love: although she isn’t very tough (1 damage takes her out) she is automatically captured by the enemy when she leaves play, AND this action reinvigorates allied characters. Fantastic!

In short, the card does a bang-up job of modeling how the character works within the fiction, within the framework of the card game rules.

But what does this all have to do with FAE, you ask?

Fate Accelerated Edition also uses just a few moving parts of express complex characters within their fiction. These components are:

• Aspects: Short but expressive lines of text that describes who the character is and what they do: minimum 2, maximum 5.
• Approaches: There are six available: Careful, Clever, Flashy, Forceful, Quick & Sneaky. These do not express what the character does (this is covered by Aspects), but rather how well they go about what they do using a particular approach (i.e. a Rogue type is going to favor Sneaky, whereas a Warrior will likely flavor Forceful, and the Bard Flashy).
• Stunts: These are exceptional ‘rule-breaking’ abilities that represent that character’s specific strengths in the fiction. If we were to model Princess Leia’s ability to automatically be captured rather than killed when Taken Out, this would be best modeled using a Stunt. 

Let’s look at my favorite sample character from the FAE book, student wizard-in-training Abigail Zhao:

"Harry who?"

Abigail’s game stats would fit very nicely into a card sized format, but they still are enough to model a complete and playable character. Looking at her character sheet we know that:

• Abby is a spellcaster: her ‘Enchantment Specialist’ and ‘Cast now..’ Aspects tell us that much. These grant her permissions to cast spells as an action.
• She can be a tad reckless, and uses her magic as the first resort to solve problems. Her ‘Cast now, Ask Questions Later’ Aspect tells us that.
• She has beef with a certain Dexter Fitzwilliam, and a rivalry with Cyclops House (and we know from her High Concept that she is of Hippogriff House). She also has an ally named Sarah, who looks out for her.
• She tends towards Sneaky, Clever or Forceful solutions to problems, heavily weighted towards Sneaky since this is her highest Approach. 
• Her ‘Teacher’s Favorite’ stunt is powerful, and tells us a lot about how the character works in the fiction of her world; in a school based game the ability to summon a friendly teacher is potentially huge. But it’s limited to once per session, so her player should use it wisely.

Choose your Approach (you see how I come back to the cards idea here?)

So Abby here showed me a system that did exactly what I wanted it to do; model a character using a few simple components, but without leaving me feeling that something has been left out.

With less than 40 pages of content (including sample characters), Fate Accelerated Edition has been accused of being an ‘incomplete’ game. Granted, even the book itself reinforces this idea at times, referring back to Fate Core (the 300+ page main rulebook) for advice on how to expand on the basic system and for additional GM’ing tools.

But rather than being incomplete, I see the system as being ‘complete enough’. I have run a game with it already, and never felt like I was ‘missing’ anything I needed to tell stories at the game table. In fact, gameplay was smooth, fast and fun- as Accelerated as the cover would suggest. And with such a brief volume, it was easy to look up any rule I might have been unclear on.

Admittedly, I can easily see how those more familiar with traditional RPG modeling might have some difficulty groking this system. Where are the character’s stats? There is no Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma, etc. Skills are missing as well; how can I tell what my character can do without skills?

The answer is...you really don’t need that stuff to play your game. Want a strong bruiser? Give them an Aspect like ‘Powerful Barbarian from the North’ and a high Forceful Approach.

Or a wise Scholar of the Order of the Seventh Seal? Give them a high Clever Approach and ‘Scholar of the Order of the Seventh Seal’ and maybe ‘Knows things man was not meant to know’ if you want to add additional flavor. 

The sky's the limit here, and you can play this game however your table prefers.

If you want to play a crunchier Fate game, Fate Core is there waiting for you with just about everything you need. If you want to play FAE with some extra dials and wheels, check out either Fate Core & the newly published Fate System Toolkit for ideas how to add these to your game.

You might note that in this review I've talked very little about the game mechanics of Fate in general. There are a few reasons for this:

• I want you to check out the book. If you are not familiar with Fate already this is a good place to start. And since it’s only $5.00 for the print edition and ‘Pay what you like’ (including nothing) for the PDF, there’s little excuse not to do so. Plus it’s a short read.
• I will be discussing the use of the four actions (Create an Advantage, Overcome, Attack & Defend) in other posts, as well as the use of Aspects in play. Examples of Stunts can be found elsewhere on the site. 

Some additional selling points before I close out:

• If you have ever felt constrained by the rules of game, or have searched to see how a rule might interact with a particular scenario, you might like Fate Accelerated a lot. There are four actions to choose from, but a lot of depth can be bundled into how these actions work out in play.
• It offers tactical options comparable to games like D&D 4e (really! Fate has tons of tactical options) but YOU get to make up the flavor text, not some remote game designer. 
• You can play the game you want to play, and the characters you want to play from the get go. As much fun as ‘building’ characters can be in more traditional ‘crunchy’ RPG’s, the freedom of having table-defined abilities/powers and traits makes this process even more fun, IMHO.
• To the point above, although FAE is a great game for pick-up groups and one-shots, it features the same robust character progression as the Core game. It doesn't quite model zero-to-hero (characters start out heroic by default), you can play hero to demigod without any trouble at all. 

The past ten years have seen Fate develop from a indie ‘no press’ game shared among like-minded gamers looking for alternatives to traditional game systems that emphasize pre-flavored mechanics, to a small-press revolution via Spirit of the Century & the Dresden Files RPG (among others), to the powerhouse in the RPG gaming world it is today.

Fate Accelerated is just yet another flavor of Fate to come along in this revolution, and is currently my favorite flavor yet.

So check it out...you might like it.

Fate Accelerated (Evil Hat)

FAE (Drive Thru RPG)

Fate Core (Drive Thru RPG)

Fate System Toolkit (Drive Thru RPG)

Fate Dice (Evil Hat)

Questions about Fate? The links below might help:

Fate RPG

Fate Core Community (G+)

Fate Accelerated Community (G+) 

[Actual Play Report] Hollowpoint: Agents of SNAKE

The Era: A retro-60s spy-world animated in the style of Evil Genius or Team Fortress 2, populated with countless acronym organizations vying for global domination.

The Mission: A) Discover the identity of the mole within SNAKE! Once an example has been made of this traitorous worm, B) defend the weather control satellite’s launch site from the inevitable assault from the misguided cretins who hold to the utterly unthinkable fallacy that SNAKE should somehow NOT rule the world! Hail SNAKE!

The PCs: The PCs were all lieutenants of SNAKE. They were the Oddjobs and Storm Shadows and Major Bludds. They were the guys who got action figures. We did the traits 5-question style:

1. Your enemies know you’re a level above the run-of-the-mill SNAKEtroopers and Fangs because you _____.
2. At some point in the past, you’ve had the Supreme Serpent at your mercy and didn’t pull the trigger. Why?
3. You’ll never go back to the normal world because when you’re a SNAKE you can ____.
4. Out of all of SNAKE you’re the best at ____. (This is your schtick)
5. You’ll do anything for SNAKE but you won’t ____.

Professor Thoughtwarp 
Everything about the SNAKE psyops specialist is designed to cause TERROR, although his shirtless, pasty, hairy torso, his Bane mask, his purple cape, and too-tight pants tend to be scarier than his torture chambers.

Alabama Blacksnake 

She’s a Foxy Cleopatra type, the Supreme Serpent’s lover, and if she can’t TAKE it by stealth or force she’ll TAKE it via seduction. But she won’t take it in the ass.

Sharpshark
You might look at the crossed katanas on her back, the sleek outfit, and the flowing Charlie’s Angel hair and think “ninja”, but ninjas aren’t as COOL as Sharpshark. She’s so COOL she doesn’t even have a snake-themed name.

Scrapheap
Neither does Scrapheap, really. But what she can’t DIG up, she can make from castoff tank parts and a little elbow grease. She also keeps an offsite storehouse of horrific blackmail. Some of it is even true.

Leadbelly
He’s the SNAKE gun-thug. He doesn’t go in for fancy costumes or trick gadgets, just well-oiled bolts and match-grade ammo. KILL.









Finally, the complications. I passed around index cards with the single question “Are you the mole?” on them and collected them up again. I did explain beforehand that if you decided to be a mole and took action against the mission, your character would Move On and become part of the opposition. I was a little surprised by what I got back, but why spoil the surprise?

Professor Thoughtwarp’s diary entry: “Today I was summoned to the Supreme Serpent’s chambers at the base of our magnificent airship! I calculated a high probability that I was to be rewarded for my exemplary service, possibly elevating me above even the Queen Cobra! Alas! Fickle fate throws its accursed monkeys into my wrenches once again, as it was simply a mundane task laid before myself and my well-meaning but inferior slack-jawed coworkers. ‘Find the mole,’ the Serpent commands, ‘else we cannot sssafely launch our weather control sssatellite and hold the world hossstage!’ Such makework is beneath one such as myself, but I shall do what is asked of me. After all, even I cannot refuse the Supreme Serpent’s genius. Also, we all saw what happened to Copperhead last week. I am certain our illustrious leader has the trapdoors in the glass-bottomed chamber moved periodically.”

The opening conflict was against a 7d6 opposition (the mole, hiding their tracks and trying to plant evidence saying the PCs were moles) with a 3d6 DIG Catch. It went… poorly. The henchmen wiped the floor with the opposition, sending in Alabama Blacksnake to TAKE the SNAKE launch codes from the Snake Archipelago launch site before the mole could get his or her hands on them. However, they failed to solve the Catch, so the mole’s true identity eluded them. They only had 2 people rolling against the Catch, and their dice weren’t with them. They maybe could have spared another player for the Catch, even if it meant they’d have to spread around some 1st-level effects from the opposition.

No problem. If you can’t find a mole, you make a mole.

Alabama Blacksnake’s Facebook: “Got these data tapes burning a hole in my catsuit when Pythonica of all people ambushes me and accuses me of bein’ the mole. I’m the mole? Honey, you just volunteered yo’ damn self.”

For the second conflict (12d6), the group decided to plant one of the data tapes from Snake Archipelago in the quarters of Pythonica, the SNAKE comms expert. Sharpshark seduced Pythonica, which created ample opportunity to plant the tapes and CON the Supreme Serpent into believing Pythonica was the mole. This was a fairly easy win, we saw some teamwork for the first time, and I think the newcomers in the group (3 of the 5 hadn’t played Hollowpoint before) got how the system worked. By using teamwork, they also grokked how refusing teamwork could help later on.

Excerpt from Sharpshark’s best-selling posthumous memoir, ‘Not a Ninja’: “The Pythonica frame-up was a three-way win. First off, there was sex. Secondly, we all got to watch Leadbelly drop her out the bottom of the Quetzalcoatl. Finally, the Supreme Serpent was totally convinced the mole issue was resolved. All I had to do was send a quick message to my SHARK allies and they would be waiting to wipe out SNAKE’s leadership while they were enroute to the launch site. Sure, I knew I’d be attacked too, but come on, you have to make it look good. You don’t get where I am without taking some risks.”

Alabama Blacksnake’s Facebook: “I gotta say, Pythonica’s face right when the trapdoor opened? Classic. Bitch should’ve known better. After that, it’s a quick jaunt to Snake Archipelago to get the launch site ready ahead of the Supreme Serpent. Or it would’ve been, if SHARK hadn’t jumped us (see what I did there?). Say what you like about the Professor, that pasty white boy can fly circles round those Sharknado jets in that Pit Fighter of his.”

A SHARK ambush awaited the team as they all launched their own individual vehicles from the SNAKE zeppelin, heading for Snake Archipelago and the weather control satellite’s launch site. I loved the vehicles the group came up with; they were all perfectly suited for the fictional Hasbro toy line accompanying our game. Professor Thoughtwarp actually took piloting as his schtick, and flew the SNAKE Pit Fighter (like a Warthog/COBRA Rattler). Alabama opted for a jet-powered hang glider (Thoughtwarp commented “that’s called a jet”). Leadbelly chose a fanboat, but I don’t remember what we ended up calling it because his player kept accidentally choosing names that were already COBRA toys. Scrapheap had an amphibious Bond car, the Sea Snake, that she blackmailed the Supreme Serpent into giving to her. Finally, Sharpshark rode the Eel jetski.

I picked on Alabama Blacksnake right out of the gate since she didn’t roll many sets, but the Professor had her back, absorbing my sets’ hits on his own dice. I whittled down Sharksharp’s attempts to katana the SHARK Hammerhead subs, but never landed any effects on the players. With five players, it’s really easy to spread any incoming hits around. I took (I think) a first-stage DIG and a first-stage COOL effect by the end of the first round. Sharpshark jumped her Eel jetski off a wave and crashed into a Hammerhead’s cockpit, laying waste with her twin swords (and secretly grabbing a mission update from her SHARKy masters) before leaping onto a SHARKfin jetski and driving off. Scrapheap used the confusion to slide her carboat right up next to the damaged Hammerhead, climb aboard, and interrogate the surviving SHARK crew. She discovered that Sharpshark was a mole, but chose to keep that information to herself for the time being. In the second round, my dice weren’t with me at all and my sets were easily trounced by the players. Professor Thoughtwarp burned his piloting schtick and blew eleven kinds of shit out of the remaining Sharknado fighters. Leadbelly left his fanboat’s cockpit, choosing instead to stand on the bow and empty an assortment of rocket launchers into the SHARK watercraft. The SHARK forces were routed and the SNAKEs arrived safely at the cobra-shaped head island of Snake Archipelago.

Scrapheap’s encrypted personal notes: “Sharpshark still working for SHARK. Obvious in hindsight, given her callsign. Plans unchanged. Secret duplicate command center is prepared; I just need the rotating encryption key from launch site’s CIC. Once weather control satellite is under my control, can unite with Queen Cobra. Supreme Serpent unfit for leadership, but SNAKE as a whole salvageable. Was trying on different names - ‘DRAGON’ sounds best so far. Will invent suitable backronym when time allows.”

Professor Thoughtwarp’s diary entry: “With pomp befitting a true conqueror, our Supreme Serpent exited the Quetzalcoatl, flanked by Queen Cobra and the Pharaoh. I gave my hissing salute its all, as did the frankly terrified SNAKEtroopers around me. The rocket was fueled and its gantry stood ready to rise skyward on its massive hydraulics. The island would unhinge its jaws and show the world its venomous fangs soon enough! We allowed ourselves this moment of glory, unwitting dupes that we were. Let it be known here that my loyalty never wavered, even as it all nearly came crashing down around us! SNAKE was and is the only home I have ever known! The only place where my true genius reigns unfettered by lesser mens’ fear! Morality? Ethics? Preposterous! Scientific progress has no room for the timid!”

Leadbelly’s war journal: “Simon Crown, SABRE’s top agent, sabotaged the gantry hydraulics. SHARK came in from the bay and Sharpshark joined them. PATRIOT attacked the island as well, but I never got a chance to get them the launch schedule. Conclusion: there is another PATRIOT mole within SNAKE. I’m going down there now - I’ll have to choose my shots carefully.”

This conflict involved a Principal, the smarmy yet dashing tuxedoed super-agent Simon Crown. I think I miscounted the conflicts thus far and counted an extra escalation for the initial “find the mole” conflict, because I had 18 dice here, plus 2 for the Principal. Of those 20d6, 3 went into a DIG Catch to figure out what Crown had done to the gantry hydraulics and fix it. If the Catch wasn’t satisfied, the rocket would launch before the gantry was in position and Snake Archipelago would be missing one of its islands.




Alabama lent her dice to Leadbelly, who went for Simon Crown’s throat with KILL. Professor Thoughtwarp and Scrapheap refused help to get access to the sweet, sweet teamwork pool - they were focusing on the DIG catch and didn’t want a repeat of their first conflict. Sharpshark went after the opposition, rolling COOL to lead her SHARK forces against the PATRIOT soldiers. This was skirting the edge of “traitor”, but as long as there was a third party to fight I let Sharpshark stay a PC.

In the meantime, Leadbelly’s bucket of dice overcame Simon Crown’s miserable sets. The two men struggled on the catwalks above the rocket. Coolant burst from overtaxed tanks, and Leadbelly pinned Crown to the floor and let the supercooled fluid wash over the Brit’s face. With a “This London bridge is falling down”, Leadbelly stomped the flash-frozen catwalk and dumped Simon Crown to his death beneath the rocket gantry.

Thoughtwarp and Scrapheap did manage to beat the Catch, and the weather control rocket began its slow elevation to firing position. Sharpshark’s efforts were stymied, however, since I knew her hits would be coming in on the general opposition and tried to knock out her sets before that happened.

The second round got weird. Sharpshark and Scrapheap both said they wanted to TAKE control of the rocket now - Sharpshark by leading her SHARK’s Teeth (the elite troopers) to the command center and Scrapheap by making off with the encryption key to send commands to the satellite. This part wasn’t too problematic, because I figured with PATRIOT still on the scene, there was a third party who could provide opposition to everyone. I gave Sharpshark and Scrapheap their own 3-dice TAKE Catch for the second round instead. If they could beat the Catch before the PATRIOT opposition was defeated, then they would have used the chaos to successfully get what they wanted.

Then, as they say on Thomas the Tank Engine, there was trouble. Everyone else went after the opposition, coordinating their skills so any hit would be a second-stage effect. The problem was, Alabama Blacksnake chose her actions thinking that she could use her sets to knock out Sharpshark or Scrapheap’s sets. She wanted to defend the Catch, but it wasn’t made clear until after the dice hit and the Catch was beaten soundly. We got past it, but just let my experience be a warning: Tread very carefully when one player’s plans start to interfere with another player. We were asking for it, with all the talk of moles and such, and I thought that the time to Move On would be a lot clearer than it was, but in play it was very muddy. What muddied it further was that both turncoats beat the Catch with the exact same set. There was no timing difference for me to use as a gauge to who actually got control of the rocket! I thought about it some, and decided that technically, both moles could get what they wanted. Sharpshark took control of the command center, but Scrapheap made off with the encryption key (thus rendering the command center useless).

Alabama Blacksnake’s Facebook: “Everyone here is a fuckin’ traitor. Me too, but I ain’t dumb enough to blow my cover. Oooh! Just saw that fine PATRIOT sailor-boy with his laser parrot walk past, shootin’ up the place. He’ll look nice tied up in my room. Gotta go!”

We paused here so Scrapheap and Sharksharp could Move On. They were definitely traitors now. Their players made up two Operatives: Slytherin, who was definitely NOT a SNAKE wizard, and Hellsnaki, a Finnish sniper. They’d be coming in immediately, since we would be going straight into a 20d6 conflict that would decide the fate of the world!

Leadbelly’s war journal: “I swore after Prague that I wouldn’t lose control like that ever again. Today, I broke that promise. I remember running out of ammo. I remember having a SHARK speargun in one hand and a PATRIOT M4 in the other, but everything went red after that. When I figured out where I was, the speargun was still in my hands but I hadn’t even fired it. Blood to my elbows. I know nobody got out alive - people don’t show their backs to Hellsnaki and live.”

After I explained how the Operative’s special ability worked, Hellsnaki immediately asked Slytherin for help and was refused. This got Slytherin 4 bonus dice (2 from Hellsnaki and 2 from his special ability), then Hellsnaki took the remaining 8 teamwork dice. I thought I was hot shit, rolling 20 dice, but a 6x1 and a 5x4 ate up so many dice that the bad guys were utterly crushed. Hellsnaki shot Scrapheap as she ran for the escape tunnels and the would-be DRAGON lady slumped to the deck, the encryption key still clutched in her hands. Alabama Blacksnake and Slytherin TOOK the command center while Leadbelly went berserk on the SHARK’s Teeth. More specifically, Alabama TOOK a grenade pin from Sharpshark’s bandolier without her noticing. Not to be outdone by Leadbelly’s rampage, Professor Thoughtwarp injected himself with quantum steroids, hulked out, and went Bane on the surviving PATRIOT forces. They dealt a second-level KILL result to the opposition, so truly nobody made it out alive.

SNAKE’s weather control satellite held the world hostage and ushered in a golden age of corruption and tyranny! That is, except for the two moles who were still lurking within SNAKE, biding their time…

We all had a great time. As it turns out, everyone but Professor Thoughtwarp chose to be a mole! If it had been unanimous, I would’ve changed the enemy to SNAKE itself and had the PCs all be part of one large undercover operation. If nobody had been a mole, I would’ve had the Supreme Serpent himself be a traitor. Except for the snafu with Alabama Blacksnake trying to defend the Catch against Sharpshark and Scrapheap, I thought the mole thing added a nice flavor. Nobody really obsessed over it and they all still worked as a team for the most part, but there was that background paranoia going on which I think helps if you’re playing as knockoff COBRA henchmen. The whole thing took about 4 hours from setup to completion. Afterwards, everyone was talking about how you could “totally do X in Hollowpoint”. I think if/when we run it again, they’re gonna want Transformers. The way Hollowpoint works, it bypasses so many mechanical hangups with playing giant transforming robots.

Hollowpoint is a ridiculously awesome game for playing one-session action movies. It's fast, there's a lot of player input, and you only need to deal with as much detail as you want. There's a little bit of system mastery to it, as the tricks to the mechanics aren't immediately transparent, but the manual actually goes over these points, and it's quick to pick up. Plus, the character sheets are toe tags. 

There's a Hollowpoint G+ community - check it out if you want to learn more about the game, find a group, or play in a Hangout.

Plug And Play: Maps For The Lazy

I used to spend so much time as a kid with my graph paper and pencil, crafting elaborate dungeons for my players to explore. Even when I was not running a game, I was at it, drawing in secret doors, statues, pit traps and the like. Half the fun was painting yourself into a corner and trying to, to use a writing analogy, let the character figure his way out. Why is does the dungeon transition from being carved out into a natural cave feature? How could you use the underground river to get around the bugbear lair? Why didn't Gygax make a map icon for the toilet?

I tended to put curtains all over my dungeons. No idea why.

Creating this environment for pcs to explore was always at least as much fun as actually letting them explore it.

As many of you probably agree, creating gaming maps is, to a large degree, a kind of art-form; there's a reason Christopher West gets paid to do it and not me!

Now that I'm older, not only do I not have the time to play as many games as I'd like, but the prep time available to me to prepare for my own game is limited as well. This annoying logistical complication is undoubtedly one of the reasons why the lot of us here at Station53 espouse such a player-driven narrative, since it has the bonus effect of eliminating much of that much of that preparation. That being said, even with an pseudo-abstract, non-tactical system such as Edge of the Empire, I still need maps to keep everything straight in my brain. Fortunately, the Gods have provided us with the internet.

Google Image Search is a powerhouse for locating good maps. A search string consisting of "[game system] map layout" works wonders. For my Star Wars game, I need something a bit more modern than most of the gaming maps you find online, and modifying that search string with [Modern Warfare], [Halo], [Black Ops], or any multi-player FPS brings up a great deal of usable maps. Though I don't play The Old Republic*, Torhead has all the game-maps on their site, which is quite useful for porting into your game.

I've a game coming up tomorrow, and needed a few maps, but none of the usual suspects were doing the trick. Fortunately though, I discovered Dave's Mapper! This site is a collection of artists who contribute modular tiles you can cycle through to build just the map you want - perfect! Best of all, its free! Here's a few random examples below. As you can see, the image is generated by combining a set amount of predefined tiles (in this case, 3x3), and their site allows you to cycle through each tile location to find the one that works:

I generated this at random, so lets see what we can do with it. This looks like a well-used mine. The dwarves in the mountains have been taking ore from this vein for centuries, and have slowly upgraded the access to that vein as the go. This is represented by the fact that the 'dungeon' portions all enclose the rough natural passages in the center. Once that ore runs out and all of those passages are sculpted, it will make a fine lair for a lich. Over on the left side we have a few passageways that go under/over each other; might this be designed to allow for mining carts to move through different levels? The shaft in the top left corner is how the miners go from the surface to this area. To the right of that (top-center) is where the miners sleep, eat, fight, and drink while not on duty. The tile in the top-right corner is interesting; might that be a well they draw their water from? A temple to Dumathoin? Perhaps they stumbled onto something Dwarves Were Not Meant To Know in that chamber, and it wiped them all out.

Here's another, from spaceship tile-set. I generated it randomly, then made a few changes. Below is the Procrastinator-Class System Patrol Craft:

Affluent systems use a ship like this to patrol the hyperlanes for pirates, with a drop ship for any surface excursions needed. To port lies cargo storage and extravehicular access via an airlock; engineering and crew quarters to starboard. Two turbolaser batteries flank the bridge to blast those filthy pirates into elementary particles. Behind the bridge lies the captain's office as well as a multimedia room that can be used to brief the crew before a sortie or watch old Buck Rogers serials. To the right of that room are two heads. Our esteemed ship designer added a personal touch and placed two rooms stern with large view-ports for relaxation.

I think I'll be using this site frequently going forward.

Here's a few other links to mapping sites I find helpful for my Star Wars game:

http://www.cartographersguild.com/finished-maps/
http://www.colonialchrome.co.uk/Pages/Root_1_A_Starships.html
http://www.tomshut.de/rpg/deckplans.html
http://www.mapsofmastery.com/
http://starwarsmaps.blogspot.com/
http://www.d20radio.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=5755&sid=52804a8fc5a856852b550a81840e808b



*general Star Wars rant coming soon...