Aug 192011
We’ve made some new additions to our Resources page tonight, featuring some of the material, scrubbed and genericized, from the Dresden Files RPG:
A few important things to make note of:
This is not all the stuff we’re putting into open content. It’s all the stuff we’re putting into it right now, but we do have our eye on Character Creation and maybe a few other bits. That said, there may be a number of sections that we could put into open content that we won’t be because we’re hoping that Fate Core will come to market, with its fully open content, fast enough that the effort would be redundant.
We’re not providing the Skills chapter, and we’re not providing the example stunts. To be frank, coming up with your own skill list and stunts should be something you create as part of your particular implementation of Fate. If you want to just “drag and drop” a skill and stunt list whole cloth into your product, the open materials from Spirit of the Century, also on the Resources page, should serve you fine. Some may look at this as an indication that the skills and stunts shown in the Dresden Files RPG are somehow off-limits now, but that’s bunk; you can create “clones” that are identical in function but don’t directly borrow our skills & stunts text and it’d be all fine.
Regardless, this does mean that there’s now a generally available advancement scheme for Fate, our newer guidelines for creating stunts are open, our current view on how to explain aspects is open, and you’ve got access to the juicy meat of city creation as well to use as an engine for setting development in your own games.
Have at!
26 Responses to “Some New Additions to Fate’s Open Content”
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Hooray!
Hooray here as well. I just wish I’d had this back in, like, February or March when I was still writing FATE Kerberos!
Mike, seems like you did just fine without it. 🙂
Very nice, Fred!
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Can’t wait for the Core.
I’m just wondering…would it make more sense to turn “City Creation” into “Setting Creation”? Kind of scale it out, I mean.
Sure! Have at.
So, is the intention here that, in the final FATE Core book (I’m assuming there will be a book), there will be no formal lists of skills, their trappings, nor stunts? Does this mean that FATE Core is going to be more like FUDGE’s “system to build a game” approach?
I ask because this disappoints me a bit, honestly.
Should I assume there will be some guidance as to what, at minimum, one should have in their implementation’s skill list?
Well Buzz, I’m looking at the “Skills and Stunts” chapter draft that Lenny’s currently working on and I see a list of 15 skills (shorter than our usual, but still a reliable core that folks can expand from), so I think you’ll be set. Also keep in mind what we did in Fate 2, with the skill list construction tables — folks can always access that as well if they’re looking for guidance.
One of Fate’s differentiators from baseline Fudge has always been “here’s one or more pre-built configs that we recommend”. That differentiation will persist in Fate Core.
Small correction: 18 skills.
@buzz: The way I’m working the draft right now is that I want Core to work out of the box as a build of Fate, and I want to give people options for customization.
So, throughout the book, I’m making “default” decisions about things, and telling you to do it a certain way. Then, in some instances, I’m peeling back the curtain a touch and giving some wiggle room.
So yes, there’s a default skill list, and there’s a certain amount of aspects and skill points and refresh and all that noise, that you get at character creation. That way, if you don’t want to tweak it, and just want to pick it up and go, you can.
As for how much wiggle room there’s going to be, I can’t say for now. I’m shooting for something that feels instinctively right without causing decision paralysis – listing out every single way one might customize a Fate build is asking for a self-propelled trip over the proverbial falls.
@Fred and @Lenny, that’s exactly what I wanted to hear! Thank you.
I’m loving what I’m hearing so far. Have fallen for FATE over the last year, and can see how it can be tweaked for other setting. This will make it all the easier – my new go to system.
I’m just wondering…would it make more sense to turn “City Creation” into “Setting Creation”? Kind of scale it out, I mean.
It totally does. But the Dresden OGL project wasn’t about making new text & duplicating effort. You’ll see us doing Setting Creation in Fate Core. But since the text is OGL, you can run with it too!
– Ryan
I like the way skills are presented in Bulldogs! Are you considering this structure also for FATE Core?
– Björn
Bjorn, our first reaction to Bulldogs was “We need to steal this skills thing.”
So. 🙂
I’ve been looking forward to this, I know better than to ask for a “when.” 🙂
Please, please have a table of contents and a single unified index! And spiffy reference bookmarks for pre-orders. Best GM aid ever.
I’m sure it will be sizeable – are you thinking of splitting it into two books, one for characters, one for GMs, like in Dresden, or will it be a single book?
David, we’re actually trying to make this as lean as possible. Right now it’s a single book. But we’ll know for sure when Lenny’s done and we look at how to fit the wordcount into our intended format.
Any chance of the “Playing the Game” chapter getting OGL’ed? Or is there not enough new material there to warrant the effort before releasing Fate 3 Core?
I don’t think we have plans for PTG right now, for the reasons you cite.
I’ve just been catching up on the comments and suggestions here.
Lean is good! I definitely prefer the slim one-book format, at least for a core system without any extra setting details.
As one poster suggested, I too think that the city creation system in The Dresden Files RPG has massive potential for expansion into ‘setting creation’.
In fact, this is something I’m working on at the moment, but I’d be very interested to see an official take on it. 🙂
When I was reading the Stunts chapter I found the following sentence:
“Reduce the difficulties faced by a skill under a particular ‘sub-set’ of circumstances by two.”
Can anyone please explain this to me?
Sure:
Suppose you’ve got an implementation where there’s a Stealth skill, and the difficulty to sneak into a restricted area is Great.
You might have a stunt that uses the above method to reduce that difficulty from Great (+4) to Fair (+2), if the circumstances under which the stunt works apply (like: “When you’re sneaking into an area that is remotely monitored, you’re adept at finding the surveillance system’s blind spots. Reduce the difficulty to sneak into that area by up to two, depending on how much of a factor the surveillance system is.”)
But, as one of the prime ideas in fate is to, if possible, make additions instead of subtractions whenever possible, would it not be better if I got a +2 boost to my Stealth skill during that roll instead of the difficulty being nerfed with a -2?
Absolutely; it’s not a best-case implementation thang. But the idea is more that the bonus (or difficulty reduction) that you get is limited by how big of a factor the component-of-difficulty that the stunt is operating on is. You can flip the logic to make it a +2, but the point is that occasionally it might, due to conditions, be only a +1. You get a +1 in the low light, +2 in bright light, or whatever, because your stunt operates on how big of a factor the lighting in the area is. Ultimately this seemed like it made more sense to phrase it in terms of the difficulty, even though that breaks the usual mode.
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