In reply to Alyse (msg # 9):



Oh, now THAT has some interesting possibilities. Pattern and Logrus attunement as extras. Probably Shadow Walking, too. Shadow Aspects, different versions of Sorcery. . . There would be some things to figure out. Certainly worth a bit of time pondering.

What is amber?

I tried a FAE Amber game and it didn't really work for me. I'm just too used to running Amber diceless that having a system, even FAE, got in my way.

But I do want to give it a shot again someday. But I suspect I will go with Fate Core rather than FAE.

In reply to Merevel (msg # 13):

Amber is the creation of Roger Zelazny. There is only one real world, called Amber. All other worlds are reflections of that one true place. The royal family of Amber refers to them as Shadows, and have the power to walk among them and exert a degree of control over them. They gain this power by walking the Pattern, located in the basement of Castle Amber. Only a member of the royal family can survive the attempt, and once you start walking, you cannot stop or leave. To do either is to die.

The royal family of Amber is a web of vendettas, mistrust and conspiracy. Everyone has their own agenda and the power to move it forward. They are all superhuman to a degree, stronger, tougher and more resilient than any human being. Out among the Shadows they can build whatever power base they like, raise armies, form kingdoms, become gods to the peoples living there. They can lead their troops through Shadow if they wish.

Kinda makes me want to play Final Fantasy Legend.

One of my biggest wishes is to run a crazy Planescape/Spelljammer game.
I tried it once using D&D but it didn't work out.
Nowadays I'm kinda sick of that system but still like the idea so I've gotten it into my head to use FATE for it.
Especially since the philosophical nature of Planescape lends itself better to the idea of, say, aspects, than it does classes and such in D&D.

I'm a little fuzzy on the particulars of both of those settings. What makes Planescape so Planescapey, and Spelljammer so Spelljammy? I've always had the vague impression Spelljammer was literally D&D in space, with magic powered starships. That's all I've gotten so far between the two settings.

That being said, what in particular are you envisioning with Fate? I've spent the last few days looking more deeply at the System Toolkit's magic ideas, and am in deep system hacking mode. :D

On a different note, in the great circle of RPOL life, I've lost a game I was playing in, and as been the case recently, I'm thinking of replacing it with a game that I will GM. I'm leaning very heavily toward Jadepunk: Tales from Kausao City using it's Vigilance Committee adventure series.

I would ask that the players have a copy of the rules.

Any interest?
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:50, Fri 15 Aug 2014.

I have the rules but have yet to read them.

Sounds interesting, but I am juggling a lot.

Do you have a certain posting rate in mind?

Something like 3-5 a week, not particularly fast. I could go slower, or maybe a bit faster if that works for those interested.

I've been looking for a reason to pick up another Fate build...

Jadepunk takes more cues from Fate Accelerated than Fate Core, so if you like Fate Accelerated you'll probably be a fan. I really like that the setting does a great job of keeping the 'punk' ideology a core part of the game. Most X-punk games generally focus on an aesthetic, and forget the other bits.

Busy weekend, but will try to find the time to download and peek at today.

So no promises just yet, but I'm considering running a new Fate game. Would be smallish (3-5 players) and not terribly intense in terms of posting rate. Thinking low-fantasy, an old setting of mine that I think the current version of Fate can breath some new life into. (Originally used Fate 2.0 for it.)

So when I say low fantasy, I mean it -- think more medieval fantasy, more akin to Game of Thrones. No abundance of non-human races (including no elves or dwarves), magic is rare / feared / outlawed, monsters are rare. Think pretty grim and gritty. Combat is deadly, and a man in armor with a sword is a force to be reckoned with if you're unarmed. I can spill more -- and we can develop more together -- if there's any interest.

Alternatively, I might go a *little* more traditional with the D&D style tropes, but it would still lean toward low rather than high fantasy. For rules, I'm thinking of tweaking the Fate Freeport ruleset...

Interest expressed!

I'd be down as well.

Cool. I'll wait to see a couple of more interested parties, then will pitch the specific ideas (there are two of them) to see what people think.

I would, but I already have... 11 characters and 1 of them will be a challenge, well if I try to hold par with the other players in the game at least.

In reply to Harrigan (msg # 28):

I'd be interested.

You know I LOVED that setting, Harr. I'm in.

(What was it called? Umbria, Cumbria?)

I might definitely be interested.

Now I'm pondering a Midnight to FATE/FAE port ... loved that setting.

Midnight is like LotR with the twist of the bigbad won!

Also down for that! Currently running a Midnight game using D&D 3.5, but I have been thinking Fate would do a great job of it, too. The way it potentially cooks in a character's motivations to resist the Shadow and their bonds to other PCs suits the Fellowship-y feeling it could/should have nicely.

Would you implement Heroic Paths as Aspects, as excuses for supernatural Stunts, or something else?

Probably similar to magic in Fate Freeport ... seems a solid enough mechanic.

Mmmm. Midnight good.

Looks like enough interest from folks to proceed to serious brainstorming. If no one minds, it's probably easiest to do that here. If folks would rather we don't junk up this thread, I can create a separate thread for just those interested.

So, opinions on initial direction here? I'm of two minds.

OPTION ONE

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I roll out my old medieval fantasy background that's very western Europe flavored -- Cambrae, I think I'd called it, Dirigible. The basics:

-There are three main countries occupying a small-to-medium sized continent. Here's the Western Europe theme -- think rich farmlands, wooded valleys, misty vales, rugged mountains, dense forests and the like. Cities are few and far between, towns and villages are much more common. Cities are walled affairs, though in many cases they sprawl well beyond their walls in terms of markets and the lower classes.

-There is a serious class system in place. Again -- medieval. The lords own the lands, the serfs have the right to work it. There's a burgeoning merchant class, but the wealth and power is still firmly in the hands of the nobility -- and the church.

-Ah, the church. Drawing inspiration from Game of Thrones (and, in fact the way Christianity spread), there's a schism between the 'old ways' and the new. Old ways = a large pantheon of gods, all with relatively small spheres of influence. (Battle, the sea, healing, fertility, revenge, etc.) Then there's the Church of Aon -- the one true god. It's been a hundred years or more since Aon's religion swept the land, and virtually all civilized folk are now members of his church. Thing is, each of the three main countries (names are subject to change, as I've never settled on anything I like, but something along the lines of Roan, Merlais and Brynder) views the Aon religion (and life) quite differently. This has been the source of much conflict.

-I liken Merlais to Louis XIV France. Think opulence. Extravagance in the extreme by the nobility, and a badly downtrodden populace. Incredible culture abounds (music, plays, books), but the golden apple is rotten at the core. Knights gild and paint their wives, their homes and their armor -- the culture is all about opulence, about showing your neighbors what you can afford. The church is extremely powerful, and suffers from the same love of wealth and  excess. Think idolatry, collecting from the masses so the priests can wear robes of woven gold, etc. Magic is tightly controlled by the church.

-Brynder is at the other end of the spectrum. It is still a society of haves and have-nots, but they have rejected the excesses of the Merlaisians and build their entire nation on the foundation that one needs to be humble, unpretentious, indeed, even meek to be close to Aon. Over time, backed by humble but solemn, ruthless monks from the church, the Brynder people have been ground under foot by these notions. It has been a joyless society, where inebriation, dancing, singing and all other forms of outward joy are considered ungodly. Think Cromwellian England. The brute squads roving the lands, looking for sinners. Magic is one of the gravest of sins, and its use is punishable by death. Think witch hunts, and not the Salem kind -- the real

-Roan is, naturally, somewhere between the two. A nation where the merchant / middle class is on the rise, it is more tolerant of a wider range of behaviors than Brynder, but lacking in the appalling hubris that characterizes so much of Merlais. These guys are the moderates, the sane voice in the room. The church is still present here, but -far- less powerful than in the other two countries. Geographically, it stands in part between its neighbors -- meaning it is often forced to be involved in their frequent wars. Magic is carefully controlled by powerful and secretive guild.

-To the north are the wild lands (they need a name). There are rumors of graul (orcs), ogres, giants, dragons and worse -- but day to day, no one sees or experiences these things. They are largely thought of as fairy tales intended to scare childten.

-From the north west, across the sea, come Viking-like raiders, Stormlanders. They pillage and loot the poorer provinces of Brynder, and are among the fiercest warriors in the land. (These are my barbarians.) Magic is more druidic / shaman-based, and these boys and girls don't follow Aon. One of these days, Brynder, Roan and Merlais might just team up and send a fleet to wipe out these heathens once and for all.

-To the south, across the sea, is a blazing desert, but one rich in culture, and... er, riches. Saladan -- an ancient kingdom of sorcerer-kings who once ruled the land, but who, legend has it, got too big for their britches and lost control of their demon servants. Think stereotypical Arabia in terms of culture -- minaret-rich cities, thieves in the night, assassins, black magic, alchemy, necromancers, fabulously wealthy merchants, exotic poisons, sultans, slaves, harems, war galleys and all the rest. They are a broken, ruined nation now, but power still lurks here, biding its time. They do not follow Aon, and there have been multiple crusades over the decades to try and wipe out convert these folks.

Anyway. That's more than enough to give a flavoring. Unfortunately, most of this is in my head, but I'll get more of it formalized if there's interest. I've been wanting to run a game about a witch (magic user) and his or her friends on the run, about someone hunted by the Brynder brute squads, about -- well, any of the hooks you see up there.

Please note that I -know- some of that stuff is borderline offensive in terms of being stereotypical. It's purposeful -- in that I find it allows new players to relate to the setting immediately, to "get" what it's about. I do the same thing with my supers background, and it's seemed to work very well over the years at its intended purpose -- getting everyone on the same page in terms of tone, reality levels, etc.

OPTION TWO

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Oooooor... we can scrap all that and I'll consider running something more dungeon-delvy, complete with elves and dwarves and gelatinous cubes and giant rats and spiked pit traps and rooms full of treasure and twenty floor wizard towers that get harder as you go and such.

Ja? Ja.

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Please forgive typos. Blasted this out stream-of-consciousness style pretty quickly.
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:34, Fri 22 Aug 2014.