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Aptitude Approaches rather than Skills

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Fri, 2015-01-16 18:51

atamajakki atamajakki's picture

Aptitude Approaches rather than Skills

FATE Accelerated uses a list of six 'Approaches' that are broadly applicable (Sneaky, Forceful, Clever, etc) rather than the large Skills list of FATE Core. Given that a common complaint with Eclipse Phase is the massive skill list, it might be worth considering using the Aptitudes (Cognition, Somatics, Willpower) instead of a complex skill list. I'm a big advocate for letting Transhuman Fate be as simple as possible; if you want complexity, play the core game instead. Thoughts?

Tue, 2015-01-20 19:51

bblonski

I don't see why not. Fate is

I don't see why not. Fate is pretty hackable that way. They do essentially the same thing for Fate Freeport with the D&D stats. Aptitudes map pretty easily on approaches so Som -> Forceful, Cog -> Clever, Ref -> Quick, Sav -> Flashy, Int -> Careful, Coo -> ...Sneaky? Okay, maybe not so directly, but pretty close. You might have to drop or change a few aptitudes to make it work. Personally I prefer a longer skill list. Cutting it down so much makes the game very pulpy, and I would like to retain a little bit of grittiness and horror. I also haven't had any players complain about too many skills or not remembering the appropriate skill to use in Fate, which was a problem for us in EP Core. I could see using it for one-shots, but I like a little bit more on the sheet for campaign play.

Sat, 2015-01-31 03:49

Aldrich

I adore FAE, but I think that

I adore FAE, but I think that having a full skill tree is important to capturing the essence of Eclipse Phase. Approaches (as written in the FAE rulebook) work best when the PCs have largely the same capabilities and are distinguished mostly by style - I don't think this is the case in Eclipse Phase. That said, if you wanted to try hacking in FAE, there are a lot of resources on different ways to do that. My personal favorite is the "Approaches and Abilities" variant discussed here: https://tabletopexplorer.wordpress.com/2013/11/17/playtest-version-of-ap... Just remember that approaches are basically just really broad skills, so if you're creating your own "approaches", you need to consider how all of the "regular" skills will be contained within the set of approaches you end up with (you have to cover all possible actions).

Fri, 2015-09-11 14:54

Firkraag

Proffesions

I'm a big fan of Professions. It's something in the middle between skills and approaches. You can do it, as supercondensed skills or as thematically-flavoured approaches (I call this variant - Archetypes). For instance these Professions (What you do): [table] [tr] [td]Erudite[/td] [td] - to research, conclude and appeal to knowledge[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Gearhead[/td] [td] - to use, repair and build tech[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Militant[/td] [td] - to confront in physical conflict and being combat-savvy[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Olympian[/td] [td] - to bypass obstacles, react and being tough[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Socialite[/td] [td] - to socialize and being persuasive[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Spook[/td] [td] - to infiltrate and being discreet[/td] [/tr] [/table] But it's really just a 5-min conversion. Here's archetypes (How you do): [table] [tr] [td]Arcadian[/td] [td] - Authorities/Hypercorps/Economics[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Athenian[/td] [td] - Academic/Clearance/X-Risks[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Elysian[/td] [td] - Society/Media/Reputation[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Fringer[/td] [td] - Underworld/Scum/Discretion[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Olympian[/td] [td] - Sports/Endurance/Speed [/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Sentinel[/td] [td] - Enforcement/Warfare/Exploration[/td] [/tr] [/table]

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Wed, 2015-09-16 09:10

doublethink doublethink's picture

Aldrich wrote:

Aldrich wrote:
Just remember that approaches are basically just really broad skills, so if you're creating your own "approaches", you need to consider how all of the "regular" skills will be contained within the set of approaches you end up with (you have to cover all possible actions).

Q) Did you mean "Abilities" are broad skills? Thanks for that link to Approaches+Abilities - strongly reminds me of ORE game engine games (Dirty World). This looks like a good read too: http://www.killershrike.com/Fate/Fae/Pathfinder/Menu.aspx