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What do you want from EP Fate

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Mon, 2013-10-21 18:45

bblonski

What do you want from EP Fate

Some of the existing Fate products already show how small tweaks can change the feel of Fate. What would you like to see unique to EP's flavor of Fate? What have other Fate games done well? What have other games done that you didn't like? I'll start.

Hacking subsystem. I think that EP's hacking system is fairly solid and would like to see a similar subsystem in EP Fate. I've played with this a bit myself and it seems fairly straightforward to port over. You can either use a map to represent the various security privileges and intruder status with alerts being aspects, or you could model it as combat with mesh stress tracks and consequences as intruder status. I might post my thoughts on this at some point.
Morphs purely as stunts and aspects. Personally I'm not a fan of the approach in Strands of Fate and some fan EP Fate conversions that model morphs as a set of aptitudes stats that must be combined with skills. I think aptitudes work better as aspects and maybe a skill bonus or stunt. For example a bouncer morph might get a +1 to Freefall to represent their adaption to zeroG while the aspect "bouncer morph" can be invoked on rolls where coordination or flexibility are involved. No need to introduce a coordination stat.
Ego, Morph, Gear, Psi scopes. I think the aspect scopes in Diaspora are a good idea and a good way to help differentiate between ego and morph.
Sanity system. I haven't seen Fate really tackle slow sanity loss yet. I'd be interested to see what EP Fate can come up with. I imagine it will involve stress tracks and consequences. Honestly slowing down how often the composure stress track clears is probably enough. I imagine EP Fate will want to slow down stress track and consequence recovery, or base it on actual time passage instead of by scene. I'd also like to see a mechanic where using psi sleights cause sanity stress.
Investigation Subsystem. This one would be harder to pull off, but I think it'd be pretty slick to have some sort of investigation subsystem like TechNoir's plot map or Diaspora's social combat. Slowly linking together events and places on an actual map while unraveling a transhuman conspiracy seems like it would be really cool.

Thu, 2013-10-24 13:12

rhat

Transhuman Scifi with Teeth

I'll be honest, and say that the other attempts I saw at making Transhuman Scifi RPG's (whose names I won't mention) were ultimately unsatisfying. While they painted the word "TRANSHUMAN" on the side of the setting and mechanics, they really didn't deliver anything that kept the feeling of being something more than human. Often, all of the cool writing I had come to expect in good scifi got compressed into pithy "add +2 to some roll" mechanics rather than adding fundamentally different capabilities. For example, in EP you can fundamentally exist on a different level from other things in ways that don't come down to a +/- on a roll (mental speed, cyberbrains, enhanced senses, gills, any number of ways to fly). Those things are interesting because of how they change you, not what they do to dice. I would guess that Fate Core would have such things be either Aspects or Stunts, but I don't really like the idea of losing refresh for "wearing different equipment". Similarly, the other Fate-based Transhuman Scifi games I can think of always seemed to leave out the really interesting parts of their setting from the mechanics. "How" and "Why" should matter in scifi.

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Wed, 2013-10-30 20:48

bblonski

I think EPs strong suite is

I think EPs strong suite is it's writing and exploration of Transhuman ideas. I think they did a really good job with the setting and exploring the diversity of all the different factions and how technology affects them. It's true that Fate can boil down into a lot of "I get +2 on this roll", but I think that when Fate core clarified that aspects are always true, it really opened things up. Having an aspect saying you are an infomorph or space whale really changes what actions are available to your character on a fundamental level. Equipment will be very interesting. I imagine there will be some sort of formal equipment so characters can purchase gear without having to give up refresh. Morphs might be another matter though. I kinda like the idea that more powerful morphs reduce refresh. It helps keep Jovian characters relevant. Honestly I think they could do some cool things with morph brokerage. I like the idea that the GM gets to determine some aspects on your morph depending on how well you roll. Each shift scored allows the player to define one of the aspects, and all remaining aspects are determined by the GM. Also, I think they could do some cool things with forking. Maybe your forks develop their own aspects and when you merge with them, you have to replace some of your ego aspects with the fork's.

Fri, 2013-11-01 13:00

Acatalepsy Acatalepsy's picture

I agree with most of the OP,

I agree with most of the OP, with the possible exception of investigation. I'm not sure if that's something I'd want a mechanical way to resolve; but on the other hand, some standardized tools for keeping track of and expanding on secrets couldn't hurt. On forking: the obvious thing to do is to allow forks to draw from the same pool of fate points. Since stunts (and to a lesser degree skills) are powered by fate points, it's an elegant way to keep from explicitly depowering forks (since they are, after all same person; they shouldn't be any less capable), while at the same time avoiding metagame cheese and focusing on the individual characters. I do think that there shouldn't be any disadvantage for having a cheap or terrible morph. That, to me, goes against the themes of EP - technology isn't a drawback, it's a tool, and if you have a better tool you're better at the task, period. It's shades of "cybernetics eats your soul", which is something that should absolutely be avoided. The other thing is reputation. The obvious way to do it would be to have reputation be a skill, the same way resources is, but to me that's...dubious. The point of rep is that it can fluctuate as a result of character actions. I'm not sure what a good solution for it is. For that matter, it's not at all clear that Resources should be a skill, either, in the context of EP FATE. Depending on the game or campaign, there might need to be two or more options for handling them. Whoever [i]is[/i] doing this has their work cut out for them, no doubt - but I have no doubt that it's not just possible to do it, but possible to make it amazing.

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[I]This isn't a war ordinary humans can win. This is the future. Death's an inconvenience, now. Nothing more.[/I]

Mon, 2013-11-25 03:32

jiyunatori jiyunatori's picture

I've been experimenting with

I've been experimenting with Fate for EP recently, and one of the pitfalls I've fallen into is glossing over the gear/ware part. As a result, all the morphs feel a bit similar. I would like to see a creation system that allows player to buy stuff and customize their morph. So far, I'm not sure how to do this. Maybe give the players a certain amount of credits to spend based on skills such as Ressources or Reputation ?

Wed, 2013-12-04 20:14

bblonski

I think wealth and reputation

I think wealth and reputation can both be handled with skills and stress tracks. Gear and favors both already have abstract levels which can easily be converted to a target number you can treat as damage to roll against with the difference going to a stress track. For gear/ware, I think you could allow characters to simply purchase additional aspects and stunts for their morphs. Most gear names would work directly as aspects. I'd probably just give away most trivial stuff and maybe bundle togther some lower end stuff ("Enhanced Senses" instead of each Enhanced Sight, Hearing, etc). You can just read the gear description to get a sense when the aspect can be invoked. Since most things are powered by fate points you don't really have to worry too much about balance. Not sure how I would handle stuff like Neurochem. Probably a stunt for automatically going first or a second attack after using a fate point. Sometimes I think you could gloss over most of it though with something along the lines of "tough aquatic adapted fury morph" or "quick combat modded ghost morph". You can assume a log of ware from those aspects. Not sure how to deal with morph power disparity. I think I agree that sleeving into a new morph mid game shouldn't cause your refresh to go down. You could have the refresh cost be only at character creation, but then you run into the problem where people will get cheap morphs then upgrade first chance. Maybe you can have the starting morph somehow tied to the characters starting resources or reputation skill. You could alway make them egocast somewhere. I guess it's not much different that core EP.

Sat, 2013-12-14 09:32

Smokeskin

I think you need a pool of

I think you need a pool of morph fate points specifically to power morph aspects and stunts, with better morphs having a larger pool and/or faster refresh. Alternatively, morph abilities could be covered by a stress track perhaps.

Sun, 2014-02-09 18:03

zarkow

Split character structure

When I started my own haltingly sketchy project of re-imagining EP in Fate, I envisioned a divided, composite character structure, such that you have a base Ego character sheet, with Ego Aspects, Ego Skills, Ego Stunts, Currency, Rep and a Mental Stress Track. This part would also include any Aspects and Stunts relating to Muses and Async abilities. Next to the Ego then, a Morph sheet, with Morph Aspects, Morph Stunts, Morph Skill Modifiers, Equipment and a Physical Stress Track. When resleeving, simply exchange the Morph sheet for a new one. In addition, Fork templates could be included in the form of mini-character sheets (card style?), for jotting down the relevant subsets of skills and Aspects that are transferred into the relevant Fork. If your players are into that sort of thing. Just my take on stuff.

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/David Bergkvist, Göteborg, Sweden