[FATE] Fate of the North...

[Andrew Cooper]

A few weeks ago I posted about a game of Fantasy Capes I played using the Forgotten Realms as the setting.  One of my players really doesn't like Capes-style games (no GM) and while I wasn't interested in going back to D&D just yet, I thought I'd take the opportunity to try another game I'd been itching to play, FATE.

At the end of our last session (Capes) we had: The Moonwood in flames, King Obould Many-arrows captured by the forces of Silverymoon, Urgrosh (Obould's son) in nominal control of the orc army, the Frost Giants extricating themselves from the orcs, and the Drow army just arriving.  I thought this was a fine mess to dump some characters into so I promptly sat my group down and outlined the situation for them and then told them they could create any character they wanted that was in the Silver Marches at this time.  I didn't care if they started together as a party or not.  I really just wanted them to make characters that appealed to them and the other players at the table.

Here's my group, btw:

Trey (32 yrs)- Old school D&D gamer.  He's the one who didn't like Capes.
Aaron (20's)- New to the group.  Mostly D&D I think but very open to other games.
Melissa (17 yrs)- New to gaming.  Liked FATE's simplicity.  D&D was very complicated for her.
Seth (20 yrs)- Been playing RPG's about a year now.  All D&D with me GMing.
Me (34 yrs)- I've been playing since 1989 and GMing most of that time.

Here's the character generation process I used:

5 phase generation.
Each character gets 3 free Aspects that are tied to the setting or genre.  I had a list of these.
3 Fate Points to start.
I used the Door to Shadow system for magic that is described in the FATE rules.

Characters:

Melphor (Seth) - The Drow General
Free Aspects: Evil (Fair), Warlock (Good)
Aspects:  Charismatic (Fair), "Lok' delar" Magical Bow (Good), Necromancer (Good)
Skills: Spellcasting (Great), Summoning (Good), Archery (Good), Lie (Fair), Intimidate (Fair), Healing (Fair), Hide (Average), Riding (Average), Physical Resistance (Average), Magic Resistance (Average)
Advancement Aspect: Necromancer

Blaze (Melissa) - The Human Assassin/Ranger/Shapeshifter/Elementalist (this isn't pinned down well yet)
Free Aspects: Warrior (Good), Elementalist (Fair)
Aspects: Shapeshifter (Good), Ninja (Fair), Vengeful (Fair), Rebel (Fair)
Skills: Cutthroat (Great), Awareness (Good), Intimidate (Good), Tracking (Fair),  Seduce (Fair), Singing (Fair), Swimming (Average), Running (Average), Climbing (Average), Ranger (Average)
Advancement Aspect: Warrior's Sword (Magical Weapon)

Sibilis (Trey) - The Half Snake / Half Man Escaped Magical Construct Turned Mercenary
Free Aspects: Snake Man (Fair), Red Wizards of Thay (Fair), Magical Construct (Fair)
Aspects: Weapons Master (Fair), Large (Fair), Poisonous (Fair), Hunted (Fair), Strong (Fair)
Skills: Duelist (Great), Awareness (Good), Intimidate (Good), Swimming (Fair), Hide (Fair), Climbing (Fair), Hunting (Average), Magic Resistance (Average), Physical Resistance (Average), Another Skill I Don't Have Here (Fair)
Advancement Aspect: Weapons Master

Philimius (Aaron) - The Gnomish Philologist
Free Aspects: SQUATS (Great) This is the acronym for a Gnomish Society of spellcasters and astrologers that Aaron made up.
Aspects: Obsessive / Compulsive (Good), Long winded (Fair), Tinkerer (Fair), Philologist (Fair)
Skills: Cleaning (Great), Spellcasting (Good), Astronomy (Good), Lore / Mythology (Fair), Languages (Fair), Research (Fair), Scribe (Average), Artificer (Average), Teaching (Average), Tinker (Average)
Advancement Aspect: The Perfect Telescope

I thought it highly interesting that 2 out of the 4 players chose to play what would be the bad guys.  Seth chose one of the Generals of the Drow forces.  Trey had his character be a mercenary with the Drow.  One, Melissa,  is a killer type out to kill one of the "good guys" for revenge.  The last is the only "good guy" character.  Aaron is playing a Monk-like (as in the TV show) Gnome who wants to build the perfect telescope.

Actual Session

Sibilis is in the Drow camp in the Moonwood when he overhears some Drow speaking of a strange red-robed human that was speaking with the generals.  Sibilis promptly climbs up a tree and hides until the Red Wizard goes away.  (This behaviour bothers me somewhat but I'll bring up why below.)

The 2 Drow generals, Rayess (commander of the mundane forces) and Melphor (commander of the magical forces), are magically communicating to their Matron Mother back in Menzoberranzan.  She isn't happy at their lack of information and progress and intimates that the next time she contacts them, they had best have more and better news.  Rayess leaves to dispatch the scouts to the orc encampment when a Red Wizard of Thay gains an audience with Melphor.  The Red Wizard offers to throw their support behind the Drow forces as long as the Red Wizards are allowed to enter the Magical College of Silverymoon once the city falls and leave with whatever they can carry in their hands.  He also asks about a magical construct that had been stolen from the Red Wizards, a snake-man with warrior skills, and intimates that there would be a reward for its return.

Rayess returns to share that the orcs are under the control of Urgrosh, Obould having been captured, and that the Frost Giants seemed to be operating separately now.  The General suggests that he approach Urgrosh and that Melphor awe the Frost Giants with his magical prowess and get them to join forces with the Drow.  Melphor agrees.  He also tells Rayess to find Sibilis and send him to him.  Rayess claims that Sibilis has left the camp and has not been seen for some hours.

Rayess then has Sibilis escorted secretly to his tent and tells him about the Red Wizard and offers to keep him from the humans if he will secretly follow Melphor to the meeting with the Frost Giants and sabotage the meeting, putting Melphor in the Matron Mother's bad graces.  Sibilis agrees.

Meanwhile...

Blaze is approaching Silverymoon from the south.  She runs across a recent battlefield and finds a nearly dead soldier of Silverymoon.  The soldier gasps out, "They took the sword... must get it to the Lady..." and then expires.  Blaze tracks the trolls (what killed the soldiers) by shapeshifting into a wolf and chasing them down.  Once she finds them, she shifts into a spider to hide on one of them until they get to wherever they are going.  The trolls travel to an old ruin in the Evermoors where they present the spoils of the battle to two robed and hooded figures with scaly hands.  The trolls leave but Blaze stays to see what goes on.

Meanwhile...

A young Gnomish student comes running up to Philimius (Phil) and exclaims how that the large lenses ordered from Waterdeep for Phil's telescope had been waylaid near the Moonwood and stolen.  Phil decides he must go recover them and after a thorough bath and minutely precise provisioning, he mounts his pony and rides off towards the Moonwood, stopping periodically to clean and groom his mount. 

Phil is overtaken by some Uthgart Barbarian warriors who want to kill him at first.  However, one of the warrior notes that Phil seems a bit off and must therefore be "touched by the gods".  It would be the worst of bad luck to kill one so touched.  They then learn that Phil is an astronomer and that convinces them that he is a god-touched seer.  The main force heads back to their tribal encampment to report this to their shaman while the leader, Lothar, stays with Phil to assist him in his quest to recover the lenses of the mighty artifact used to read the stars.

Analysis

Trey's reaction when I presented him with a Bang based completely on one of his Aspects troubled me somewhat.  I didn't say anything to him and I certainly didn't push him to make another decision but opting to simply hide and wait until the Red Wizard went away certainly took all the bite out of the scene and made it boring fast... so I moved on almost immediately.  My Bang obviously needed work since there was the option to avoid the situation.  I'll work on that next time and can only claim that prep time was short since I had just seen the characters finished a few minutes earlier.  However, if Trey continually avoids the conflict situation like that, it's going to be difficult to make his character interesting and give him equal spotlight time.  Maybe his play will change with better designed Bangs.  I'll have to see.

I need to work on my scene cutting in a serious way.  Since there is no "party" I have to juggle 4 different characters in 4 different scenes at the same time without boring anyone to death.  This is difficult.  If anyone has suggestions on how to prep for this kind of play, let me know.  I'm willing to be a good student.

I decided to use a technique similar to TSoY's BDTP mechanic.  I'm resolving all fights/conflict as a simple Dynamic Test.  One roll takes care of the whole thing.  Any roll that you lose, you can request that it go to an Exchanged Based extended conflict.  I did away with Static Tests altogether.  If no one / thing is opposing them, I don't bother rolling for it.  I'm kinda going with the DitV method of "Saying yes or rolling the dice."

Also, if anyone sees some cool relationships / conflicts I could introduce with these characters, I'm open to suggestions.  I've got some pretty good ideas or at least I think so.  I see Melphor having to play Rayess, the Red Wizards and the Matron Mother all against each other in order to survive and thrive.  Sibilis gets thrown in there with the Red Wizards on one side and an ambitious Drow General on the other.  That should be exciting but I'm not sure how Trey will react at this point.  Blaze has an easy goal at this point, finding that magical sword.  Making that interesting is still something I'm working on.  Phil is also easy to find something to center around.  His next aspect is "The Perfect Telescope".  Finding the missing pieces and getting them back to the enclave intact is a good goal.  Thus far it's just been highly entertaining to watch Aaron act out an Obsessive / Compulsive Gnome.  He's very good at that.