Fortune at the Begining?

[Andrew Martin]

I've read about Fortune at the End, and Fortune in the Middle. Is there a Fortune at the Begining? If so, what is it and how does it do it? Is there a reference or URL for it?
Thanks in advance.

[Ben Morgan]

I suppose it could be possible...

"Okay, you're in combat, everyone roll a die..."

(clatter)

"Alright, based on that die roll, what are you doing?"

Kind of a strategy-type thing. If you roll high, use that die on a lower, maybe less-used skill. If you rolled lower, use it with a higher skill to boost your chances. Of course, what incentive would one have for doing something other than simply using the die roll with their highest skill in any given situation? Circumstances, perhaps...

Argh, thinking hard. Radiskull tired. Need sleep now.

[Le Joueur]

I suppose it could be possible...

"Okay, you're in combat, everyone roll a die..."

(clatter)

"Alright, based on that die roll, what are you doing?"

Kind of a strategy-type thing. If you roll high, use that die on a lower, maybe less-used skill. If you rolled lower, use it with a higher skill to boost your chances. Of course, what incentive would one have for doing something other than simply using the die roll with their highest skill in any given situation? Circumstances, perhaps...

Sounds like a good way of introducing a Fortune element into an otherwise Karma combat mechanic.  The die rolled would be your 'point pool' that, in addition to ways to increase and spend your 'combat points' allows those present to 'build a battle.'

It reminds me a little bit of how strategy-based console computer role-playing game combat works, except with them the 'die' is only rolled to determine the 'difficulty level' of the 'wandering monster.'

This has me thinking about what we started calling FitM (Fortune in the Middle) "with teeth" (where the mechanics cause the numeric result of the fortune roll to be altered after the fact).  Has anyone seen alterations that don't ultimately boil down to more of a Kharma-based mechanic?  I can't think of any.  Would that make FitM actually something like Drama-then-Fortune-then-Kharma, DFK, or maybe KFK?  And then FatB (Fortune at the Beginning) would be FK, FKD, or FDK?

I dunno.

Fang Langford

[lumpley]

I'd suggest that The World, the Flesh, and the Devil can be played fortune-at-the-beginning:

"So your upstart rebellious vampire-brat son spits on you, and his most recent victim's blood is in the spit.  What do you do?"

(roll: Devil-minus) "Ooh, he's meat.  I catch him by the throat and hold him off the ground and I rip his ribs out, one by one."

(roll: Devil-plus) "He's just trying to provoke me.  I take the handkerchief out of my pocket and wipe it off, and I'm not particularly insulted."

Like that.  But sorry, vampires on the brain.

-Vincent

[Mike Holmes]

Jared's Middle Earth game was going to be like this, exactly, and there was a game about "Arenas" of conflict that someone was bandying about. Fortune at the beginning could just be seen in as extreme FitM in that you at the very least have to decide what it is that you are rolling (so there is one small thing that is decided before rolling).

OTOH, I could see a system where you rolled five dice at the beginning of a scene, and then got to use them in resolving whatever actions were declared afterwards. Or at the start of the session, or during CharGen?That's pretty beginning.

Mike

[lumpley]

This is just off the top of my head.  Probably it's stupid, either wrong or obvious.

Is Fortune at the End IIEFE?  Is Fortune in the Middle IIFEE or IFIEE?

My WF&D example is pretty certainly FIIEE.

-Vincent

[Valamir]

Actually I was just toying with a mechanic exactly like that Mike.

The idea would be that all abilities are rated 1-5.

At the beginning of a round/scene you'd roll 5 dice.
You decide your actions by spending 1 die on 1 action.  The die spent has to be equal or lower to your rating in that ability.  

So if you rolled 1, 3, 4, 4, 6

And had abilities of "do this +3", "do that +4", "do some other +1", "do something else +1"

And on your turn you wanted to "do some other" you'd have to use the "1".  That would mean you couldn't "do something else" this scene because you've already used the only available "1".

You could, however, "do this" once and "do that" twice, or "do that" 3 times.

The "6" couldn't be used for anything.


The "do" implies "succeed at", not "try".  So if "do this" actually was "Shoot gun", than using the "3" means you hit.  If you don't use the 3 (or the 1) than you still may have shot a bunch of times, you just didn't hit anything.  

In the above example I could "shoot" twice by using the "3" and the "1" (meaning I hit twice) but then I couldn't use the one to "do some other" (like Athletics +1 enabling me to successfully jump over a barricade).

[Tim C Koppang]

My game Theme Music uses a Fortune at the Start mechanic.

http://www.students.uiuc.edu/~koppang/roleplaying/content/ThemeMusic.htm

I have to warn you that the game is in the very early stages of development, but eh... I'll post anyway.  My goal was to make a system that supported very low handling time in terms of mechanics.  Each scene in the game can only last for the length of a real-life song playing in the background, and so number crunching is definately out.  The mechanic itself is sort of a gambling roll.  You can choose to attempt a really easy action or go balls to the wall - but if you fail it's a failure of equal magnitude to the attempted success rate.  (Think of this in terms of positive and negative numbers.  If you go for a rate 3 success and fail then the failure rate is -3.)  After the dice are rolled you get to narrate your character's actions according to the result - nobody has to say a word before the result is known.

[Paul Czege]

Hey Vincent,

Is Fortune at the End IIEFE? Is Fortune in the Middle IIFEE or IFIEE?

Can we come up with a better notation for this?

IIEfE
IIE'E
something else?

My WF&D example is pretty certainly FIIEE.

As much as I like your WF&D example, I think it's impossible the way you wrote it. Without a statement of intent, how does the GM know which +/- die to assign? I think the closest to fortune-at-the-beginning you can get with WF&D is fortune right after Intent. Am I wrong?

Paul

[Jack Spencer Jr]

My RPG the Wheel has a fortune at the begining of sorts. AT the start of the session, all of the players draw one card from the Inspiration Deck, an as-yet undesigned deck of cards with fairly vague content designed to inspire (hence Inspiration Deck). The player then must figure out how to work what is on their card into their scene for a bonus.  It's not exactly the main driving force behind the game, but it works in a similar manner.  Basically, players sit down with an idea of what will happen with their characters and through play it goes of in unexpected directions mostly via the interaction of the other players but this FatB mechanic helps.

[lumpley]

Paul,

Zorm.  You're right.  Indeed you can't play it that way.

So that's kind of weird, though, isn't it?  The W/F/D die wants to be rolled earlier, and the +/- die wants to be rolled later, if you see what I mean.  The W/F/D roll gives you information that it might even be useful to have when you assign the +/- die.

For Fortune-at-the-Start you could have the GM assign the +/- die based on how bad is the problem you're reacting to, not how hard is the thing you're doing.  If you wanted.

Oh and I thought about IIE(F)E, but yikes!  IIEfE is better.

-Vincent

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

I strongly suggest that people stop trying to mix Fortune's position (Beginning, Middle, End) with the IIEE concept - someone is going to get hurt.

Please, really. You're doing horrible damage to both concepts. Recognize that any Fortune-driven resolution (full range of Before, Middle, After) can come during any step of IIEE, with the other steps being "squashed" into it.

This was a really interesting discussion before that topic came into it.

Best,
Ron

[lumpley]

(Told you it was probably stupid.)

Beginning, Middle, End is about decision-making about narration, not about what characters do, is that it?

But Ron, I've no clue what you mean by "squashed."

10 seconds later:

Ha!  Got it.  A fear check is Fortune-at-the-End and fIIEE.  You fail the check, your whole IIEE is set in stone.  Your Intent becomes to run, you start to run, you run, you've run away.  All of IIE and E are squashed into the roll.

-Vincent