General SotC questions thread

[iago]

Quick question regarding NPCs (specifically Villains) and tagging aspects for the mechanical effect.  Are the NPC's under the same rule for not knowing aspects of the PCs as the PCs are for NPCs?  If so, does this mean the GM needs to keep a separate list of what each villain "knows"?

I tend to handwave this, and instead proceed on the idea that villains don't get much in the way of "free tags" -- thus making their (slightly unfair/unbalanced) tendency to know PC aspects merely another avenue for funnelling the PCs more fate points.

That said, a player who's heavy into Deceit or Rapport should be given opportunities to ably defend against (and confound!) his enemies whenever they try to get an Empathy read on him, so this tendency to handwave needs to be set aside when it's important to a PC's shtick.

Put another way, this answer basically says this:

It depends on the PCs. 

If they're the sorts who don't mount much of a defense against attempts to discover their aspects, you can assume the villains (at least the Named ones) know a useful handful of them. 

If they're the sort who are able to remain cryptic and hidden, they should find themselves beset by attempts to discover those aspects, and one should proceed on the assumption that the villains do not know those aspects.

Dig?

[Joshua Patterson]

I tend to handwave this, and instead proceed on the idea that villains don't get much in the way of "free tags" -- thus making their (slightly unfair/unbalanced) tendency to know PC aspects merely another avenue for funnelling the PCs more fate points.

That said, a player who's heavy into Deceit or Rapport should be given opportunities to ably defend against (and confound!) his enemies whenever they try to get an Empathy read on him, so this tendency to handwave needs to be set aside when it's important to a PC's shtick.

Put another way, this answer basically says this:

It depends on the PCs. 

If they're the sorts who don't mount much of a defense against attempts to discover their aspects, you can assume the villains (at least the Named ones) know a useful handful of them. 

If they're the sort who are able to remain cryptic and hidden, they should find themselves beset by attempts to discover those aspects, and one should proceed on the assumption that the villains do not know those aspects.

Dig?

I dig.  Kinda the difference between having the Fantastic Four and Batman as PCs.

One follow up question then.  I'm trying to create a Lex Luthor-ish (the non super-engineering version) type villain for the game I'm currently running.  Other than the obvious stunts / skills (Minions, Leadership, etc), what would you recommend for him?  The idea behind him is he doesn't do anything directly bad to you other than the minions, it's all about him making the right phone calls and I'm having trouble translating indirect actions like that down to the mechanical game level.

[Danny_K]

I'm not Iago or nothin' but one way to do this would be handle at least some of his machinations as conflicts where he tries to inflict a Consequence on the PC -- probably social or composure-related if he's a guy who uses his desk phone as a deadly weapon.  If he's successful in giving the PC an Aspect, and then a bunch other of NPC's get a free Tag off of thet Aspect, the players will be getting furious with him even if he never does anything violent to them. 

Note that the other NPC's don't have to allied with "Lex" or even be villains.  Maybe the newspaper editor or chief of police will use that Aspect to win an argument with the PC.  "I can't be seen working with you.  You're a mad dog and everybody knows it!"

Also note that a lot of the Leadership and Contact stunts might be a little dull to take for a PC, but have lots of nasty applications for a malicious NPC.

[iago]

One follow up question then.  I'm trying to create a Lex Luthor-ish (the non super-engineering version) type villain for the game I'm currently running.  Other than the obvious stunts / skills (Minions, Leadership, etc), what would you recommend for him?  The idea behind him is he doesn't do anything directly bad to you other than the minions, it's all about him making the right phone calls and I'm having trouble translating indirect actions like that down to the mechanical game level.

If it's about making the phone-calls, I encourage you to look at the Contacting skill, and those stunts, and think about what a very, very well-connected and informed villain that makes him.  Back it up with a little bit of Leadership and Resources, and put things like Empathy, Deceit, and Intimidation in the upper part of the pyramid, and you've got a guy who's pretty terrifying, all while sitting behind a desk.

[dbisdorf]

I have a question about the chase scene rules.  In the "Passengers" section, the rules state that even though only one passenger per exchange may help the driver with a skill roll, all passengers are allowed to spend fate points on behalf of the driver.  I assume that the other passengers must invoke one of their own aspects in order to spend FP (for instance, I could spend an FP on my "Eyes Of A Hawk" aspect to point out a shortcut to the driver, thus giving her a +2).  However, given a reasonably imaginative group, it would be a simple matter for all of the passengers to chuck in at least one FP each for a single roll, thus allowing the driver to declare incredibly high maneuver ratings (+10 or so) without having to worry about missing them.  This will tend to bring any chase scene to a quick end.

Have I missed something here, or misread something?

[iago]

That's as designed.  And the group's supply of Fate Points will feel it.

[dbisdorf]

I've got a pretty large group (7 PC's) so the FP pool hasn't been feeling it much ... I guess instead of having the group's aircraft pursued by fighter planes, I'll have to start pursuing them with rabid pterodactyls with jet packs and tommy guns!

Thanks for the quick response.