[Play-Thru] Fate Accelerated Edition

When Spirit of the Century (SotC) was coming out, I was excited about a pick-up pulp game that used the new version of FATE. When I got the product, I was skeptical of the idea that a 400+ page tome could be used to do anything quickly, let alone throw together a roleplaying session.  Luckily SotC turned out to be a killer game, and once you have some time with it, it's certainly right for a pick-up game. Fast-forward several years and the promise of third edition FATE has come to fruition in Fate Core. It's brilliant--I'll say that--but my favorite thing to come out of one of the hottest RPG Kickstarters in history is not the main product, it's Fate Accelerated Edition (FAE). It's my favorite because it not only fulfills the promise of SotC, but it might just be the perfect pick-up game, period.

Before I get into my Play-Thru I'll clarify a thing or two. First, FAE is in no way limited to pulp adventure. You can literally use it for anything if you have a flexible mind and group. Second, at 48 pages I don't feel the need to get into too much detail about the mechanics. Just broad strokes folks.

The big difference between FAE and other versions is the skill list, in that there is none. Instead, players are asked to stat six approaches--no doubt taking a cue from Cortex+ [Edit: Turns out I was wrong about this bit; Cortex+ got it from Fate--credit where credit is due]. Players then start the game with two or three Aspects and one Stunt (which uses trimmed-back rules).

I decided to test FAE at a local charity game day. I called the adventure Quest for the MacGuffin. Here was the description: "Players will create pulp adventure characters with the new and not-yet-released Fate Accelerated Edition. These characters will then complete a quest involving a MacGuffin, in a setting the players help create."

With that information, I pretty much sat down, explained Aspects, Approaches, and Stunts, and we got to work. The players decided they wanted to do '30s-era pulp, with Nazis as the bad guys. They also decided there would be magic, but it would be extremely subtle. After the setting was decided, the players made their characters. Then the players decided their MacGuffin would be the Eye of Odin. Finally, they decided their characters learned the Eye was at a castle in Germany. The rest was left up to me.

That above process took about 90 minutes. There were four players, and two of them had never played any version of Fudge. We then used the remaining two and a half hours to play. I had the setting, the characters, and the destination, so I simply created obstacles in their path. Before the session ended, the players were in several scenes and five encounters, including a satisfying climax.

In my second test, I ran FAE for five people, three of which had never played any version of Fudge. We still got the creation process done in 90 minutes and played a satisfying story in about two and a half hours, this time the players were members of a space federation, dispatched to investigate what happened to Science Outpost Sagan and the Dark Matter Harvester. It went equally well.

One interesting side effect of both sessions is many of the players walked away with characters they cared about and wanted to play again and a campaign setting they wanted to spend more time exploring. I just found that fascinating.

Aside from pick-up games, I could see FAE being used as a sort of "proof of concept" tool. Let's say someone in your group has a setting idea, but the rest of the group doesn't get it. Run a session with the loose idea in FAE and figure it out. Alternatively, let's say your a designer and you get a setting in your head. Here's a way to brainstorm while playing.

The PDF can be had for literally any price you desire to pay. Evil Hat is selling it on a "pay what you want" model, and they encourage you to just download it for free if you'd like, and then give them money if you think it's worth more than zero dollars. The print version will only set you back $5 when it's available. Knowing what I know, the value of FAE can't be judged by page count. I'll pay the $2.50 Evil Hat asks for sure. That's a no-brainer.

[Play-Thru] Claustrophobia

In 2009, I owned a lot of board games - mostly because I was working at a game store, and I have "ooh, shiny" syndrome. (I've since paired my collection down to about 1/3 it's former glory.) One of the games I picked up at the time was Asmodee's Claustrophobia, a two-player dungeon crawl, based in Hell Dorado, the setting of a minis game. A little over two years later, I finally got to play it.

One player controls the Redeemer (essentially a Paladin or Cleric) and his condemned warriors, a group of thugs and and murderers with nothing to live for but their redemption. The other player controls the demon and his troglodytes. It amounts to 17 beautifully pre-painted plastic minis. One may think this is a limited selection in the grand scheme of things, but read on.

The board is modular, a series of square tiles, which get turned over as you explore the catacombs. Many of the boards have special rules, including movement-affecting terrain and game events, such as card drawing or treasure collecting. The tiles are sturdy, the art gorgeous, and the random aspect of the catacombs really increases the re-playability of the game, while adding to the immersion of "where the hell am I" for the Redeemer player.

Speaking of re-playability, there is quite a bit in Claustrophobia to keep you playing. The Redeemer can start the game with a number of different spells and abilities. While the game is scenario-based - there are several in the book and more at the designer's website - the random abilities and the random board seem to provide plenty of fresh play. The condemned are outfitted with different weapons and abilities as well.

While the demon figure doesn't change (duh!), the demon the figure represents does. Basically you have a card that explains the stats and abilities of the demon you're using. There's some nice variance here; I can't wait to try more out.

I mentioned I have "ooh, shiny" syndrome, but if you know me, you know I wasn't necessarily referring to the beauty of the components. The big draw for me was actually the mechanics.

Each good guy character has an interesting take on a character sheet. The character card is dropped into a raised plastic tray, similar to those found in my favorite racing game, Formula D. You use pegs to show damage on these, and there's a spot for a six-sided die. The die you put in that spot determines your stats for the round.

At the beginning of the turn, the Redeemer player rolls a number d6s equal to the number of active characters in play. The dice are then assigned to the character cards, and the numbers correspond to a line of stats. The Redeemer's abilities also tend to correspond to a die number, so you only get them when the right die is used on his card. I mentioned peg holes for damage. These also correspond to lines of stats. If a line is marked by a peg, you can't use that line any longer. If you're forced to put a die in a card that matches a canceled line, that character is out for the round, for the most part.

On the demon side, as I mentioned before, the demon's stats and abilities are determined by which demon you're playing. The troglodytes have their own board. Here dice are rolled to give the troglodytes modified stats or to give the demon player access to more monsters or special events that generally make things hard on the good guys.

Both sides get to make fun - and tough - choices. It makes for an enjoyable tactical experience, as you react to your opponent and deal with the "hand you're dealt" throughout the game.

The rules recommend you begin with a scenario where the Redeemer and his condemned are trying to escape the catacombs, and the demons are pretty much trying to eat the good guys. My friend Robert and I went with this scenario. I played evil (indeed!), and Robert played the Redeemer and his condemned.

At the start of the scenario, it seemed like the good guys were going to run away with it. A d10 was used to show how close the Redeemer was getting to the exit, and it was ticking up fast! Evil eventually got some control and stomped the good guys. Our first play went pretty fast, considering we had the book in hand. I absolutely believe the 45-minute play time on the box.

Combat in the game is simple. Roll a number of d6s equal to the attacker's Combat stat. Each die that beats the defender's Defense causes a wound. Simple and efficient.

Claustrophobia is aptly named. The Redeemer starts out confident; then the game starts to really close in on him. This was exacerbated by the fact that I had two rules wrong, both of which favored my side (not deliberate, I swear!). While we initially thought the game was too skewed toward the bad guys, it turns out it's much more balanced when you play the game correctly!

It's a good sign when the loser of the game wants to play again, and once we determined my rules flub, Robert was ready to play again.

My one complaint about Claustrophobia is the dice. The d6s are OK, but the d10 is very obviously cheap. At the very least, I will be replacing the d10. I may replace the 6s if I can match the size right.

Overall I recommend checking out Claustrophobia. It's a great two-player game - one of my new favorites (despite it being on my shelf two years).

ICONS Revisited

Awhile back, I put ICONS back on the shelf. Having run it twice, I wanted to love it, but I couldn't bring myself to. There were a couple reasons, but the principle one was in play. I couldn't get past the Invulnerability power.

Basically a character with Invulnerability can never be physically harmed by a character with Strength two or more points below that Invulnerability. From a genre standpoint, it makes total sense--Batman can smack the heck out of Superman for days and it wouldn't do anything but annoy Superman. But from a game standpoint, it felt wrong. In my experience there should always be a way to hurt the bad guy.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a conversation with Chuck Rice, who writes a lot of support material for ICONS. I decided to bring up this flaw to maybe get some house rules from a subject matter expert. It didn't go the way I'd planned. Chuck made some pretty good arguments for why this was OK. So I resolved myself to run the game one more time, looking at it from his standpoint--it is a genre convention; it forces the players to thing outside the box; this is a Good Thing.

This week my Friday group was down a player, and since we're just starting a campaign, I didn't want to go on without him. I took the opportunity to run Steve Kenson's excellent adventure, The Skeletron Key, using the official freebie characters given out to promote the release of ICONS. Justin played the Hangman, Ed played the Mighty Saguaro (brilliantly, I might add), Veronica played Miss Tikal (that name still cracks me up a year later), and our guest player, Matt, played All-Star.

I warned the players in advance about the inability to damage some things--they wouldn't necessarily be able to smash their way to victory. I told them to think outside the box when this issue came up. The group really thought on their feet. They used Stunts and Retcons to defeat the physically tough opponents. All-Star was equipped to hurt anything in the story, but that didn't stop the other players from doing their part. 

I was impressed. Not only did the players get around my perceived flaw in the game, they had a blast doing it. And it felt more like reading a comic or watching a cartoon. The result is ICONS does a great job of providing an authentic-feeling, super-powered experience.

Another thing I learned about the game is I'll be running it exclusively from my iPad. As a physical book it's beautiful, but I have some organization issues with it. There is no index and the table of contents is anemic. The powers section is not organized in a way that lends itself to quick reference. Powers are broken down alphabetically by type, rather than just alphabetically. Further, there's no alphabetical page number reference to make things easier to find, and the table of contents doesn't tell you what page the sections for power type start. It makes for a very frustrating experience when you're new to the game and need information now. On the iPad, I just bookmarked this stuff, and I can now reference the book very quickly.

Overall, ICONS is a great game, and as long as you warn the players of the genre conventions and keep your copy on a laptop or iPad, you should enjoy it too.

Play-Thru: Leverage - The Quickstart Job

Margaret Weis Productions has announced Leverage: The Roleplaying Game, and with that has released the Quickstart Job. As would be expected, Leverage is powered by the Cortex System. The back of the book bears a logo that says "Cortex Plus." Given the many differences between the Cortex we already know and what is in this quickstart, it's appropriate to have at least a slightly different name. I've had a chance to run the Quickstart Job twice, with mostly different groups. My roleplaying group has been chosen as a playtest group for the game and had this in hand before release. It may be helpful to read my post about Cortex before continuing on. Also, anything I say could be different in the final release of the game, as it's still in development. This is really just what's in the quickstart.

Before I get into the game itself, I should probably talk about Leverage, the property on which this game is based. Leverage is a show set in our modern day. It's basically Ocean's Eleven meets Robin Hood. Nathan Ford is a former insurance investigator who hit rock bottom when his employer let his son die by refusing to cover the boy for a medical treatment that could have kept him alive. Given a chance to get even with his former employer, he wound up working with a team of criminals, each experts in their field: Parker, the really crazy (and completely adorable) master thief, Eliot, the "retrieval specialist" and resident muscle, Hardison the expert hacker, and Sophie the grifter (and occasional love interest for Nate). Over the course of working together, the group finds purpose in helping people get back at companies that are able to bypass the law with their power and money. The concept is, only thieves have a chance against such corruption.

The moment I saw the show, I was thinking roleplaying game. In the second season, they nudged me along by actually calling out the roles of each character: Nate was the Mastermind, Sophie was the Grifter, Parker was the Thief, Eliot was the Hitter, and Hardison was the Hacker. The more I thought about this as a roleplaying game though, the more trepidation I had about the whole concept of a heist/caper RPG. In my opinion, I've never truly seen the concept done right. Either you end up playing a modern dungeon crawl (don't split the party) or you have players twiddling their thumbs waiting for each specialist to do their job. In the best play circumstances, the GM's prep job is ridiculously cumbersome. The Leverage RPG seems as if it will find a sweet spot for me.

Gone from Cortex are skills. The character sheets have the traditional attributes in place, but instead of skills, there are stats for each role: Mastermind, Grifter, Hitter, Hacker, and Thief. Like skills of old, they're rated in die types, so the core mechanic of Cortex is basically intact, Attribute + Role Die. Instead of a difficulty number, the Guide (GM) rolls dice to generate a more fluid difficulty. On a glance I thought I'd just do away with the dice and have the Guide take the average roll, but that's where the new stuff kicks in, and Cortex becomes a roll-keep system.

Remember Traits from Cortex? They're slightly different now. They're a little like Aspects from Fate, really (small wonder since Rob Donoghue and Fred Hicks are on the development team). If a trait is helping you, you get to roll an additional d8. If a trait is hindering you, you roll a d4 and take a Plot Point. This leads me to another divergence.

Whenever you roll more than two dice, you still only keep the best two. This is now how you spend Plot Points. You spend them to keep more of the dice you rolled rather than to add dice to roll.

Whenever a player rolls a "1" on any of their dice, regardless of which dice they keep, it triggers a Complication. These are situational issues that come up, which give the Guide dice to add to his rolls whenever appropriate to the task at hand. For instance, if Nate causes a scene to give Parker some time, and the player rolls a 1, the team now has to deal with HEIGHTENED SECURITY d6, whenever it would apply. If HEIGHTENED SECURITY gets triggered again (with a roll of 1), it could be stepped up to a d8 and so on. The good news is 1) the Guide has to abide by roll-keep as well and 2) whenever a player rolls a 1, they receive a plot point.

The players have access to similar ammunition in Assets. They can spend a plot point at any time to create an Asset like SOPHIE DISTRACTED THE GUARDS d6 for a scene. If the Asset is purchased after the Guide rolls a 1, the Asset lasts for the rest of the story.

Needless to say, the Plot Points fly in all directions.

There is one combat encounter in the Quickstart Job (with a potential for two). I love the way it's handled. Basically, the player has an Endurance based on the character's Vitality. The bad guys get 2 plus one for each bad guy. So if a character has a 6 Endurance, and he's fighting three bad guys (5 Endurance), it seems like a pretty close match. Basically the player and Guide have a series of opposed rolls. Whoever wins takes an endurance from the opponent. Two get taken with an Extraordinary Success (win by five or more). Description of what's happening occurs between rolls. When someone's out of Endurance, they're Taken Out. It should be noted, too, that the outnumbering side gets additional dice for their numbers. So if three guys are rated at d8, the Guide would roll d6+3d8 to oppose the PC. If this is a Hitter the mooks are fighting, they're likely going up against 2d10 plus any Traits, Talents, or Assets that apply. In one of my plays, Eliot grabbed a WINE BOTTLE d6 and a FULL GLASS OF WINE d6 going into a fight.

I mentioned Talents. These are similar to Feats or Edges in other games. They let you break some rules or give you special perks, essentially. Eliot has one where, if the Guide rolls a one, he can spend a Plot Point to remove a die the Guide rolls for the rest of the encounter. Basically, he's Taken Out one of the bad guys.

The Quickstart Job is setup at the beginning of the con itself. There's "boxed text" of Nate and Hardison explaining the job, then the team is already on the scene. You of course play as the cast of the show. On both plays, my groups finished in two hours, counting rules explanation. The Quickstart Job doesn't mention the rules which I'm guessing will be included for job planning and other roleplaying opportunities. Feedback was nearly universally positive, and everyone wanted to see more. Even here in the desert, I can hardly wait for Summer.

Who is this for?

If you're a fan of Leverage, you need to check this out. Indie or Hippy gamers should totally check this out. It's Cortex laced with Fate and Dogs in the Vineyard. If you're frustrated with heists and capers in your modern games, there's something here for you.

Who should stay away?

If you prefer tactical play over narrative, this might not be your cup of tea. If you're not happy if there's no big combat in a game, you'll probably not enjoy this. If you hate the show and movies like Ocean's Eleven, 10-foot pole rule (also, we probably shouldn't hang out).

Honestly, I can't really see any group getting nothing out of this game. It had everyone at my table's wheels turning. It's inspired at least one campaign in a different genre already. What are you waiting for? Grab the Quickstart Job, and "let's go steal a holding company."

Play-Thru: Dragon Age

Last night I ran Dragon Age for the first time. I won't be posting "actual play" here because I'm running the included adventure in the GM's Guide. I'm not a fan of spoilers, either in the giving or the receiving. If I ever post true actual play, it won't be with a published adventure. In my previous post, I started talking about Dragon Age, but for completeness, I may repeat some of what I said there, here.

For those not in the know, Dragon Age is based on the video game of the same name. Chris Pramas of Green Ronin designed it with a new system called the Adventure Gaming Engine (AGE). I've played roughly 90 minutes of the video game, so I don't feel I have the knowledge to compare the two, so I will be ignoring any comparisons to canon.


My understanding is the pen and paper version of Dragon Age is meant to attract newcomers to the hobby, so it's written with novice players in mind. To that end, everything about the presentation of this game evokes "entry to the hobby." The player is primed for the setting, taught to make a character, then taught how to use it. All the while, excellent play advice is given. The GM's Guide gives tons of advice on running a game, which can most often be applied to any game. There's some additional rules info as well. A small bestiary is included, along with guidance on rewards. The book finishes off with an introductory adventure, which is designed to introduce the players and GM to the mechanics of the game. The GM is treated to inline advice on running the game, including reminders to remind the players of their options.

One final note on the books. This is "Set 1," and it only covers levels 1 to 5 (sound familiar?). Many have complained about this fact. I, on the other hand, applaud the choice. For one, I love the Red Box feel of that. For two, I think it allows this first set to really drill down on getting the players going. The message is clear: here's what you need today; now go play.

We played through the first three scenes of the game last night, and so far, I'm impressed. My only quibble with the books is the rules for Advanced Tests are only in the GM's Guide. Advanced Tests are AGE's way of dealing with extended actions and remind me of Skill Challenges from D&D 4E. This is great since Skill Challenges are one of the few positive takeaways I have from 4E (I reviewed 4E on TGTT awhile back, and it was mostly positive, but I soured on the game rather quickly). Before getting into the details of Advanced Tests, I should discuss the other mechanics of the game.

Character creation is mostly random, which turns out to be a good thing. First, it evokes old school, an obvious design goal of this game. Second, it makes creation easier for newcomers, another design goal--mission accomplished. I was initially turned off by the randomness, in part because the sample characters Green Ronin provides could not have been made unless all the players were extremely lucky or cheated on their rolls. I was going to use a point buy system but decided it was counter to the goals of the game. So I went with an old D&D house rule. Since abilities are derived by rolling 3d6, I had the players roll 3d6, but re-roll ones and twos. My instincts were dead on, as the characters the players came up with were pretty well in line with the samples.

Characters are made up of Abilities, Focuses, and Talents, essentially. Abilities are your basic stats; there are eight: Communication, Constitution, Cunning, Dexterity, Magic, Perception, Strength, and Willpower, and they start out ranging from 1 to 4. Those Abilities are derived from a 3d6 roll and a table reference. Average is considered a 1. Focuses are used instead of skills; they're attached to Abilities. If you have a Focus, you add two to your result. Focuses aren't required unless otherwise noted. Talents are similar to Feats or Edges. They give you little extra things you can do, like re-roll a failed result, use an action faster, etc.

After you roll up your Abilities, you'll choose your Background. Backgrounds add a layer to race and class. Basically, they give you Focuses, Ability raises, Languages, and Weapon Groups. They are also how you choose race, and they're the gateway to the three classes, Mage, Rogue, and Warrior. I had a concern about Dragon Age only having three classes, but Backgrounds make it much more interesting, alleviating my concern.

Like Backgrounds, classes give you access to Weapon Groups, but they round you out with Talents, Class Powers, and Starting Health. Mages will choose spells as well.

Gear is handled well. Characters have starting wealth, but they also receive automatic adventuring equipment in addition to their money. It sets you up with the basics, plus weapons and simple armor. Everything you need is in here, but I must say the first thing I looked for was a 10-foot pole and was disappointed (only on a nostalgic level).

OK. So you have a character; what's the system like? I have to say AGE is very cool. In other media, I might say awesome! Here's the gist of the system: roll 3d6 (one of which is a different color--the Dragon Die), add the Ability, and add +2 if you have the focus. Target Number (TN) is determined by the GM, with 11 being Average, and it goes up or down by twos.

In combat, a character must have the appropriate Weapon Group or suffer a -2 to their attack roll and half damage. Characters can still take a Focus later, to add the +2 as well. There is no listed botch mechanic (unless I'm forgetting), and the Stunt Points system takes the place of critical hits.

If you roll doubles when making an attack roll (or casting a spell), and you succeed, the number on the Dragon Die gives you Stunt Points, which must be spent immediately or lost. Stunts are effects that can be added in addition to normal damage. The obvious one is here, adding additional damage. All the other Stunts are most commonly found in other RPGs as maneuvers declared before an attack, and in those cases, they usually cause the innovative player to take penalties and often fail. For instance, if you want to knock a character prone in a given RPG, you'll often have to do some special maneuver that requires opposed rolls, penalties to your attack roll, or worse: both. In Dragon Age, this stuff happens after you roll. It also makes it more cinematic, and, in my opinion, more like fiction.

In fiction, the protagonist often gets the best of her opponent through providence--the character either sees an opening or has an epiphany. Stunts mimic that perfectly. You make an attack; you roll doubles and get Stunt Points. Here's how it could be narrated:

I melee attack the guard on my right, and when I strike my target, I see that he's off balance, so I follow through, knocking him prone. My momentum carries me through to attack my other opponent. I deal 14 damage to the prone guard; then I hit the second opponent for 11 damage. I then step past the downed guard, putting some distance between me and the standing one.

You can totally do that in AGE, if you get a 6 on your Dragon Die. What I like is the game rewards you for rolling the doubles rather than penalizing you for having interesting ideas.

The one drawback I expected to the Stunt Point system is the potential for analysis paralysis, and I was right. When doubles were rolled, it stopped the table cold. I expect the issue will improve in extended play. Here's the interesting part: it didn't hurt the game. Even with the extra time things took--we only got through the first three scenes of the adventure--everyone had a blast. And by the end of the one combat we did, veteran gamers were already flying through the stunts.

The Dragon Die has a couple other uses in the game. For one, it determines how well you succeed at a given task. So if a rogue is jumping between rooftops and gets a 1 on the die, he barely makes it or at least lands clumsily. If he gets a 6, he may look like an Olympic athlete. The included adventure also has tables for investigation bits, where the Dragon Die determines the level of detail found on success. I can conjure many uses for the Dragon Die, thanks to this little detail.

The final use of the Dragon Die is for Advanced Tests. Like I mentioned, this is when you are taking an extended action that requires detail and/or the measurement of time. Basically, you have the task TN, like a normal action, and you have a Threshold to reach to complete the task. When you succeed at a roll, the Dragon Die gives you a number of points toward meeting you Threshold. Each roll can be a measurement of time to say how long something takes, or it could be used for social encounters. An example for social could be to convince an angry crowd to not maul you to death, say TN 13, Threshold 10.

Health in the game is very straightforward. If you reach zero, you're dying. Your friends have rounds to save your bacon. There are numerous ways to heal to keep your character going. I like this, and it doesn't feel as forced as the way 4E does it, meaning it never feels like you clicked on something to heal--though I guess that feeling would be more appropriate in Dragon Age, given it's actually based on a video game IP.

The magic system in AGE is interesting. There are Stunts available, and they do everything from making spells cheaper to use to strengthen them to making them harder to resist. Spells cost Mana points to cast, and there's a skill roll. Many spells give opponents a chance to resist. The ability to resist is determined by the spell and the TN is determined through a Spellpower: Magic ability plus 10, with a +2 if you the mage has the appropriate Focus. One cool thing about mages is they all have an ability called Arcane Lance, which is a low-powered, ranged attack that doesn't use Mana points, so a mage is never completely useless in combat, regardless of Mana level.

I look forward to exploring the AGE system more. I sincerely hope this system is expanded out and used for other genres. Giving the system a separate name from the IP certainly paves the way for more genres and even licensing.

To be honest, it's hard not to gush about this system. It's an inspiring design, and I want more. I'm already coming up with multiple ideas on my own. I'm going to love tweaking this game. My only hope is that Green Ronin a) gets the other boxes out quickly and b) decides to use this system for other things and/or license it out.

Who is this for?

I'd say this is definitely meant as an entry level RPG, though the system has so much potential. It's also an excellent rules light system. Indie gamers looking for a crossover product should check this out as well.


Who should stay away?


If you like "crunchy" systems or a lot of attempts at realism, this is certainly not your game. If you are looking for a treatment on the Dragon Age setting, be warned: this is just a primer on a small section of the world.