The strangeness of Fate

I'm now a few sessions into a Fate game. It's a fantasy game, with magic and elves and all that jazz. Even though those parts makes me grounded in the familiar tropes, the rest of the game still makes me reel sometimes. I think Fate is probably the most different game I've played.

Different than what? I hear you ask. Well, most things. First off, it's very loosey goosey as far at delimiting what is turned into game mechanics. Aspects, the core of the system, can be something looking like a class, a part of the character psychology or a relationship. I guess most people have heard about that part. That part I think I've got down pat by now.

Now, how you use those Aspects and Skills, that is where it gets weird. At least it's what trip me up. In Fate you have those aforementioned loosey goosey crunchy bits, which really gets in your face when you use them. The thing is, I'm used to have the game mechanic be some kind of binary system. Do I succeed at this or that? Fairly simple, you do or you don't. In Fate you have specific actions you take. You might Attack, Defend, Overcome or Create Advantage. That to me feels strange.

I'm used to expressing what I want to achieve, getting some feedback from the GM of what I need to roll and then get some kind of adjudication of what that means, cooperatively sometimes. Contrast that with Fate, where you can do all those actions mentioned before with almost all abilities, and they make narrative and tactical sense! That last bit is interesting.

I don't know how often I've read or heard that Fate is one of those narrative modern "story games" or whatnot. In my experience it's not. Fate is in your face crunchiness and the most tactical game I've so far played. Even when you do things that are "pure roleplaying" or "story" in that they are driven by your character's foibles or relationship, it's still tactical thinking. You set up an Advantage so you can then invoke it, or activate a negative Aspect so you can get more Fate points to then boost your next skill roll which might be a, say,  social Attack. That seriously trips me up. Interesting, but odd.

Wilderness and pursuits

I've found that while a chase is often quite intense in a movie, they are seldom as much fun in a game. But, while that's interesting, today I'll talk about a related subject, namely wilderness pursuits.

If you have a team of PCs pursuing some, say, orcs, how do you make that interesting? In a Pathinder/D&D game it's very easy to reduce it to daily rolls on Tracking/Survival and then it becomes mechanistic and devoid of that interesting suspense a good chase should have. If we flip the coin and make the players being players, it's probably their characters being chased. Still, just making a die roll to avoid being hunted down is just as dull.

This is how I'd make these scenarios interesting. It's a compilation of my own ideas, and some I've collected from blogs and podcasts. This will fiunction both as a list for my readers to be inspired by, and a note to myself for things I have to remember to bring to the table.

Tactics

• Use the terrain - Someone being followed in the wilderness are probably going to make it harder for you to track them. You'd try to look for different terrain, like trying to not just stomp forward over that soft and marshy ground. Not only will you run the possibility of getting stuck, you will leave excellent tracks to follow. Have you ever seen any Western movie about a chase? That's where you'll want to go for inspiration. I know for a fact that riding in a small streak or creek is a classic way to hide your tracks. You'll want to do that.


• Create hindrances - If you are trying to run away, the best way to succeed will be to make the guy following you slow down. One way is to use those tools you use in a dungeon. Dig holes, cover them with vines and branches. Tie up a branch of a tree and put down a tripwire which release it in the faces of your follower. Build traps to spindle, fold and mutilate your tracker.


• Ambush - Sometimes you have to face the fact that you're not getting away. Then it might be prudent to not just stand your ground and await the attack. Instead, plan an ambush! Use cover, hit from afar and run before they collect their wits. 


• Split the party! - One thing which is a big "no, no" is splitting the party. While it might be hard on the GM, it's a sound tactic. Make your follower have to choose which set of tracks to follow. If you combine it with the techniques mentioned above, you might even decimate your opponents while doing it.

GM techniques

There are a few things a GM might do to keep a pursuit scenario in the wilderness feel more tight. Here are a few of those.

• Interludes and personal development - In Savage Worlds there is a mechanic called Interludes, where a player gets a benny for telling a short vignette about their character.  Even if you don't use that game system, why not take the opportunity to ask one of the players if they perhaps tells their friends more about that time back in the days when they sit down by the camp fire at night? They might balk at the idea, but try it out.


• Have a timetable - The best way to make a chase of any kind interesting is to have a timetable. Make sure things happen in the world, and to the people involved in the pursuit at schedules intervals. 


• Bring more guns - Want to rack up the tension? Bring reinforcements! It would be fun if the guys being chased suddenly joined up with friends and could take the hunt to the hunters, right? Bring in those Allies or Enemies if your game system have them.

Those were my collected nuggets of wisdom about chases in the wilderness. Also, don't forget to think about what happens if someone fails that Survival roll...

Weapons length and reach in combat

When posting a comment on the A Paladin in Citadel blog about the value of weapon length modifiers I realized it had turned into a post of its own. I have posted on this topic before, but it's worth revisiting. Here we go.

Those rules, adding a sense of simulation to the play, are probably jettisoned because they make combats longer.

While it might be heresy, I might suggest that those who prefer tactical crunch should take a closer look at D&D 4th ed. The teamwork and tactical play needed for efficient combat is a big part of that game. Even with the fiddly bits of 1st ed., it never was a very tactically detailed game.

Now, that being said, there are some ways to incorporate tactical details while making the game decently swift. One good way to add some depth and planning to the combat phases is to have different phases in combat. Ranged combat and magic have their own phases, and I'd suggest they go before melee.

When it comes to weapon length, I think Elric!/Stormbringer can add a simple way to handle that. This is how it works. If you have your weapons categorized as "long" or "short", the longer ones will have reach to hit before the short ones do. Simple enough.

When attacking, in whatever order you choose, let "long" weapons go first. If you use DEX order or side initiative, follow that but let long weapons trumph that order.

For fighters with "short" weapons, they will have to make a dodge of some kind to get within the reach of the "long" weapon. Otherwise they can not attack. The same thing then apply when the opponent have dodged within your reach. Wielding a "long" weapon you then need to make a disengaging dodge in order to use your weapon again.

While it reduces the reach to a binary situation, it have the benefit of being very simple, but still managing to create a lot more tactical depth to the choice of weapons. Should your game system of choice, D&D say, not have a dodge skill, use the initiative! Dice off or use DEX or whatever method you normally use. A great idea from Tomas Arfert's Saga RPG.

Hopefully that gave some food for thought.

Tactical moves in combat - positiong redux

I have gotten some feedback on my last post on positioning. Apparently I wasn't all that clear, so let me try again.

One of the important things about positioning is your relation to your enemy. Do you control the area? Are you able to keep the enemy at bay? To what extent do that relation shape what actions you take? The ideal is, of course, to limit the actions of the opponent.

Considering that relation, we keep tabs on whom are engaged in melee with whom. If you are engaged, your options are limited to fighting that enemy. The same is true for your enemy.

The only things you need to keep track of is whom is engaged to whom.

If you don't want to be engaged, or you want to limit someones options by engaging him (for example hinder somebody from attacking the magic user as she is preparing her spell) you'll roll dice.

Now you just roll initiative like you usually do, and if you win you now can free your options for next turn by disengaging or you can now limit that other guy by closing for melee and engaging. If you fail, that was all you did that turn. I hope your armour will take the blow!

I hope that was clearer.

Tactical moves in combat - positioning

How about some spicy in your rpg combat? I've a few discoveries to share. Especially in light of what Michael Curtis briefly touches on in the end of this post.

Like I posted about a short while back, I visited a con, where I can the opportunity to talk to Tomas Arfert and James Raggi. One result of that meeting was that I decided to take a closer look on Tomas game, Saga (link and game in Swedish only). I had read about it before, and thumbed through it, but know I suddenly saw a few nuggest of gold I had missed before. One of those were the role of distance in combat, and positioning.

In Saga you roll you initiative, and the winner get to decide on the distance for melee. If you on the other hand want as your action, to position yourself at a range more beneficial to you, you roll initiative again and if you loose that was your action this round!

This struck me as a very neat way to handle positioning in combat without the need for a battlemap and having to know exactly in which square your dude is standing in relation to those goblins.

There is one other game that I know which have a similar idea. In Elric!, one of the most silly names of a game in the industry, there's also rules about combat range. In this game you are either engaged, or not. When engaged you can not move. When disengaging you have to dodge all the attacks one round, then you can move.

The mechanic is similar, but it feels smoother and probably more fun with an active role for the player, like rolling initiative, than to just sit there and endure duress.

I see some interesting potential in this. Thanks for the idea, Tomas!

Combat and Tactics, the abstract way

Today I had some time to trawl through a bunch of interesting looking blog posts I had been saving. I found this little gem over here, which is pure gold! Go and take a look!