FATE - Court Cases

A court cases is a conflict between two lawyers. This is still really rough, one of the players in my game is a lawyer and I wanted to make sure there would be an interesting Court Case for him to take part in.

They lawyers take turns presenting their arguments and then refuting their opponent’s argument.

The lawyer declares the difficulty of his argument and described the argument he is making. He then makes a roll against that difficulty.

If he succeeds, he manages to convince the jury. If he fails then the jury fails to find your argument convincing and the Case takes stress equal to the number of shifts the character missed the difficulty by.

Next, the other lawyer rolls against the same difficulty. If successful, their Case takes no stress and inflicts stress to the first lawyer’s Case according to the shifts on its roll as he manages to convince the Jury of the flaws in his opponent’s argument. If he fails then his Case takes stress equal to the number of shift the character missed the difficulty by.

Eventually one party of the other will have taken three consequences. Once this has happened the case is almost over and it is time for the closing arguments.

Closing Arguments

Each Lawyer makes one final argument. They both make their argument and then the judge and jury retreat to make their decision. After deliberations they return and both players make a Rapport roll. However unlike a normal roll, all Aspects must be invoked before the roll is made and all the consequences of the opponent’s Case may be tagged at no cost. Once all both players are done invoking aspects then they both roll. The winner of the roll and won the Court Case, although they must still abide by any consequences that they might have taken.

Witnesses

Witnesses, both NPC and PC, are a common component in a Court Case. Each exchange the first lawyer may call out a witness to be examined. A witness may assist the lawyer, provided he wants to and has a means to do so. This allows the witness to contribute to the court case, as long as he finds a way to describe it, such as explaining the forensic report (Science). The witness rolls his skill while the lawyer rolls his Rapport (Leadership can not be rolled for examining witnesses), and the lawyer may use the higher of the two results. A single Witness may only be called once per Court Case. Obviously, a Witness may not be called on during the Closing Arguments.

Jury Bias

The Jury is unfortunately sometimes biased. They tend to already have an idea about who is innocent and who is guilty. By default, a Case has 5 boxes for their stress track. The Rapport of the defendant (or plaintiff) increases the number of stress boxes the same way as Resolve or Endurance.

Evidence

Evidence takes the form of aspects. Each piece of important evidence that the lawyer has gets one free invoke, after that the lawyer is forced to spend a FATE point as usual. Evidence is usually accrued before the Court Case has begun and the opponent Lawyer usually has evidence as well.

Skills

Lawyers use Rapport to convince the Judge and Jury that his position is correct. They can also use the Bureaucracy trapping of Leadership to remember laws and precedent set in previous court cases.

Designer Notes

Court Cases are modeled after the Chases in the core rules.

The closing arguments mechanic is added to provide some of the uncertainty of fictional court cases. Neither side really knows what the result will finally be until the judge finally delivers the line about the person’s guilt. Even if one side is winning there shouldn’t be complete certainty until the very end.

Witnesses is an adaptation of the Passengers rules.

Setting Idea - City in the Darkness

I often have different setting ideas floating around in my head and I decided I should give them a little bit of fleshing out and then post some of them. Maybe they can give somebody else some inspiration.

As a setting idea it is just a rough outline, a little bit of detail. It should be just enough to get a feel for what the setting should be like while leaving enough space to fill in whatever else you want.

NPCs and Organizations have beliefs which are taken from the Burning Wheel RPG. Beliefs are a great way of bringing direction to a character and are there to show what the character is trying to accomplish.

Scenes are ideas of what could be done with character/location/organization. They are something that might happen in the game that strikes me as interesting. Use them (or not) as you see fit.

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City In The Darkness

The sun sets on a city, but it doesn’t rise. No stars shine of the city, only the lights from the buildings fill the night. TVs and radios broadcast only static and the phones lines and the internet sit dead.

Nuclear Power Plant

The city has its own power plant near the outskirts which produces most of the city’s power. It is a next generation nuclear power plant. Without the power plant the city would be completely without power, which would draw in the Lightless.

Outside The City

Outside the city there is only black stretched of darkness, and monsters. The creatures that are too repulsed by the light from the city live there and they devour those who attempt to leave. It is unknown how many might actually find a way out of the darkness but the horror stories of those who return are enough to frighten even the bravest of people.

The Lightless

The Lightless are pure white, having no pigment, and blind, though they have no trouble detecting their prey. They are repulsed by bright light which will slowly burn their skin. They hunt and eat each other but humans seem to be their favorite food. They come in various shapes, sizes, and intelligences though it is unknown if any are as smart as humans.

Shadows

The Other You, The you that has no morals and who will do anything to accomplish its desires, your desires.

Shadows & Beliefs

Shadows have beliefs that are corrupted versions of the character’s beliefs. The shadow might be willing to follow through with the beliefs no matter the cost or they might be flipped trying to accomplish the opposite of the character.

Scenes

A Shadow ruthlessly following through with its believe, killing obstacles that the character wouldn’t.

Midnight

A mysterious woman who dresses in a black robe. She has some strange power and the demons seem to fear her. She lives in a broken clock tower that didn’t exist in the real town.

Beliefs

Trial brings out the best and worse in people, I must push them to reach their limits.
If the Sun rises then I will be alone again, I will mislead anyone who attempts to make it happen.

Scenes

Midnight prevents the party from causing Sun to rise unless they give her someone to keep for ever and ever.

Darkness Comes Cult

They were only viewed as another random doom’s day cult, claiming that the world will be plunged into darkness. When the darkness finally did fall their ranks grew and they began taking control of the city.

Cult Beliefs

The Darkness is all, those who seek the rising of the sun must be killed.
The Power Plant is all that protects us from the monsters outside the city, it must be protected at all costs.
We will rule the City of the Darkness, we need any support we can get to accomplish it.

Scenes

The Cult begins holding parts of the city hostage using the Power Plant in an attempt to solidify their control over the city.

Inspiration

Silent Hill

Shin Megami Tensei (Nocturne, Devil Survivor, and Persona)

The World Ends With You

Xcode 3.2 Search

When using Xcode 3.2 the first thing that I noticed that changed was the text font, the second thing I noticed was that the search was inline, just like it is in Safari. It really makes things much easier.

A different role-playing campaign

My Spirit of the Code campaign is on hold for the moment because school is starting up and one of my players is far too busy to do anything.

So instead I'm going to try to run a modern fantasy with two players using the Mutants and Masterminds rules. I'm going to sit my players down and explain to them the setting and what to expect during the game.

The story is about the battle for the King of Demons which is going to happen on Earth, however a Demon can't exist on Earth without first making a contract with a Wizard. So one of the players is going to play the human and the other is going to be a demon.

Now once I have explained the concept I'm going to tell them that most humans and demons are going to be between Power Level 5 and 10 with most of them being on the lower end. Then I'm going to have them create their character using however many points they like and at whatever Power Level they want. The players don't even have similar point totals because how powerful the characters are isn't going to make things easier.

I've recently been reading John Wick's Play Dirty, which is an excellent book, so you can be rest assured that the characters will still suffer no matter how powerful they are.

One thing I want to do for this game is have 'Secrets'. These are things that the other character (not player) isn't going to know and which the character wants to keep from them.

The second thing I want to player goals, which are things that the player want to happen to their character.

I'll post again once I play and tell people how it turned out.

Apophenia Evolved

Recently I have created another website called Apophenia Evolved. Please take a look at it. I'm still not certain how I'm going to divide my posts between here and there, however I'm probably still going to post some role-playing things here for a while along with any other tidbits.

Toward the Sky

I don't know if this will go anywhere. Maybe this will turn into a story or a role-playing setting. However right now I just had the idea so I'm writing it and people can use it how they will.

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Humans once had wings. They used to fly through the sky as free as birds. Everything their hearts desired was theirs and a great civilization flourished. Yet they were not content but they knew not what they were missing.

The King of the Sky search far and low, across the reaches of the earth searching for what they desired. Many years he searched until he had almost given up all hope of ever finding it. It was then that he discovered what he had been missing in the most unlikely place. However the price would be his glorious wings. He and the rest of the humans willing traded their wings away for this prize of prizes.

But not all ends well, humans have long since forgotten what it was that they received for their lost wings. Now they reach for the sky grasping for even a moment true flight. For the penniless commoner who can only dream of what it might be like to fly to the Princess of the Sky in her floating castle who wishes to be free of her gilded cage, all of them reach for the sky and that one moment where their feet leave the ground.

A very different FATE Idea

I know it has been a while, but I have just finished by finals and by the end of this week I will be a completely free man with a Bachelors of Computer Science. My freedom will last just as long as it takes me to find a full time job. However that has absolutely nothing to do with FATE.

Now for the topic I am actually talking about. I have been having thoughts about a fairly different style of FATE adaptation. Really, it is more of an overhaul of the system that I just wanted to mention my thoughts on.

(*) For purposes of this document the GM is considered a player who controls as many characters as he wants and has no fate point limit. Unless the GM is specifically mentioned then assume a rule applies equally to the GM.

Skills

Skills are rated from -1 to +3 instead of from +0 to +5.

Ladder

Superb +3
Great +2
Good +1
Average +0
Terrible -1

A character will probably have One Superb, Two Great, Three Good, and probably Two Terrible. Every other skill is Average.

The distinction between levels on the ladder is mainly cinematic.

Terrible means the character routinely fails at that type of task.

Average means that just that, the character is no better or worse then most people.

Good means the character professionally good at something. Most people are Good at what they do for a living.

Great means you are seriously accomplished in your field. Professionals who have been working for years generally reach this level eventually.

Superb is the best of the best. They are the geniuses that everybody knows about. You simply can’t get better then this.

Simple Actions:

The player rolls the appropriate skill against a difficulty chosen by the GM (Usually Average or Good). If the player meets or exceeds the difficulty then the player gets Privilege, otherwise the GM gets Privilege.

Contests:

Both sides roll the appropriate skill and the player who gets the highest roll gets Privilege. If there is a tie then both players get Privilege.

[[I’ll get into conflicts in a later post.]]

Privilege:

(Name taken from the Houses of the Blooded)

The player(s) with Privilege gets to determine what happens as a result of the action. They get to determine who succeeded and failed and what happened as a result. Their decision must be appropriate for the skills rolled and the situation.

Multiple Players with Privilege

If there are multiple players with Privilege and they can’t jointly decide what should happen then those with privilege will roll the skills again until there is only one person with privilege or those remaining can agree on a result.

GM and Privilege

While a GM is supposed to move along the story and make things happen, a GM is NOT considered to have Privilege unless the players fail to match or beat the difficulty of a Simple Action or a GM controlled character wins a Contest. This is because Privilege allows a player to determine what happens to other players characters.

Example:
A GM can put a pit along the players path but he can’t dump them down it unless he gains Privilege. Though if one of the players has an aspect like ‘Falls down holes’ then the GM can try compelling that even without Privilege.

Spending Fate Points

First, fate points aren’t used to boost your skill. Whatever you roll that is what you get and the person with Privilege is decided. However after Privilege is decided but before that person decides what happens the other players can spend fate points (Even the players what weren’t involved in the roll).

Starting with the players that failed their roll, all the players without Privilege can spend fate points to Invoke or Compel aspects. They can continue to do this until they wish to stop or run out of fate points.

Invoke

A player can invoke any of their aspects or any aspect not belonging to another character. The fate point spent is returned to the fate point pool.
When a player invokes an aspect then they declare something that must happen because of that aspect. If this happens during an action then the player(s) with Privilege must work that into their description of what happened.

Example:
Swordsman A is having a quick dual with his rival but he lost a roll. He can spend a fate point and say he is an ‘Unrivaled Swordsman’ so he couldn’t have lost in a fair fight. The player with Privilege now has to find a different way to beat the character. Maybe the rival used dirty tricks to win or maybe something happened in the middle of the fight that interrupted it.

Compel

A player can compel any aspect belonging to another character. A compel is the same as an invoke except that the owner of compelled character gains the fate point instead of it returning to the fate point pool. Also the owner of the compelled character can spend one of their own fate points to refuse the compel. If that happens then both the spend fate points are given to the compelling character and that particular aspect can not be compelled for the rest of the scene.

GM Invoke

Outside of an action the GM doesn’t need to worry about invokes. If he wants something to happen then it happens. However when another player has Privilege then this isn’t true. In that case the GM can Invoke aspects by giving fate points to the player with Privilege. If multiple players have Privilege then they need to decide which of them gets the fate point.

Earning Fate Points

There are currently three main ways of earning fate points. Rolling a Terrible skill and Compels, and GM Invoke.

Terrible

When you roll one of your Terrible skills you gain a fate point. Since you will probably lose any roll where you use a terrible skill you get a fate point in return. This serves the purpose of showing that the character is actually bad at things and it gives them a bonus for occasionally failing deliberately.

Compel

When another player compels your character then you gain a fate point (Unless you refuse it). You can not compel yourself, however you can suggest compels to the other players.

GM Invoke

When a player has Privilege and the GM chooses to Invoke an aspect then that player gains a fate point.

[[I might think of more ways to get fate points later.]]

Other

Folly of Fools

This is when two or players try to roll using a Terrible skill. When this happens only the player who rolled the lowest gets the fate point. However if there is a tie for lowest then every player who rolled gains a fate point and the GM is considered to have Privilege instead of whoever rolled highest.