We’ve played two or three sessions of Spirit of the Century and now we’ve moved our Traveller game over to Diaspora. Both Spirit of the Century and Diaspora use FATE. The system of aspects and fate points it uses seems to be a viable universal mechanic.
What is it? Each character, place, or even the campaign itself has aspects. These are *free-form words or phrases that can be used for or against you*. My former Traveller character has the following ten aspects:
These come out of his background (I can give you a sentence or two for every aspect), his specialty (plasma weapons), shows his strengths (violence), his weaknesses (not smart). I find that this system *generalizes benefits and drawbacks*, feats, stunts, beliefs, traits, instincts, and all those little extras. They’re also a help for the game master because aspects act like flags. Players want situations where their aspects come up.
The way this is balanced is by the fate point economy. You start every session with five fate points. Once you’ve rolled your dice and you realize you need an *extra bonus* such as a +2 if rolling fudge dice (results from -4 to +4) or maybe a +4 if you’re rolling a d20, or maybe a *reroll*, you explain how one of these aspects helps you, spend a fate point, and get the benefit.
Other players can also spend fate points to introduce temporary aspects which somebody else can then take advantage of. It’s a classical “aid another” maneuver: I use the propaganda aspect to explain why my character can convince the guards of their mistake, giving them the temporary aspect “seed of doubt” (free-form!) which our charismatic leader can then take advantage of to get an extra bonus or a reroll without having to pay a fate point (since I already have).
So how do you get them back? Whenever there’s a situation that could be turned to my detriment involving one of my aspects, the game master offers a fate point and the player gets to decide whether to take it or not. Suffer now in order to reroll later. “The guards flinch and their hands go to their holsters. I hear you’re fond of saying that violence can work, too? How about taking this fate chip and starting a brawl right here and now?”
Advancement using aspects means exchanging them over time. Got a real ship? Replace “I want a real ship” for “The D-DAWN is my baby now” or something else entirely such as “The villainous pirate Perikles Snowbooty must die”.
Somehow the use of aspects seems like a cool way to flesh out your characters, giving them options, personality, offer mechanical benefits without introducing a lot of subsystems such as skills, etc.
If you want to read more about it, check out the sections on the Fate Point Economy in the Diaspora SRD.
This system is more structured than simple alternatives like Bohemian’s Good At system or Joshua’s simple combat maneuvers as recommended by Telecanter over in the comments to Tim Short’s How Simple Do You Like Your Game – the blog post that prompted me to write this one.
How Simple Do You Like Your Game
#RPG #Old School
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I’ll have to check out Fate. I have heard of it, but never read about it yet. Sounds interesting.
– Tim Shorts 2010-07-28 16:28 UTC