White Picket Witches: Prepared Characters

Yesterday, I gm'ed my first game of White Picket Witches at the Gratisrollenspieltag (German Free RPG Day). The game itself will be described in an upcoming blog post. Here I'll just show which characters were prepared for the game. I did six characters for three families and gave them two aspects (childhood and heritage), one stunt and one spell each.

Clayton Gardner

Childhood: Knows Moon Island like his back pocket
Heritage: The simple cousin from a family offshot
Stunt: Lie Whisperer (as seen on page 113 of FATE Core preview)
Magic: Muscle Work, Spell: Animal Form (Collie; Simply adorable, a truly good nose, "That smells delicious", Dogged, Soft and cuddly)

Linda Gardner

Childhood: The sweetest girl of the Five Families
Heritage: Grandmother's darling and her best student
Stunt: Always Making Useful Things (as seen on page 107 of FATE Core preview)
Magic: Muscle Work, Spell: Deepest Healing

Caleb Gifford

Childhood: Gets away with murder
Heritage: The black sheep of a black herd
Stunt: Word are Weapons (+2 to Treacherous when you attack an other character verbally in order to harm).
Magic: Bone Work, Spell: Curse

Felicia Gifford

Childhood: The burden of responsibility
Heritage: Heir Apparent of the Gifford Estate
Stunt: Money Talks (as seen on page 129 of the FATE Core Preview)
Magic: Bone Work, Spell: variation of Dead Men's Tales granting a scene aspect instead of a boost.

Victoria "Vicky" Grant

Childhood: The only girl on the Lacrosse Team
Heritage: My father was the parish priest of Moon Island
Stunt: Roll with the Blow (as seen on page 102 of the FATE Core Preview)
Magic: Breath Work, Spell: Purifying Light (A Great or better roll can create an advantage against a monster associated with night and darkness).

Zachary "Zac" Grant

Childhood: The little mischief
Heritage: Always the baby brother of the Grant family
Stunt: Always a Way Out (as seen on page 103 of the FATE Core Preview)
Magic: Breath Work, Spell: Mythical Conveyance

The players will be able to pick the Canon aspect, the Tragic Flaw aspect and the Casting aspect. Then they get to distribute a Great (+4), a Good (+3), a Fair (+2) and an Average (+1) value on their Assets. One of the assets has to be the Magic Asset. This gives them one point more than the White Picket Witches default build, arranged in a column. Because I think, distributing 8 points accross 8 Assets will end up with some fairly generic distributions in the Average to Fair range.

Stranger Shores: Character Creation

In FATE Core, characters start out with a relative modest refresh of 3 FATE points. Something I really like, because the maximum of three stunts is easier to create than the five that are required by other FATE games. Also, it leaves the opportunity to just go with one stunt and keep your refresh higher.

On the other hand, looking at my templates, I see that most of them require one to three stunts (i.e. refresh) to build. That's a lot. Also, I don't want players to get rid of the initial mundane stunt in favor of defining themselves exclusively by the Extras. Additionally, every player character is supposed to be a supernatural creature.

Therefore, each player character receives at character creation:

• Five aspects
• A skill pyramid topped at Great (+4).
• One free stunt
• One free extra that normally costs one refresh
• Three refresh (to keep or buy additional stunts or extras)

A note about skills: initially, I had designed my own skill list for Urban Fantasy games. But that isn't really viable anymore. The list was aimed at young adults discovering the supernatural world around them. Stranger Shores deals with other issues. Therefore, I am using the default skill list with no changes at all. The list is quite servicable. Maybe I could rename Rapport to Charm, but that is also not strictly necessary. The Lore skill deals mostly knowledge about the Nightfolk, Heaven, Hell and Faerie. If it is supposed to deal with academic or scientific knowledge, you can model that by taking an appropriate stunt.

Note: This is the last post about the Stranger Shores, as I've dropped the idea. Also, one of my players remarked that it is a bit close to Vampire: The Requiem.

Stranger Shores: The Character Aspects

Since I still don't want to use the phase trio, I am defining what the five aspects should be about.

• High Concept: The aspect that tells us what your character can do and what he is at his core. Should include a reference to the type of Nightfolk your character belongs to. It will serve as the permission to take appropriate Extras.
• Weakness: Rather than a trouble aspect, the Nightfolk has specific weaknesses. Each template lists several possible weaknesses. The character is required to have a weakness in form of an aspect.
• Faction: The faction aspect should describe your membership in one of the five factions. It can include your attitude, something you do for them or your expectations about the faction. The name of the faction doesn't have to be part of the aspect, as long as it is clear from the aspect what faction you belong to. Talk to your gamemaster and your gaming group about this.
• Community: The next character aspect deals with your role among humans. How do you relate to your neighbors, what do they think about you? It can be about friendships or rivalries; about good deeds you have done or crimes you have to hide.
• Job: The last character aspect describes what you are doing to earn a living. The aspect can be about your reputation, your competence or incompetence, your profession, your attitude towards your job or  your realtions to your colleagues. Really about anything job-related (e.g. "I am the worst mechanic in town", "People just like my coffee and my smile", "I can't stand to go in the office each day", "Independently wealthy"  - again just a few quick examples, you'll come up with something better, I am sure).

Steampunk: The Skill List

Since the skill list also helps to define the genre, let's take a look at the skills for steampunk. Again, the default skill list will be our guide to the discussion.

The skills Athletics, Burglary, Contacts, Deceit, Empathy, Intimidation, Investigation, Notice, Physique, Rapport, Resources, Shooting, Stealth, Will are alright and will do for a steampunk setting. That leaves Crafts, Drive, Fighting and Lore to be discussed.

Crafts will be changed to Mechanics. This is a central skill of Steampunk as it will allow you to create and repair steampunk devices. The devices themselves will either be scene aspects or stunts. Aspects will be handy, when creating helpful devices on the fly or as part of the story. Stunts (or Extras) represent more permanent Steampunk gadgets you own.

The skill Drive could be used as is for steam carriages or horse carriages, but I'd rather not bloat the skill list with additional skills unless absolutely necessary. So I'll replace Drive with Ride to reflect that horses are still the prefered method of getting around. If your character ever needs to drive a steam carriage, he can either use mechanics or ride, depending on the whims of the gamemaster.

Fighting could simply be renamed to Fisticuffs to give a little period flavor to the skill list. Functions remain unchanged.

Lore will have to be split this time. Since I'd like to have magic separate from sciene, it makes sense to split Lore into a knowledge about science skill and a knowledge about magic skill. Since Steampunk is often about mad scientists and wonderous inventions, I am going for Science! as skill, instead of a more genteel Academics. Occultism or Occult fits the period as well. So the second skill derived from Lore will be Occultism. It does everything that the Lore skill does, but relates to magic. Also, if you don't want to have magic in your Steampunk, you can simply drop the Occultism skill.

The final Steampunk skill list looks like this:

• Athletics
• Burglary
• Contacts
• Deceit
• Empathy
• Fisticuffs
• Intimidation
• Investigation
• Mechanics
• Notice
• Occultism
• Physique
• Rapport
• Resources
• Ride
• Science!
• Shooting
• Stealth
• Will

Urban Fantasy: The Supernatural Part 2

Part 1 gave us a list of Extras to select from; Part 2 will show some creatures that possess the listed abilities. Of course, these aren't the only inhabitants of the supernatural side of our still unnamed setting. The creature packages will be geared towards beginnig characters in terms of costs (thus less than three stunts). In order for a player character to be that type of creature, the high concept aspect of the character should name the creature.

The currently available Extras are:

• Stunts: Anthevôke, Beast Shape, Clairvoyance, Claws & Fangs, Pass Wall, Seven League Stride, Supernatural Endurance, Wallwalker, Wings, Wizardry (wizardry has add-on stunts, but they aren't required).
• Skills: Elemental Control, Opening, Wizardry.

Remember the first design decision of the setting: There are no vampires? We'll add a second one to that: There are no demons or angels. I've run enough stories and campaigns about these kind of creatures. I would like to have something new.

Changelings

Cost: One or two stunts and one skill slot.

They aren't like the changelings from Changeling: The Dreaming or Changeling: The Lost. They are simply a catch-all category for those people born with strange abilities. Are they descended from faeries? Is there such a thing as a faery realm? We don't know yet. But maybe changelings have a connection to them, if they do exist. Something about changelings is slightly off. Their arms and legs may appear to be too long, their hair color has a shade that is a bit odd, but nothing too obvious (like blue highlights in black hair, a deep coppery red or a tinge of aubergine), their eyes may sparke with hints of gold or silver. Sometimes their faces and bodies are slightly contorted or bend. On closer inspection, they stand out.

A changeling should grab one or two stunts from Anthevôke, Clairvoyance, Claws & Fangs, Seven League Stride/Shadow Walking and/or Wallwalker. Additionally, the usually have some skill at Elemental Control or Opening.

Ghosts

Cost: One to three stunts.

Your character has already died, but something kept him from moving on to the afterlife. The trouble aspect, the Family aspect or the Relations aspect could revolve around that. Did anyone even notice that you are dead? You usually seem quite solid and are visible to others.

A ghost should take the Pass Wall stunt, and he can also take Supernatural Endurance and/or Seven League Stride. But they don't have to. Physical attacks can still hurt you and even take you out, but cannot be destroyed unless someone burns your body.

Werewolves

Cost: One to three stunts. 

Werewolves can be born or infected by the bite of another werewolf. They might follow traditional folklore and have weaknesses to silver, wolfsbane or be influenced by the moon. If the player decides that her werewolf has one or several of those weaknesses, she should work that into her character's trouble aspect.

A werewolf usually has the stunts Beast Shape, Claws & Fangs as well as Supernatural Endurance. But depending on the setting he may only have Beast Shape or Claws & Fangs. In the latter case, his werewolf shape is probably quite monstrous. Supernatural Endurance may be taken at a latter point in the game.

Witches

Cost: One to three stunts and a skill slot.

Practioners of the magical arts are commonly called witches. But they could be called magi, sorcerers or shamans. They carry a traditional mark, which may be red hair, a prominent birthmark (called a witch's teat by some) or they might be completely ordinary folk. Witches usually are born as such and can look back on a whole family line of witches. The heritage runs very often through the mother's side of the family tree, but any offspring maybe a witch, regardless of gender.

Witches have to take the Wizardry stunt (also called Witchcraft or Sorcery) and an associated skill. They may take up to two additional extras from Abjuration, Enchantment, Ritual and Warlock (each worth a stunt).

Other Creatures

The four types listed above are just meant to get you started. Maybe your character is something else entirely, like a:

• Dragon: Claws & Fangs, Wings and the skill Elemental Control "Fire".
• Murder of Crows: Beast Shape (murder of crows), Wings and Supernatural Endurance.
• Selkie: Beast Shape (seal) and maybe "Water".
• Wereraven: Beast Shape (raven) and Wings.

In the end: be creative and talk to your game master. You are not even limited to the Extras introduced in Urban Fantasy: The Supernatural Part 1. Maybe you want to be a Medusa whose natural form can turn people to stone.

Urban Fantasy: The Supernatural Part 1

With the character aspects and the skill list, I've got the high school part of the setting covered. What remains is the supernatural. That needs to be defined in order to give the players some ideas what kind of characters they can play.

I've already defined that you need a high concept aspect that describes the supernatural side of a character in order to access special abilities. Those special abilities are modelled as Extras in FATE Core. I don't want to go the route of the Dresden Files RPG, because as much as I love the setting and the rules, I think the supernatural powers are very complex. Especially since a good part of people I am playing with qualify as "casual gamers" according the Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering. So, I want to have something straight forward that doesn't need many rules behind it. Essentially, everything a player needs to know about his character should fit on his character sheet (i.e. the Extras box).

Before defining possible creatures, I want to have some example powers I can assign to them. After mulling this over, I came to the conclusion that some Extras will be modelled by additional skills that you can just add to your skill pyramid. Other Extras will cost in Stunts. But I would prefer each Extra to cost at maximum one Stunt instead of many to keep the math down and flexibility high.

Anthevôke (stunt)

This stunt is named as homage to Steve Berman's Trysts anthology. It basically describes Psychometry, the ability to read the history of an item just by handling it. This allows the character to use Research to create an advantage on an item. If the anthevôke spends a FATE point, he can use the item as intended for a scene, even without the fuel the item usually needs to run. After that scene, the item is broken and needs to be repaired with Crafts.

Beast Shape (stunt)

The character can take on the shape of an animal or in some rare cases animals. This costs a FATE point and lasts for the rest of the scene. While in animal shape, the character gains a new and separate great (+4) skill column. The skill column contains four of the skills Athletics, Fighting, Notice, Physique and Stealth. The skills replace the normal rating a character has in these skills. Common shapes and their suggested distribution are:

• Cat: great (+4) Stealth, good (+3) Athletics, fair (+2) Fighting and average (+1) Notice.
• Murder of Crows: great (+4) Notice, good (+3) Fighting, fair (+2) Athletics and average (+1) Physique.
• Raven: great (+4) Notice, good (+3) Athletics, fair (+2) Stealth and average (+1) Fighting.
• Wolf: great (+4) Fighting, good (+3) Athletics, fair (+2) Notice and average (+1) Stealth.

Note: Of course these are just suggestions and the player is encouraged to work with the game master to come up with a reasonable skill column.

Note the Second: The beast shape might change your Physique, thus changing your physical stress track!

Clairvoyance (stunt)

Once per session, the clairvoyant can enter a trance and divine the future. The player can place an aspect on the game session that can be invoked once for free.

Claws & Fangs (stunt)

The character can grow vicious claws and fangs. The character gains Weapon:2, when growing those claws and fangs.

Elemental Control (skill)

The character can control one element like fire, air, water, cold and so on. The Extra is treated as a skill that is called like the Element it controls (i.e. "Fire", "Air" or "Cold"). Element control skills cannot be used to directly overcome obstacles, but they can be used to create advantages or to attack. The can also be used to defend against opposite elements or by stopping mundane attacks with their element.

Opening (skill)

The skill Opening can be used to open locked doors and containers without needing any keys. It is a hommage to Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman.

Pass Walls (stunt)

The character is able to pass through solid walls, through floors and even into rock. No roll is necessary, but the character takes two mental stress for each wall he passes through.

Seven League Stride (stunt)

By apparently walking straight into a wall or a shadow, the character can teleport to another location within one day travel of his current location. The player needs to spend a FATE point to use the Extra. The ability might also be called Shadow Walking.

Supernatural Endurance (stunt)

The character gains two more physical stress boxes. Supernatural toughness is treated as an Extra, because it shouldn't be available to just anyone; only those touched by the supernatural may have extra endurance.

Wallwalker (stunt)

The character is able to walk on walls and even ceiling without much effort. He can easily bypass ground-based or height-based obstacles while doing so, thus requiring no roll to overcome the obstacle.

Wings (stunt)

The character can literally grow wings. While flying, the character can move more swiftly (two zones instead of one per exchange) and ignore ground-based and height-based obstacles.

Wizardy (skill and one or more stunts)

Wizardry is a special case. It takes a special skill to use that the player can call either Wizardry, Sorcery or Witchcraft. The skill becomes part of the skill pyramid. But he also needs a stunt to practice Witchcraft. That stunt lets him use Witchcraft instead of any other skill to overcome obstacles. In its basic form, it cannot be used to create advantages, attack or defend. Wizardry is very flexibel, because it can be used instead of any other skill. Therefore, it can only be used once each scene. Each additional use causes two mental stress. Successes with major costs and ties should create additional mental stress or consequences, representing the exhaustion the character is pushing himself to.

A sorcerer can take additional stunts to improve his performance with Sorcery:

• Abjuration: The character can use Wizardry to defend himself against attacks instead of Athletics or Will. This counts as a normal use of Wizardry, except when defending against a Warlock. Abjuration can be used as many times as the character wants to defend against attacks made with Wizardry without causing mental stress.
• Enchantment: The character can use Witchcraft to create advantages that may even be used by other characters. They follow all the rules of advantages after they have been created. Enchanting still counts as using Sorcery.
• Ritual: The character knows one reliable way to use her Wizardry to produce  a result. This ritual needs to be agreed on with the game master and doesn't count as a use of Wizardry anymore. It still can only be used to overcome an obstacle.
• Warlock: The character can use Sorcery to attack.The opponent defends either with Athletics, if the attack can be physically dodged, or with Will, if the attack is mental. The warlock decides, if he wants to do physical or mental damage.

Note: Wizardry is closely modelled on the FreeFATE version of the ability.

That's it. My initial package of powers for Urban Fantasy. I am not sure about the pricing for some of these. Maybe Beast Shape needs to cost two stunts instead of one... Feedback is welcome.

Next we are looking at some of the beasties that could populate the setting.

Urban Fantasy: Character Aspects

FATE Core basically gives each character five aspects. One high concept aspect, one trouble aspect and three aspects derived from the Phase Trio. I don't really like the Phase Trio. It requires too much time to set up and from what I've seen so far, it doesn't really pay off in my games. For other people that might be different. Also, I like to get to actual playing faster (never mind that campaign and character creation is considered to be part of the game).

So I am replacing the Phase Trio with something else, taking my cues from the design diary of White Picket Witches. For that game, each additional aspect relates to some part of the game world (Childhood, Heritage and Casting). In the past, I had considered something similar for designing a Vampire game with FATE (Mortal Background, Vampiric Background, Relationship to another player character and Weakness). So I am going with something similar instead of the Phase Trio.

• High Concept: The aspect that tells us what your character can do and what he is at his core. Should include something supernatural, if you'd like for your character to take extras. It will serve as the permission for them.
• Trouble: The aspect that makes things difficult for your character. Follow the advice from FATE Core.
• Family: An aspect describes your relationship to your family or their living conditions or the state the family is in (e.g. "My Parents are getting a divorce", "Raised by a single dad", "Money is no substitute for love", "The perfect family on the outside - rotten on the inside", "Estranged half-sister" - I am sure the players will come up with better aspects).
• Relations: The aspect describes the relation of your character to the character of the player sitting to your right. For that aspect, you are going to draw a random card that describes the basics of that relationship and then work something out with the affected player and make that into an aspect on your sheet.
• School: The last character aspect describes your role in school. It's probably best, if it is not relationship-based, as you already have plenty of both, but rather based on his educational goals, his status at school, personality traits that make life at school easy or hard, some class your character is good at, or features that make him or her stand in school (e.g. "Co-Captain of the Lacrosse Team", "The prettiest cheerleader in school", "Excels at chemistry class", "Student helper in the library" - again just a few quick examples, you'll come up with something better, I am sure).

About Relationships

Here, I like to take a page from Kriegszeppelin Valkyrie (for now only available to backers of the FATE Core Kickstarter). The game recommends to have each player draw an index card with a relationship prompt and then create a scene aspect for that relationship that is more or less permanent. 

I am doing something similar, but I want to have a character aspect for that; something that ties the character to another character while still saying something about the character who has the aspect.

Alternatively, the relationship can be to a non-player character student.

Suggested relationships:

• Admiration: Your character admires the character of the player to your right. What do you find so admirable about them? Do you aspire to the same qualities? Are you friends? Are you her lackey and do whatever she says?
• Blackmail: One step up from bullying. You know something that will get the character of the player to your right into deep trouble. What do you know? Who will bring the trouble (a teacher, a parent, another student)? What are you doing to get an advantage out of your knowledge.
• Bullied: Your character is being bullied by the character of the player to your right. What has he done to draw her attention? Why is she picking on him?
• Friendship: Your character is best friends with the character of the player to your right. Why? What do they have in common? Why do they trust each other?
• Love grown cold: Your character was an item with the character of the player to your right. But your love didn't last over the summer. You have split and you have to deal with it. Why did you split up? Do you think it was a mistake to be together in the first place? Do you miss him?
• Madly in love: Your character is in love with the character of the player to your right and you are an item. How do the other students view your relationship? Do they think you are the perfect couple? Do they want to separate you for "your own good"? Is someone jealous about your love?
• Rivalry: Your character has a rivalry with the character of the player to your right. What is the rivalry about? Is it a friendly rivalry or an unfriendly one or even antagonistic?
• Secretly in love with: Your character is or was secretly in love with the character of the player to your right. Determine why she can't be in love with the other character openly.
• Shared secret: Your character and the character of the player to your right know something the others don't. Is it something funny, something embarrassing, something serious? How did you find out about the secret?
• Stalking: Your character secretly observes the character of the player to your right. Why? What is so interesting about him? 

Each player should draw an index card and take a look at the relationship. Yes, depending on seating arrangements this could create somewhat akward situations. But to cite Monsterhearts and the author Joe McDaldno: 

"This ... implies something about sexuality, and particularly teenage sexuality. We don’t get to decide what turns us on." 

You can always decide that the relationship happened in the past and was "just a phase". Or you can embrace it and try to move from there. Or you can say "Pretty please" to your game master and ask to draw another index card.

Of course, each game master can think of further relationship possibilities.

In case, the other player character isn't available as often, it is probably best to derive an aspect that says something the motivations or qualities of your character that led to the relationship or that she gets from the relationship instead of mentioning a specific name.

Urban Fantasy: The Skill List

The game about high school teenagers slowly discovering their supernatural heritage and the obligations that come with it needs skills (apart from also needing a catchy name, but that's another story). The list given in FATE Core serves as a starting point, but I feel that the skill names should reflect the setting (and I don't like some of the skill names).

The names and skills that work are Athletics, Burglary, Crafts, Drive, Empathy, Fighting, Notice, Physique, Shooting, Stealth and Will.

But some of the other names and skills don't work quite so well. Let's take a look at Contacts, Deceit, Intimidation, Investigation, Lore, Rapport and Resources. They all sound very adult and high-minded. I want something more juvenile that sounds like teenagers would do it.

Contacts: I don't think that teenagers would have contacts. High school seems to be about being popular and  popularity seems to decide if other students do you favors. So I would call that skill "Popularity" and otherwise leave it as it is.

Deceit: Sounds very adult and also includes the ability to project false personas. Something I don't see teenagers doing. So I would go with "Lying" instead of Deceit.

Initimidation: Again, I don't see teenagers as intimidating some one. At school you are usually "Bullying" people.

Investigation and Lore: Both skills usually tie together somehow in a modern setting with supernatural elements. In much of the source material investigation usually involves hitting the books (be it in Gilles' library,  old diaries in the Salvatore household or reading werewolf hunter files on a tablet PC). Then there are people in the know. They just know from personal experience and study about the supernatural. Also, since this is high school, academic achievement and knowledge about science is present in the setting. But is that important enough to the story that I need a skill for that? One last issue that plays into Investigation and Lore is the presence of computers. In many games that is still considered a separate skill. But in the end, computers are on the verge of becoming ubiquitous tools that anyone can handle without much knowledge. Simply start the app. That is what I am going to do:

Investigation gains an emphasis on research in the library or online. It really doesn't matter where you get your knowledge. It is important that you how to search for clues and how to execute your searches. Thus Investigation becomes "Research". The skill can be used to overcome obstacles and create advantages, but no attacks and defenses. I could see both happening with preparation, so they'd be the province of stunts.

Lore is a bit more difficult. It could be split into a mundane skill called Academics or Science and a supernatural skill called Lore or Occult or Mysteries. But I am not going to do that. The game is about the slow discovery of supernatural abilities. Therefore there will be no skill (except Research) that allows a player to bypass the process of discovery through play. They simply won't know. They have to experience the supernatural. I still would like to measure academic achievement though and generally obscure (but practical) knowledge like Willow and Danny being knowledgable hackers, or Lydia being able to brew a pyrophric cocktail. Or simply having a skill that can be rolled to determine the success on an exam. I am thinking "Geek" here. The skill can be used to overcome obstacles and create advantages. Various special applications can be modelled by stunts.

Rapport: I simply don't like the name of that skill. If you are being nice to someone to get what you want, you simply turn on your charm. So Rapport gets renamed to "Charm".

Resources: Adults have resources, teenagers usually have allowances. So that's what I am going to call the skill: "Allowance". Still someone with a Great (+4) Allowance will probably rather drive a Porsche than a Rabbit to school.

The final skill list for an urban fantasy game set at a high school than looks like this:

• Allowance
• Athletics
• Bullying
• Burglary
• Charm
• Crafts
• Drive
• Empathy
• Fighting
• Geek
• Lying
• Notice
• Physique
• Popularity
• Research
• Shooting
• Stealth
• Will