Monsterhearts: Cardiff, Wales, Episode 1

Yesterday, we played Monsterhearts via Google Hangout. We had four characters: Merrill the Witch, Morrigan the Ghoul, Lucian the Serpentine, Mattieu the Selkie. For the player of Lucian it was the very first role-playing game ever (cherish that memory, no game is like the first game).

The strings were distributed among the non-player characters and player characters. The ones between the characters were:

• Lucian watched Morrigan come back to live.
• Mattieu watched Merrill rummaging through Graham's stuff and kept quiet about it.
• Mattieu had seen Lucian swimming.
• Mattieu knew that Morrigan had taken his pelt and stuffed into her locker.

We took most of our time designing the class room together. Our GM had prepared great questions to get us thinking about the home room and the other students. We decided to set our game in Cardiff, School had started two weeks ago and already two girls (Carmen and Erica) from the class had gone missing. Our home room was Geography class taught by Mr Gilles.

Merrill was heading for class with Lucian who was followed by Thomas carrying Lucian's bag. On their way, they witnessed a confrontation between Merill and Felix. Felix had a thing going for Meral, a devout moslem girl from Pakistan. But it wasn't exactly romantic, rather a bit creepy and he was leaning in on her. Merill  decided to step in and teach him a lesson, when she saw him. First she kept steady as Felix told her to go away and bashed her into the locker, then she tried to fight back, but was stopped by Mr Gilles. He thought she was the guilty party and ordered after school detention. She challenged him and implied that he was tolerating girls being victimized. The other students saw her as being pretty furious and Mr Gilles was a bit uncertain that he had done the right thing.

Meanwhile, Lucian was getting a call from his father Mandrake. He practically ordered his son to run for class presidency.

Morrigan had already arrived in the class room and her former BFF Ed tried to talk her into another game of Warhammer Fantasy Role Play. She shut him down immediately and he looked quite afraid of her - not knowing why.

In the corridor, Mattieu was also heading for class together with Amanda, a friendly face who had helped the Selkie find his way around school. They talked about throwing a party at the beach in the evening and Mattieu noticed Thomas standing behind Lucian. He pointedly addressed him first and invited him to come to the party, telling him he could "bring Lucian too" - visibly snobbing the Serpentine to turn on Thomas who everyone was suspecting of being gay. Thomas looked pleased (and Mattieu got a string on him).

Meral was now completely exasperated, stormed into the class room and cursed loudly about men while sitting down. Morrigan, who was sitting behind her, leaned forward and tried to find out what was going on. She noticed that Meral was in reality afraid of Felix.

Merrill came in and sat down at her desk next to Meral. She asked Morrigan, if she wanted to go to the party. Morrigan said yes. Then Ed asked Morrigan, if he could go to, and she shut him down again.

Then Mattieu and Amanda entered. Mattieu jumped barefooted on a table and told the whole class that they were invited to a beach party in the evening. Mr Giles didn't approve of him standing on the table though, and ordered detention as well. He was to help Merrill cleaning tables. Mattieu went to his desk and set down sullenly.

Mr Gilles started class. At first there was the business of electing a class president. Graham, the straight-A student, volunteered (as each year since 5th grade). But this time he was challenged. Mattieu had asked Amanda about class presidency which described in most boring terms, only to suggest to Mattieu that he should run as a candidate. Mattieu, being the clueless Selkie that he is, volunteers for the office. Lucian tries to get Thomas to nominate him, but Thomas just gives Mattieu a quick glance and does nothing. Meanwhile Morrigan denigrates the office, prompting Mattieu to nominate her. Meral nominates her then as well. Lucian is forced to volunteer himself for the office. Mr Gilles postpones the election to give everyone a chance to evaluate the candidates. Mattieu mentions that he's going to throw a party. Mr Gilles asks him, if he seriously expects to get votes that way.

Then a rather tedious and boring geography lesson starts. During the short break a lot of things happened. Lydia, the mayor's daughter, and her boyfriend Matt, the coolest kid in school, approach Lucian to offer their votes, if Lucian does them a favor. He doesn't really comply with that, leaving two votes up in the air.

Mattieu tries to talk John, a big and not very bright football player, into getting him some beer for the party. He succeeds, but John asks him to lay in a good word for him with Amanda. The Selkie doesn't really know what texting is, but promises to see what he can do. Actually, he recommends that John should Amanda and him on the beach next morning for surfing. But John doesn't care about the morning, he wants tonight. Whatever Mattieu needs to promise to get the beer.

Merrill urges Graham to fight for the class presidency. But Graham suddenly throws a fit and a note pad, shouting that he had enough of this. He doesn't want to run. The note pad is thrown with a such force that it hits Marcel's coffee cup and spills coffee over him. Marcel suddenly breaks down crying. It is all a bit too much for him. Well, up to the summer holidays, Marcel used to be Marcy. Now he calls himself Marcel and wears boy's clothes.

Morrigan senses fear in the boy and goes over to him. Mattieu is watching her intently. Morrigan just shouts: "It's only some stupid office. Stop making such a fuss about this!" (unfortunately Morrigan can't call people on their shit, because she doesn't have that adult move). Then she kneels down beside Marcel and tries to calm him down by offering her affection. She is as surprised as the rest of the class when Marcel kisses her.

Notes: This was planned as a one-shot, but we barely got started exploring the setting we had created. Creation was a lot of fun and I for one would love to see the story unfold further. Oh, in case you are wondering: I was playing Mattieu the Selkie.

Note the Second: If you are waiting for the second part of Club Babylon, I am sorry to keep you waiting. But Club Babylon is hitting pretty close to home and I find it very difficult to write and do the setting justice. Character Creation needs a serious rewrite before publication on the blog. But it will come, probably on the weekend.

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.

White Picket Witches: The Sixth Family

Something the preview doesn't tell you about is the magic of the sixth family that left Salem. The preview offers five magic styles: Breath, Skin, Muscle, Blood and Bone. They each symbolize a certain kind of magic.  But nothing hints at the magic of the sixth, forgotten (or lost or destroyed) family. That's got me thinking.

There is a pattern to the magic of the Five Families. Successively progressing deeper into the body. What comes beneath the bones? I came up with two answers: organs and the brain. Therefore, the sixth kind of magic could be either Organ Works or Brain Works. Organ Work doesn't sound that cool, so may be Entrail Work? Hm... Anyway, here is a short take on both works:

Organ Work: Messy things, hurtful things, knowledge and power from beyond space and time, to gaze too deeply is to invite madness. Things even witches were not meant to know. Aligned with deepest darkness and despair.

Brain Work: The magic of magic. The power to alter leylines and Places of Power. The crystal clarity of thought. The way to read and control thoughts. Aligned with time.

Interestingly, both types of magic would give the Five Families a reason to extinguish the sixth. Did they do it out of fear? Necessity? Envy? Or mixture of all three? Does the deed bind the Five Families together or will it rip them apart?

Review: White Picket Witches Preview

As part of the FATE Worlds Compilation in the FATE Core Kickstarter, Filamena Young from Machine Age Productions has developed White Picket Witches, a setting "inspired by paranormal cozies like Practical Magic and the Witches of Eastwick, White Picket Witches give the players magic and charms to deal with small town pressures... and sometimes, the forces of evil."

Yesterday, the preview arrived for the backers of the FATE Core Kickstarter. The setting is pure (sub)urban fantasy. You are playing a member of one of five family of witches who fled Salem in 1691, just one year before the infamous Salem Witch Trials in 1692. Five families fled and settled on Moon Island, a small island in Boston Harbor. In the next 400 years a small settlement grew on the island. The five families are still there and apparently influence the community.

Reading the book gives me strong vibes of the TV shows The Secret Circle, Eastwick (the short lived series based on The Witches of Eastwick movie), some Teen Wolf thrown in, as well as the movie The Covenant.
Filamena Young also mentions other influences in one of her design posts.

After a short introduction, White Picket Witches talks about the steps to create Moon Island. This essentially replaces the usual world building from FATE Core and offers steps to create a small community focused on the supernatural. The players get to create the five families (and learn about a mysterious sixth family that supposedly has died out), places of magical power, and choose two issue for the campaign to focus in the process of designing their very own Moon Island.

The next step is designing the player characters. They use five aspects called Canon, Tragic Flaw, Casting, Childhood and Heritage. Canon basically is the High Concept aspect from FATE Core, Tragic Flaw stands in for the Trouble aspect. Childhood is about childhood experiences on the island. Heritage is an aspect that ties you to your family of witches. The Casting aspect describes the looks of your character. You are even encouraged to name an actor, but you could also do it more abstract (I've been using this technique for years now in populating my Vampire: The Requiem game, but this was never that formalized into a game mechanic. Really cool!). The only thing I am not sure about is the "invokeability" (is that even a word?) of the Casting aspect. It seems to rather serve a descriptive function than as a full-blown aspect. But I am more than willing to give it a try.

After assigning your aspects, you get to distribute eight points among seven Assets. Assets replace the complete skill list in a game of White Picket Witches. They shift the focus from what you are doing to how you are doing things. Are you being dangerous, brilliant or treacherous? I like that idea (Vampire: The Requiem Chronicler's Guide had a similar hack called Monster Garage, where you used the Seven Sins as skills). Also, in setting the values of the Assets you are saying something about your character.

You also get a magical skill, presumably the one practiced by your family. The preview didn't specify how skilled you are at magic, but Filamena Young has given answer to that online: you start at Average (+1), but can spend points from the Assets to raise the skill.

When you are finished designing your character, you also get to design an Antagonist for your character, to be used by the GM (or handed over to a player for a short time).

The next big difference to FATE Core is the Face-Off mechanic. It completely replaces the challenges, contests and conflicts from Core. Mechanically, there are similarities to a conflict, but also some differences. In a Face-Off, you have to choose sides and apparently only the main two players (or a player and the GM) are allowed to take the Attack action. Your stress boxes increase by the number of people on your side. The other player characters present seem to be able to Create Advantages, though.

Face-Off simulates the things happening on-screen in the source material very well. The very entertainingly written long example provided fits right into shows mentioned above (especially Teen Wolf).

The next part of the preview deals with stunt-like spells. As Filamena Young clarified on the 'net, you cast a spell by rolling your appropriate magic skill against a Great (+4) difficulty. Then the spell takes effect. A spell should be about as strong as a stunt. It is paid for with Refresh. You start with one free spell (in addition to the one free stunt you receive).

The last section shows some example protagonists ranging from the restless dead to a deal-making devil.

Okay, what do I think about White Picket Witches? First, overall, I like it very much. It succeeds very well on emulating the current genre of supernatural shows. The setting creation could probably be lifted for other FATE games as well. Even for games not about Urban Fantasy. I am seriously consider taking White Picket Witches and simply use it as is for my own planned campaign.

Since I consider doing that, I was reading the rules rather thoroughly. The preview would need some clarifications, I think, before being finalized. There are some mechanics only hinted at that would be better served  by fleshing them out:

• The long example implies that the magic skill cannot only be used to activate a stunt-like spell, but also to do something on the fly (seems a bit like Create an Advantage). This could be mentioned somewhere.
• The GM is apparently suppossed to pass Antagonists to other players in order to lighten their workload. Not really explained in depth.
• FATE points as fan-mail for genre-emulation by the players. There is a hint there that it is suppossed to work like that, just not explicitly mentioned.

Also, the long example actually suffers from hand-waving import parts of the game, thus actually obfuscating the rules in some places. Players create "a bunch of advantages", for example, or the mentioning of using the magic skill for something else than activating a stunt-like spell.

But all-in-all, White Picket Witches makes me want to play. To take the setting out for a spin. It's a kickass genre-emulation. I like the way the aspects are defined, the idea of the Casting aspect, the Assets seem like a very nice touch, and the setting creation rocks. The magic skills hint at interesting possibilities (therefore I hope, they won't be limited to using the stunt-like spells but also for some creative casting).

The preview gets 4.5 out of 5 stars for content. I deduct half a star for the issues listed above. An experienced GM can implement them him- or herself, but for a newbie the implied rules might get lost in the awesomeness of the rest.

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).

Stranger Shores: Factions

Initially, I thought that going the way of a conflict between Light and Darkness, Seelie and Unseelie would be a good way to go. But then I thought: "Wouldn't it be more fun to have light and dark creatures working side by side, forced by the circumstances to co-operate? That makes for better story." Next, it became pretty obvious what the big issue is that will influence which believes a member of the Nightfolk holds. Of course it has to do with the Event. How to deal with being stranded on Earth. From there, the factions grew naturally, and I like games with factions. They represent inbuilt conflict and thus opportunity for dramatic stories. These are the factions:

• Albigenses: They refuse to live among humans. They believe that they have offended the Faerie Queens, God and/or Lucifer. Now they want to atone for their perceived sins. Most of them atone by being better monsters. The Albigenses pay lip service at best to the Silver Settlement and try to literally get away with murder. They are armed and dangerous.
• Darwinsts: The Darwinsts are, like the Humanists and Malthusians, concerned with life on Earth. More specifically with procreation of the Nightfolk. They seek to find ways to have offspring, because they want to ensure the survival of the Nightfolk. Many Darwinists have secondary leanings as Malthusians or Humanists. In fact, they sort of present a common interest between the two factions, even though they are the smallest faction because of their highly specialised interests.
• Humanists: They want to live quietly among humans. They want to adapt, even to the point of having as little contact as possible to other Nightfolk. Most keep loosely in touch and usually have a communal gathering point at a local bar run by a Humanist. Some Humanists believe that they have to battle the Malthusians and oppose that faction.
• Iconoclasts: They want to return into their own realms. They believe that they have been abonded on Earth, but that it is their birthright to return by force if necessary. They seeks ways to open the gates into the Otherworlds by any means necessary. Demons and angels among the Iconoclasts have usually turned from their purpose and renounced their believes and loyalties to Heaven and Hell. As a whole, the Iconoclasts are driven by study and the quest for knowledge.
• Malthusians: Better to reign on Earth than serve in Heaven or Hell sums up their believe. They also have adapted to living among humans, but they gravitate to positions of power and influence. Malthusians believe that they are destined to rule humanity and find purpose in subjugating political and economic institutions.

No matter which faction a member of the Nightfolk belongs to, s/he has to follow the rules laid out in the Silver Settlement.

Urban Fantasy: Stranger Shores

Note: In the next days I'll publish my notes for "Stranger Shores". I've already discarded the overall concept and will be going for something different. But after having written this already, I figured that I could as well publish it - and buy myself some more time to come up with an idea.

Finally, while starting to get my setting bible together, inspiration hit me. While I totally like Urban Fantasy, I want to do something different from the settings that have come before (e.g. Neverwhere, The World of Darkness, Urban Arcana, The Dresden Files, Supernatural, Buffy, Grimm, etc). The high school idea fell through with my players, and as much as I like Storm Calling, Storm Summoning and The Void from the FATE Core: Magic System Toolbox, I want to do my own thing. Something that I feel is uniquely my own idea. It's not going to be a mash-up like a lot of the settings in The FATE Worlds Compilation, it's going to be straight Urban Fantasy (uh..., well maybe not so straight, as I like me some queer content).

The premise, set to suitably dramatic introductory music.

On January 1, 2000 the world changed. Not for humanity, but for everyone else. The Otherworlds, whether called Faerie, Heaven or Hell simply closed. They threw out their tenants into the real world, the mortal realm, and shut their doors. Stripped of most of their powers, the faeries, angels and demons had to learn to live a mortal live. No longer immortal, they are vulnerable to accidents, diseases and violence. Only age does not hold dominion over them. Thirteen years have passed since then and the nightfolk has adapted to living unnoticed among the teeming masses of humanity, their numbers dwindled as a result of initial internecine conflicts. But cooler heads eventually prevailed, founding the Silver Settlement, delineating the rules of co-existence on Earth. In each city, a council is tasked with enforcing the rules of the settlement. You are those councillors and this is your story.

That is the premise. At first, what was still missing, was what the players are doing in the setting. I like the idea of them being some sort of police force enforcing the rule of the Silver Settlement. Unfortunately, that's also the point where it gets less original. Of course, the movie (and book franchise) Night Watch comes to mind, as well as the Wardens in the Dresden Files or Dogs in the Vinyard. But letting the player characters be a police force has several advantages. First, the player characters have a reason to stick together and involve themselves in the story. Secondly, the comment of a player about playing "competent" characters would be satisfied. Third, having them play authority figures within the setting is something I so far have rarely done, thus giving the campaign something unique. Maybe let's not call them a police force. They are not watchers, guardians or observers. They are councillors. People tasked with mediating disputes and organizing the co-existence of the various factions.

Okay, let's see what my net gains and losses are. I feel that I have a sufficiently original concept, something that hopefully engages the players. The concept offers a perspective on Urban Fantasy that I feel is somewhat unique. While the entities are still old, they are new to Earth. They are forced to contend with everyday life as oppossed to being set appart like in the World of Darkness. What I am losing is the human angle and the connections to a mortal family. Friends certainly figure into it, but no family.

Urban Fantasy: Meet Tristan Hargrove

This is an example write-up for an urban fantasy character using the concepts outlined so far:

Timothy "Tristan" Hargrove

Short description: Wears washed-out black jeans and a sweat-shirt with a barely visible band-logo, hair dyed a deep blue-black, always a torn backpack with lots of buttons near him.

High concept: A Murder of Crows

Trouble: Black isn't only a color, it's an attitude

Family: Sick of my parents constant bickering and fighting

Relation: I would do anything for Cody

School: School is for people without other talents

Skills: 

Great (+4): Burglary

Good (+3): Geek, Lying

Fair (+2): Athletics, Empathy, Notice

Average (+1): Allowance, Drive, Physique, Will

Stunts & Extras:

Murder of Crows: Turn into a murder of crows with great (+4) fighting, good (+3) notice, fair (+2) physique and average (+1) athletics

Wings: While flying as a murder of crows, the character can move more swiftly (two zones instead of one per exchange) and ignore ground-based and height-based obstacles.

Supernatural Endurance: gain two extra physical stress boxes

Physical Stress: o o o o o
Mental Stress: o o o

Urban Fantasy: Storm Callers

I am still digesting that my regular group has rejected my initial premise. One player has now stated that he would like to do something with or about magic. So far, I have no other really good idea. The sentence "the characters are competent in the fiction" still echoes through my mind. Another sentence also stands out; this one from the Magic System Toolbox preview:

"Five Great Storms rage at the heart of creation, each large enough to shatter suns..." 

That is of course from the introduction of storm caller magic (for those without the toolbox preview, you can find more information read a review, take a look at actual play or pledge for the Kickstarter to gain access to the preview *grin*).

I really like the idea of the storm callers (including the storm summoners and void callers material). Now I am thinking about combining ideas and some settings.

• Storm Troopers: The characters are storm callers who "police" other storm callers. They are tasked with trying to minimize damage, take out rogue storm callers, hunt down void callers and generally trying to keep the general populace in the dark about storm calling. That would keep with the "competence" request.The set-up would probably lead to a road-movie campaign setting or at least a roving campaign setting.
• Northern Exposure: The characters are still storm callers, but they live in Juneau, Alaska and have to deal with the local issues of the town. Not much of an idea beyond that. But I like the closeness of the elements in Juneau: mountains right next to the sea and glaciers. There could be some sort of nexus leading to/being influenced by the storm of ice.

Since I like small town settings, the Northern Exposure idea seems more interesting to me, but the Storm Troopers idea would give more direction to the campaign.

Beyond the storm callers, I am thinking about mixing FATE Core with Itras By, which is kind of lacking a coherent system and thus FATE could be a good match, especially concerning more surreal quirks of Itras By.

Urban Fantasy: Wizardry Examined

On last Friday, the preview of the magic system toolbox for FATE Core was released. In addition to some great magic systems, it also contained an introduction that gets you to think about magic in terms of the fiction not the rules. I suddenly noticed what I was missing from my own look at magic.

So, let's take another swipe at Wizardry/Sorcery/Witchcraft, this time trying to answer the five magic questions about tone, costs, limits, availability, source.

1. Tone: As currently written, magic doesn't have a flavor. Magic doesn't kill things. People do. Magic represents a way to circumvent the natural laws. Magic is like knowing the keyboard short-cuts of the universe. You save yourself a lot of time using them.

2. Costs: Magic is mentally taxing. You are using short-cuts to circumvent natural law, this is mind-boggling, even if you know what you are doing. Unless you are exceptionally headstrong, you won't do much of it.

3. Limits: I want the magic of the setting to be a bit low-key. Sure, you can overcome obstacles with it and create advantages with it, but you'll probably not sling around big fireballs (unless you are a Warlock). Magic will be able to affect people and small areas, but nothing bigger than a room or the handful of people in it. Anything beyond that will drastically increase difficulties beyond the FATE ladder.

4. Availability: I mentioned that you had to be born a wizard/sorcerer/witch. Not just anyone can learn the keyboard short-cuts of the universe. In a mid-sized town there are probably about a handful practioners, not more.

Note: I usually don't like the idea of entitlement through blood, but that seems to fit the urban fantasy genre.

5. Source: Unknown. Nobody knows who discovered magic, why it is there in the first place or what purpose it is suppossed to have. Magic runs in the blood of family lines that stretch back to the dawn of humanity. If someone in the setting would try to follow the ancestral lines, they would discover the great wizards and sorceresses from legend within those lines.

Urban Fantasy: Idea shot down

Last Friday we had another session of our regular Vampire: The Requiem game. Before the game two players talked to me about the premise for the Urban Fantasy game. Frankly, they simply aren't interested in the least to be High School teenagers slowly discovering their supernatural heritage, the issues that come with it and the obligations they owe. They can get behind a game about Urban Fantasy, because they acknowledge that this is what I like and what the majority of the players can relate to. But they don't care for playing teenagers or in a high school setting. One player clearly stated that he wants to play someone competent and experienced at what he does, reflected both in the fiction and the character sheet. I tossed a couple of ideas in (including "Angels over New York", inspired by the Kickstarter preview art for FATE Core). But nothing really sparked, except going back to the Dresden Files RPG (which I don't want to do for a variety of reasons. Some being: complexity, wanting to play FATE Core, doing my very own setting, etc.).

This development leaves me with:

• A skill set for Urban Fantasy. I would need to introduce some skill about knowledge about the supernatural, because that is deliberately missing from the skill list.
• An extras set for Urban Fantasy. Still need to decide about magic, now that the FATE Core Magic Toolbox is available to Kickstarter backers.

What I need to do:

• Think about a new premise.
• Think about the setting. 

Deciding factors are: I probably have a Skype group willing to play with the originally proposed idea. But I can only sustain one setting, so ideally Skype group and regular group happen in the same setting, but with different premises. Doing Wolves Point for a group of competent adults will probably end up being a setting very similar to the one used by my Vampire: The Requiem campaign (set in a small town), so I question the wisdom of repeating this. One alternative that immediately springs to mind would be moving to a bigger city like New York, Seattle, Toronto, Vancouver, London or Berlin. Another one would be a road movie style game happening in one of the northern states of the US (like Montana or Washington State). Then I could keep Wolves Point and tie it into the bigger picture. I usually like to keep my games local due to a rotating player roster, so ranging over too wide an area will not work.

These are just thoughts going through my mind right now, nothing settled yet. I'll keep you posted.

Urban Fantasy: The Setting

Now that skills and extras are in place, it's time to describe the setting. The premise: "high school teenager discovering their supernatural heritage, the issues that come with it and the obligations they owe" lends itself to a more personal scope. Something that is also supported by the the aspect categories that I have given earlier.

Most of the source material is set in small towns in the U.S. (except Hex, which I completely forgot to mention). Therefore, I am going to pick a small town as the site of the game. About ten years ago, I did a short Vampire: The Masquerade campaign in a small town and I still got my notes lying around on my hard drive. The game was heavily inspired by Twin Peaks and The Shinning. The town was called Wolves Point and very loosley modelled on the real town of Wolf Point, Montana. I think I am going to reuse my notes, because the town deserves some more action.

Three big issues stick out, when thinking about the town. One comes from my notes, the second from the description of the changelings and the third from the description of Grizzly Peak in the Slayers Handbook of the Buffy: The Vampire Slayer RPG.

Issue #1: There is a big howling vortex of ghosts located in the setting. They contain the angry spirits of the Native Americans massacred by the white settlers. It spins out massive amount of negative energies and unlucky coincidents. (Current issue)

Note: This is a completely fictional event, but somehow fitting to the setting.

Issue #2: The faerie realm is drawing near. The otherworld will come into conjunction with material world again after centuries of lost contact. This might not be a good thing for both worlds involved. (Impending issue)

Issue #3: Wendigos are terrorizing the logging camps around Wolves Point. There is a family who habors them secretly. The wendigos will serve as a sort of "default" antagonist. (Current issue)

These issues should be turned into aspects:

1. Every day life is cursed by angry spirits.
2. The Otherworld is drawing near.
3. The woods of the wendigo

I probably will let the players pick two of the three issues, in case they are fine with them. Otherwise, they are welcome to create one or two issues themselves.

Next time we will discuss faces and locations.

Urban Fantasy: Rethinking Wizardry

I like FATE, because in it's simplicity lies beauty. The way fudge dice with their + and - symbols are beautiful, because they are uncluttered (except when they are from Q Workshop). Because I like simplicity, I am loath to work much beyond the basic framework of aspects, stunts, skills and two stress tracks (one physical, one mental) to describe things.

Wizardry with its mandatory stunt, its skill and four add-on skills is already more complex than I like.

Now, in the Google+ Fate Community, Fred Hicks has written three interesting answers to this comment about converting Ebberon:

Answer #1 by Fred Hicks:

Quick & dirty, give her a Sorcery skill that can do all four basic actions without needing any sort of equipment or justification beyond what you normally do to cast a spell as a sorcerer. Then let her do some stunts that make for particularly awesome things when she spends a fate point: "Fireball: Spend a fate point to roll one attack roll against all targets in a given zone", etc.

Answer #2 by Fred Hicks:

You could also sidestep the fate point thing, and instead give her a separate Mana Stress track. She takes a point of stress every time she casts a spell that uses one of the expanded stunt abilities; she could keep going past the end of that and start taking consequences, but that gives her a per-scene limited budget that clears out every time she gets some rest. Very D&D like.

Answer #3 by Fred Hicks:

Yeah. It might be more 'fair' to make Magic a skill that can do 2 of the 4 actions, but you can add more actions with stunts; or to make Magic more than one skill, but each skill covers a different kind of magery, i.e., one magic skill's Overcome Obstacle doesn't cover the same range of obstacles that another skill's does, etc.

Wizardry already follows these guidelines pretty closely, but still not to my satisfaction. Therefore I am rewriting Wizardry/Witchcraft/Sorcery to be a bit more generic and less precise:

Wizardry/Witchcraft/Sorcery

You still need to take a Wizardry skill and the skill can be used to overcome obstacles and create advantages. Since this is fairly flexible, it also costs you a stunt. Each time you use your Witchcraft skill, you take one point mental stress (as I don't want to introduce a new stress track).  Adding the Warlock stunt lets you use the Sorcery skill to create attack and defend. Still costs one mental stress per roll. The rest of the rules just get cut as being overly complex. When you want to do something more impressive, create another stunt for it, following the suggestions of Fred Hicks. 

Urban Fantasy: Secrecy and Discovery

One of the tropes of the source material listed, is the fear of discovery or rather the need to keep ones abilities secret. I want that in the setting, because the supernatural is suppossed to be hidden and just out of reach. Being discovered could vastly complicate a characters live.

Most of the Extras are pretty obvious when used. If there are witnesses in the scene that do not know about the characters' abilities, then there is the risk of discovery. I see two ways to run this:

(1) The player character needs to roll Lying or Stealth to cover up his abilities.
(2) The non-player characters roll Notice to see, if they notice something is odd and not quite right.
(3) The player characters roll an active defense against the observation attempt.

Method (1) gives the player more control over the roll, but also runs the risk of burning much needed resources like advantages and FATE points to remain unnoticed. Either the game master or the player decides which skill is used Lying or Stealth, or if the better or worse of the two skills is used.

Method (2) reduces discovery to a check made by the game master. It will probably resolve quicker and cost less additional resources.

The game master also needs to decide, if a seperate roll for each supernatural character is made or one roll for all characters. Method (1) probably relies on making a role for each character and method (2) on making a role for the scene.

Player character cover-up

The difficult of the Lying/Stealth roll is pretty straight forward. The difficult starts at mediocre (+0) and rises by +2 for each  stunt Extra used by that character in the scene. If a character has used an Extra skill, the difficulty of avoiding discovery is equal to the level of the skill used (the theory being that more powerful abilities are more impressive and obvious in their display). If a character used both skills and stunts, use the higher difficulty for the Lying/Stealth roll. The difficulty is reduced for each zone difference between the observers and the character.

Outcomes:

• Failure: The bystanders notice that something isn't quite right. Depending on circumstances, they may not be able to place a finger on what is actually wrong, but at the least they become super-suspicious of the character. The character gains an aspect that describes being discovered.
• Tie: The character fears discovery and flees from his present location or the observer gains a boost on the character or the character takes a mental stress.
• Success: The character remains undiscovered.
• Success with style: The character remains undiscovered and may immediatley clear a mild mental consequence as relief sets in (or downgrade a more severe mental consequence, if there is an available consequence slot at the next lower level).

Bystanders noticing

Unless a supporting NPC or a main NPC is present, assume that the Notice skill of the bystanders is average (+1). They have to roll higher than the player character's Lying or Stealth skill (as determined by the situation and the game master). For each stunt Extra used they receive a +2 bonus on their skill roll. If an Extra skill was used, they receive the skill as bonus. The difficulty is increased for each zone difference between the observers and the character.

Outcomes:

• Failure: The observers are none the wiser.
• Tie: The observers harbor suspicions and get a boost on the character.
• Success: The observers discover that the character is a monster.
• Success with style: The observers discover that the character is a monster and immediately cause two mental stress to the character.

Players roll versus Bystanders

The third option lets the players roll Lying or Stealth and the bystanders roll Notice. The bystanders receive bonuses to their roll like described above: For each stunt Extra used they receive a +2 bonus on their skill roll. If an Extra skill was used, they receive the skill as bonus. The player characters receive +1 bonus for each zone difference between themselves and the observers. Obstacles may also add to the player characters' rolls.

Outcomes:

• Failure: The bystanders notice that something isn't quite right. Depending on circumstances, they may not be able to place a finger on what is actually wrong, but at the least they become super-suspicious of the character. The character gains an aspect that describes being discovered.
• Tie: The character fears discovery and flees from his present location or the observer gains a boost on the character or the character takes a mental stress.
• Success: The character remains undiscovered.
• Success with style: The character remains undiscovered and may immediatley clear a mild mental consequence as relief sets in (or downgrade a more severe mental consequence, if there is an available consequence slot at the next lower level).

After looking over the three possibilities, I will probably use the last one, because that seems to provide the most dynamic way to handle discovery.

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

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Yes, I know that according to FATE Core you should ideally talk with your players about the setting and then create it together. But I would like to pitch a setting to the players and then add more setting info and details based on their input.

I really really like Urban/Contemporary Fantasy, where the supernatural and the mundane exist unknowingly side by side. Of course, as I am a big fan of the White Wolf games like Vampire, Changeling and Mage, this is not really a surprise.

So I would like to have a setting inspired by those games, but a bit more inclusive and yet more narrow in focus. For one thing: since I run games about vampires most of the time, a basic guideline will be: There are no vampires. They simply don't exist. There might be creatures that could be confused with vampires, but in the end they will be different and just be mistaken by the uninformed observer for a vampire.

For inspiration I am looking at some TV series I like:

• Buffy: The Vampire Slayer
• Teen Wolf (MTV series, not Michael J. Fox movies)
• The Secret Circle
• The Vampire Diaries
• True Blood

Also, the movie "The Covenant" will be an influence.

Then there are of course games I like and that will serve as inspiration. I am staying clear of anything White Wolf here, because I would like to be different.

• Deliria
• Dreaming City
• Monster Hearts

Strangely, books will have less of an impact, as I want to steer clear of the Dresden Files and they constitute the majority of Urban Fantasy I read. But that still leaves Steve Berman's short story collection "Trysts" and his  novel "Vintage: A Ghost Story".

A lot of the sources deal with teenagers and the supernatural. So I am narrowing the setting down to a High School where teenagers slowly discover their supernatural heritage, the issues that come with it and the obligations they owe.