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: 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: 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.