Post 198 - My Kerberos Club

Kerberos Photo by Denoir

Rachel Kronick, designer of the Blade & Crown RPG, has just done a wonderful actual play post on the Kerberos Club adventure that I ran last weekend at JonCon '13.  It's much better than I could have done; the session is one big space-time blur for me right now. You won't  be surprised at all by that comment if you read Rachel's report.

I used FATE Accelerated Edition for character generation and play. You can see the rules post on this set-up over here.

For today, I thought I'd share my write-up for the Kerberos Club itself. It was a character in the story, and that was inspired by the fact that the original Strange FATE rules for Kerberos Club RPG encourage each play group to develop their version of the Club as if it were a character. The FATE Fractal enables that.

Below you can see my version of the KC, which is a 1890s period Club. The institution has evolved from its early Torchwoody days of being a secret organization charged with finding and suppressing irruptions of the Strange, and proceeded well past its middle stage of being weird supers hiding in plain sight, as the world becomes Stranger and Stranger.

By the late '90s, things have begun to spin seriously out of control in the Club, the British Empire, and the World.

One interesting feature of the Kerberos Club rules is that PCs can transfer stress to the Club itself; the Club can take Consequences for the players. These are called Collateral Consquences, and represent the impact of the characters' actions on the prestige, reputation, resources, etc. of the Club. Some affects may be fleeting, such as the superficial Minor Consequence of a Fleeting Headline, while others might me more dangerous, burdensome, and lasting, such as a Vendetta, Government Inquiry, Prolonged Lawsuit.

So here's a quick peek at my Kerberos Club.

OGL MECHANICS

The Kerberos Club (1890s)

ASPECTS:

• High Concept: A Necessary Evil 
• Trouble: Trouble Finds Us 
• Aspect: A Haven for the Strange
• Aspect: Stillpoint in the Coming Storm
• Aspect: A house divided*

APPROACHES

• Careful: +0
• Clever: +2
• Flashy: +3
• Forceful: +2
• Quick: +1
• Sneaky: +1

STUNTS:

• There's Room For You: Any member has access to private rooms, as well as the Club's libraries, workshops, and laboratories. This provides a +2 bonus to an Approach once per session per player when using one of the Club's resources for an action taking place within the Club.
• Borrowing Privileges: A Kerberan PC may spend 1 Club FP to discover/locate just the right weapon, book, relic, device, etc. to help solve a problem beyond the walls of the Club. This item may be "checked out" for one session and then automatically returns to the Club armory, library, archive, menagerie, workshop, lab, or vault from which it came. Note that this FP goes directly into the Kerberos Club's coffers and is not lost at session's end.
• Friends in High Places: Any PC may spend 1 Club FP to use the Club's membership, reputation, and connections to call in a specific favor from someone among London's power elites.  Note that this FP goes directly into the Kerberos Club's coffers and is not lost at session's end.

REFRESH/Club Fate Points: 1**

*More on this Aspect in a future post.

**Yeah, this is kind of low, but the idea is that the PCs are adding to the kitty by using the Club's Stunt resources.