FATE Library: Spirit of the Century

"Pulp on Shaker Table" c. 2012 by John Everett Till

There is an internet meme*  in circulation right now in which people are showing off their game collections. That would be quite a project for me, and I like the variant of this meme (fadduole?) in which people show only the books that they actually USE when blogging  and/or at the gaming table. Well, I am going to go one further and do a series of posts featuring the individual FATE books in my library, and what I have done with them.

First up is Spirit of the Century, the first RPG powered by FATE.

First, my rating system:

• Book Condition? Battle damaged, thoroughly page-flagged. Lulu FATE ladder bookmark (to the right of the book in the photo) in pristine condition
• Actually Read? Numerous times
• Ever Played? Held the first SOTC games in public venues in MN. GMed SOTC too many times to count, all one-shots. Never a player.
• Science Fiction? We've gone to pulp Mars, Skull Island, and Multiversal Moorcockian Brooklyn!

As I am sure many people who follow this blog are aware, SOTC is a pulp RPG, both in terms of setting and mechanics. It has a default early 20th Century setting featuring the Century Club (a way to get PCs together in one organization and feed them adventures), but really a GM can either use the Century Club or discard it in favor of some other campaign narrative structure/organizational principle. This is especially the case since character generation in SOTC uses the traditional FATE approach (this FATE tradition started here!) of collaborative character generation.

I have heard many players who have been through this collaborative process state that this creates the most cohesive PC parties they have ever been part of. Many people are used to that play environment now, but I recall the nasty 90s when every Shadowrun and White Wolf game I was in had players withholding information from each other - just because.

It was so bad back then that I remember Sam Chupp explicitly telling the players in a WW II pulp convention scenario (with Mage 1st ed.) that there was no point in withholding information from each other: We were the heroes! 

At any rate, SOTC chargen works to create cohesive parties because players share power so evenly in character creation: players take turns helping each other create the most interesting and flavorful characters possible. I have seen players struggle to find the right way to write someone else's character into their own PCs story, and I have seen people struggle with choosing tasty Aspects for their character. But I have never seen a player "just phone it in" or "go through the motions" during collaborative character generation. Everyone is playing their "A-game"!

SOTC came out a bit after Bruce Baugh's Adventure! and like that White Wolf game introduced mechanics for players (as opposed to player characters) to reshape or re-channel the story narrative in new directions. SOTCs metagaming mechanics are much more robust and granular than those in Adventure! (which I have never run or had the chance to  play, unfortunately).

The system rewards players who are quick on their feet linguistically (as opposed to mathematically adept, or gifted rote-mechanically). I think the game also works best with a GM who is willing to handwave some mechanical details (rather than looking things up) and keep things moving. The Ladder is the GM's friend, and if you have it, The Ladder bookmark that came with the Lulu print run of the game should be Xeroxed onto the PCs character sheets for quick reference.

SOTC was expressly designed for pick-up play, but it is an incredibly crunchy game. For pick-up play, the GM will either need to handwave some Stunts' details (or perhaps let people play without Stunts entirely). It works best with players who trust each other and their GM and are at the table primarily to have some fun.

*I won't get into a long discussion here of why "meme" is an incoherent and idealist rather than materialist explanation of how information spreads.

The Anagogue; Or, The Whirlpool Gate

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/09/
photogalleries/wip-week47/index.html

The Imperial Throneship Anagogue exited from realspace and entered into history when its slipspace transition coincided in spacetime with the precipitation of a hyperspace mine out of the lowest enumeration of hyperspace. (Such precipitations are rare enough to pose little aggregate threat to interstellar shipping. Hyperspace mines usually only precipitate in this manner when they become entangled in the wake of cloaked vessels that are leaving hyperspace.)

The detonation of the mine transported the ship's crew and passengers somewhere else. It bounced the wrecked vessel back into realspace in the Aclys System, its original point of departure. The Angaogue then became a visible singularity.

The ruined ship became a pulsar of sorts, undergoing a recurrence of its original detonation once every 1.275 standard hours. The vessel now lies at the center of a permanent whirlpool of entangled realspace-slipspace-hyperspace, surrounded by other wrecked vessels caught up in its eddies.

The Aclys System was subsequently evacuated forcibly, and has been declared a closed system.

However, the story does not end there. With greater and greater frequency, a variety of unauthorized and unidentified ships with various advanced designs have been detected leaving the Aclys System. Still other vessels with cloaking devices or other blockade-runner rigging. have been detected after entering the system.

Imperial observers speculate that the Anagogue's recursive detonations have created gate conditions between our native space-time continuum and several others. The resulting gating effect propagates ripples that act as a hyperspace beacon attracting prospectors and explorers.

The Imperial Sovereign recently dispatched an Imperial Survey Expedition to explore the wreck of the Anagogue and investigate the incursions into the closed Aclys System. The survey vessel was unfortunately disaggregatated by a hyperwave burst just as it neared completion of its mission. Fortunately, it was able to insert a record buoy into hyperspace before it was destroyed.

The Imperial Survey Expedition  reported that there were:

• Numerous corpses - human, known alien, and unknown alien - on board the Anagogue
• Many vessels - clearly damaged - forming a nimbus of space hulks around the Anagogue
• Makeshift modifications in the ship's interior, including repairs and demolitions, improvised bulkheads, and propped open  hatchways, as well as unrecognizable technologies that had been apparently grafted onto the ship's exterior and interior
• Several energy hotspots which moved inexplicably around the ostensibly dead ship
• Spiderweb fractures in the fabric of spacetime surrounding the wreck; these fractures heal and re-propagate after every burst, up to a radius of 1 milliparsec from the vessel

Further investigation is recommended, provided a relatively safe method of doing so can be identified. Formal requests for assistance have been made to the Mir Civil Engineering Corps and to the RUR Workers-State's Navigation Safety Committee in pursuit of this goal.

Open Portals and Broken Rooms

This past weekend, I discovered an extremely comprehensive list and set of links to types of portals and ways between places, courtesy of Porky's Expanse!, one of the most intriguing game blogs out there. 

Take a look at it. Scroll down a bit. There's a lot to it.

Some examples are more fantasty-oriented, while others are decidedly science fictional.

I could have posted the link over on The Everwayan, which is of course dedicated to gate-based multi-sphere fantasy gaming. It also seems apropos of NJW Games' post today on Ikea worldbuilding, since gates or means of getting from one place to another are an important consideration when creating the kind of modular settings the post describes.

As I said above, some of Porky's examples are more fantasy-oriented and other are more science fictional. But perhaps the science fiction vs. fantasy distinction isn't as important or meaningful as it used to be. Thanks perhaps to the increasing prominence of Asian SF in the form of anime over the last couple decades, these distinctions - which were important in the West for roughly a century - are beginning to feel more and more artificial.

So in that spirit, stay tuned in the near future for a post or two over at The Everwayan on a new SF RPG called Broken Rooms.  The game features thirteen versions of Earth which diverged on August 13, 2002. The PCs are called Nearsiders; they are people with the power to shift between worlds, most of which are in very bad shape in quite different ways.

The Nautiloids On Kepler 22-B

"The Nautiloids" by SaraRichard

The Nautiloids are an intelligent, tool-using marine race on Kepler 22-B. But they are not native to this world. Deft, agile, subtle, the Nautiloids have learned how to slip directly from one world to another without using spacecraft. They seek out habitats that are rich in life and explore ancient places there, gathering knowledge and technology.

The Nautiloids don't sell what they acquire, and they don't share what they learn. They colonize worlds that promise the prospect of long-term benefit for their species, but always move part of their colony population onward in search of new worlds. They believe migration and colonization are the greatest forms of wealth and leverage.

Nautiloids are highly social, live in large groups, and communicate with each other by means of subtle changes in coloration as well as by means of chemical messengers delivered tentacle-to-mouth. They feed on shellfish and other small sea creatures, and work together to harvest these creatures. They have learned how to modify their environment in order to escape predation by the numerous hostile and hard-bodied life forms of Kepler 22-B's seas - creatures both large and small. But moving in open waters always involves risk.

The Nautiloids can escape pursuing predators by releasing ink jets that obscure their immediate environment. Alternatively, they can bio-synthesize a variety of other chemicals including toxins and hallucinogens that can then be released through their water jet organ.

Nautiloids also use Enigma Boxes to create or gain access to high technology weapons, biological robots, and quick-hardening coral foam. Their connection to these artifacts underscores the Nautiloids' own alien origin, but its uncertain whether these devices came with the Nautiloids or are just another of their acquisitions.

http://dcfossils.org/index.php/gallery4/

OGL MECHANICS

NAUTILOIDS

SKILLS:

• Super (+5): Culture/Tech 
• Great (+4): Agility (Cloud Attack), Slug Throwers (Jabbari fish*) 
• Good (+3): Alertness, Energy Weapons (combat), Science
• Decent (+2):  Craft: Toxins, Navigation (space), Resolve, Survival (Oceans)
• Average (+1): Computers (space), Craft (shape coral foam), Medical, Repair, Stealth

STRESS TRACKS: Health 3, Composure 4

STUNTS:

• Cloud Weapon: Either release a cloud of ink to immediately move two zones away from attackers, OR place a taggable Aspect of Poisoned or Drugged on any non-Nautiloid in the same zone (+2 stress to any attack as with Diaspora poison rules, p. 113).
• Access Engima: Spend 1 FP to use an Enigma Box to access information, produce coral foam, create Jabbari fish, or exude a beam weapon.

ASPECTS:

• Migratory tech scavengers 
• Machines can't keep their secrets from us
• Swim between worlds

NOTES:

*Handle as a Throwing Knife (poisoned).

Sandpiper Mechs Land On Kepler 22-B!

Art by Jason Stokes
http://stokes.cghub.com/

The Yrkoon Corporation, a front for the criminal Cojuangco crime syndicate, has landed Sandpiper-class mechs in Sector I-5 of Kepler 22-B. This is a flagrant violation of the Bituin Expedition's assertion of territorial rights of the Philippines Kasama Peoples Republic (PKPR). This is in essence an act of war.

The landing occurred on the northern edge of Hex 113.73. This hex is the mouth of a river that leads west from a great inland bay on the western mainland.

Responding to this incursion requires the dispatch of a special expeditionary force from the Bituin Expedition.  Because of the presence of Cojuangco allies among the Bituin crew, the assault force will be composed exclusively of PKPR loyalists.

The landing also raises a few questions:

• Why didn't the Yrkoon Corporation land its assets on the same island where New Manila Bay is located? 
• Is there something significant in Hex 113.73, or upriver from there?
• Why did the Yrkoon Corporation's dropship turn tail and run for the slipknot as soon as they dropped their mechs planetside?

Mosasauroids And Nautiloids

http://rahuu.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/
daily-dino-fact-mighty-mosasaur/

In the depths of New Manila Bay, there is a war. Two intelligent species are engaged in a deadly battle for survival. Huge, swift moving mosasauroids - some almost 18 M long - are locked in a deadly battle with intelligent, tool-using nautiloids - most of the latter between .5 and 1 M in length.

The Mosasauroids have the size advantage, but while they have great intelligence, their limbs are not useful for tool use. In contrast, the nautiloids are able to use their tentacles to manipulate the Enigma Boxes on the floor of New Manila Bay to great advantage:

The nautiloids know how to induce the Enigma Boxes to secrete Tool Discharges from their storage vacuoles, including: 

• Biodegradable beam weapons ; the beam weapons are optimized for nautiloid use;*
• Jabbari fish** - small biological fish-robots filled with radioactive toxins;
• Quick hardening coral foam, which the nautiloids can shape into fixed coral-like shelter labyrinths

Only one or two members of a nautiloid pod will approach the Enigma Boxes to evoke these discharges. The Enigma Boxes emit radiation and it is deadly to be in prolonged contact with them. Nautiloids who are skilled in manipulating the Enigma Boxes often have radiation burns, scars, or missing/withered limbs from their encounters. Some also develop psychic abilities and have access to the knowledge stored within Enigma Box libraries.

*The Bay floor is littered with the biodegrading remains of discharged beam weapons

**A tip of the hat to Frank Herbert's Dune (and of course the nautiloids are inspired by Olaf Stapledon)

Dinosauroid Eggs in Sector I-5

Photo c. 2012 John Everett Till

At First Glance: These large plant structures, each about 1 M tall and 2 M across, serve as incubators for the reptiloids' eggs. Dubbed Incubator Trees by the Bituin Expedition crew, these structures create a moist, warm environment for the development. Crew members have observed reptiloids transplanting various plants into the muck at the base of the Incubator Trees.

The crew made one attempt to take a closer look at these trees, but was forced to turn back when they were pelted by a barrage of mud balls and a flurry of poison darts from the reptiloids hidden among the mangrove trees surrounding the lagoon where Incubator Trees were found. The three crew hit with these poison darts experienced paralysis followed by respiratory failure.

Deep Background: Reptiloids use Incubator Trees to nurture the fertilized eggs of their species. The rizomatic structures at the base of Incubator Trees extrude into deep into the muck in which the trees are planted, and absorb and process chemical signals from other plant material in the muck. The development of individual fertilized eggs can be modified by exposure to specific plants that the reptiloids place in the muck surrounding the Incubator Trees. The development of each specific egg is determined by its relative proximity to various plants paced in the muck surrounding an Incubator Tree. Specific developmental variations can include alterations in biochemistry, morphology, or behavior.

Incubator Trees are the basis for an inter-clan economy. The Egg Trade features exchanges of  highly specialized egg-lines for shell currency and other items of value including marriage offers, fishing rights to specific lagoons, and samples/seeds of different plants. Egg-lines are primarily developmental rather than genetic, each existing due to a specific combination and arrangement of chemical messenger-secreting plants around an Incubator Tree. These arrangements and combinations of plants are carefully guarded trade secrets of each clan, since they are the basis of comparative advantage in the egg-trade.

OGL MECHANICS

INCUBATOR TREES

ASPECTS:

• Sophisticated natural biochemical factories
• Never left unguarded
• A clan's source of wealth

Common Egg-lines Stunt Table

Roll 4DF and consult the results below.

• -4    Feathered Shaman (Psychic, Disapora, p. 222-224)
• -3    Advanced Tool Maker (Spend 1 FP to invent a new tool) 
• -2    Chameleon  (Bends light around body)
• -1    Regeneration (Regenerate 3 stress points  per round)
•  0    Giantism (+1 to Health stress track)
• +1   Poison spitter (Use Close Combat skill + Poison rules, p.113)
• +2   Endurance diver (Operate for 60+ minutes under water)
• +3   Leaper (Move one additional zone per round)
• +4   Flyer (Move two additional zones per round)