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the_eggwhiteLast night, on the train home from work, I started trying to think about a Dark Ages character. These thoughts didn't last long, and were rapidly overtaken with thoughts of how rubbish the influence categories in faith and fire are, and some possible ways to re-cast them so that they're in some way representative of medieval society and culture.
Now, because my brain is fairly quickfire with silly new ideas at the best of times. So naturally my brain wandered off onto something else as a result. Why just recast the influences? Why not just chuck out the whole system and start again.
Now, I've not really put much thought into this for LARP purposes (although I have been fiddling with a FATE -> LARP conversion as well), but in terms of Tabletop, FATE would be a fantastic fit for a story and character focussed Vampire game. My thoughts went pretty much along these lines:
Attributes, Merits, Flaws, Backgrounds and Derangements
Attributes, Merits, Flaws, Backgrounds and Derangements are completely replaced by Aspects. Aspects are "things that are important to or about your character", and are fuelled by Fate points. Everyone starts with as many Fate points as they have aspects (probably 5 or 10 for a starting character), and if an aspect is relevant to a situation, they can spend a fate point for a significant bonus in that situation. You regain fate points by playing up the bad sides of your aspects. You can also raise other people's aspects in conflict to either leech fate points from them or assist them. It's a simple system that works remarkably well, especially when you incorporate some of the later features...
Skills remain, but in a fate style skill pyramid, meaning that you can't just move a skill straight from nothing to maxed out - you've got to develop a breadth of skills to increase existing ones. You'll have a limited number of really high skills, several middling ones and a bunch of lower ones.
Blood
Blood still exists as power fuel. Doesn't do much else, except possibly adding some temporary aspects if you have either too much or too little of it. Too little could lead to hungry aspects, too much could lead to bloated aspects.
Damage, Consequences and other Badness
You also have Consequences, which are essentially aspects that can be gained or lost as a result of actions within the game. Consequences might be physical things taken on as a result of combat, and could be things such as "missing leg" or "huge hole in torso". Consequences might also be social, and could be along the lines of "Considered foolish" or "Too young to know better", and would be the result of a social conflict such as an argument with a harpy. Mental consequences might be along the lines of "bloodbonded", "conditioned" or even just "confused".
Consequences can be called on in exactly the same way as aspects, but when you've got a certain number of a certain type, you're considered out of action in that field until some of those can be dealt with. In the only Fate v3 based game currently available, you can have up to three consequences at a given time. The first you recieve is minor, and goes at the end of the scene. In a social situation, this could be a loss of composure that leads to a lack of tact. In a physical situation (for a vampire) this could be a couple of gunshot wounds - distracting at the time but easy enough to shift with a bit of time. In a mental situation it might be a fogging of the mind that just requires some time to clear.
The second is a moderate consqeuence, which lasts the rest of the session. For a physical wound this could be a minor aggravated wound, or a lost limb that needs to be regrown - It'll be back for the next court, but it's gone for the night. For a social consequence it might be that you're singled out for a public berating - something that nobody'll care about next court, but is enough to ruin the night for you. For a mental consequence, it might be that you've gained a short term derangement or somesuch.
The third is a severe consquence, which might be a limb lost to fire (which won't heal without specific effort being applied). It could also be a declaration from a harpy that you are to be considered "unpleasant" until further notice (which will hang about until you convince them to remove it). Lastly, it could be a derangement that you don't walk away from so easily... something that messes with your head until you do whatever's needed to make it go away.
The way that consequences work is that others tell you what the "attack" was, what consequences you already have determine what level you're going to get, then you decide how it affects you. If you're shot with a shotgun, a minor consequence could be that you get a glancing blow. A moderate one would be a telling blow that rips off a limb. A major one could be that your head is almost severed by the blast - you can keep going, but you're significantly hindered by it. After any consequence, you can offer your opponent a concession - which is basically an "I'd like this conflict to end now, and I'm prepared to accept that it finishes with X happening to me". They can accept or not, but if you don't offer then they don't know what you'll accept as an outcome.
If you take another consequence after the third, you're "taken out", which means that the other person gets to choose what happens to you. This is the way that characters get killed, thrown from the domain or reduced to a drooling husk that can't do anything at all.
I've toyed with splitting these consequences out into three categories, physical, social and mental, with up to three in each. It'd be nice to tie the social one into a status and boons system, but I don't know exactly how to swing that just yet.
Generation
Not totally sure how to fit Gen into all of this yet. The real benefits of generation are potency of blood and availability of higher level skills and disciplines. Most likely, each character would have one of their aspects relating to their generation, and with generation having both benefits and flaws. As an example, it could be stated that with generation comes both a stroger and cleverer beast - making it harder to maintain path (more on which later). Or it could be stated that higher generation comes with a shorter period of wakefulness, and greater lethargy if acting outside of it - perhaps even a higher blood cost to wake each night, requiring more feeding. The ventrue style "feeding restrictions" could also be an option here.
Age
Again, age would need to be represented in the aspects, but exactly how this is done would be entirely up to the players. Perhaps a requirement that age is mentioned at least once in the aspects, but little more than that. Then you can have things like "I'm 400 years old! Of course I remember that!" or "You're 400 years old! Of course you can't work a VCR!" as well as "I'm only 20, of course I know about current fashions!" or "You're only 20, so of course you think that fad's important...".
Morality and Path
Not sure exactly how to play these, but I'm thinking perhaps of more aspects. A specific set of three aspect slots, to be exact. One for trivialities, one for significant acts, one for your very core. At the start of play, each aspect represents an ideal of the character's path. For example, a neonate might start as follows:
Core: Only human...
Significant: A moral existance
Trivialities: Tries to do the right thing.
Should events transpire that could lead to a path drop (if you committed a path sin or acted in a way that does not match your path aspects, for example), you enter into a conflict with your beast. This conflict is a little odd, as reconciling your actions are going to diminish your path - your beast is trying to make you reconcile and you (or more accurately, your soul) is trying to resist that. If you're trying to keep to your path, being okay with an action that's against it is a bad thing. Any consequences caused in the conflict will affect your character.
You will be trying to find ways to question and make good the infraction. This might mean that your actions in the conflict would be things like deciding "I'll make good by doing X - I'll do this from now on!" or "That'll stay with me as a blight on my soul! I'll never forgive myself!". These would then go on to form mental consequences. If you win, those consequences stand. If you lose, they disappear.
Your beast (or whoever's representing it) will be trying to find reasons to justify it. This might mean that its actions in the conflict might be to convince you that it's okay and that there's nothing you could have done. The beast would only try for a first consequence for minor sins, then it'll stop. For moderate sins, it'll try for the second consequence. For major sins it'll go for the third. For the top level, ultimate sin it'll go for taking you out. If the beast casues a minor consequence, it gets to change your trivialities morality aspect. If it causes a moderate consequence, it gets to change your significant morality aspect. If it causes a major one it changes your core. If it takes you out, you enter wassail.
Relevant virtues to help in this conflict, by the way, are just skills that you can buy like any other.
Clearly the mechanics of this need more thought and some testing... but I think it'd be a more informative system than the current morality system, and allowing a great deal more flexibility for personal takes on a path or personal approaches to failing on it.
Disciplines
Basically, use the stunts system for specific discipline powers. It's doable.
In conclusion...
I'm not planning on running anything sensible or regular with this in the forseeable future. I have my Transuman Space LARP to run first, as well as a few other tabletops and my Horror/Ghost Story/Unexplained Events LARP (tentatively named "Scare" - which is what I'll probably use my FATE LARP system for). However, the idea interests me enough that I might play with it a bit more or try out a couple of one shots every now and then.
What I'd like is for people to give thoughts on this. Obviously, knowing both Vampire and FATE would probably help with this, but any comments are welcome.
Now, because my brain is fairly quickfire with silly new ideas at the best of times. So naturally my brain wandered off onto something else as a result. Why just recast the influences? Why not just chuck out the whole system and start again.
Now, I've not really put much thought into this for LARP purposes (although I have been fiddling with a FATE -> LARP conversion as well), but in terms of Tabletop, FATE would be a fantastic fit for a story and character focussed Vampire game. My thoughts went pretty much along these lines:
Attributes, Merits, Flaws, Backgrounds and Derangements
Attributes, Merits, Flaws, Backgrounds and Derangements are completely replaced by Aspects. Aspects are "things that are important to or about your character", and are fuelled by Fate points. Everyone starts with as many Fate points as they have aspects (probably 5 or 10 for a starting character), and if an aspect is relevant to a situation, they can spend a fate point for a significant bonus in that situation. You regain fate points by playing up the bad sides of your aspects. You can also raise other people's aspects in conflict to either leech fate points from them or assist them. It's a simple system that works remarkably well, especially when you incorporate some of the later features...
Skills remain, but in a fate style skill pyramid, meaning that you can't just move a skill straight from nothing to maxed out - you've got to develop a breadth of skills to increase existing ones. You'll have a limited number of really high skills, several middling ones and a bunch of lower ones.
Blood
Blood still exists as power fuel. Doesn't do much else, except possibly adding some temporary aspects if you have either too much or too little of it. Too little could lead to hungry aspects, too much could lead to bloated aspects.
Damage, Consequences and other Badness
You also have Consequences, which are essentially aspects that can be gained or lost as a result of actions within the game. Consequences might be physical things taken on as a result of combat, and could be things such as "missing leg" or "huge hole in torso". Consequences might also be social, and could be along the lines of "Considered foolish" or "Too young to know better", and would be the result of a social conflict such as an argument with a harpy. Mental consequences might be along the lines of "bloodbonded", "conditioned" or even just "confused".
Consequences can be called on in exactly the same way as aspects, but when you've got a certain number of a certain type, you're considered out of action in that field until some of those can be dealt with. In the only Fate v3 based game currently available, you can have up to three consequences at a given time. The first you recieve is minor, and goes at the end of the scene. In a social situation, this could be a loss of composure that leads to a lack of tact. In a physical situation (for a vampire) this could be a couple of gunshot wounds - distracting at the time but easy enough to shift with a bit of time. In a mental situation it might be a fogging of the mind that just requires some time to clear.
The second is a moderate consqeuence, which lasts the rest of the session. For a physical wound this could be a minor aggravated wound, or a lost limb that needs to be regrown - It'll be back for the next court, but it's gone for the night. For a social consequence it might be that you're singled out for a public berating - something that nobody'll care about next court, but is enough to ruin the night for you. For a mental consequence, it might be that you've gained a short term derangement or somesuch.
The third is a severe consquence, which might be a limb lost to fire (which won't heal without specific effort being applied). It could also be a declaration from a harpy that you are to be considered "unpleasant" until further notice (which will hang about until you convince them to remove it). Lastly, it could be a derangement that you don't walk away from so easily... something that messes with your head until you do whatever's needed to make it go away.
The way that consequences work is that others tell you what the "attack" was, what consequences you already have determine what level you're going to get, then you decide how it affects you. If you're shot with a shotgun, a minor consequence could be that you get a glancing blow. A moderate one would be a telling blow that rips off a limb. A major one could be that your head is almost severed by the blast - you can keep going, but you're significantly hindered by it. After any consequence, you can offer your opponent a concession - which is basically an "I'd like this conflict to end now, and I'm prepared to accept that it finishes with X happening to me". They can accept or not, but if you don't offer then they don't know what you'll accept as an outcome.
If you take another consequence after the third, you're "taken out", which means that the other person gets to choose what happens to you. This is the way that characters get killed, thrown from the domain or reduced to a drooling husk that can't do anything at all.
I've toyed with splitting these consequences out into three categories, physical, social and mental, with up to three in each. It'd be nice to tie the social one into a status and boons system, but I don't know exactly how to swing that just yet.
Generation
Not totally sure how to fit Gen into all of this yet. The real benefits of generation are potency of blood and availability of higher level skills and disciplines. Most likely, each character would have one of their aspects relating to their generation, and with generation having both benefits and flaws. As an example, it could be stated that with generation comes both a stroger and cleverer beast - making it harder to maintain path (more on which later). Or it could be stated that higher generation comes with a shorter period of wakefulness, and greater lethargy if acting outside of it - perhaps even a higher blood cost to wake each night, requiring more feeding. The ventrue style "feeding restrictions" could also be an option here.
Age
Again, age would need to be represented in the aspects, but exactly how this is done would be entirely up to the players. Perhaps a requirement that age is mentioned at least once in the aspects, but little more than that. Then you can have things like "I'm 400 years old! Of course I remember that!" or "You're 400 years old! Of course you can't work a VCR!" as well as "I'm only 20, of course I know about current fashions!" or "You're only 20, so of course you think that fad's important...".
Morality and Path
Not sure exactly how to play these, but I'm thinking perhaps of more aspects. A specific set of three aspect slots, to be exact. One for trivialities, one for significant acts, one for your very core. At the start of play, each aspect represents an ideal of the character's path. For example, a neonate might start as follows:
Core: Only human...
Significant: A moral existance
Trivialities: Tries to do the right thing.
Should events transpire that could lead to a path drop (if you committed a path sin or acted in a way that does not match your path aspects, for example), you enter into a conflict with your beast. This conflict is a little odd, as reconciling your actions are going to diminish your path - your beast is trying to make you reconcile and you (or more accurately, your soul) is trying to resist that. If you're trying to keep to your path, being okay with an action that's against it is a bad thing. Any consequences caused in the conflict will affect your character.
You will be trying to find ways to question and make good the infraction. This might mean that your actions in the conflict would be things like deciding "I'll make good by doing X - I'll do this from now on!" or "That'll stay with me as a blight on my soul! I'll never forgive myself!". These would then go on to form mental consequences. If you win, those consequences stand. If you lose, they disappear.
Your beast (or whoever's representing it) will be trying to find reasons to justify it. This might mean that its actions in the conflict might be to convince you that it's okay and that there's nothing you could have done. The beast would only try for a first consequence for minor sins, then it'll stop. For moderate sins, it'll try for the second consequence. For major sins it'll go for the third. For the top level, ultimate sin it'll go for taking you out. If the beast casues a minor consequence, it gets to change your trivialities morality aspect. If it causes a moderate consequence, it gets to change your significant morality aspect. If it causes a major one it changes your core. If it takes you out, you enter wassail.
Relevant virtues to help in this conflict, by the way, are just skills that you can buy like any other.
Clearly the mechanics of this need more thought and some testing... but I think it'd be a more informative system than the current morality system, and allowing a great deal more flexibility for personal takes on a path or personal approaches to failing on it.
Disciplines
Basically, use the stunts system for specific discipline powers. It's doable.
In conclusion...
I'm not planning on running anything sensible or regular with this in the forseeable future. I have my Transuman Space LARP to run first, as well as a few other tabletops and my Horror/Ghost Story/Unexplained Events LARP (tentatively named "Scare" - which is what I'll probably use my FATE LARP system for). However, the idea interests me enough that I might play with it a bit more or try out a couple of one shots every now and then.
What I'd like is for people to give thoughts on this. Obviously, knowing both Vampire and FATE would probably help with this, but any comments are welcome.
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2007-02-13 13:16 (UTC)Vampire, though... hmm... yeah, there would be a fair amount of groundwork needed to set down how generation and disciplines would work, but I think you're right in saying it could work well. Vampire has always been presented as a story-telling game, and FATE allows a more flexible and flavourful approach to storytelling than the storyteller system in my view. I can see aspects working really well with the setting.
Not sure how it would transfer to live, but if you come up with a way to make FATE work for any LARP, I'm sure something could be worked out for Vampire.