From a discussion started in the tavern.
Quote from: Seraphine_HarmoniumI wonder how well D&D-style classes could be blended with FATE....
Quote from: Luminous CrayonI am not sure it would be worth the trouble.
Quote from: Seraphine_HarmoniumI think it would depend on the end result, and whether it 1) better fit the setting, and 2) provided a more fun gaming experience for those involved
Quote from: Luminous CrayonI think the two systems are basically apples and oranges, but if you want to give me a little more detail about what specifically you're trying for, I will be glad to help you brainstorm it.
Anyway, my two cents are that I don't think they're particularly incompatible, actually-- but I'm also unsure if it's worth the trouble.
Something along the lines of your "class" would be a more structured high concept, with class features, to supplement and/or partially replace the idea of stunts and powers. If these class features grew, it would solve one of the major problems of FATE-- a lack of feeling of character advancement. You could do some interesting things with skills by having "class skills" like D&D, too, and that would help flesh out the feeling of belonging to a certain character class.
Or something. :grin:
So I feel like the two systems are similar in terms of crunchy depth (FATE is a lot crunchier than it seems at first, in many of its incarnations), but I think they're going in different directions. That is, class-based systems are designed for your character to basically progress along a set track, for the most part, while FATE character setup is a grab-bag driven by a group story-writing exercise. Those are pretty different ideologies, and I'm not sure you can really yoke them together without losing a lot from one or both.
There are some ways you could try to go about it, though. More than a handful of groups play D&D with FATE-style Aspects grafted onto it, which I gather works pretty well, though I haven't tried it.
A lot of stuff you might try is already implemented in Dresden Files. There's a system there called "templates" which work like semi-pseudo-classes. There's still the big grab-bag of skills, stunts, and powers, and you can pick freely from that grab-bag. But templates give you varying levels of guidance about what to pick to build a specific concept (which, in a world as complex as the one in which this game is set, is pretty welcome.) You could ignore templates entirely if you want and build a character that's totally out of the ordinary, or you could look up a template like "Lycanthrope" or "Wizard" or "Mortal" or whatever, and it will tell you what you need to grab to convincingly
be that thing in terms of game mechanics, plus options for further advancement. I think this is probably about as good as it gets in terms of a class-like system in FATE, as it gives you the whole "here are a list of all the types of things you can be, select one" feel while still, you know, being FATE.
Quote from: sparkleIf these class features grew, it would solve one of the major problems of FATE-- a lack of feeling of character advancement.
The feeling that your class is a track along which you advance-- 8th level rogue being hugely better than, say, 2nd level rogue-- is the feature most traditionally associated with class-based systems that I think will be hardest to achieve in FATE. I don't really prioritize that feeling, personally, and I don't miss it much, but you could probably look to the character advancement system in Dresden Files (yeah, again) for ideas; which I personally feel has solved the advancement problem with earlier FATE incarnations. (You could also look to systems like Apocalypse World, or the newly teaser-released "class" playbooks (http://www.dungeon-world.com/index.php/download_file/view/9/) for Dungeon World (http://www.dungeon-world.com/), for some ideas about how to do effective classes without that kind of D&D-style advancement, if that's not what you want.)
But I'm probably getting way ahead of myself, so I'll wait for more clarification about what you want out of this mashup and what elements from each side you really want to emphasize, before I say anything more on the subject.
"Templates" of a sort might be sufficient to accomplish what I was wanting. The gist of my thought process is the idea of classes as character types with specific kinds of powers (and in some cases I really like the specific powers of the D&D and Pathfinder classes), but using a more "FATE" way of going about actions, aspects, etc.
I think the class features would have to either envelope or replace stunts and powers, or else there would be either redundancy or too much confusion. Or both. Stunts and powers would probably be divided up into lists by class. Stunts that with prerequisites could be earned later on as the characters advance.
And my understanding of Stunts as tied to skills would seems to suggest using class skills as well. Not sure quite how to implement these yet, though. I mean one option would be restricting skill choices to just class skills. Another would be a bonus to class skills and/or a penalty to "cross-class" skills.
Quote from: Luminous CrayonI'll wait for more clarification about what you want out of this mashup and what elements from each side you really want to emphasize, before I say anything more on the subject.
I don't know what
I personally want because this mashup wasn't even my idea. I just found it intriguing.
The problem with the grab bag approach that Dresden FATE takes is that the individual elements of the grab bag are not balanced at all. The whole thing is based around "Refresh," which means that the opportunity cost of taking any individual stunt or power is one Fate Point. I'm not sure if I even like that approach (I might prefer something like D&D Feats where you just get to take a certain number) but it's the approach given in the rules, so I don't want to go off on a huge tangent about that. Anyway, most normal stunts are 1 Refresh. Supernatural powers tend to run 1-3, with powerful things like Evocation and Thaumaturgy costing 3 Refresh. The problem is, there are no three stunts you could take that would be as useful, generally speaking, as these magical powers. Some stunts are so specific I wonder why they're even there-- or, at least, don't grant some kind of mega-bonus (+4 or more) when they manage to apply. I think on some level the authors even realized most stunts were nowhere near as good as an equivalent number of powers so they slapped a patch on this in the form of "Pure Mortal," which gives you +2 Refresh as long as you only buy stunts.
So, the thing about turning these into actual classes with class features are that there could be some restrictions (beyond merely what templates allow) about who can get the "good" powers-- so if, say, you have two classes, each one could get one very nice power and one so-so stunt, and you wouldn't have to worry about balancing the Refresh cost of those, because they'd be equal: you pick one class or you pick the other.
Not being familiar with Dresden FATE, I don't really understand how these things work. It sounds different than stunts in SotC, for instance.
In SotC, you get a certain number of stunts and a certain amount of refresh and they don't impact each other at all. In Dresden, you pay 1 Refresh (i.e., have one less Fate Point available) to get a stunt. However, the actual stunts themselves are not that different.
My biggest issue with FATE (Dresden, in this specific case), is similar to sparkletwist's: the lack of a feeling of advancement. I also agree with LC that trying to merge the two systems will be pretty difficult since, as he puts it, the two seem to be moving in opposite directions. In any case, I'd love to see what could be done with merging the systems... I've tried incorporating aspects in my Pathfinder games to some success, but they really lack the oomph that systems like FATE give them; in FATE, aspects are crucial, integral parts of the game that come up all the time, but in my case they were more tacked on as an additional feature.
I'll gladly help in any way, but I'm not sure the two systems can be reconciled so easily. There's a sort of elegance to FATE's appearance as being "rules-light" (which, comparatively, it is) while actually having quite a bit of depth and subtle mechanical parts (I've found myself "optimizing" aspects before!). D&D systems tend to be very crunchy and mechanical, and they sort of thrive on that "we have a rule for pretty much anything" mentality. It's a tight system that's stretched and molded to encompass a number of different features, but is still pretty set in its ways as a class-based leveling system.
What I would recommend (as I know you've dabbled in PF before) is to try to join/run a FATE game yourself - It helps to really grasp the rules at hand and, perhaps, to draw parallels between them. Or, just to see what you do and don't like! As much as I like the idea of social conflicts in FATE, I actually find myself using them very sparingly for a handful of reasons that have turned me off to them (a topic for another time). I could possibly schedule a FATE one-shot if you wanted to tag along; I'd be happy to show you some of the ropes.
Quote from: sparkletwist
In SotC, you get a certain number of stunts and a certain amount of refresh and they don't impact each other at all. In Dresden, you pay 1 Refresh (i.e., have one less Fate Point available) to get a stunt. However, the actual stunts themselves are not that different.
Much of this is a result of flavor issues, and trying to mechanically enforce the theme that the more power you've got, the less free will you've got; refresh is an indirect mechanical representation of free will because lower refresh makes you much less able to buy out of aspect compels. It certainly doesn't make sense to keep that "spend your refresh on powers" idea if that's not a theme in the world you're portraying.
Stunts
are different in Dresden because, unlike SotC, there's the expectation that most players will be making their own, using the book's examples as a guide. (Dresden also does away with the idea of stunts with a lot of other prerequisite stunts, on the grounds that it's unsatisfying to buy them up that way.) If anybody is interested in these differences and the design philosophy that drove the changes, there's an interview on the web with Lenny Balsera talking about learning from the problems of SotC and using that experience to design Dresden. It's pretty good.
Regardless of which way you go, I strongly advise not trying to exhaustively list stunts in any kind of FATE incarnation, because it's easy to spent way too much time and energy obsessing over minutae that players are going to do themselves (and get more satisfaction in the process). At any rate, I don't think it's that crucial to lay out a bunch of decrees about class requirements for stunts, or "cross-class skills", or that sort of thing, because players will again do that naturally because of the limited resources they've got. I don't think you really need to specify, for instance, that certain Weapons stunts are "fighter-only" to keep your wizards from grabbing them, because 95% of the time, your wizards are going to spend their stunts on things that make them better at wizarding. And if 5% of the time, you end up with an unorthodox wizard who knows a few tricks with a mystical spear (while still being notably sub-fighter deadly with it), you're letting players build unique and quirky characters with memorable hooks, which is fine, too. Honestly, while you can generally take stunts without a skill prerequisite (I can take a Weapons stunt even if the Weapons skill is nowhere to be seen on my skill list), most stunts tend to be very weak unless their associated skill is quite high. So if our example wizard-with-weapons-stunts wants to have anything better than a couple of novel tricks, that player is going to have to invest fairly heavily in fighter-type skills and stunts anyway (which might be how you want to handle those "in-between" kinds of classes, your arcane warriors, your sword-and-sworcery swizzards, your etc.)
Quote from: weaveThere's a sort of elegance to FATE's appearance as being "rules-light" (which, comparatively, it is) while actually having quite a bit of depth and subtle mechanical parts (I've found myself "optimizing" aspects before!). D&D systems tend to be very crunchy and mechanical, and they sort of thrive on that "we have a rule for pretty much anything" mentality.
FATE is, like, the rules-heaviest rules-light game there is. It'll trick ya. It's easy to get sucked down a rabbit hole, and there are more than enough crunchy handholds for players to grab onto and really build with.
There is still a "we have a rule for pretty much anything" reality in FATE, only almost all of the time that rule is "use a maneuver, place a temporary aspect, it'll sort itself out."
----
Honestly, this is how I'd do this hack, if it were me.
1.)
Starting with FATE, decide the basics. What skills does this version of FATE include? What classes do I want to design, and what kinds of things are they good at? What kind of magic system do I want to use (and here, there are a ton of options)? How does Stress and damage and Consequences work in this version (are you being gentle, or lethal)?
2.)
Figure out basic character setup, before classes get involved. Say, ten-skill pyramid (one Great, two Good, three Fair, four Average), everybody pick five stunts (or whatever). Like, get a sense of your baseline. At this level, I would not mess around with basic FATE elements much.
3.)
Figure out an additional perk (or several) for classes. Make it powerful, make it a big deal. Like, for example:
- Fighter: When you deal physical stress, the amount of stress is increased by 2. When you suffer physical stress, the amount of stress is decreased by 2.
- Rogue: When you place a temporary aspect, it lasts for two extra tags, or two extra rounds. When you tag a temporary aspect, it gives youi +3 to your roll instead of +2.
- Wizard: (this one will depend on what your magic system shapes up to be and whether it's accessible at some level to anyone, or whether you have to pick a magic-using class to opt in)
To this I would add some kind of aspect having to do with your class, probably. Honestly, I'd try to get six or eight or ten of these class-exclusive powers per class, and let players choose the one they want to start out with, and save the rest for advancement options.
4.)
Figure out advancement. As I see it, you've got three things you can play with: increasing skills, gaining extra stunts, and gaining extra class powers. The first two can be less extreme, routine advancement; the class powers should be a big deal. So maybe every session or whatever you get either a +1 to a skill of your choice, or an extra stunt, and you get a new class power at huge milestones, and how many class powers you have is analogous to your "class level." Like, if I'm a wizard with one wizard-exclusive power out of six, I'm definitely better at magic than a non-wizard, but still just starting out. But as I rack up more and more of those wizard-exclusive powers, I start to become a "high-level wizard", whatever that means. Maybe I get a new wizard-exclusive power whenever I train under an immortal master-lich, or read a forgotten grimoire of forbidden power, or warp through an eldritch rift to merge my spirit with the cosmic overmind, or whatever it is the kids are doing these days. Or maybe that's just the big "level up at the end of the adventure" award, whatever.
This way, you still have a core kernel of your character (aspects, skills, and stunts) which are independent of your class, and your class is a set of (really powerful) features on top of that. This gives you a method for having characters branch out into other levels of mastery (eventually "multiclassing" by starting to grab a feature or two from another class's list) or changing classes either gradually or all at once (trading in all of your features from your class for another class) while still feeling like there's an essential part of your character that carries over.
...That's a lot of words, but hey, this is starting to get intriguing to me!
Quote from: Luminous CrayonMuch of this is a result of flavor issues, and trying to mechanically enforce the theme that the more power you've got, the less free will you've got; refresh is an indirect mechanical representation of free will because lower refresh makes you much less able to buy out of aspect compels.
I never liked the idea of the GM just being able to overtly tell you what you do. When I've played FATE, I've used a house rule that says that you can go to negative FP to buy out of a compel. The disadvantage is that a negative point represents a Fate Point in the hands of
anyone who might possibly want to use one against you, even a mook who might not ordinarily receive such benefits. It's worked pretty well so far. Granted, that kind of derails the theme you mentioned, but I guess I'm not a big fan of that theme anyway, so I was looking for a way out mechanically.
Quote from: Luminous CrayonFATE is, like, the rules-heaviest rules-light game there is. It'll trick ya.
There is a certain "exchange rate" to FATE's numbers that I
really like, and I have retained and strengthened in Asura. Essentially, because of the consistency and simplicity of the systems in play, you can say that +2 = 2 shifts = 2 stress = 1 Fate Point = 1 Minor Consequence. Some of these relationships are overt in the rules, and some are implied, but this allows shuffling numbers around to create some really interesting mechanics and having some assurance they're going to be balanced. I think that I could also add "= Weapon:3" in there with a fair degree of confidence-- a weapon is not quite as good because it only adds power if it hits, and there's a stunt that
does make that exact "1 Fate Point = Weapon:3" exchange.
Since adding classes will almost invariably add crunch and systems, I think using this basic formula will allow them to stay balanced and consistent. :grin:
Quote from: sparkletwist
There is a certain "exchange rate" to FATE's numbers that I really like, and I have retained and strengthened in Asura. Essentially, because of the consistency and simplicity of the systems in play, you can say that +2 = 2 shifts = 2 stress = 1 Fate Point = 1 Minor Consequence. Some of these relationships are overt in the rules, and some are implied, but this allows shuffling numbers around to create some really interesting mechanics and having some assurance they're going to be balanced. I think that I could also add "= Weapon:3" in there with a fair degree of confidence-- a weapon is not quite as good because it only adds power if it hits, and there's a stunt that does make that exact "1 Fate Point = Weapon:3" exchange.
Since adding classes will almost invariably add crunch and systems, I think using this basic formula will allow them to stay balanced and consistent. :grin:
That is definitely a handy conversion rate to have around, and would definitely be something to keep in mind while designing class features. And I would definitely need a bit of experience in practice in FATE before I'd be able to have a chance of working this out successfully, but this community I can tell would be very helpful.
I am having thoughts about Stunts, and the idea of some stunts having other stunts as prerequisites. How would people feel about certain classes giving out some of these stunts-with-requirements later on as a form of character advancement? Would that be suitable, or should classes stick more to separate powers?
I think I like the idea, though, of classes providing a pool of different powers that you choose from, and then can choose to improve on, or add extra powers to as the character advances, instead of a rigid "This is exactly what you get and when you get it" model. I think it allows for things to still feel a bit more freeform than D&D and Pathfinder.
Quick thought, since I don't have much time: Would something more along the lines of the "Generic Classes (http://www.thecbg.org/index.php/topic,35412.0.html)" Moniker was working on a few years back (and I've seen similar ideas elsewhere) fit better into FATE than the more specific classes of standard D&D? Under this model something specialized to be a "Barbarian" for instance would be created by a combination of "power" choices within the "Warrior" class.
Quote from: Seraphine_Harmonium
Quick thought, since I don't have much time: Would something more along the lines of the "Generic Classes (http://www.thecbg.org/index.php/topic,35412.0.html)" Moniker was working on a few years back (and I've seen similar ideas elsewhere) fit better into FATE than the more specific classes of standard D&D? Under this model something specialized to be a "Barbarian" for instance would be created by a combination of "power" choices within the "Warrior" class.
Any thoughts on this? To clarify what I was thinking, there might be a "Berserk" power that warriors could take, in order to be more "barbarian-like" or some kind of "Magical song" power that made an expert or spellcaster more "Bard-like"