Terra Macabre System (FATE Based) - Stress and Powers

[Xathan]

Listening to all the arguments - and shocked by the fact that my three main sources of feedback (Sparkletwist, LC, and SabrWolf) all agree on something in that my idea is going to create more problems than fun, I've decided that I'm going to go with the standard FATE route, A-la Dresden, operating under the mindset of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." :P Thanks for the feedback guys - sorry this post isn't more detailed, but it'd boil down to "you're absolutely right" :P

Now for an alternative question - any thoughts on my proposed method of buying stunts, attributes, and the sample attributes?

[Lmns Crn]

I'm seeing your list for buying attributes, but I don't see anything there about stunts. What's the deal there, just make your own, Dresden-style, and each stunt costs one point?

"Buying Fate Points" is just a way of saying you have FP equal to the amount of character-building points you didn't blow on other stuff? Is this like a default "refresh level" of FP (i.e., if I spend three points here, I have three FP at the start of each session/campaign/story/whatever) or is it literally just buying FP at a 1:1 exchange and once I spend them, they're gone?

Your entry on "grafts" cuts off mid-sentence, so it's unclear what that actually means. I'm curious about what it's meant to represent, since a cost of zero is basically saying "take this if you want, or not, whatever" so I'm interested in the ramifications of making an attribute a graft or deliberately not doing so. Also, I'm a little confused from your chart about which of the other powers are meant to be graft options and which are not.

I'm not sure Shapeshifting needs to have a negative cost. I understand you're basically using this as a way to partially refund the cost of other powers by making them available only part of the time, but as far as I can tell, it's still always going to be a benefit to grab Shapeshifting, not a drawback. I think having Horrible Visage some of the time would actually be more useful than having it all the time, and as far as I can tell there's no reason not to pick up Shapeshifting + Claws or Shapeshifting + Limited Use Spit Weapon, because stuff like that is free and you can always turn it off if it's inconvenient for some reason, so why the hell not?

[Xathan]

I'm seeing your list for buying attributes, but I don't see anything there about stunts. What's the deal there, just make your own, Dresden-style, and each stunt costs one point?

Bingo. I'll get some samples up, but if you know how it works Dresden-style, then that's how I'm running it - I'm adopting an even stronger "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" policy. :P

"Buying Fate Points" is just a way of saying you have FP equal to the amount of character-building points you didn't blow on other stuff? Is this like a default "refresh level" of FP (i.e., if I spend three points here, I have three FP at the start of each session/campaign/story/whatever) or is it literally just buying FP at a 1:1 exchange and once I spend them, they're gone?

Yeah, it's pretty much a different way of explaining refresh, mainly because it took me about 15 read throughs to finally get how refresh is supposed to work, and explaining it this way makes much more sense to me.

Your entry on "grafts" cuts off mid-sentence, so it's unclear what that actually means. I'm curious about what it's meant to represent, since a cost of zero is basically saying "take this if you want, or not, whatever" so I'm interested in the ramifications of making an attribute a graft or deliberately not doing so. Also, I'm a little confused from your chart about which of the other powers are meant to be graft options and which are not.

Oh, wow, can't believe I missed that. Grafts is kind of like Wizard's Constitution in Dresden - it's mechanical impacts on the game are minimal, but it's important to have present. Essentially, having the Grafts allows you to get powers that aren't part of your normal physiology. I'm still debating which powers should be allowed as Grafts - or if there should be any restriction at all. It's a flavor thing, hence the no cost - though part of me is debating making it cost 2, since it's the only way to have a powered human, and would end up having the same mechanical effect as vanilla mortals having 2 extra refresh in Dresden.

I'm not sure Shapeshifting needs to have a negative cost. I understand you're basically using this as a way to partially refund the cost of other powers by making them available only part of the time, but as far as I can tell, it's still always going to be a benefit to grab Shapeshifting, not a drawback. I think having Horrible Visage some of the time would actually be more useful than having it all the time, and as far as I can tell there's no reason not to pick up Shapeshifting + Claws or Shapeshifting + Limited Use Spit Weapon, because stuff like that is free and you can always turn it off if it's inconvenient for some reason, so why the hell not?

Hell...with that argument, Shapeshifting should have a positive cost, not a negative one. Which I suppose it should - the benefits of it make it less of a drawback unless there's some kind of requirement you need to shift, or delay in how long you can shift, or something along those lines.

Thanks for the help!

[Xathan]

Random thought: scratch the 2pt cost for grafts I was talking about, and instead allow an "unaltered human" attribute worth -2, with the catch it's the only attribute you can have.