SilCore House Rules

As promised, I've uploaded a cleaned up document with some of my SilCore house rules. These got reasonably extensive play, and worked out pretty well for our group.

SilCore House Rules

I believe the complexity rules in this document are the prototype for one of the Complexity house rules that I wrote for Aurora.

What's interesting to me is how I latched on to a couple of concepts before really knowing what they entailed. I've talked about how I kind of halfway implemented "success at a cost" in Silhouette by having fumbles actually generate a result (instead of being treated as zero), just with the addition of a complication. For example, a character who fumbles a Firearms roll might still have a high enough roll plus modifiers to hit the target but their gun jams, they find out they're out of ammo, etc. The same thing happened conceptually with these house rules for Flaws - I saw that there should be some narrative currency attached to Flaws, rather than simply receiving character points for them. I just didn't have the context of something like the Fate Point economy to recognize the design pattern.

Also, the mechanism of sacrificing dice for effects is one that SilCore touched on only in terms of "deception attacks", but it's one that I had thought was a good axis beyond simple result modifiers even before that. It ties into my love of dice mechanics being used to "unpack" data about how something happened in addition to how well. Successes, margin of success or failure, the overall quality of the result, those are things that I like to see in dice mechanics. Justin Bacon has a good series called Dice of Destiny along those lines that I've mentioned before.

From the perspective of a 90's-ish, dice pool styled retroclone (which has been bouncing around my head a bit) I'd want something similar. It would just be a matter of doing it without counting successes, doing pairing of values, or any of the other dice pool tricks I've seen that I personally find distracting. I'd actually almost lean toward a "roll and keep and keep the highest" system, where you roll x dice and keep y based on some measures, and then take the highest from there. For extra detail, maybe there would be a small picklist of qualities that could be attributed to each die depending on the kind of roll. These wouldn't be fixed before the roll, the player would be able to choose after, "This die represents how fast I did this, this die represents damage done, this die represents knowledge gained". They also wouldn't be part of the base resolution mechanic - again, make the base die roll as quick to parse as possible.

This is definitely an avenue I'm going to be pursuing more in future posts.

Travel, Fate Core Style - Part 2

In Part I, I covered a few of the basic ways that travel can be handled. In this second installment I'll give some examples of slightly specific Extras that can be used to add more detail to or just spice it up a little bit. These can either be used by themselves or possibly combined together, depending on the game's exat needs.

Aspects

Aspects are the easiest and most obvious additions to any scene involving travel, from Impassible Mountains to Plentiful Game to Trade Winds. Since the scale is much larger than most scenes, it's also possible for specific locations to be their own aspects. These location aspects can be used much like situation aspects. For example, a player can invoke the Greenbriar Village aspect to get a Lore bonus on finding the ruined tower or for a hot meal to help make a recovery roll.

Zones

Zones are another relatively simple addition to travel. Geographic areas tend to have natural barriers or boundaries - rivers, mountains, forests, marshes, etc. These boundaries can provide passive resistance to moving between zones, prompting appropriate rolls if one or more zones need to be crossed within the same scene. Similarly, they can be used to keep track of the pace of travel. Zones will likely have their own aspects. Locations can also be smaller zones with aspects of their own.

Distance Stress Track

Speaking of pacing, using a distance stress track is one technique for keeping track of how far the characters get and how fast.The stress track has a number of boxes each representing some unit of distance. As the group travels, they make appropriate rolls (Drive, Physique, Athletics, whatever). Each roll takes place at a specific time increment - the more shifts the characters accumulate, the faster they travel. Most of the time the resistance to the roll will be passive, but it might be active under the right circumstances (which we'll get into more in a bit). This stress track would likely be one that is "attacked" with straight shifts - two shifts means mark off two boxes. When the track is filled, the characters reach their destination.

An enhancement to this idea is to have specific boxes on the stress track represent locations that can be reached. In order to reach the location, the characters need to mark off stress equal to or greater than the location's box. If a location is very difficult to find, unknown to the characters, or hidden, you can require that the characters have to land on that exact box.

Consequences

It's also possible to the distance stress track one or more Consequence slots. These Consequences should be predefined, and are there for the GM to "absorb" shifts and thus slow down or complicate the journey. Good examples are Bridge Out, Roadblock, or even Flight Delayed.

Skills

Once you get to this level, you're pretty much going full Fate Fractal. The most obvious choice for a skill would be any situation where the environment can actively take action against the characters. A Winter Storm might be a skill used to attack characters travelling through a mountainous region. A more abstract skill could be Treacherous Terrain that can interfere with how far the characters travel in a scene - effectively meaning that the terrain is offering active resistance to the characters trying to mark off distance stress, if it's being used. Aspects can still be used to for specific threats - like Wolf Packs or Bandits.

Combining multiple Extras together can result in what amounts to a write-up of a campaign region. Each Zone would have aspects, a distance stress track with defined Consequences, and a skill or two (for generic zones Terrain or Weather and Threat are good choices for skills). Over time, the aspects and skill ranks for the zone can even change as campaign milestones are reached.

Example

Here is an example "campaign scale" zone from Tribe 8. The options in use are:

• Zones
• High concept, trouble and several other aspects Distance stress track with Consequences.
• Two skills: Toxic Environment and Terrain. 

Each box on the distance stress track represents 1 mile travelled (Vimary is a pretty small place), and rolls are made every hour of game time. Characters roll Physique to mark off distance stress, opposed by the Terrain skill. Consequences are used to absorb shifts the characters generate, slowing them down and placing

The Rust Wastes

Aspects:

Disintegrating Industrial Area
Deadly Rust Storms
Artifacts of the World Before
Olympus
Access to Subterra
Skills:
Toxic Environment +4
Terrain +4
Distance:

OOOOOOOO
Consequences:
Keeper Pitfalls (-2)
Collapsing Ruins (-4)

Mekton House Rules

It looks like the Mekton Zero Kickstarter funded. It's gotten me on a Mekton kick (I should be planning stuff for my Tribe 8 Fate Core game, which I've promised myself I'll do this week). I was able to retrieve a numer of house rules from my old website via the Internet Archive. Some of these will likely make it into my Mekton Zeta Plus Google Docs spreadsheet I'm working on.

SKILL CHECKS

ANIME POINTS

Face it - there are times when Luck points aren't enough, and you have to take out the alien battleship with one shot or face the destruction of the your planet's defenses and subjugation of your people. Fortunately, you have the ability to draw on some of your hard-earned experience in times like this. By directly spending 5 IP you can gain either a +1 bonus to your skill roll, or the ability to roll an additional die and take the highest result (not adding them together). The IP are permanently spent and do not count towards advancing your skill. Up to 25 IP can be spent on any one roll in this manner, and there should always be a good description and justification (such as, "I overheard Dr. Tokugowa talking about a possible weak point near their ship's sensor array...he wasn't sure, but it just might work!"). Gamemasters are encouraged to not let this rule become abused, and to make characters permanently increase skills if Anime Points are used too often.

FUMBLES

Fumbles work exactly the opposite as critical successes - when a 1 is rolled, another d10 is rolled and the result is subtracted from the character's Stat + Skill. If a 10 is rolled on the second die, yet another d10 roll is added to that. If the character's Stat + Skill total reaches zero, the character has a critical failure - dropping or breaking a tool or weapon, tripping and falling flat on her face, accidentally insulting somebody, etc.

SPECIALIZATIONS

Specializations represent extra time and focus within a specific area that a larger skill covers. For example, Handgun may Specialized in revolvers or Mecha Piloting in a specific weight class of mecha. Specializations may not be too broad (for example, specializing in "Hitting people" with the brawling skill), but they can be fairly narrow (specializing in a specific handgun or a specific model of mecha). In game terms, Specializations grant a +2 to the character's rolls only when the task falls under the Specialization, but a -2 to all other applications of the skill. Specializations have no additional cost, but additional Specializations within the same skill costs 1 SP (for starting characters) or 10 IP (after play starts). The number of times a skill may be Specialized is limited to three, but this is up to GM's discretion. A minimum skill of 3 is required to Specialize a skill. Skills that require Specialization, such as language skills, do not gain the benefit of the bonus - although they may be Specialized further (for example, a character with the skill Speak German might specialize in ancient German, or a dialect).

COMBAT

RANGE MODIFIERS

All ranged weapons except for missiles (which use the standard Zeta Plus ranged rules) have four range bands: Point Blank, Close, Medium, Long, and Extreme. Each range band has its own hit modifiers and (in the case of Point Blank and Extreme) damage effects.

Point blank: The weapon is very close to (1m or less than 1 hex) or in actual physical contact with the target. It will almost always hit, receiving a +5 on the attack roll

Close: The weapon is attacking from greater than 2m/1 hex up to 1/4 the listed range. The attack receives a +3 on the attack roll.

Medium: The weapon is attacking from greater than 1/4 to 1/2 the listed range. The attack receives a +1 on the attack roll.

Long (or combat): The weapon is attacking at greater than 1/2 up to the listed range for its type. There is no bonus on the attack roll.

Extreme: Extreme range is equal to the weapon's listed range squared (for 1/1 and 1/5 scale weapons), and is equal to the weapon's Combat range x25 for 1/10 scale weapons. In both cases, firing at Extreme Range works identically. Extreme Range is broken into range bands equal to the weapon's Combat Range. Projectile weapons receive a -1 to hit per range band (or portion) beyond Combat Range, and -1 Kill (-4 points for 1/10 scale, or -8 points for 1/5 scale weapons) per 2 range bands beyond Combat Range. Energy weapons receive a -1 to hit per 2 range bands beyond Combat Range, and a -1 Kill to damage per range band. It is entirely possible for a projectile to have more range than it has stopping power...for energy weapons, if the beam can do no damage at its maximum range, it is assumed that the last range band that it can do damage is its maximum range.

MECHA CONSTRUCTION

AUTOFIRE BURST VALUE

Beam and Projectile Weapons may be built with Autofire BV - shots from weapons with Autofire BV will always strike the same location of the target. Autofire BV has double the normal multiplier for the weapon's BV.

COMPONENT ARMOR

Various components of a mecha design may be armored individually from the rest. This armor is purchased normally; the only restriction is that an additive system may not have more than 1 SP armor more than it has Kills. The following systems may be armored: Wheels, Treads, Weapons, Ammo, Sensors (but not Recon Systems or Electronic Warfare), Spotlights and Nightlights, Storage Modules, Escape Pods, Fuel Tanks, Propulsion Systems (only up to 1 Kill per location), Powerplants (again, only up to 1 Kill), and Cockpits (only up to 1 Kill). Component armor cannot be RAM armor. Component armor requires 1 space from the servo the armored system is in, unless it is an external component. In addition, component armor systems or weapons inside Command Armor may not have Component Armor.

FIRE CONTROL AND TARGETING COMPUTERS

Fire control computers help to offset the mecha's MV penalty. They are cost multiplier systems and take no spaces or add weight. However, since the fire control computers are tied to the mecha's main sensor suite, if that is destroyed the computer is also and all benefits are lost. Even if you have backup sensors, the fire control computer is disabled when the main sensors are lost. The fire control computer offsets the effects of Maneuver Value for ranged attacks only, and does not increase the pilot's base rolls (i.e., a mecha with -3 MV cannot take +4 fire control to get a +1. Only the -3 MV can be reduced).

Targeting computers offset the penalty for firing at Extreme ranges. They are also a cost multiplier system (with the same cost as Fire Control Computers), and are similar to Fire Control Computers with regards to sensors. Targeting computers only offset range band penalties from Extreme range. The bonus from a Targeting computer cannot exceed the penalty for the range that the weapon is firing to (i.e., a weapon firing with a -2 due to range cannot get the full benefit of its +4 Targeting Computer). Targeting computers also do not add their bonus at Combat Range or less (they're not calibrated to target that close).

It should be noted here that Long Range weapons have an inherent +2 to hit at Extreme Range and a -2 to hit at Combat Range or lower. A Targeting Computer will add its bonus to the Long Range weapon's Extreme range bonus, but will not offset the Combat Range penalty.

FC/TC Bonus	+1	+2	+3	+4	+5	+6	+7	+8	+9	+10
Weapon Cost	x0.05	x0.1	x0.15	x0.2	x0.25	x0.3	x0.35	x0.4	x0.45	x0.5

HIGH ENERGY ATTACKS

Some weapons are made to pack a greater punch at higher ranges and not lose damage. This is expressed as a bonus to out-of-range damage. Note that a High Energy Weapon's out-of-range damage may never exceed it's base damage.

Damage Bonus	+1	+2	+3	+4	+5	+6	+7	+8	+9	+10
Weapon Cost	x1.13	x1.25	x1.38	x1.5	x1.63	x1.75	x1.88	x2.0	x2.13	x2.25

IMPROVED OFF-ROAD ABILITY

Wheels may be purchased with Improved Off-Road Ability. This is considered to be improved shock-absorbers, suspension, tire and wheel design, etc. They are considered to be Mated Wheels and Treads of identical Kill value, with the extra weight of the Treads efficiencied to nothing. The net effect is that the Wheels cost the same as Treads of an equivalent level, but only have the Kills of a Wheel system. Note that Superlight Wheel movement systems cannot be mated with treads for improved off-road ability.

MISSILE ROF

Missile launchers are assumed to be capable of firing their entire payload in one salvo. However, launchers may be purchased so that they can only fire a fraction of their warheads at once. More than this number of missiles cannot be fired from the launcher. Missiles are assumed to automatically reload within a launcher.

Fraction of Missiles	1/4	1/3	1/2	2/3	3/4	ALL
Cost	x0.33	x0.5	x0.67	x0.75	x0.88	x1.0

TURRETS

A Head Servo may be purchased as a 360 degree universal turret. Heads configured as Turrets cost 1 CP per 3 Kills; in addition, the additional motors, gimbals, etc. for the turret take 1 space from the servo it is mounted on. Tank forms do not have to pay these costs for their main turret.

WINGS

Wings actually do more to make a vehicle more stable/maneuverable than to make it faster (which is more a factor of its streamlining), so a pair of wings add a +1 to the mecha's flight MV instead of its MA.

Vimary Zones and Locations

Finally, I completed my write-up of various zones and locations from Vimary. More accurately, I decided to not include Distance stress tracks for the locations. My intention is still to use them, but they a) were a pain to write up and b) I'm actually thinking they shouldn't be set in stone. It's probably a lot better to set Distance stress tracks depending on the journey, time of year, and other circumstances so that they can be varied for each trip (or ignored completely if need be). Anyway, without further ado you can grab the document below. An updated Vimary zone map will soon follow.

Vimary Zones and Locations

Updated Conversion Doc

I've updated the conversion doc with some clarifications on Supplies and Barter. I've also revised the travel rules to include the Distance stress track and some clarifications, and included a method for exploration to use the new random exploration tables.

I just can't leave well enough alone (Exploration, part 2)

So I've been chewing and chewing on my tables, trying to reduce the number of tables and make things flow the way I want them to. I crunched a whole bunch of data on land use from various cities to come up with something that looks and feels about right. It led me to scrap the tables I had previously and come up with a single table subtypes.

The new table uses 5DF instead of 4DF because it's more granular and breaks down easily into the blocks that I need. I wanted to stay with 4DF as a nod to staying "standardized" but the dice for the tables aren't read in the standard fashion so I figured it isn't that bad.

Here's what the first table looks like so far:

There will be sub tables for each to get the specific building type. The table structure sacrifices leanness of the types of areas for having to roll on fewer tables (2 instead of 3 or more) and gives more freedom from the setup I had before.

EDIT: Here's the first of the subtables. Took me 20 minutes to throw together. I've decided to color code the areas so that it's easier to tell which labels belongs to which