Fate Core Beta Thread II - The Empire Strikes Back

[Colen]

Greetings Fate Core players,

Thanks for your feedback in the Fate Core Beta Thread! I spent a while reading through everyone's posts there, and picked out a few of the more popular requests that I have questions about. I'd like to know more about the following:

1. We had several requests for support of Fate Accelerated Edition in the thread. My original assumption was that it wouldn't be useful to support FAE because the game is so simple, but apparently a bunch of you think otherwise. What do you see the big benefit of FAE support in Hero Lab is?
   
2. A number of people asked about custom campaigns. You can currently implement custom campaigns in one of two ways. The Easy Way is to go to the Personal tab and add permanent adjustments to adjust the campaign to your liking. The Slightly Less Easy Way is to use Hero Lab's integrated editor (find it on the Tools menu) for building your campaign exactly to your liking, which you can then distribute to your friends.
   
3. One thing I saw a couple of requests for is "Break columns while advancing a character". Does that mean when advancing you want to ignore the column restrictions entirely? Or something else?
   
4. Several people asked for "Extras". For everyone who wanted Extras, it sounds like some of you meant that you wanted a table to which you could add anything you want, and track a numeric value along with it. Would that satisfy what you need, or would you need something more complex?
   
5. Another common request was "The Fate Fractal - Using fate attributes to make sidekicks, vehicles, special weapons, and so forth". How exactly would this work?

Thanks for your feedback, everyone! If you have more suggestions or ideas, feel free to share them here also.

 

[Shadowchaser]

Greetings Fate Core players,

Thanks for your feedback in the Fate Core Beta Thread! I spent a while reading through everyone's posts there, and picked out a few of the more popular requests that I have questions about. I'd like to know more about the following:

1. We had several requests for support of Fate Accelerated Edition in the thread. My original assumption was that it wouldn't be useful to support FAE because the game is so simple, but apparently a bunch of you think otherwise. What do you see the big benefit of FAE support in Hero Lab is?
   
2. A number of people asked about custom campaigns. You can currently implement custom campaigns in one of two ways. The Easy Way is to go to the Personal tab and add permanent adjustments to adjust the campaign to your liking. The Slightly Less Easy Way is to use Hero Lab's integrated editor (find it on the Tools menu) for building your campaign exactly to your liking, which you can then distribute to your friends.
   
3. One thing I saw a couple of requests for is "Break columns while advancing a character". Does that mean when advancing you want to ignore the column restrictions entirely? Or something else?
   
4. Several people asked for "Extras". For everyone who wanted Extras, it sounds like some of you meant that you wanted a table to which you could add anything you want, and track a numeric value along with it. Would that satisfy what you need, or would you need something more complex?
   
5. Another common request was "The Fate Fractal - Using fate attributes to make sidekicks, vehicles, special weapons, and so forth". How exactly would this work?

Thanks for your feedback, everyone! If you have more suggestions or ideas, feel free to share them here also.

Good questions! I'll take a stab at them here:

1) Fate Accelerated replaces the Skills concept with the Approaches concept in order to streamline the presentation. In doing so, they created a much faster way to create characters and also a new paradigm in how characters can be represented "Personality first" instead of "Capabilities first." A lot of people find this approach (nyuck!) appealing and useful. I personally have used a hybrid method combining approaches with skills, and find that also useful. An Approaches tab that you could turn on or off at the Configure Character screen would be pretty useful.

2) Campaigns in Fate are represented by their own sheet for a reason. They have Aspects which represent Themes, and these aspects are called upon during gameplay and can be *changed* by Milestones. Being able to create a Fate Campaign sheet and linking that to my players would be SUPER useful, as I would be able to build the campaign sheet, set the rules for that particular campaign, and then forward that to them to automatically configure their characters. Failing that, a Campaign Sheet tab on the character would be a way to start it off. I could fill out that part of the character sheet, save it as a "Template" character portfolio, and forward *that* to the players to use for character creation.

3) It's impossible to advance a skill by one skill rank without "breaking" the skill columns rule unless you start from the very bottom of your skill pyramid. This isn't very useful for progression. The ability to have one or two skills "unsupported" by a column has become pretty much necessary in our campaigns in order to allow players an organic skill progression. The Skill Cap for the campaign, the uppermost tier of a skill, still can't be changed without spending a Major Milestone, however.

4) I think that works as a kludge. For instance, if I wanted to add Armor: 2 to a character, I'd need the ability to put in that Armor description and the number 2. The ability to add a note explaining how the number is applied is important. A variable cost in Refresh would also help, as most Extras cost Refresh. In my upcoming Superhero game, we're using a set of "Super Points" to represent Refresh-that-is-only-for-buying-Super-Powers so characters don't burn through their Refresh in character creation... so something that let us customize that without a lot of trouble would help, but probably isn't super necessary. Another example would be for our Fate campaign: Tianixa: Blood, Silk & Jade. In that setting, you gain a number of specialized stunts to represent your Kung Fu. We keep those Kung Fu forms and such set aside in their own category because they are thematically different from the standard Stunts in Fate Core.

5) The Fate Fractal is part of what makes Fate pretty amazing. Basically, any element you want to add into a campaign can be described using the same concepts as a player character. For example, a magic sword that is important enough could be called out on its own, given a set of Aspects (one or more), a Skill, an Extra or Stunt, and so on. A Boy Wonder sidekick could be a more fleshed-out character with a full set of skills and such, but designed with a different set of Stress checkboxes and no Consequences, and no refresh (he's essentially a "Feature" of the parent character). You can also create character-like traits for a game element run by the GM, such as a murder mystery. The mystery itself can be represented by aspects and skills, as it "actively" resists the attempts by the players to solve it.

Hope that was helpful!

 

[Sketchpad]

Hey there Colen!

1. We had several requests for support of Fate Accelerated Edition in the thread. My original assumption was that it wouldn't be useful to support FAE because the game is so simple, but apparently a bunch of you think otherwise. What do you see the big benefit of FAE support in Hero Lab is?

Guilty as charged. For me, the benefits include tracking experience through HL, and having files that can be shared between my players on hand. Many of the gamers in my group use HL and having FAE for them would be awesome!

1. A number of people asked about custom campaigns. You can currently implement custom campaigns in one of two ways. The Easy Way is to go to the Personal tab and add permanent adjustments to adjust the campaign to your liking. The Slightly Less Easy Way is to use Hero Lab's integrated editor (find it on the Tools menu) for building your campaign exactly to your liking, which you can then distribute to your friends.

I haven't had a chance to try this yet. I'm hoping to work with it this weekend. I did play with the editor a bit, but not to any major ends yet.

1. Several people asked for "Extras". For everyone who wanted Extras, it sounds like some of you meant that you wanted a table to which you could add anything you want, and track a numeric value along with it. Would that satisfy what you need, or would you need something more complex?

I'd be willing to give it a shot. Extras are only as complex as you want them to be. You'd have to be able to track the amount based on your Refresh IIRC.

1. Another common request was "The Fate Fractal - Using fate attributes to make sidekicks, vehicles, special weapons, and so forth". How exactly would this work?

I was thinking about this the other night. Maybe make it as an additional character that someone could put into play, like a familiar in Pathfinder or Sidekick in M&M? Maybe make a drop down menu for what purpose they serve (vehicle, sidekick, base, etc.)?

Hope this helps.

 

[Steev42]

[*]A number of people asked about custom campaigns. You can currently implement custom campaigns in one of two ways. The Easy Way is to go to the Personal tab and add permanent adjustments to adjust the campaign to your liking. The Slightly Less Easy Way is to use Hero Lab's integrated editor (find it on the Tools menu) for building your campaign exactly to your liking, which you can then distribute to your friends.

I played around with creating a campaign using the editor. It was somewhat unfunctional. Skills added to the campaign didn't show up unless they were added as tags (instead of the easy "campaign skills" box). I'd also like to see some way of adding campaign aspects, and in general, other things from the campaign worksheet.

[*]Several people asked for "Extras". For everyone who wanted Extras, it sounds like some of you meant that you wanted a table to which you could add anything you want, and track a numeric value along with it. Would that satisfy what you need, or would you need something more complex?

[*]Another common request was "The Fate Fractal - Using fate attributes to make sidekicks, vehicles, special weapons, and so forth". How exactly would this work?

I actually look at these two as being part of the same thing. Many 'extras' take the form of sub-characters/sidekicks/etc. with aspects, skills, stress, consequences and stunts of their own. You can kind of work around this by creating a separate character at the moment, but with skills especially, a free-form entry would be helpful. With the current drag-and-drop mechanism, that's not possible.

To further the explanation, I'd want to treat them as a familiar in Pathfinder. The ability to click on a button to bring up the secondary sheet, and another to go back, tying them to the same profile, is the way to go.

Other extras might be campaign-related. Races, for instance, in a fantasy game. These might just be name and description for the most part, but it would be awesome to have them included in a campaign or not.

 

[THX472]

I'd really like to see the ability to add custom stress tracks using the Editor. And with that, some way to make custom stress tracks appear when certain stunts or skills are taken.

 

[Colen]

Beta 2 is now out, including the following changes:

• You can now add custom skills on the Skills tab.
• Extreme Consequences can now be added, although it's up to you to change the hero's aspects appropriately.
• Custom stress tracks can now be created in the editor.
• Note for everyone who used the old stunts from Spirit of the Century: Due to changes in the data files, you'll need to re-add these to your character after loading the data files.
• Fixed a couple of bugs, including not being able to properly define new campaigns in the editor.

Anyone who signed up for beta testing should be getting an email with the details soon!

 

[TheGM]

Just tried it with the portfolio that was done with the Beta 1.
The Refresh is still unaffected by a negative Permanent Adjustment in the Personal folder. It stays at 3 no matter what your negative adjustment is. But you can raise the refresh.

The reduction of refresh is needed as you play a lot of stuff with a reduced Refresh (Extras, Stunts, ..)

 

[iamarogue]

[*]A number of people asked about custom campaigns. You can currently implement custom campaigns in one of two ways. The Easy Way is to go to the Personal tab and add permanent adjustments to adjust the campaign to your liking. The Slightly Less Easy Way is to use Hero Lab's integrated editor (find it on the Tools menu) for building your campaign exactly to your liking, which you can then distribute to your friends.

I think the point is this: Fate is such a hack-able system that any software that uses it needs to be likewise hack-able. I have used the permanent adjustments and found that they're not customizable enough. I have dabbled in the editor and found that it's just not intuitive enough. (I'm not a programmer and it feels like programming; and it seems to me that the ease of making your character with paper and pencil outweighs the benefit you would get from customizing through the editor)

I would appreciate an option when you first load up a new character, like in the Pathfinder RPG, you get a window that lets you specify campaign options (i.e. what sourcebooks to allow, how to generate ability scores, starting gold, how prevalent guns are, etc.). Then you could save this set of options not just as the "default" but you could also save the set of options as a Campaign.

In this options window, you could specify things like: skills pyramid or skills ladder? Whether to use extras or not, and which extras? Etc.

 

[Territan]

I have a custom data file for my campaign, which is a bit more high-powered (an extra optional Aspect and Refresh) and uses two custom skills.

The campaign comes up all right everywhere, including the Campaign Settings and Campaign picker, but when I pick that campaign, the entire skill list—all eighteen normal Fate Core skills and the two custom skills, every skill I had picked for that campaign—disappears.

The two custom skills I added are checked off on the list of available skills to add to the campaign, but they don't appear in the actual portfolio editor.

Is there something additional I should be doing to the campaign to set the skill list?

 

[Elindor]

I have a custom data file for my campaign, which is a bit more high-powered (an extra optional Aspect and Refresh) and uses two custom skills.

The campaign comes up all right everywhere, including the Campaign Settings and Campaign picker, but when I pick that campaign, the entire skill list—all eighteen normal Fate Core skills and the two custom skills, every skill I had picked for that campaign—disappears.

The two custom skills I added are checked off on the list of available skills to add to the campaign, but they don't appear in the actual portfolio editor.

Is there something additional I should be doing to the campaign to set the skill list?

There was a bug with the previous version where the skill picker wasn't adding the skills to the campaign properly. That's been fixed in the latest version (which also requires the latest version [4.3a] of Hero Lab). If you had created the campaign file before the latest update, you should be able to add them with the new update through the skill selector in the editor.

 

[TCArknight]

One thing I'd like to see, perhaps under the Campaign tab in the editor, is the ability to rename the History phases to something specific to the campaign. For example, in dresden files, there are 5 phases (Background, Rising Conflict, The Story, Guest Starring and Guest Starring Redux). I'm able to do this with a script on the campaign, but it might be simpler to do if there were entry options on the Campaigns tab itself.

If anyone wants to do something similar at the moment, this is the script -

(Phase - Initialize)
trustme

hero.child[eqHist1].field[UserName].text = "Background"
hero.child[eqHist2].field[UserName].text = "Rising Conflict"
hero.child[eqHist3].field[UserName].text = "The Story"
hero.child[eqHist4].field[UserName].text = "Guest Starring"
hero.child[eqHist5].field[UserName].text = "Guest Starring Redux"

 

[MPHopcroft]

My latest effort has been trying to do an NPC who does not require full stats. Well, actually, it's a critter that I'm writing as a bit of an in-joke. Here is what I expect the aspects to look like (All come from the lyrics of a song by the Doubleclicks)>

DIMETRODON!
High Concept: Sailback Giant
Trouble: Went extinct 200 Million Years ago
Aspects: He eats Sharks, He is ten feet long, Giant Teeth!

Now what skills a precursor to the dinosaurs would have are up in the air. He's better off as a FAE concept. But I wanted to create a text file with just what I can get.

It would be nice if there was a way to switch in this process. Say that if the character you're statting out in Core, and you think "Hey, this character would look a heck of a lot better in a FAE game". Or vice-versa. Or if you're doing up a bunch of NPCs in a hurry and not all of them need a full complement of skills and stunts, but you want to be able to print or post them together.

 

[Territan]

There was a bug with the previous version where the skill picker wasn't adding the skills to the campaign properly. That's been fixed in the latest version (which also requires the latest version [4.3a] of Hero Lab). If you had created the campaign file before the latest update, you should be able to add them with the new update through the skill selector in the editor.

I had deleted the fatecore folder, reloaded it from the .hl file, and built from scratch, and the skills still wouldn't appear for me.

After recompiling the data files and shutting down and restarting Hero Lab, I now have a skill list, so that's working. From here, the only thing I have to add is one special stunt. So I've got that going for me. (yay)

To chime in on the subject of Fate Accelerated, I think Hero Lab does need to be aware of it. I have Worlds on Fire & Worlds in Shadow, and one or two of the campaigns proposed in there are based more on Accelerated than Core. Instead of the traditional skill pyramid, for instance, "White Picket Witches" uses seven Assets (into which the character can spend eight points willy-nilly), and Fight Fire has nine Skills (of which the character will have established ratings in six) which bear no resemblance to Core's canonical list.

It wouldn't be so much an "Accelerated" thing as a "Toolkit" thing to be able to change what Skills are called at the campaign level.

 

[Elindor]

I had deleted the fatecore folder, reloaded it from the .hl file, and built from scratch, and the skills still wouldn't appear for me.

After recompiling the data files and shutting down and restarting Hero Lab, I now have a skill list, so that's working. From here, the only thing I have to add is one special stunt. So I've got that going for me. (yay)

When building the user file attached to this message, I found that Develop > Quick Reload Data Files would bring them into the list - basically, Hero Lab needs to load them up in the main window, then it's good to go.

To chime in on the subject of Fate Accelerated, I think Hero Lab does need to be aware of it. I have Worlds on Fire & Worlds in Shadow, and one or two of the campaigns proposed in there are based more on Accelerated than Core. Instead of the traditional skill pyramid, for instance, "White Picket Witches" uses seven Assets (into which the character can spend eight points willy-nilly), and Fight Fire has nine Skills (of which the character will have established ratings in six) which bear no resemblance to Core's canonical list.

It wouldn't be so much an "Accelerated" thing as a "Toolkit" thing to be able to change what Skills are called at the campaign level.

Well, I do need to comment on the subject of Fate Accelerated - I created a .user file for FAE, and there is one problem - I have a validation error due to having unspent resources in the skill section - it seems to be expecting two full columns, and using that to validate, despite there not being sufficient points to do so. And, as it fails validation, it also locks me out of Advancement mode. That needs to be resolved, so that skill column settings will work.

I've included the .user file, and a sample portfolio to demonstrate the problem.

 

[Elindor]

Well, I do need to comment on the subject of Fate Accelerated - I created a .user file for FAE, and there is one problem - I have a validation error due to having unspent resources in the skill section - it seems to be expecting two full columns, and using that to validate, despite there not being sufficient points to do so. And, as it fails validation, it also locks me out of Advancement mode. That needs to be resolved, so that skill column settings will work.

I've included the .user file, and a sample portfolio to demonstrate the problem.

OK, found out how to get around this - I disabled the number of Skill Columns. However, this is not the most complete option - by setting it to 2 skill columns with 9 skill points, it forces the 3,2,2,1,1,0 structure of FAE, but throws a validation error. By leaving it open, it allows non-FAE compliant builds (such as 3,2,1,1,1,1, or 3,3,3,0,0,0) which do not produce validation errors.

I think the issue I found is that the tooltip says "Maximum number of skill columns", but the validation is treating it as "must have x skills of each level"

 

[MPHopcroft]

I've included the .user file, and a sample portfolio to demonstrate the problem.

How did you make that work even as well as you did? I'm not a power user by any stretch of the imagination, and I'm wondering how I can use the .user file to help me with FAE.

 

[Elindor]

How did you make that work even as well as you did? I'm not a power user by any stretch of the imagination, and I'm wondering how I can use the .user file to help me with FAE.

A lot of the information is in the Fate Core specific documentation for Hero Lab (located under Help > Fate Core Beta Manual), but here are the steps I took to create the user file in the Hero Lab Editor.

I started with a new data file, since I knew I would likely be distributing this one. The first thing I needed to do was to assess what needed to be added. The major changes to go from Fate Core to Fate Accelerated is the skills are replaced by Approaches, and there is only one stress track.

Important Note: After saving changes to a .user file, compile the file (Control-C). This will test for syntax errors (such as typing the name of something incorrectly), and will tell you where they are!

The Stress Track is not covered in documentation, but I took a quick peek at the existing stress tracks (and found the Wealth and Mana tracks that were provided by the kind folks at LWD in this release), and found that they're defined very simply. You simply create a new stress track item, give it a name (in this case, Stress) and a UniqueID (in this case, strFateAccel).

I also took the opportunity to add it to a data source by clicking the Edit button next to Sources. Selecting a New Source then let me define the Fate Accelerated source which appears in the Hero Setting when configuring the character.

After this, save the object, then save the .user file. After compiling (not that the changes we've made so far should cause any problems, but it's a good habit to form), go back to Hero Lab and under the Develop menu, select Quick Reload Data Files. This will tell Hero Lab to load your new .user file as well as the Fate Core game files, which makes things in it available to you.

Now, we go back to the Hero Lab Editor, and reopen the .user file if it isn't already open. Now we need to put our approaches in. Since they behave in the same way as skills do mechanically, they can go into Skills. For the first one, give it it's Name (Clever), UniqueID (skClever), and then click the Edit button next to Sources. The Source you defined for the Stress Track can now be selected, so simply check the box and hit OK. Now, save the skill. Next, you need to duplicate that Skill five times using the button in the lower left of the Editor. That will save you a bit of time, since you just need to go through and rename them, clicking the save button each time (At this point, I also copied the aspect description from FAE to appear in the mouseover text).

At this point, I saved the file and compiled it again (good habits, since we're still not expecting errors at this point). Then, I returned to Hero Lab and did another quick reload.

The final step was ahead of me - creating the Fate Accelerated Campaign. Back in the Editor, I created a campaign, doing the standard Naming and adding it to a Data Source (you may need to scroll down for that). Since FAE doesn't use the skill pyramid, I chose Skill Columns as the Skill Style. Starting FAE characters have a skill cap of 3, and get 9 skill points. Refresh Rate is 3, so we can leave that blank. Initial Stunts and Default Stress are then set to 3. Then, click on the Edit Button next to Campaign Skills. Select the six approaches you defined above, and click OK. If you're using the latest version of the Fate Core Datafile, this will set the skills up (It was broken in the previous version). In the lower section of the options, you can set the Physical and Social initiative skills (Quick and Careful, respectively).

Then, you need to add the Stress Track. Click on the Bootstraps Button, and then click where it says "Click to add another bootstrap". You can then either click on the Choose button, and select the Stress Stress Track from the list that appears, or type the UniqueID for it in the text box. Just above the text box, it should say "Thing: Stress (Stress)" as it identifies the UniqueID. If it has, click OK, then save campaign and the file.

Compile the File NOW - this is the first place where you may come into a problem (and that should only be if you typed in the UniqueID wrong when setting up the Bootstrap). Assuming it worked, do a Quick Reload of the data files, then go to Configure Hero. Check the Fate Accelerated box (or whatever you called it), then you should be able to select the campaign you just created from the campaign list. As a note, the stunts from Fate Core will not be in the stunt list (as their linked skills are not in the campaign), so you'll just have the Custom Stunts.

I've tweaked the .user file I uploaded earlier so the validation error won't block the transition to Advancement (although it does have the problem I alluded to in my second post), and suppressed the 1/scene custom stunt (which doesn't fit in FAE).

 

[TCArknight]

Some more thoughts:

1) We need the ability to set a 'Stunt-like' ability to be bought at a rate of 2 for 1 refresh, 3 for 1 refresh, etc.

In the Tianxia setting, characters can spend 1 Refresh for:

• Martial Art 'Form' & 1 of the associated MA techniques
• 2 MA Techniques for forms the character already has
• 1 Stunt

A 'Form' acts as an overall permission for certain techniques. Techniques are similar to stunts, but not quite as powerful.

2) Based on a campaign, characters need to be able to have a definable/modifiable 'movement rate'. For example, in Tianxia, characters begin with the ability to move 1 'zone' if they are unhindered by obstacles. Their Athletics skill rank can allow then to move 1, 2 or even 3 extra zones. Their standing in the 'Martial Arts World' also provides for extra movement as well.

3) We need to be able to create a Tracker which we can attach to a game mechanic for all characters (Perhaps showing on the In-Play tab next to Consequences and on the Aspects and History Summary tab under aspects, but before consequences (or on the Other summary tab))

I think there are a couple of other items, but those are what I can think of now..

 

[kodama1]

Very happy with the update fix for Beta 2. Glad to see things expanding. I, like TCArknight, am running a Dresden game and Would love to see the naming convention he addressed. Also, would like to add "Powers" in the same area as Stunts. For this game pure mortals use Stunts while everything else uses "Powers". So having a place for that would be great. Or just rename it to "Stunts / Powers".

Also, since I'm working on importing all of these powers manually, it would help to find out where I can create a Sourcebook that I could store and then pull these all from. I'm guessing that's where they will end up being in the long run.

I see in the editor where I can click on "Sources" for each stunt, and see where I can create a "-New Source-". However when I do that and try to "Test Now!" to make it active I get an error stating "Hero Lab was forced to stop compilation after the following errors were detected: Source 'DresRPGys' - Reference to non-existent parent source 'DresdenYS'."

Also, I don't see where I can select that as an option to check a source once it is existing (So I don't have to retype it every single time).

If I can find where I could do that it would sure help me out.

Ideas?

-kodama1-

 

[kodama1]

Also, I forgot, you need to add stunts / powers that are positive effects on refresh. In the case of A werewolf (Shape Changer) in Dresden this is a power that gives refresh as they are required to have it, but it can cost up to 2+ in refresh (not -2) if they take rare or involuntary change.

All you would have to do for this effect to take place is to allow negatives in the edit field. Normally a cost of 1 for a stunt is -1, but if you put in -1 it would allow it to be a +1 in refresh.

-kodama1-

See following text excerpt...

Human Form [+1]
Description: You’re a shapeshifter, but when you haven’t shapeshifted, you’re just a normal person.

Skills Affected: Varies.

Effects:
Regular Joe/Regular Jane. Specify which of your supernatural abilities (usually most or all of them) are unavailable to you when you’re not shapeshifted into your “powered” form. As long as you specify at least 2 points worth of supernatural powers, you gain back
1 point of refresh for making this choice. If you only have 1 point of supernatural powers
affected by this, Human Form is not worth any refresh.

Rare or Involuntary Change [+1]. If you are only rarely able to take your powered form
(due to involuntary change, rare times of the day or month or year, etc.), you regain
two points of refresh for taking this ability, instead of one. The total cost of the abilities affected by the Human Form must be greater than the amount of refresh points paid back by this effect. So to get this version of Human Form, it must affect at least 3 refresh points’ worth of powers.