[Fate v3] Fate Generic Campaign Framework

MapTool campaign files that encapsulate properties, tokens, and macros for a particular ruleset or game world. "Framework" is often abbreviated "FW".

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DrVesuvius
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[Fate v3] Fate Generic Campaign Framework

Post by DrVesuvius »

The Fate 3.0 generic framework I've been working on is now ready.

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Dr Vesuvius's Generic Fate 3.0 Campaign File Framework
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It's a framework to support play with the various versions of Fate 3.0. Players are able to do everything from the character sheet.

My personal preferred version of Fate is a hybrid of Starblazer Adventures and Diaspora, so that's my target for this framework. But I've tried to keep this generic enough to be usable with any iteration of Fate.

I also have a preference for frameworks that just reproduce the basic tasks that players would be doing sat round a physical table. So there won't be much in the way of extensive game automation or hardcoding of the game mechanics.

At the moment it supports both 4dF and 1d6-1d6 dice resolution, configurable by the GM. Initially it won't support the original Spirit Of The Century stress damage method (ticking single boxes at the result points level) since everyone including the SoTC creators has now moved on to stress-as-hit-points. If there's a great demand for the old method then I'll have a look at it.

On campaign load, select a token and hit F2 to load up the Token Sheet. Every game function can be carried out from there. If you are the owner of the token, or the GM, you will have full visibility and access to all of the token's game stats. If not you will only be able to see a very limited subset of stats (stress tracks and visible aspects i.e. consequences) and not be able to edit anything.

In the top right corner of the Token Sheet are three or four icons, they are..

The die : it will either show a Fudge dice or a random D6 value, depending on which roll mechanism has been selected for the campaign (see below). This will do a simple die roll, without modifying it by character skill. You shouldn't need to use this in play, but the option's there if you do.

The ladder : displays a pop-up dialog box showing the FATE ladder, just in case you need it as a reference.

The cog : changes the Token Sheet to the Weapons & Gear view (cog...gear... geddit?). In this view, the cog icon becomes a person icon, which switches back to the Token Sheet view.

The medal : only appears if you are connected as a GM. This launches the Compel dialog, which lets you pick from all the connected players. It then sends the selected player a chat message with two macrolinks, one to accept, one to refuse.

On the Token Sheet, everything should be pretty self explanatory. Clicking a Heading will edit that category, while clicking a smaller link will use that element in-game, e.g. clicking "Spend" under Fate Points spends a Fate point, clicking an Aspect name will use a Fate point to invoke an Aspect, clicking a skillname will make a roll based on that skill.

You can add or remove whole Stress Tracks by clicking the heading, or just apply individual bits of damage by clicking on the relevant track name. I've set the default Stress Tracks to be Health and Composure, since they seem to be the most commonly used for characters - if you want to change this (say to add a default "Wealth" track for Diaspora) then this can be done by setting the default Campaign Property.

Aspects are treated slightly differently depending on whether they are part of the character, or temporary Aspects applied by Maneuvers or taken as Consequences. Character Aspects can be edited by clicking on the Aspects heading. Individual temporary Aspects can be added or removed with the relevant macrolinks, the Add Temporary Aspect dialog asks you to specify whether the aspect is Fragile, Sticky or one of the defined Consequence types.

Temporary aspects are shown on the Token Sheet in italics and are also visible to non-owners in the Token Sheet and in the pop-up statsheet.

Skills are automatically sorted into descending rank order.

Stunts generally give fixed bonuses or advantages, so clicking on a stuntname will just bring up a window with the full stunt description, and gives the option of posting that to the chat window for the GM and other players to see.

Customising for your version of FATE

Eventually I'll put together a nice shiny HTML dialog to let you choose all the configurable options, but for now it's relatively simple to edit where the key settings are initialised in the onCampaignLoad macro.

Code: Select all

<!-- Define dice method -->
[H: setLibProperty("DiceMethod", "DeeEff@Lib:FATE", "Lib:FATE")] <br> <!-- Options here are "DeeEff" or "DeeSix"
[H: defineFunction("dice", getLibProperty("DiceMethod", "Lib:FATE"))]
Change "DeeEff@Lib:FATE" to "DeeSix@Lib:FATE" to switch from 4dF to 1d6-1d6 dice resolution.

Code: Select all

<!-- Define Ladder -->
[H: setLibProperty("Ladder", "['Abysmal (-3)', 'Terrible (-2)', 'Poor (-1)', 'Mediocre (0)', 'Average (+1)', 'Fair (+2)', 'Good (+3)', 'Great (+4)', 'Superb (+5)', 'Fantastic (+6)', 'Epic (+7)', 'Legendary (+8)']", "Lib:FATE")]
At the moment you have to stick with the -3 to +8 scale, but you are able to change the adjectives (e.g. change "Fair (+2)" to "Decent (+2)" for Diaspora). Further down the line I think I've got a way to make this completely configurable, so you can have a longer or shorter ladder, or change the low and high points, but that's going to be a couple of versions down the line.

Code: Select all

<!-- Define Consequences -->
[H: setLibProperty("Consequences", "['Mild','Moderate','Severe']")]
You can change this to "['Minor', 'Major', 'Serious', 'Extreme']" for Starblazer Adventures. You can have as many or as few Consequence categories as you like. Note that the framework doesn't track how many Stress points each consequence type cancels, because not only does that vary from game to game, but individual characters might have stunts that vary it. So I decided it was easier for players or GMs to just remember for themselves whether they're playing 1/2/4 2/4/6 or 2/4/6/8.

Code: Select all

<!-- Define Weapon Profile -->
[H: setLibProperty("WeaponProfile", "['Name', 'Rng', 'Dmg', 'Pen', 'Notes']")]
I currently have this configured for Diaspora stats. You can add or remove fields here and the Weapon displays and edit dialogs will change accordingly, so for Starblazer you can remove "Pen" for example. If you have a field called "Notes" (case sensitive) then the Edit Weapon dialog will always give you a larger text box to allow you to put more details in.

The current version number is 0.95, so naturally there are a few bits of tidying up to be done and improvements to be made, but it's complete enough to run a game (I think).

Definite 'To-Do's
Dialog for all the customisation options.
Better GM Compel options (e.g. specifying which Aspect is being Compelled, Escalations, freely refusable Compels)
Totally reconfigurable FATE ladder
Add some drop-in resources (Teleports, handout handling, change token image etc)

Tentative 'To-Do's
Prettying up the Token Sheet
Rejig Aspect Handling so that character aspects can be made visible to non-owners.
GM spawnable Aspect Tokens, to be used to indicate scene Aspects, or similar abstracts.
Player Compel/Invoke other token's Aspects
Option for SOTC style stress damage (if I get any feedback requesting this, I'll shift it to the top of the list)
Initiative support (not sure how many variant initiative systems I'll have to do)

Way, way down the bottom of the list
Fate Ladder indicator that shows result of last skill roll/invoked Aspects etc.
Add explicit support for Strands of Fate (which is great, but so different from Vanilla fate I think it'll need a framework of its own)

Never gonna happen
Hardcoded reams of Aspect Names or Stunts
Automatic implementation of Stunt game mechanics

I've done basic testing of everything, but haven't tested anything live with real players yet (I'm running the first session on Tuesday 30/11 for my regular group) If you're a FATE player please have a look and let me know if there's anything glaringly obvious that needs fixing, or any other options that need to be added to support different iterations. I can't promise to implement any specific game mechanics or subsystems, but if there's a variant mechanic that you would **need** to play a particular iteration of FATE, then I promise to at least look into it.

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DrVesuvius
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Re: Fate 3.0 generic campaign framework

Post by DrVesuvius »

Hmm I'm a little suprised this hasn't drawn at least some comment, given FATE's status as a bit of an internet RPG darling.

Playtest results - I ran the first live game session with this tonight. Couple of observations.

1) No explicit method for rolling skills you don't have. Guess keeping that raw dice-roll icon was a good idea. I'm going to tweak it so that it gives exactly the same output as a skill check (i.e. includes the final FATE ladder result.

2)Forgot to add a Use Gear macro. Since this is just going to be a copy of the Use Stunt macro (displaying the full description and giving the option of dumping it to chat) that'll take 5 mins to correct.

3) One of the players observed that one of her character's Aspects ought to be visible under the Visible Aspects section, since it was an obvious physical trait. Underscores the need to revamp the Aspect handling to allow regular aspects to be classed as Visible on a token.

Other than that things worked fairly well and we didn't run into any major snags.

verdigris
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Re: Fate 3.0 generic campaign framework

Post by verdigris »

I hope to be playing Diaspora soon, so downloaded this today.
I thought I might need to patch some basic macros together, so I'm very pleased to see you've already done such a great job.

I was thinking of making a very basic map (background really) for starship combat, perhaps with some of the zone/shift lines marked as they are in the diaspora rules.
Anyone done that already. I imagine something similar for social combat would be handy.

Claybor
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Re: Fate 3.0 generic campaign framework

Post by Claybor »

Looks pretty good.

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nimbusaconflict
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Re: Fate 3.0 generic campaign framework

Post by nimbusaconflict »

Has anyone done an update of this since?

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DrVesuvius
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Re: Fate 3.0 generic campaign framework

Post by DrVesuvius »

Nope. We're still playing a FATE driven game and have yet to run into anything that needs updating/fixing.

Was there anything in particular you were needing?

Talysian
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Re: Fate 3.0 generic campaign framework

Post by Talysian »

I do, I'm trying to figure out how to do multiple sets of stress tracks. (I.e.) Strands of Fate style. If I could figure that out, I'd be super happy!

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DrVesuvius
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Re: Fate 3.0 generic campaign framework

Post by DrVesuvius »

Ah Strands. I love the concept and like a lot of the ideas, but they've turned so many things upside-down from "classic" Fate 3.0 it's just too hard to support it properly as part of a "Generic Fate" framework.

I think you could futz it through though, by making a separate track for each Stress type/consequence. So you'd have...

Physical-Minor
Physical-Major
Physical-Severe
Physical-Extreme
Mental-Minor
Mental-Major

etc

You'd basically take damage on each track separately, and have to remember when you filled a track to cancel the automatic TKO state and manually apply the relevant type of consequence, but it would be usable.

Beyond that you're looking at writing fresh damage-handling macros and re-writing the charactersheet to allow you to switch between standard Fate and Strands damage. It's doable and wouldn't be too hard, but unfortunately it's not something I have time to do for a system I'm not currently using. If anyone else wants to step on up though, they're more than welcome to.

Regards

Dr V

dragonlady
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Re: Fate 3.0 generic campaign framework

Post by dragonlady »

We are going to try and use this with Dresden RPG.

Thanks for the work so far!!

Robyn

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DrVesuvius
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Re: Fate 3.0 generic campaign framework

Post by DrVesuvius »

You're welcome Robyn, and best of luck with the game.

Dresden is one of the few FATE games I don't have, but I'd appreciate feedback if you come across anything in the framework that needs adapting for Dresden. I can't promise to implement it, but if it's clearly defined and not too complicated I might give it a go.

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DrVesuvius
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Re: Fate 3.0 generic campaign framework

Post by DrVesuvius »

After a short test run and three weeks into a regular SBA campaign using this framework, here's what I've found so far.

i) BUG adding temporary aspect doesn't display the aspect name. FIXED
ii) GM needs a way to easily give a token a FATE point. FIXED extra utility icon on tokensheet
iii) Roll results that fall outside the existing ladder e.g. greater than +8 or less than -3, only show the max ladder result. FIXED have rewritten skill roll handling to flag such results as "Beyond Legendary/Abysmal" and list the actual result value. This also paves the way towards allowing users to customise the FATE ladder if required.
iv) Aspect handling needs an overhaul. Need a way to show whether any aspect is visible or not, is fragile or free-taggable.

I'll try to get an update together with these fixes in. If anyone's using this framework and has any additional bugs or observations, please let me know.

FigureFour
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Re: Fate 3.0 generic campaign framework

Post by FigureFour »

Hey.
I'm curious about running Diaspora online, so I thought I'd check out your framework. However, it crashes every time I launch it. Something with the splash screen.

When I tried with the latest build I got an error message, and when I tried going back to the build used in the framework (76 I think) I don't get the message, but it still gives me a blank splash screen and no way to close it.

I'm running Ubuntu 10.10, just in case that makes a difference.

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nimbusaconflict
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Re: Fate 3.0 generic campaign framework

Post by nimbusaconflict »

So I have been running Dresden files on this for a bit. The only hitch seems to be that stress is handled slightly different in Dresden then in normal Fate 3.0
Instead of filling 3 stress in Dresden, getting hit for 3 only fills the 3 slot, leaving the rest empty. Any clue how I could set something like that up?

Example:
Melvin has 4 Mental stress Track
[ ][ ][ ][ ]

He is hit for 3
[ ][ ][*][ ]

Additionally, if he is hit for a 3 again, it scales up to 4.
[ ][ ][*][*]

Xanex Caligula
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Re: Fate 3.0 generic campaign framework

Post by Xanex Caligula »

Haven't had the chance to use this yet (life keeps interfering with game time) but I like it just from setting up the campaign in it. One thing that maybe I'm just over looking - when making a skill check, is there a way to input a modifier?

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DrVesuvius
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Re: Fate 3.0 generic campaign framework

Post by DrVesuvius »

Apologies to everyone for not being around the last couple of months. Real Life(TM) has been a female-canine-in-heat.
nimbusaconflict wrote:So I have been running Dresden files on this for a bit. The only hitch seems to be that stress is handled slightly different in Dresden then in normal Fate 3.0
Instead of filling 3 stress in Dresden, getting hit for 3 only fills the 3 slot, leaving the rest empty. Any clue how I could set something like that up?
That really surprises me to see Dresden going back to that method of damage. It was the original Spirit Of the Century method and the last I heard Fred Hicks & co had all said that they'd moved on to preferring the hit point method.

I'll add implementing this form of damage to the to-do list, maybe along with the Strands of Fate method.

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