[FATE/SotC] Inquisition: Throne Agents

[Kiero]

I've been thinking about this one for a little while, and figured it was time to get something moving. Having had some success with adapting Star Wars to FATE 3.0, I thought to turn my hand to another favourite setting of mine, that of Throne Agents.

Eisenhorn and Ravenor are unashamedly pulp even in spite of the grim backdrop of 40k. That's why FATE 3.0 (free here (http://www.faterpg.com/dl/sotc-srd.html)) is such a good fit for that style of game, it gives you competent protagonists capable of dealing with the sorts of nefarious threats against the Imperium that demand their attention. Through Aspects their motivation and character are brought to the fore, Throne Agents need to be steadfast in mind as well as body to succeed.

Furthermore, the unified system allows conflicts beyond just combat to be modelled and regulated, but in a straightforward manner. The Skills allow for simple distinction between characters, without falling into the trap of over-codifying what they are capable of. And lastly Stunts are there for some of the more unusual abilities.


Premise

Let's get this one nailed down right at the very beginning, to save anyone wasting their time. This is categorically not an adaptation based on 40k. I've tossed all that garbage based on the wargame out, not interested in any of it. We have a nice and clean inspiration-font: Eisenhorn and Ravenor. That's it. There are no other sources I'm drawing on, or interested in hearing reference to for the purposes of the whys and wherefores of what happens here.

If you don't like that, if you feel certain other sources should be included, feel free to take that to your own thread.

In this game you play Throne Agents, the hand-picked alpha teams, students and personal retinues of Inquisitors. They are among the best, chosen for their particular talents and specialisms, entrusted with delegated authority of their employer. Unless you are a pupil, to be a Throne Agent is rarely a career move to join the ranks of the Inquisition. It can even retard your progress in other fields, particularly if your master is not well-connected or spends more time in the field than mixing in the right circles.

But it is a worthy duty, one of the highest callings to defend Mankind against the alien, the heretic and the daemon. Not every Agent comes from right side of the law; the Inquisition has the power to commute sentences and expunge records for individuals who catch their attention. It is because an Inquisitor has an untrammelled authority to sequester or co-opt anyone they choose that only the best catch their eye.

Even so, it is a dangerous life. Inquisitors have many enemies - and not just the enemies of Mankind. Other Inquisitors who disagree with the philosophies, methods and goals of their comrades. Other sources of authority in the vast Imperium who resent the activities of individual Inquisitors, and have the influence to do away with one who lacks influence quietly. It is for this reason Throne Agents and their employers must have allies and connections, society's rules still apply even to those with theoretically limitless authority.

It can also be a rewarding life, and not just in terms of the life-extending juvenat treatments that membership grants access to. Throne Agents who survive to retirement may be set up with generous pensions by their grateful masters, or take on lucrative jobs high-up in the Imperial bureaucracy. A few, those not averse to the book-learning the novitiature requires, join the lowest ranks of the Inquisition itself and eventually become Inquisitors in their own right.

There are broadly three categories of Throne Agent. Warriors are those who are recruited for their combat skills, vigour and resilience. They are generally wards to protect the Inquisitor and the cell from those who would do them harm. They are often veterans of the military or law-enforcement, or former enforcers from the criminal gangs.

Specialists are recruited for their knowledge and the expertise they bring to a cell. They include the likes of pilots, savants, tech-priests, medics, Sanctioned psykers and so on. They broaden the capabilities of a team of Throne Agents, and make their investigation possible.

Pupils are the junior members of the Inquisition, generally interrogators deemed mature and competent enough for field operations. Bare children on the scale of a usual Inquisitorial lifespan measured in centuries, they are usually between two and three decades old. They tend to come from the Schola Progenium or Blackships, or else are personally recruited by the Inquisitor from promising youngsters. They are usually generalists who blend the skills of both warrior and specialist, but more importantly they are groomed for leadership. For one day, should they prove themselves worthy, they will lead cells of their own.

[Kiero]

Just at outline at this stage. As with the other conversion, I'm not going to mimic SotC's power level for starting characters. Throne Agents are competent, amongst the best, but they're not pulp exemplars like Doc Savage and the like. They're still human beings. Furthermore, I think there's a better focus with fewer Aspects and Fate Points.

On the topic of Fate Points - perhaps they should be renamed Faith Points?


Aspects

I like five for this. It seems a good number to keep them focused on important character stuff.

With phases something like this:
Phase One: Origins I - Where are you from? What kind of world did you grow up on?
Phase Two: Origins II - What was your life before you were called to serve the Inquisition?
Phase Three: Recruitment - Why were you chosen by your employer? How did you stand out?
Phase Four: Agent Training - What existing talents were honed in training? What new things did you discover in cross-training with other Agents?
Phase Five: Recent Missions - What has happened in your last few operations?

I could be persuaded to take the number up to seven or eight if it seems necessary to fill out those phases at all. Or some of them could be condensed down, depending on what people think. Including one or two Aspects related to relationships to other members of the cell might be a good reason for an increase.


Skills

First thing to do here is knock SotC's skill list into shape, not just re-naming but a few merges too. I think 28 is too many, I'll be aiming at around 20 or so.

I don't think I'll necessarily stick with the regular model (though again I could be persuaded to go to the "tower" but definitely not the pyramid), I've got the germ of an idea that the skills will be categorised. Your type (Warrior, Specialist, Pupil) affects what levels each type can go to.

Classifications I'm thinking of thus far are:
Core (stuff everyone should have - Alertness, Empathy, Endurance, Might etc)
Combat (primarily for Warriors)
Vocational (primarily for Specialists)
Social (possibly everyone)

I might add an Academic one which is another primarily for Specialists. There'll be something like a cap depending on your type. Otherwise it'll be point buy for your skills, with everyone getting the same amount.


Stunts

Generic Stunts is the order of the day (as per Spirit of the Blank (http://spiritoftheblank.blogspot.com/2009/01/fantasy-cutting-back-on-stunts.html)), but with some specific ones for psyker-Stunts and the like.

Being a psyker will require both an Aspect, and probably a foundation Stunt (which grants telepathy, mental resistance training and some basic awareness stuff). After that it's higher orders of stuff like Telepathy, Telekinesis, Astral Projection, Puppeting and so on.

There could do with being one for Untouchables too - same again you need an Aspect (so you can be compelled on your repellent nature) and a Stunt too.

Otherwise the usual name-your-own or steal from SotC.


Equipment

I'm in two minds with this facet of the game. On the one hand I definitely don't want shopping lists of stuff, gear-porn is not what this adaptation is about. On the other I don't think stuff should be completely irrelevant to everything that's going on. If anyone has any examples of relatively simple ways of making equipment have some impact on the game, I'd love to hear them.

Maybe they should just be Aspects if they are important enough to the character.


Insanity/Corruption

No special rules needed. There's evolution of Aspects, and consequences for all this business.

[Kiero]

Right, just some more thought on Skills, as before I'm thinking I want to break with the usual means of doing it to help create distinction between the three types. Warriors are your fight-y types, Specialists your skill-monkeys and Pupils are the generalists with a bit of both.

Characters won't be barred from getting skills from categories that aren't their strong suit; they'll just have fewer points/have caps on the level they can take them to.

EDIT: Updated the list to reflect some changes.

Core

Core skills are the things everyone can do, as well as being the ones that are important for a lot of types of conflict in the system.

Awareness (Alertness + Investigation)
Empathy
Psyk (should it be here? Or back with Vocational?)
Resolve
Resources?


Combat

Fighting skills, simply put. This is the preserve of Warriors.

Athletics
Endurance
Fists
Guns
Might
Weapons


Vocational

The professional non-combat skills. Preserve of Specialists.

Larceny (Burglary + Sleight of Hand (they merit being one skill))
Cogitators (split out from Engineering/Science)
Drive (should this be a Core skill?)
Engineering (renamed to Engineseer)
Pilot
Stealth (should I merge this into the "crime" skill at the top and Survival?)
Survival


Academic

The education-related non-combat skills. Also the preserve of Specialists.

Humanities (Academics + Art)
Medicae (split out from Science)
Mysteries (which will be renamed Occultism or something)
Science


Social

Social are ones everyone can do, too.

Contacting
Deception (Deceit + Gambling)
Intimidation
Leadership
Rapport


So Warriors get Vocational and Academic capped at Fair (+2). Specialists get Combat capped at Fair (+2). For Pupils the cap on Combat, Vocational and Academic is Good (+3). Still not sure how many points characters should get; I'm thinking at least 30. If not the 35 that starting SotC characters have. Cap for everyone's starting Skills is Great (+4).

[Kiero]

Psionics

Some initial thoughts. I think there does need to be a Psyk skill - so psykers can't just boost their Resolve to silly levels and have done. So if we roughly follow the model of the Force from the other, there's several stages.

Psyk skill is roughly a measure of a psyker's power. Thus Epic (+8) is an alpha-plus psyker. They are monstrous.

Latent Psyker: Someone who just has a psionic aspect. They can be compelled with all sorts of stuff like giving out a backwash that trained psykers can pick up and such. For free they can:
-Broadcast telepathy (mind-speech)

Trained Psyker: Someone with a psionic Aspect, and who has raised the Psyk skill to at least Average. For free they can use:
-Sense psionic weirdness (picking up on warp-disturbances)
-Clairsentience (sensing stuff you can't see)
-conducting an auto-seance

Psi-specialist: Trained psyker with Psyker Stunts (each power is it's own Stunt, required to be able use that power). They include:
-Telepathy (messing with people's heads)
-Telekinesis (moving stuff around)
-Astrotelepathy (sending messages over interstellar distances)
-Pre/post-cognition (reading the future and past)
-Astral projection ("going bodiless")
-Puppeting ("waring" another person's body)
-Psionic Blast (using Psyk offensively as an attack)

Broad powers is deliberate. How they work, mind, I still need some input on.

Psionic Stunts
Sanctioned - Resist the warp (+2 to Resolve checks against daemonic influence)
Kineblades - use Telekinesis as a defense against ranged attacks (in place of Athletics)

[Kiero]

Untouchables

I've got the vaguest idea that like psykers, they have to have an Aspect to be so, after all it's a fundamental part of their nature, and has compel-potential a-plenty. But I don't know if their blankness should be tied to any particular skill, or just treated as a an Aspect that can be tagged to a scene.

Something like "Psychic Blank" which prevents psykers using the Psyk skill for anything. Does that work? Or would it be better handled as a block action?

Thing is we've only seen one direct example of psyk-power "overloading" an untouchable's blankness - when Eisenhorn tried to put Bequin into the mind-link of Cruor Vult. However in the case of Frauka, we can see that prolonged exposure to psykers can actually burn out an untouchable's blankness.

[Kiero]

Just in case anyone's thinking with FATE you can't have either tactics or a little grit, you don't have to completely rule them out. After all the characters certainly behaved like it mattered. Harlon Nayl didn't just charge at everything, an autopistol blazing on full auto in each hand (though twin-blazing autopistols was Bex Begundi's style).

One way of making the tactical matter is through maneuvers, letting you put fragile and temporary Aspects on opponents. Whether that's "Outflanked" or "Gap in the armour plate" or "Don't mess with a gun-cutter *******" or "Caught in a crossfire" or "Keep their heads down" or whatever. Particularly given if you're the one who's just brought up the tactical trick, it doesn't cost you any FPs to invoke it (not unless you want to make it stick). Or for added teamwork, you can pass the advantage of that to another PC.

And depending on how you handle Stress, there are nastier ways of reaching consequences, which do bring down the pain for the PCs. Starblazers uses Stress as hit points; a hit with a shift of three doesn't just check your third Health box, it checks all of them up to the third. That'll have players seeking consequences as a way out if they don't want to be taken out of the scene.

[Kiero]

On another note, I'm thinking I should devote some attention to how the Psychic Stunts work. Some are pretty easy; Telekinesis is just being able to substitute your Psyk for remote applications of Might, possibly boosted by a few categories.

I wonder if Psychic Blast really needs to be a separate power in it's own right? Perhaps it requires either Astral Projection, Telepathy or Telekinesis as a pre-req?

How might Astral Projection work, beyond the obvious that the psyker can see and hear outside of their own body?

When being "wared", the only limits to someone's physical abilities seem to be the psyker's strength and whether or not they want them to still be alive at the end of it. Is that substitute Psyk for other skills, or allow the psyker to substitute their own Skills for the subjects? Or a complement based on their Psyk?

Alright, some more thoughts on how psionics works. I'm probably going to have slightly broader applicability with each Stunt than I did with the Star Wars game, since most psykers will only have one, and each power needs to be broader.

Should repeated use of psionics cause Stress to the psyker? They certainly seem to get tired, and there are reactions from the environment too, like frost and ice forming on things. Or perhaps the option to cause yourself Stress to boost what you're doing? Or both?

Should psykers be able to shunt Composure damage from psionics onto their Health track?

Anyway, here's some ideas for how the powers can work, mechanically (each power is it's own Stunt).

Telepathy (messing with people's heads)
-Probe: Psyk v targets Resolve. 1 Shift gives just surface thoughts. 2 recent memories. 3 deeper memories. Overflow access to their entire memory. If the target gets Spin on their defense, they are aware of the probe attempt. (Or just use Cold Read?)
-Compulsion: Psyk v Resolve to place a temporary Aspect on the target. 1 FP to then compel that Aspect to force the target to behave in a particular way.

Telekinesis (moving stuff around)
-Gross manipulation: You can remotely move objects, substituting Psyk for Might. A successful check can increase this by one. A check is needed to move multiple objects at once.
-Fine manipulation: Psyk check to perform complex tasks with anything of a WF of 0 (ie 10lbs and under). Difficulty depends on the task, failures mean it takes longer.

Astrotelepathy (sending messages over interstellar distances)
-Broadcast: no idea how this one might work. Difficulty based on how far it is, and ambient warp conditions?

Pre/post-cognition (reading the future and past)
-Pre-cognition: Make a Psyk check at -2 to get an impression from the future.
-Post-cognition: Make a Psyk check to get an impression from the past.
-Warning: GM can make a Psyk check to warn the character of impending (within a minute or so) personal danger.
-Prescience: Functions the same as the Danger Sense Stunt.

The difficulty of a reading is based on the proximity in time from the present. The future is harder to read than the past, and tends to only give the most likely outcome rather than a true reading. Preparation can reduce the difficulty by up to three, depending on how comprehensive those activities are. A reading on a specific person, object or place when they are present reduces the difficulty by one.

Diff/Time
-4 Moments
-3 A minute
-2 An hour
-1 A day
0 A week
+1 A month
+2 A season
+3 A year
+4 A decade
+5 A half-century
+6 A century
+7 Several centuries
+8 A millenia

Astral projection ("going bodiless")
-You can leave your body at will, taking only your mind with you. Your body is paralysed and you are unaware of your surroundings while gone. Only the most basic impulses come through (like pain). You are invisible to blunts, but your passage can still affect the environment, stirring light objects and leaving psi-frost on surfaces you pass through. In a bodiless state you are immune to Stress on your Health track, but can still take Composure damage.

You still have access to all your usual psionic Stunts while bodiless, such as Telekinesis, Telepathy and Psionic Blast.

Do I need any more detailed thoughts on Astral combat, or is that just colour for Psionic Blast?

Puppeting ("waring" another person's body)
-You can take control of someone else's body, inhabiting their mind and using it as though it were your own. No check is necessary for a willing recipient, but against an unwilling target you must beat their Resolve. If they get Spin, they are aware something was up, and indeed a trace of the attempt is left behind.

If you're just trying to "hide" in someone else's mind rather than possess them, the difficulty is lowered by two.

This requires the Astral Projection Stunt.

Psionic Blast (using Psyk offensively as an attack)
-You can use your Psyk as a ranged attack. The exact manifestation is down to the character, but it requires either Telepathy or Telekinesis to take this Stunt. FP to add Aspect like Immobilised or Knocked Down or to push back a zone.

Other Psionic Stunts
Sanctioned - Resist the warp (+2 to Resolve checks against daemonic influence)
Kineblades - use Telekinesis as a defense against ranged attacks (in place of Athletics) - but must have small objects that can be used to block them
Telekinetic Prowess - Increase your effective Psyk for gross manipulation by two.
Instinctive Block - when armed with a psyk-reactive weapon (like a force sword) you can use your Psyk as a defense against ranged attacks, instead of Athletics.
Astral Prodigy - you can still use your body while projecting, but using both counts as a supplementary action (does this need to be a Stunt?).

[elliott20]

hmm.... I'm not sure about making the psyk stunt a one hit wonder that makes you an instant super psyk guy. In the original SotC, you pretty much have to buy the ability to do each thing. BTW, how many stunts do they have to work with? how are you going to handle the skills exactly? Throwing out the structure they had before means you need to elaborate on those a bit, I think.

skill points huh? well it would be okay if the skills become increasingly more expensive to buy since the differences between one rank to another is huge. i.e. rank 1 is 1 point, rank 2 is 2 points, and so on. So eventually, to reach rank 8, you need a total of 36 points spent on the skill.

as for the whole weapons/fists merging issue, are you guys going to run into people who are not equally deadly with both their hands and their weapons? if yes, then keep them together. Granted, this does present an extra skill they might have to invest in...

Equipment:

well, armor usually just means that your characters can pretty much absorb blows with one shift or less all day, I think. In that, when dealing with a well protected character, they need to earn enough shifts to punch through the armor. If that's too much for you, make it function more like additional stress boxes. That way, a good blow will still plow right through all of them and get right to the character. If you want to make armor even LESS useful, make them minion style boxes. (so each shift takes off one box as opposed having to fill it up one by one)

Don't forget, by not taking an equipment aspect, this means this armor will be gone in no time, and they'll have to end up tying up their resource skill on maintaining their equipment.

weapons? well, same thing. If your characters have superior weaponry against the opponent, then maybe they can get a +1 shift whenever they score a hit. (making them always do at least 2 stress box) But really, beyond that, that would be about all I would do for weapons. You already have your built-in style weaponry based on your skills. Just stick with that to keep things simple. All melee weapons are one area, all guns are say, 4 area range, and so on. The only time the players get to change that is if they start playing around with improvements. And again, if they don't take an aspect for it, it's not gonna stick around and will just tie up their resources.

[Kiero]

Psyk isn't one Stunt - each of those "powers" is it's own Stunt. It's just one Skill to use them (where they need Skills to be used).

Characters will probably have five Stunts to work with; most psykers as per the source material will only have one or two powers, since only the most dedicated have a broader range. Like Ravenor himself, for example.

Skill points are just for initial build of the character. There definitely won't be a "costs more to get more ranks" thing. Instead there are caps on what you can get, depending on your type (and I realise I didn't mirror the update on Skills - now updated post #3 to reflect my later thinking).

Fists and Weapons will remain separate - Ravenor especially makes clear how good a lot of Throne Agents are unarmed, yet that doesn't necessarily carry over into melee combat with weapons.

Haven't really talked about weapons and armour in the other thread, but I did like the idea of an additional Stress box for simplicity.

[elliott20]

Ahh, I see. So, your type really does act sort of like your "class" then, as it actually limits what your potential is.

[Kiero]

Ahh, I see. So, your type really does act sort of like your "class" then, as it actually limits what your potential is.

It does, but not really in a major way. It's a deliberate intent to force people to choose what kind of characters they are playing.

That way if you have a group where there are already two Warriors, it probably makes sense for the third character to be a Specialist or Pupil.

Though there's two characters who don't neatly fit this: the Betancores. Both are skilled pilots and skilled combatants.

[elliott20]

couldn't you handle something like that by just having them pick the warrior type and then take some drive/pilot stunts to supplement it?

[Kiero]

couldn't you handle something like that by just having them pick the warrior type and then take some drive/pilot stunts to supplement it?

Yeah, that could work. Though I'm left wondering if perhaps I should just make types something thematic, rather than having a rules implication.

Or perhaps switch it around to requirements, rather than caps; to be a Warrior you must have three Combat skills at Good (+3) or better, to be a Specialist you must have three Vocational and/or Academic skills at Good (+3) or better and Pupils at least three Combat and three Vocational/Academic at Fair (+2). Something like that.

[elliott20]

Yeah, that could work. Though I'm left wondering if perhaps I should just make types something thematic, rather than having a rules implication.

Or perhaps switch it around to requirements, rather than caps; to be a Warrior you must have three Combat skills at Good (+3) or better, to be a Specialist you must have three Vocational and/or Academic skills at Good (+3) or better and Pupils at least three Combat and three Vocational/Academic at Fair (+2). Something like that.

That strikes me as a far better way to go about it since from the way you talked about it in your original post, it sounds like the point of the game also includes the ability for your PCs to change and evolve into different roles. Not that you couldn't do that before, but rather if you limit the growth potential from the onset, than you kill some of the potential different characters that one could have. i.e. a warrior might befriend a specialist, and his hanging around him, might start to take an intersting in becoming a pupil.

[Kiero]

That strikes me as a far better way to go about it since from the way you talked about it in your original post, it sounds like the point of the game also includes the ability for your PCs to change and evolve into different roles. Not that you couldn't do that before, but rather if you limit the growth potential from the onset, than you kill some of the potential different characters that one could have. i.e. a warrior might befriend a specialist, and his hanging around him, might start to take an intersting in becoming a pupil.

I'm still undecided as to whether or not I should enforce a tower for Skills, or just let people spend their points as they like. A tower would make the requirements on a Pupil more stringent.

Still thinking 35 points is the right amount, so characters are multicompetent. Maybe I need to try making a character to see?

[elliott20]

yeah give that whirl first. I think a 35 skill point character might be a tad powerful if you don't enforce the pyramid rule, actually.

You know what, when I get time to myself, I'll try to construct a character too and see how it turns out.

[Kiero]

yeah give that whirl first. I think a 35 skill point character might be a tad powerful if you don't enforce the pyramid rule, actually.

You know what, when I get time to myself, I'll try to construct a character too and see how it turns out.

I don't think it would be too powerful, especially with the cap at Great (+4). And I'm still using the tower (you have to have as many below as you have above, so here the maximum number of skills at Great (+4) is 3). We'd end up with broadly competent characters, which is the whole point (35 points is how many SotC characters have). Throne Agents are exemplars, not too dissimilar to the pulp heroes of SotC. Fewer Stunts and Aspects, though (at only 5 of each).

[elliott20]

ahh, I see. Well, I'll give that a whirl sometime. I'll try a number of characters and see how they come out.

[Kiero]

Having a go at creating a Pupil, as per the "minimum requirements" method, with 35 points and the column/tower. I won't do a full Aspects work-up, because that'll take too long for the main purpose, which is to see how the Skills end up stacking.

Aspects
-The Blackships Rated Me Delta-class
-Senior Interrogator With Delegated Authority
+3 others

Skills
Great (+4): Weapons (4)
Good (+3): Athletics, Awareness, Fists, Resolve, Resources (15)
Fair (+2): Drive, Empathy, Humanities, Psyk, Science (10)
Average (+1): Endurance, Contacting, Guns, Leadership, Occultism, Stealth (6)

Stunts
Pre/post-cognition
Sanctioned Psyker
Pistol Marksman (+1 to Guns when using handguns)
+2 others (not feeling very inspired right now)

Stress
Health [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
Composure [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]


35 certainly feels like the right amount to create a broadly competent character. Still managed to get the three Vocational/Academic and three Combat in there.

[Kiero]

Some random other thoughts.

Armour - I think it's Starblazers that adds Stress boxes for armour - given we're going with Stress-as-hit-points here, and starting with base 3 boxes, I think that's necessary. Perhaps light armour is one box, heavy armour is two, and with a tag-able Aspect on it (because it's bulky and makes you heavier).

Weapons - perhaps the same again, special weapons add an extra point of Stress when they hit, really special ones add two, but have a tag-able Aspect. Or perhaps they should just be Weapons of Destiny if it's a piece of signature gear?

Blunts - simply a Stunt that gives you +2 to Resolve against psionic influence. They're not Untouchables, after all, but they are resilient.