Fate Core adaptation to fantasy

[Kol Korran]

Hey there folks. My group is considering starting to play with the Fate Core rules, the system looks interesting, with a focus on story, requiring inginuity rather than just stacking up numbers, and most importantly for our "short on time" group- it's simple to use, with little prep work needed for the DM.

But... we like fantasy, coming mostly from a D&D background. I wonder how some aspects (not the game mechanic) common to fantasy could be translated into core mechanics. Can any of you help with the following?
1. different races: Are these aspects? or are these Extras? do they alter the basic skills, or perhaps offer a free stunt or such? (breath underwater, see in darkness and such)

2. Magic: I assume magic is mostly used an aspect, possibly with a price/ re precaution for it's use, so it could be compelled? or is it a skill? How do I structure it? I assume it can't be stunts, since they are so few... How do you mimic a mage/ cleric/ druid, whatever able to cast many kinds of spells? This really confuses me.

3. Equipment: D&D has a lot of focus on equipment- armor, weapons, potions ,scrolls, staffs and many more. From what I've read about Core there is much less focus on equipment in the game, but how do I model it? I assume a major magic item (say a mage's stuff, or a powerful sword) might be used as a temporary aspect of some kind? or maybe even grant stunts connected to it?) How do you deal (if at all) with the lots of minor equipment that so many players love to equip themselves with? (such as lots o alchemical items for many kind of situations) Or do these fall under resources?

4. Monsters: I assume these are defined by their aspects? better than humanoid skills and specific stunt? (breath fire, fly, DR could reduce damage from hits except from a specific aspect, inflict a certain aspcet (turned to stone) on an enemy?)

5. any other special skills that you think might be highly applicable for such a setting? any other special considerations? has this been done somewhere? I'd love to learn from past ideas.

6. Any past experiences you had, and actual tries I'd love to hear. Thank You!

[Loki_42]

Well, it shouldn't be too hard, given all the examples are written as fantasy. Check the extras chapter, it has guidelines for a lot of the things like Magic and Equipment. Also, they've released the formatting-free, but still readable Magic System toolkit, which you can download from the comments of the kickstarter. It has four(?) complete magic systems written up that you could use.

[The Dark Fiddler]

1. different races: Are these aspects? or are these Extras? do they alter the basic skills, or perhaps offer a free stunt or such? (breath underwater, see in darkness and such)

That really depends on how much you want race to matter. Race in the real world would maybe warrant a mention in some aspect, maybe, if it's a really big part of your character. Fantasy races tend to have more differences... but at the same time rarely differ enough that you'd need to do anything other than say "I'm an orc" and have a good fighting and physique.

If your races are REALLY different, with really cool powers, then I'd model them as either stunts or extras, depending on the nature of the power.

2. Magic: I assume magic is mostly used an aspect, possibly with a price/ re precaution for it's use, so it could be compelled? or is it a skill? How do I structure it? I assume it can't be stunts, since they are so few... How do you mimic a mage/ cleric/ druid, whatever able to cast many kinds of spells? This really confuses me.

I didn't actually read it, but part of the bunch of Kickstarter goodies was a huge file of different ways to model magic. Might want to check that out, since there's plenty of different ways you could go about it.

3. Equipment: D&D has a lot of focus on equipment- armor, weapons, potions ,scrolls, staffs and many more. From what I've read about Core there is much less focus on equipment in the game, but how do I model it? I assume a major magic item (say a mage's stuff, or a powerful sword) might be used as a temporary aspect of some kind? or maybe even grant stunts connected to it?) How do you deal (if at all) with the lots of minor equipment that so many players love to equip themselves with? (such as lots o alchemical items for many kind of situations) Or do these fall under resources?

If you want equipment in general to matter, the rules give examples of using armor and weapons as extras (giving and preventing extra damage). There's also examples of extremely powerful items giving their own aspect, stunts, and extras to the wielder to use.

Personally, except for exceptional weapons, I just wouldn't cover it. I like it much better when the guy with his extreme training but bare fists can go toe-to-toe with the guy who uses his fancy sword and the guy who swings around a chair leg.

4. Monsters: I assume these are defined by their aspects? better than humanoid skills and specific stunt? (breath fire, fly, DR could reduce damage from hits except from a specific aspect, inflict a certain aspcet (turned to stone) on an enemy?)

Well, monsters that are just "humans but bigger/stronger/smarter" and such can just be modeled normally, I suppose. You could definitely give extras to monsters to model extra stuff (Tough Skin 2 might reduce two stress from a physical hit unless, say, the weapon is treated with a certain chemical, while Stony Gaze lets the monster use Will to attack and inflict mental stress).

I'd recommend against trying to model save-or-dies that come up in D&D... Fate's definitely not made for that kind of thing. Taking the example of a medusa's stony gaze from above, perhaps it can only inflict a full "Turned to Stone" aspect as a major consequence, but the powers start taking affect at lower consequence levels (a minor consequence might be "Feeling Stiff" or something like that).

5. any other special skills that you think might be highly applicable for such a setting? any other special considerations? has this been done somewhere? I'd love to learn from past ideas.

I'd recommend against getting far too complicated... you said yourself that Fate's simple to use, so don't waste time building a bulldozer when a shovel would work just as well.

6. Any past experiences you had, and actual tries I'd love to hear. Thank You!

I'm running an Avatar: The Last Airbender campaign right now. I've found that relegating the bending to fluff during attacks and stuff works extremely well; since most normal bending attacks won't do anything different from a normal attack, don't establish them rules-wise. Only bring in extra rules when a player wants to do something extra (use Will to do bending to, say, freeze a bridge over the lake).

I think that's a very good rule in general, at that. Don't bring in extra rules unless what you're looking to model has a different effect. Helps keep things from getting bloated. Sort of goes back to my weapons and armor thing; a sword, axe, and hammer are all going to do essentially the same thing when you hit somebody (inflict physical stress), so why bother making them different? It's a waste of time.

[Grinner]

I think the most important thing you can do right now is to get out of the D&D mindset. FATE is a bird of an entirely different feather.

D&D tends to focus on small and abstract things, making it good for tactical skirmishes. FATE focuses on the big picture. In FATE, unless an item (or anything else, for that matter) has *extremely* unusual properties on par with D&D's artifacts, it's generally deemed not worth accounting for.

As for magic, check the Magic Toolkit. It has a bunch of different magic systems, all implemented in different ways. They all use some combination of Aspects, Skills, Extras, and Stunts, and the introduction also contains advice explaining the intricacies of each option, should you want to create your own system.

[Kol Korran]

I have not been a backer of the Kickstarter (Sadly I found out about it too late) a friend of mine sent me a copy of one of their drafts, said that the designers agreed for it to be distributed. I tried to find the Toolkit files some of you mention, but I can't find them. Are they free? or shall I wait till they are made available for purchase?

[ImperiousLeader]

Where'd you get the draft copy? I played a little Strands of Fate, which whet my appetite for more, but missed the kickstarter. Pity, I'd quite fascinated by this.

Strands of FATE offered a "package" of advantages and powers to model DnD classes, I'm curious if FATE Core could also do a more class-implementation. Not just for spellcasters, Rogues or Paladins too.

[Prime32]

You could try looking at a FATE system like Dresden Files RPG for comparison; it's got rules for most of this stuff, though I hear wizards tend to hog the spotlight a bit too much.

[Xefas]

You could try looking at a FATE system like Dresden Files RPG for comparison; it's got rules for most of this stuff, though I hear wizards tend to hog the spotlight a bit too much.

Sure, if the Wizard knows what he's doing and no one else does. Pure Mortals are scary. They have guns and two fists full of Fate Points. (Jim Butcher will dedicate at least one paragraph per book to tell you why the former is a Big Deal to Wizards. Mainly, that you can make their insides be outside just as easily as anyone else.)

A Pure Mortal will accidentally knock more Fate Point tokens off the game table and forget about them than a Wizard will ever have. Hell, an aggressively played Pure Mortal with a minimum of stunts can work like a co-GM, with all the declarations and compels they can throw around. Sure, they can't fling fireballs or curses, but they have a shotgun in one hand and a narrative sledgehammer in the other. It balances out.

[Mewtarthio]

You might also want to check out the Very Large Monsters rules for fighting dragons and the like.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Sure, if the Wizard knows what he's doing and no one else does. Pure Mortals are scary. They have guns and two fists full of Fate Points. (Jim Butcher will dedicate at least one paragraph per book to tell you why the former is a Big Deal to Wizards. Mainly, that you can make their insides be outside just as easily as anyone else.)

A Pure Mortal will accidentally knock more Fate Point tokens off the game table and forget about them than a Wizard will ever have. Hell, an aggressively played Pure Mortal with a minimum of stunts can work like a co-GM, with all the declarations and compels they can throw around. Sure, they can't fling fireballs or curses, but they have a shotgun in one hand and a narrative sledgehammer in the other. It balances out.

Yeah, but if the Wizard uses thaumaturgy (I think that's what it's called), then that's gonna make him really powerful.

[Kol Korran]

Sorry for the delay in response, way to much to deal with this last week. I'm running an introductory game in a post apocalyptic setting (similar to Fallout) but without some supernaturals tones. I still want to learn about a fantasy setting since this might be what we'll end up playing, but if the great minds with more experience in FATE might help me with preparing it, I'd be most obliged. The thread is here

You could try looking at a FATE system like Dresden Files RPG for comparison; it's got rules for most of this stuff, though I hear wizards tend to hog the spotlight a bit too much.

I don't have access to Dreseden files, which I heard is a great game. But I may look into purchasing one. Thanks!

You might also want to check out the Very Large Monsters rules for fighting dragons and the like.

Hey, that is quite cool! Loved the Idea of turning the monster into zones! Should be a cool encounter. Thanks!