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Ok, we are going to keep this as the general discussion still and to use it to discuss the recently posted rules. Flavor and history will be posted up next but in the mean time, feel free to comment about our current rule system.
Gold percentages for amount of phases, is it a percentage of a later to be determined number or of something else?
Also What does the Human 'Gains skill: Language: Trade (Great)' do in conjugation with Human (Tiktuk/Passani) 'Gains skill: Language: Trade (Fair)'?
Lets go ahead and try to rework the gold/fate point system. Right now, it seems faulty and is missing a lot to keep it together. Anyone want to spark an idea?
Gold:
Maybe certain aspects can grant a gold amount?
Communication is used in Amstaad. Obviously a Slith player talking to another Slith player can not be overheard by other non-Slith. Should players have higher communication skills then they will be better at jobs that involve communication such as merchants/banker/shop owners. Trade Language is the universal language so the higher it is, the better you can bargain with other NPCs.
I think it'll be impossible to find a system where you can systematically and accurately give someone gold based on their aspects, I'd put it up to mod discretion.
I'm pretty sure I made my opinions on the aspect balancing known before the roll-back (best would be a negative relation between aspects and FATE points imo)
My question was on the specific interaction between the skills on a character that has the same skill twice or even three times (assuming that a Tiktuk/Passani still has the general Human bonus). Btw the racial skills are separate from the skill pyramid, right?
Aspects or gifts or something if someone wants to play a character of wealth.
Perhaps treat this system you have as 'cash on hand'. Then even if someone plays a merchant or noble, yes they are incredibly wealthy, but their wealth is tied into something. A merchant has his wealth tied into his store. A noble has his wealth tied to his estate. For roleplaying purposes these characters are well off and enjoy their society status, but they also don't have enough money in their coin purse to buy the entire city either.
I am thinking that gold is aquired by taking on skills related to such. Maybe you take a skill as a merchant or an aspect as a noble then the Mods will determine how much money will be given to you based on how much effort went into your skill selection. Something along those lines...
Still, why would a 4 aspect beggar/survivalist have more money on hand than an 8 aspect merchant/noble? Any direct relation between phases and wealth just doesn't work.
You could probably get close by having each aspect/skill contribute a certain value (positive or negative) to the starting gold value, but it is inherent in the game that you are free to have skills that the official rulebook doesn't even mention afaik. The mods will probably have to look through any character application anyway to make sure they are following the other rules, might as well have them manually assign a gold value on some rough guidelines.
Pedit: Ninja'd, what DN said.
So if I play a Passani who has a Language - Trade (Good) skill (say he has some experience in public speaking) I have
Aspect Orator -> skill: Language - Trade (Good)
Human -> Racial skill: Language - Trade (Great)
Huamn (Passani) -> Racial Skill: Language - Trade (Fair)
Does that give me Language - Trade (Legendary)? What if my aspects gave me a Great or even Superb skill, would I have Legendary+1?
Also atm everyone naturally had an average skill in all languages, this should be enough to overhear a conversation, maybe give everyone a mediocre or poor skill in the languages they don't speak?
Damn, we got a shit load of new content. It was worth the wait for sure. Now to read it!
Also, I want to play a merchant and I want to start out with at least something to sell. But I don't want to make it an easy ride because easy rides are no fun. I sorta like T-bone's idea, but I have never played an RPG so you guys figure it out.
In post 34, inspiratieloos wrote:Still, why would a 4 aspect beggar/survivalist have more money on hand than an 8 aspect merchant/noble? Any direct relation between phases and wealth just doesn't work.
I can't really tell from what's been posted, but can a high level noble use skill points or whatever to 'buy back' his wealth? That seems to make flavor sense - someone who's dedicated his life to the pursuit of wealth will not have had to develop skills to do things they've paid people to do for them.
In post 35, CooLDoG wrote:Damn, we got a shit load of new content. It was worth the wait for sure. Now to read it!
Also, I want to play a merchant and I want to start out with at least something to sell. But I don't want to make it an easy ride because easy rides are no fun. I sorta like T-bone's idea, but I have never played an RPG so you guys figure it out.
That's how it's done in some other games. It's how I've played it in Call of Cthulu, (it was a credit rating skill) and Ironclaw (it was an external gift). I imagine in Amstaad it could work similarly.
The main problem is the disproportionate power between characters with different amount of phases. I have the impression that gold isn't very important in FATE.
We shouldn't be looking at ways to make gold work for different characters, but at how to balance characters with different levels of experience. If we use an alternative way than using less gold to compensate for more 'experience' the whole gold issue is moot anyway, while most solutions for the gold issue will only create more problems in character creation.
In Ars Magica (the only other RPG that I have even looked at) it was balanced with age. After a certain amount of time you had to roll aging dice every year. Depending on the outcome you would gain or lose certain traits.
Or you could just go the easy route and set the number of phases, and then start with a set amount of fate points that you can spend for extra gold. So say you set the number of phases at six with four fate points. If you spend all the fate points at the start then you have 100% gold, if you spend three 75%, and so on. It might save you some hassle.
The problem right now is that there really isn't a reason to start with fewer than 8 phases. You get a hell of a lot more skills, and more fate points at the price of some gold that you can easily get back by using your superior skills.
I think the ability to vary the amount of phases is something the mods find important or they would have done so. Having more money is a logical result from cultivating certain skills. Someone skilled in mercantile is going to have more money than someone skilled in bashing skulls, that shouldn't require you to use any of your 'screw with the game points'.
Having more FATE points with less aspects makes more sense, because the one that uses 8 aspects is already screwing with the game by making a character that is ahead of the curve.
Alternatively, you could give everyone 8 (or 1-7) aspects and allow people to give more aspects/skills to a single phase. As the rules are originally intended they promote creativity by giving you more FATE points for more phases. If you write an expansive back story, making a phase for every aspect, you get more.
1) I don't like how you have to get two skills in order to be an archer. That penalizes archers.
2) If you want to be a mage, I don't think you should have to have a "Magicka" attribute. By requiring that, you are stifling some creativity. Instead having a mandatory attribute, how about saying that you have to have some sort of magick-related attribute like "Sorcerer" or "Wizard". That way we can be creative and play with the specific attribute for role-playing purposes.
3) You may already be planning to do this, but heavy armour should have a penalty on movement-related roles. Otherwise a knight wearing 60 pounds of armour could run as fast as an archer wearing light leather armour.
1) Good point. The actually being able to hit your target would be considered a part of the skill in whatever weapon you use for most of them I'd think. Why wouldn't mages require accuracy to hit long distance spells? Do you know how hard it is to make sure you swing your sword/axe/etc. at exactly the right place to hit your opponents.
instead I could try to be action guy and maybe someone else comes in with a good divination and we could be a tag team duo punching crime in the groin-face
A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?
