Session #1: Meet & Greet

Cast:

• Ben: Don, aka "The Drifter"
• Chad: Jack Carter
• John: Freedom Ranger (William Washington)
• Kat: Kay Cormick
• Liz: Doris
• Micheal: Sergei Ivankov
• Tim: Sidrophael

Links of Interest :

•  Gazeteer

Rules Tweaks:

• We're going to simplify Sidrophael's 'Host Body' power. Rather than making him roll every time, which is cumbersome, I will give him 3 cards, one for each Host property. He will arrange them as he likes before I explain where he is, and what might be useful.

Choice Quotes:

"I'm pretty sure I know what murder sounds like, so try to make it not sound like that." - Freedom Ranger

 "You may attempt to dodge (any further participation) in the campaign at this time." - GM

Don: "You broke it." (his scanner)
Doris: "What'd I do?"
Sidrophael: "You were."
Doris: "I'm sorry?"
Sidrophael: "Never apologize for being."

 "Can you get him to sign it? I can't imagine how valuable that would be, on some worlds!" - Don, referring to Freedom Ranger and Freedom Ranger #79.

 Events:

~~~
Location: Earth with Secrets, Seattle

Jack woke up with strange writing on his bathroom wall and mirror, in his own handwriting. Most of it was incomprehensible, but it included the address of a prominent Seattle bar, ("Oliver's"). His business - chartered flights and flying lessons - was based out of

He decided to go there and check it out.

Meanwhile, Doris was working as a bartender at Oliver's. It was a slow day, very few customers, so she started to go through the lost and found bin to try and track down any identifying marks on lost items. She found a set of keys with a strange black fob that was cold to the touch. It had a strange character or glyph on it, and no condensation. She started examining it.

As she did so, the bar changed: her boss was there, but he had a scar across one cheek, and he berated her for not paying attention to the customers. She looked up and saw a full bar. She began to madly wait tables and take orders, trying to catch up... but she put the mysterious keys in her pocket.

A strange old man grabbed her arm. Doris pulled away. He demanded she return his keys... and then, she was returned to her own bar, a tray of drinks in hand and no customers. Her boss, sans scar, demanded to know what was going on. She said she was 'practicing making drinks.'

He shrugged it off.

Jack walked into the bar, and ordered a drink... then asked Doris why she had the key to a small alien space fighter in her possession. (He didn't explain what he was referring to, but asked about the space fighter by name. I can't find my note for what that was, so am arbitrarily referring to it as an 'Yraku Stinger.')

~~~~

Location: Tunguska Parallel, Alaskan hinterlands

Sergei was searching for the Stones of Yel'Em'Ver, an artifact of the lost civilization of Lemuria purported to contain records of the civilization's destruction. The item was in the wilds of Alaska. Lacking the legal ability to enter the U.S. in a timely fashion, Her Majesty's Secret Service dropped Sergei off in a small plane, near the location of the ruins.

He made his way through the ice and snow, only to find that someone had beaten him to the caves he sought. They had a truck, and some guards with Tommy guns.

Sergei lured the guards away with a well timed flare, and snuck into the caves while they were looking for him outside. Lacking a better way to find the correct path, he used a scanner tuned to the energies emitted by Lemurian artifacts to find his way.

As he approached, he heard a scream in German, and realized it might be one of his long time rivals, a fellow Russian archaeologist, now in the service of Germany.

He drew his neural stunner and ran for the noise.

~~~~

Location: Tunguska Parallel, deep in the Caverns of Yel'Em'Ver

Don was going down his list of functional Raxomacrux technology that he needed to deactivate to close spatial rifts cropping up throughout human-inhabited worlds. His people had been destroyed by a great and terrible enemy from beyond known space, one he has little knowledge of besides the fact that it is attracted to the remnants of their old tech. 

He knew that one of their warning beacons had been left over from their destruction of the Lemurian people, so he went to go find it. He found the Stones easily enough... but when Cosmic Coffee landed in the cave and he stepped out, there were three dead bodies on the ground, torn to pieces.

Don realized that meant trouble. He turned around to find himself toe-to-toe with a horrifying monster. The beast was 8' tall, with bug eyes, great talons and chitinous plating. Despite his vast experience with parallel worlds, he had no idea what it was.

He threw his cup of coffee in the creature's face.

~~~~

Location: Tunguska Parallel, anytown U.S.A.

Sidrophael was contacted by his superior, a deadly angel of War in the host body of a harmless grandma, who sent him looking for a trans-physical artifact weapon called the Akashic Amplifier. It was last seen in the possession of a tribe of Inuit people, being passed from parent to child by the shamans of the tribe to keep them safe.

The angels had been letting that go, as it was harmless in such a small population, one with no designs on world conquest. Now that it had gone missing, though, Sidrophael's supervisor feared that the weapon might have been taken by demons. He revealed that the armies of Hell were marshaling, gathering their forces for some unknown offensive.

Sidrophael took his host to the wilds of Alaska.

It took him some time to find the village - everyone there was dead, and their spirits clamored and screamed incoherently. As he stood among the corpses, he was attacked by a monster very like the one confronting Don.

Sidrophael did not recognize the monster.

The beast killed his host with one ferocious blow.

 ~~~~
 Location: Earth with Secrets, Pacific Northwest

Kay was at her 18th birthday party, but she decided it was lame and snuck out. She had possessed - for about two weeks - rapidly burgeoning telekinetic powers, and she didn't want to be eating snacks, she wanted to be raising hell.

So she hopped in her car and drove into Seattle, letting her GPS pick a bar.

She ended up at Oliver's, right after Jack asked Doris about the keys. Kay sensed that the keys had power of some kind, so she immediately claimed they belonged to her.

Doris was skeptical, and demanded Kay tell her details about them, but Kay was unable to. Kay demanded a drink, and produced a fake ID to back up her request.

Doris didn't believe the ID either, and went to make Kay something non-alcoholic.

Jack was informed by his aliens that Kay was armed with a trans-physical weapon of terrible power, 'operating at 113% efficiency.' He didn't comment on it.

~~~~
Location: Tunguska Parallel, deep in the Caverns of Yel'Em'Ver

Sergei came upon the monster attacking Don. The beast shrugged off hot coffee to the face, but that distracted it while Sergei shot it in the back with his his neural stunner.

The shot dazed the beast briefly. Don warned him that they couldn't kill it with the tools at hand - the beast was more than a match for native guns. However, rather than going for Cosmic Coffee, Don produced a stapler and began stapling empty air, to deactivate the Raxomacrux beacon and seal the rift.

Sergei grabbed one of four Stones of Yel'Em'Ver.

The two of them got into Cosmic Coffee and Don set the ship to leave.

Sergei expressed relief at obtaining the Stone, but Don was dismissive of the paltry Lemurian technology. He revealed the device was 'merely a data archive.' Sergei explained that was why he cared about it so much, as he feared that the apocalypse that claimed the Lemurians was coming to doom his civilization as well.

Don, familiar with the Lemurians - a casualty of the Raxomacrux - casually assured Sergei that the two events were completely unrelated, but did not explain.

Sidrophael sensed a tear in reality and flew from his location, so many miles away, 'hitching a ride' in Cosmic Coffee's transdimensional wake.

~~~~
Location: Four Color Parallel, the Mediterranean

Freedom Ranger was sent to stop the latest nefarious machinations of Gottlieb Hertz. He was air dropped over the ocean without a parachute, and swam to the fortified ruins where the mad doctor was working.

Freedom Ranger slaughtered the outer guards easily, managing to do so swiftly enough to avoid raising any alarm. He then snuck into the compound and found Gottlieb's lab in the center of it.

Gottlieb was guarded by sentry robots with built-in machineguns, and had a giant machine that crackled with power. Gottlieb told Freedom Ranger that he was a fool, and too late.

Freedom Ranger bounded past the robots before they could open fire and kicked Gottlieb into the control panel of the device. Lightning arced all over, frying the robots. One of the robots opened fire accidentally, lighting some part of the machine on fire. Gottlieb let out a big, "Noooo!"

Five of the chitinous horrors stepped from the lightning in the center of the chamber. Freedom Ranger drew Liberty and jumped to dispatch one, but to his shock, the creature raised its arm and deflected the blow in a shower of sparks.

Gottlieb collapsed to his knees and warned Freedom Ranger that 'the fool had doomed them all.' Then, Gottlieb pressed a remote control, and the world went blinding white.

~~~~

Location: Meteor Apocalypse #173 Parallel, Oliver's

As Doris handed Kay a non-alcoholic beverage, the two of them and Jack all found themselves in a burnt out version of Oliver's, most of the windows smashed, tables ruined.

Sidrophael took the son of the bar's owner, now cowering behind the bar, as a host.

Cosmic Coffee appeared in the center of the room, Sergei and Don still inside.

Freedom Ranger and one of the chitinous horrors appeared on the far side of Cosmic Coffee, still inside the ruined husk of Oliver's.

Action ensued:

• Freedom Ranger attacked the monster more cautiously, attempting to take its measure. ("Create An Advantage" tactic.) He learned that the creature was almost certainly intended - by design - to kill humans. Creatures in nature tended to have specialized hunting techniques, and instinctive responses to prey. This one was able to anticipate humans, and was armored against modern weaponry.
• The creature attempted to flee for unknown reasons.
• Doris dove behind the bar, where she found Sidrophael. She recognized the bar owner's son, but remembered him as a loser. Sid explained that his host body had never done 'the drugs.'
• Kay attempted to harm the creature with her telekinesis. She was able to injure it through its defenses, and stop it at the window. When she exercised her power, Doris recognized her as 'interesting.'  Sidrophael recognized the weapon as the Akashic Amplifier, now irreversibly bonded to Kay's essence. 
• Sergei fired his neural stunner at the creature, further impairing it.
• Jack grabbed a bar stool and ran into the street. He threw the bar stool at a parked construction vehicle, causing a piece of rebar to come loose and smack the creature in the head. When he did this, Don recognized the ability as belonging to an ancient enemy of the Raxomacrux - a sort of 'chaos math kung-fu,' unseen in his domain in thousands of years. (Don't comment: "Well, he might've been frozen!")
• Don set Cosmic Coffee's travel field wide to try and catch the people in Oliver's, and asked Jack to get back inside over his external microphone.
• Sidrophael revealed the the monster had the Aspect 'Implacable Killing Machine,' and that Kay wielded the Akashic Amplifier, but he remained under cover.
• Freedom Ranger attempted to decapitate the monster again. He hurt it, but not enough.
• The monster fled.
• Don asked Jack to get back inside, and that Freedom Ranger not chase the beast, claiming that this was a trick to trap him in this hell-realm.
• Jack and Freedom Ranger stayed in range, and the group left.

~~~~
Location: Unspoiled Earth #89 Parallel, Pacific Northwest

Don got the group to safety in a wooded glade, and the group had time to talk. Sid rejoined the group as a local hunter.

Important points learned:

• Sidrophael and Don were familiar with each others' races. 

  The angels believe the Raxomacrux to be horrible interdimensional tyrants, dangerous enough that Sid initially considered it possible that Don might be behind the alien monsters. They are unaware that the Raxomacrux are gone.

Don knew about the angels. The Raxomacrux considered their claims of angelic status delusional, reasoning that they were a parallel evolution: fellow beings of pure energy, able to take impromptu hosts instead of prepared vessels.

• Comic books of Freedom Ranger exist in many modern Earth parallels.

These comic books are chillingly accurate about many secret aspects of the Ranger's life, including his real name and his (classified) enmity with and operations against Gottlieb Hertz. Don owns The Adventures of Freedom Ranger #79-85.

Kay saw a 'shitty reboot' of his story on the big screen, in her own world.

Neither Sid nor Don knew about Freedom Ranger's world being real, though both had seen the comic books. Both were surprised he was there.

• Doris is a walking source of Rift energy.

Don broke his reality scanner on her, while checking the group over.

• Freedom Ranger believes he's in an extended hallucination.

He vacillates between the belief that he's in a mind game, and demanding to go home.

• Jack is subject to fugue states, and possibly in communication with mysterious alien forces.

While the group was talking, Jack wandered off and broke his cell phone, rewiring it to serve as a brief transdimensional flare, contacting parties unknown. Sid followed him away from Cosmic Coffee and broke the cell phone before anyone could examine it, worried that it was transmitting ongoing data to unknown enemies.

The group decided their next moves should include:

1. Figuring out where Freedom Ranger's world is, in order to return him.
2. Fixing Don's scanner so they could do anything at all.
3. Checking on Sergei's world.

They left.

~~~~
Location: Tunguska Parallel, outskirts of Seattle

Sergei went looking for a newspaper, and Doris went with him out of sheer fascination. He discovered that the world was not under mass attack by the chitinous horrors. Sergei reported back to Britain - in code - that he had one of the stones, but that the location was too dangerous for further operations. He promised to send more intel when he could.

Sid took a fresh local host, and gave a terse report to the angels. He simply said that the Akashic Amplifier was no longer on this world, but that he was pursuing it.

They returned, then Don gave everyone shopping lists, and the group broke into teams to try and get the materials needed to fix the scanner.

Teams:

• Sid and Kay. Sid's plan is to use his Cheat Codes of the Universe power to more easily obtain what Don needs.
• Don and Doris. 
• Freedom Ranger has gone off alone to try and get a message to 'the future.' (The group attempted to explain that they weren't really in the past, merely a world that resembled the past of his world, but the distinction was lost on him. Partially because he's still halfway convinced they're all figments.)
• Sergei and Jack remained behind to hold down the fort at Cosmic Coffee.

 ... and that is where the session left off.

To-Do:

• Update character sheets and tally costs, to determine unspent points available to various characters.

Power interaction

Here's that promised table.

Did some playtesting tonight...

John, Micheal, Tim, Kat and I ran a few simple encounters to get a feel for the system.

A few of the conclusions:
* I am very happy with dropping the skill pyramid back down to normal. Micheal needed a couple of milestones to reach his desired competency, but that was about it.

* We're all a little clearer on task resolution.

* I do not like that the Fate rules renamed everything. I still don't really have a good feel for the index. Fortunately, it shouldn't come up a ton.

* Keeping the High Concept and Trouble unrelated seems to be helpful.

* The failing forward thing is pretty funny in Fate.

* Everybody who attended is mostly done with character generation.

* Central has always had issues with how technology and magic work on strange new worlds. I'll make a separate blog post about my current thoughts about that shortly.

Got John ready, or almost ready

Here's his character sheet: Freedom Ranger, powered by a serum combining Element-X with an unknown catalyst and bearing a sword forged from the shattered remains of the Liberty Bell.

More progress

Made some more headway: got most of Tim's character and Kat's character done.

First character done

Micheal and I just hashed out his character. The mechanical details are available to look at here.


The big deal here was that we concluded an enhanced skill pyramid is really hard to balance, and instead started Sergei off with a normal skill pyramid, then added significant milestones until he was as competent as Micheal wanted him to be.

I'm going to do that with all characters who should be inhumanly skilled, since it's easier to balance than offering huge skill inflation to characters with more normal skill competency, like Liz's, Chad's or Kat's. I think this will mostly be relevant for Tim and Ben.

Also, I only had 3 character sheets: Micheal, Liz and Chad, all of which I typed up on Google Drive and shared in the hope of completing.

If we're unable to hash out characters before the first session, that's okay. I think I have enough material to roll with it anyway.  Metaplot is emerging.


Unrelated note: Pacific Rim was totally sweet. Go see it! Go now! :)

More rules for consideration...

Here's some stuff I was batting around. Already talked to Micheal about it. If anybody else has questions or comments, leave 'em here.

Extra: Functional Immortality

Permissions: One Aspect slot, over and above the normal cost for special abilities. (This reflects that being nearly impossible to kill is a pretty serious deal in a character concept, and also that immortal characters tend to be less flexible than their mortal counterparts.)

Costs: May cost additional refreshes, depending on the method of resurrection. (Base, just the Aspect slot.)

Some characters simply cannot be killed by any normal means. There's precedent for it in both pop culture and prior Central games: Doctor Who, Lord Stonehead, etc. A character with this Aspect can still be Taken Out in combat, but unless the enemy takes special preparations to either destroy their soul or seal them away forever or something, they're going to get better. By default, the character's rebirth should cost a Fate point, (basically requiring invoking this Aspect), and the character will suffer an Extreme consequence. If the character does not suffer ill effects, there should be an additional cost - probably on the order of 1 refresh.

Tim and Ben both probably have different variants on this. (Tim's is liable to be more powerful, is my guess.)

And here's my stab at what Chad does:

Extra: Probability Mechanics

Permissions: Aspect slot. (The one governing powers, per the usual.)

Costs: Ranks in Lore for knowledge of probability, statistics, econometrics, etc. 3 refresh.

Characters with Probability Mechanics have a number of new applications for their Lore skill, by setting up Rube Goldberg inspired shenanigans. Players with the Extra may be required to actually describe the pile of dominoes they want to set up to cause catastrophes.

Overcome: Spend a Fate point to get a Lore check to answer absurd questions about large piles of data. (See the movie Limitless for ideas: when the protagonist is handed a packet of financial documents and asked to figure out the merger.)This takes only the time it would take to read the documents, typically a scene or less.

Create An Advantage: Spend a Fate point to use Lore to create a physical obstacle, defended against with Athletics. Examples include a well timed banana peel, knocked over cart of apples, etc.This attack offers a free invoke of the Aspect You've got to be kidding me! to either help overcome a target's defenses or to spray the attack over a Zone.

Attack: Spend a Fate point to use Lore to perform a physical attack of an improbable nature, instead of Shoot or Fight. As with Create An Advantage, this offers a free invoke of the Aspect You've got to be kidding me to aid the attack. (Someone might be expecting a gunshot, but not the bus you've set on a collision course with them by setting a pen up on a mailbox.)

Thoughts?

Handling Aspects for this campaign

Those of you who handed me character sheets, I'm going to type them up in the next couple days and e-mail you back to try and wrangle out the details.

I'm adding two additional free Aspects to every character sheet, over and above the Fate core rules.

Genre:
For those of you familiar with the old Central games, you'll know that every world has a basic description of how it works. For instance, if you went to a D&D universe, the genre would be 'high fantasy.'

Every character needs to have a Genre Aspect to define the nature of their home setting. This influences all of your Skills: unless you purchase a special Stunt, (as Mike and presumably Ben will be doing), your Skills suffer penalties when used in unfamiliar settings. For instance, if your home genre is 'Plain Old Earth,' your Drive skill will suffer some penalties in 'Old West Pastiche World,' and even harsher ones in 'Space Opera World' or 'Crazy West of Eden biotech world.'

You've all mostly called your home Genres - Chad, Kat, Liz and Tim all come from "Modern Earth as described in the Fortean Times," Mike comes from "Cinematic 1940s Adventure world," Ben comes from "Super High Tech Dimension Lord World," and John comes from "Gritty Supers world."

It is possible for a player to attempt to compel based on the Genre of the world they're in. (For instance: 'We're in a Gothic Horror universe, so there's obviously a wise woman who will be able to advise us about vampire hunting somewhere around town.')

Source of Power:
Extras typically need an Aspect slot devoted to why you can purchase them. In this case, I'm giving one Aspect slot devoted to 'why can you shoot web.' These have, again, mostly been called. I'm not mentioning so you worry about this, but so that you don't bother wasting an existing Aspect slot on it.

As discussed, your powers will suffer reduced effectiveness (greater difficulty to use and possible negation) in settings where they would not logically function. For instance, Mike and Ben may expect considerable difficulties in a D&D-esque High Fantasy setting.

Something I didn't bring up is that in some settings, you may receive a situational advantage due to a particularly appropriate concept. For instance, if you visit D&D-esque High Fantasy World, Tim's angel may receive temporarily enhanced capabilities, as angels in the setting are much more powerful than he normally is.

Anyway, that's the update for the day. Talk to folks soon, or feel free to drop me an e-mail early.

(Looking at how costs are structured in this game, upgraded Skill Pyramids and additional refreshes don't really cross - everyone will end up with access to both.)

P.S.:
 Don't worry too hard about your Phase 1-3 Aspects. We can decide most of them in play. I mostly need High Concept and Trouble from you to make sure I have any idea how to keep you entertained.

A few extras for consideration

Worked on reading about Extras and hashing out Mike's powers tonight. Here's what we came up with, which is open to critique or questions:

Extra: Cinematic Invention

Permissions: Aspect reflecting a gadget oriented character.

Costs: Skill points in Craft, plus 3 refreshes.

People with the Cinematic Invention skill are able to use Craft to design powerful weapons and tools, appropriate for the daftest Hollywood blockbuster. They can design ‘laser-beams,’ robots, etc. as is appropriate for their Genre.

Overcome: Use Craft against a static difficulty based challenge to invent new devices. It requires a Fate point to attempt to make non-standard equipment, (gadgets).

Other skills may be required depending on scope: large devices may require Resources checks to scrounge enough parts, illegal devices may require Deceive to prevent the authorities from catching on. (For instance, if Walter White is trying to create sky-blue meth, he may need to make a Deceive check to be sure no one knows what he’s up to.)

Other skills may also be used to give a situational advantage to uses of Cinematic Invention, (Resources to get funding, Contacts to get lab assistants, etc.).

Making an off-Genre device is impossible.

Difficulty: The difficulty is based on two factors: the circumstances the work is performed under, and the desired power of the device.

Circumstantial Difficulty:

Working in a fully stocked lab is performed at Fair, while attempting to make a suit of power armor, in a cave, with a box of scraps, may be upward of Epic.

If the Craft roll fails to meet the Circumstantial Difficulty, no device happens.

Power Difficulty:

Every shift of power the device has costs 1 shift on the Craft roll. Weapon/armor ratings are obtained 1:1. Special Aspects in devices are 1 or more shifts per capability, and include things like:

• Hits a whole Zone
• Ignores 2 points of armor or cover
• Generates a free situational advantage on a strike
• Targets an unconventional defense (a Neural Disruptor attacking Will vs. Athletics or Physique, etc.)
• Additional stress boxes of reliability

If the inventor meets the Circumstantial Difficulty, but fails to live up to the shifts needed for the Power Difficulty, they still get the device, but it each negative shift allows the GM to surprise the player with a negative Aspect, missing ability or reduced Stress Box.

Device Degradation: All created gadgets have a limited shelf life: after each Scene the gadget is used in forces an unmodified roll of the dice, where negative results damage the device. First, they mark off stress boxes, then they inflict Consequences, and finally destroy it. This damage may be reversed with additional uses of Cinematic Invention, (typically at lower difficulty than the creation attempt).

Devices are genre-dependent, and do not work across genres.

Raiding the Armory: Sharing gear is not a traditional mad scientist thing, so other characters who wish to use gear created by a Cinematic Inventor must pay a Fate point to ‘attune’ to the gear.

Example:

Dr. Invento wants to design a shrink-wrap ray, capable of encasing a target in deadly shrink wrap. As envisioned, the weapon is Weapon:2, and also gives the target the situational Aspect Covered in Goddamn Shrink Wrap, which is worth 2 shifts.

He is working in a poorly stocked lab, placing his Circumstantial Difficulty at Good (+3), and he has a personal Craft skill of Great (+4). He spends his Fate point and rolls a +2, meaning that he has generated 3 shifts beyond the Circumstantial Difficulty. Unfortunately, he needed 4 to get the device just the way he wanted it: the GM rules that his Shrink-Wrap Ray is ‘Prone to Jams.’

 There are also a couple of supporting Stunts I offered, which are open to all of you:

Stunt: Omnidisciplinary Competence

Applicable to Craft, Drive, Lore and others.

Your skill is considerably broader in scope than normal. Where a normal character’s Drive would cover cars, yours could handle ‘anything on the ground.’ The limits of this should take their cues from your Aspects, particularly High Concept.

Stunt: Rapid Genre Adaptation

Applicable to Craft, Drive, Lore and others.

Genre shifts mean far less to you than normal practitioners of your skill. Instead of spending days or weeks acclimating to a new environment, you may spend a Fate point to begin using your skill normally immediately..

And so it begins...

... with a gratuitous Babylon 5 quote.

First off, here's a link to the game:
http://www.evilhat.com/home/fate-core-downloads/

 I'm still in the process of determining a number of particular rules for this campaign vs. a vanilla FATE campaign. So far, the big deal is that every character needs to have an additional aspect setting up their home genre, and I need to work out how many points everybody's got.

So far, character concepts are:

• Ben: dimensional vagabond in the style of Dr. Who
• Chad: pilot exposed to an alien consciousness with a supernatural gift for math.
• John: superhero in a world where he is fictional
• Kat: telekinetic prom queen.
• Liz: a former bartender with a connection for - and a collection of - the weird.
• Mike: Science Hero(!)
• Tim: Fallen angel, minus the fallen

We'll need to finish characters soonish, so that I've got enough material to set up the first adventure.