Thinking FU

I ran a game of Spirit of the Century the other week after finishing a six month campaign of May the FU Be With You. I run FU much like I run Spirit and that's hardly surprising. In many ways FU is Fate on a strict vegan diet. It's lighter, faster and can be blown around by hand waving. It's that hand waving that helps out so much. The link from what the players speak (that is, creating the fiction) and what the dice do (that is, forcing the fiction one way or the other) is solid and intuitive.

There are a couple of things that FU doesn't do and I don't think it pretends to do them. There will always be an element of matching the right system to the right setting and the right kind of story.

It's hard for me to criticise FU, partly because I've greatly enjoyed it and partly because I know Nathan. I wish it handled character development in some way. I hacked a house rule to let players spend a FU point to change gear or a descriptor, as long as the change was accompanied by an appropriate plot development. And I wish it didn't drive players towards being one-trick ponies. I've paid the price for having a character who couldn't use everything all at once, leaving me with a small dice pool. Defining descriptors and gear that work together is the means to munchkin the FU (awful grammar, I know). With the right combination a player can bring a pool of five dice before penalties. That kind of character, though, tends to use the same solution for every problem. It works well for characters like Wolverine (I stab it with my claws) but not so well for Batman (I investigate, I fight, I have money, I...). It can be dissatisfying to play that character except when they succeed so often.

I hadn't intended this to be a review of FU, just some thoughts that were percolating around in my mind.

NaGa DeMon

I confess! I'll be designing a game for the 2012 Naga Demon. It's a great project to exercise the game design muscles and it looks as though there'll be even more people participating this year than previously.

I've decided (and announced on facebook page) that I'm going to write Lego FU.

FU's a great system that I've blogged about before and which I'm currently using. It's quick, simple and effective (just like pain relief? wha...?). I'm using it with some gamers who, to the best of my knowledge, have never played crunchy systems and they've picked it up beautifully. Now, the system doesn't seem to appear much, but drives us back to being creative with the story.

But why Lego FU? Because I like FU and I like Lego, and because they're a good match. Lego isn't a complicated world. It's full of cliches. Heroes are heroic. Villains are nasty. Characters in the Lego world have simple goals, and FU facilitates that.

I've sketched an outline of the text already, mostly so I don't forget any of the ideas. That's just note-taking, not cheating, right? I mean, they're just notes I wrote in October rather than November. No disqualification here.

:)

The FU is strong with these

We had fun playing our first game of Star Wars FU a couple of weeks back. We're playing again this Saturday night with these characters. I've collated the FU blurbs here.

Woo Vaal, Flawed Jedi Knight
Woo is a young human male from Coruscant who lost his family at an early age. Body: Fast. Mind: Intelligent. Edge: Strong with the force. Flaw: Drinking problem.

Kar, Wide-eyed Jedi Knight
Kar is a new Jedi Knight out on his first missions. What he lacks in experience he makes up for in enthusiasm. Body: Nimble. Mind: Observant. Edge: Evasive in combat. Flaw: Inexperienced.

Zei Helief, Dark Jedi
Zei has been a Jedi for the majority of his life, however he's aware that not everything has been taught at the Jedi temple. He's on a quest to find out more. Body: Nimble. Mind: Focused. Edge: Sees both sides of the coin. Flaw: Reckless.

Dofenfoe, Bounty Hunter
Dofenfoe isn't sure if he's good or bad. His life mission is to find out, no matter the cost. Body: Nimble. Mind: Wise. Edge: Sneaky. Flaw: Betrayer.

Ligh Harro, Jedi Paragon
Orphaned at a young age, Ligh was adopted by the Jedi order when his potential was discovered. He strives to be the perfect Jedi to the point of losing touch with the common man. Body: Agile. Mind: Serene. Edge: Force prodigy. Flaw: Detached.

We opened a few concepts during the game and I've added links here in case you'd like to read more about them.
The Old Republic
The Force, especially ideas of light side, dark side, unifying force and living force
Force Powers
Dark Jedi
Coruscant

More next time!

Diceless GM

I'm going to play FU this weekend for the first time and I'm baffled about what I'm going to do with my hands. As a GM, I won't roll dice. No dice at all.

Maybe I can wave a pencil around.

Either way, it's time to use those extra brain cycles to throw good challenges back to the players.

Adding a reward cycle to FU

I'm about to start a new campaign that will use the FU RPG system. It's a great system that helps to make story move along. I am, of course, going to hack it to add something that I like to see in my games. In my experience, players respond well to rewards which are specific to their characters; keys, if you will.

FU already has space for character Drives but they aren't connected to other things on the character sheet. At the moment I'm thinking about connecting them to either FU points or Gear or Descriptors. Here's an example of what I'm thinking about.

A Drive has a series of smaller Steps in the journey. Define only one Step at a time. Each time a Step is accomplished, gain a FU point and write the next Step you will accomplish.

Nothing remarkable there. The vanilla system encourages FU rewards for doing cool things. I'm also thinking about a longer reward cycle such as this.

Each time five Steps are accomplished, gain a new Descriptor. The new Descriptor must relate to how the character has changed because of taking those five Steps.

I'm influenced here by Burning Wheel. When I played that game I saw the cycle between rewards and personal goals, and I felt that it drove the players along meaningful paths. In a way, it's also like the Ambitions from Poison'd.

The Steps will need to be appropriately scaled on the FU dial. Steps shouldnt be, "I'm going to pick up a pen" unless the game is in a very low literacy setting. Instead, they should be something like, "I will get evidence that Sir Escabar is spying on Lady Felicia." The larger goal could be to rid the court of corruption and this is a great Step that could be achieved in a single game session.

There's more to think about for this. I don't know if five is the right number and I don't know if there should be a cap on the number of Descriptors. For very long term play, a character could have too many. I'm going to think about an incremental scale as well, for example, choose a new Descriptor when you achieve five Steps, then six more Steps, then seven more...

If you've played FU, what rewards do you use for character development?

My Auscon Experience

The day after RPG Sunday is worth a little time and reflection on my experience of it.

I had the best start to the day because the shirt I'd ordered for the day arrived just in time. Wow. It grabbed attention, and was only a matter of minutes before someone said, "That's an awesome shirt. Where can I get one?"

To get your own, go see Daniel Solis' Cafepress site. Kudos to Daniel for making a version with correct Commonwealth spelling.

I was only at Auscon for the Sunday, but it was a very full day. Starting the RPGs at 9am on a Sunday was something of a challenge. Who's awake and keen to play story games at 9am on Sunday?!? Apparently, about fifteen people. And even though that meant I didn't get to run FU, it did mean that I could be part of a play test for Behind The Screens. Peter's got a great little game idea going there, and I'm keen to see it develop and evolve into a polished game. Seriously, people, watch for that game.

Between that and the 2pm session, I had a chance to wander the floor and see the vendors, the miniatures tables, and get a chai. The venue was exactly the right size for the con, and laid out so very well. Gaming tables in the middle completely dominated the space, but didn't overpower the trade stalls that lined the walls. Most of the product was miniatures-based, but that's not surprising, since Auscon was originally going to only cater for minis games. Ace Comics came through with the goods for RPGs (even including some Dresden Files), and I think that was in proportion to the attendees. And kudos for the staff too. There seemed to be the right number of them for the activities, spread around in the right amount.

After lunch I had the great chance to run Agon. Yes! Finally! I've offered this game at cons before and never had takers. Maybe my elevator pitch was poor, or perhaps I should also stop offering it on the same game menu as Spirit of the Century. Regardless, I had five heroes complete a quest for Hera. As far as my GM effort went, they all seemed pleased with it. I managed to test every ability, except for Music. Maybe next time for that one. I'm sure I also fudged a couple of rules, but everything seemed to flow OK and the story didn't get bogged down or lopsided because of it. Best of all, I have the feeling that even playing the game is something of an Agon, an effort. I say that, not because it's hard going, but because the characters are always getting beaten down by something in order to succeed at something else. The frustration of the characters showed on the players' faces, and that seemed like a good thing.

And in the last session, I ran the best game of Poison'd I've ever run. I was going to say that I'd redeemed Poison'd, but that just seems antithetical. The story flowed smoothly. The characters lunged for their ambitions and were frustrated by the Cruel Fortunes. There were a few things I did in this game that I'll gladly repeat next time, to help make the story work. Special thanks go to the players, for embracing the depravity of being pirates.

My only regret was not remembering that I wanted to try Sagefight. Looking back, we would have had to go outside for it. There certainly wasn't enough space inside for those kinds of shenanigans.

Overall, my experience of one-third of Auscon was positive. Allan and Mark did a marvellous job. Watch out for their next project, whatever it is. I do know, though, that the first weekend in October is going to be another gaming convention. Mark your diaries now.

My games at Auscon

I'm offering three games at Auscon this weekend. This is what I have in mind.

9am - FU
FU looks like a genuine pickup game, so that's what I'm going to do with it. I have no preconceived notions of a setting at all, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the players come up with. I've played in these kinds of games before and will steal a technique from Steve D to set it up. Everyone has two scraps of paper and writes a single idea on each one. We draw two (or three?) at random and start from there.

2pm - Agon
I've owned this game for ages and have hardly played it at all, despite my ongoing wish to do so. This needs the most preparation, so I'm most nervous about it. It's been a while since I really prepared something with this much detail.

7pm - Poison'd
The game of depraved sailors, desperately trying to avoid the governor's gallows and their shipmates' shivs. I've run this badly before, and then I got better at it. And now I cackle at the very thought of it.