The Great Fate Fractal Experiment  

Posted by Whirly / R00kie in , , , ,

My third game for Continuum this year is experimental. I can't guarantee how it will go, but I will say that if you get involved it will be interesting and you'll learn what the end results are of allowing the public to author a game.

In Master Plan #15, Leonard Balsera (one of the authors of Spirit of the Century and guys behind FATE) talked about the Fate Fractal. The principle is that any element of a FATE game can be described in terms of the same components. The implication is that Aspects could be applied to everything, be it the Scenario itself, NPCs, locations, objects or even abstract things like the relationships between two NPCs.

Then in Independent Insurgency Episode 007, Rob Donoghue and Fred Hicks (the other two guys behind Spirit of the Century) take this one step further and point out that aspects could be applied to an entire campaign. Listening to this podcast in the car home from work gave me the idea I needed for my third game...

I have about 120 days till Continuum. During that time I'm planning to allow Convention attendees and those on the FATE yahoo group to help me create an adventure from the group up. I have no pre-conceived ideas as to what it is going to involve.

I'll start by requesting campaign aspects and genres. In two weeks time I'll hold a poll for the best campaign aspects and from that pick the three most popular which don't appear to be mutually exclusive. I will also at this point pick the genre. I don't want to pick the genre too early as it might influence the aspects I receive. I would like to pick the most popular genre, but again I'm going to have to take compatibility and playability into account.

The following weeks will flesh out three factions. As we speak I don't know if these will be nations, mafia gangs, fast food restaurants, high school cliques or dog packs. All I know is that they will follow from the genre and that they will be key to the world setting.

Having generated those I'm aiming to generate a few key locations, and a significant event or location. Again this could be a prom, a princess’ birthday, the one ring, or a famous sunken ship. I currently have no idea but I will find out soon

Finally in the last month I plan to take the generated ideas and try to tie them all together into some sort of adventure.


The Great Fate Fractal Experiment
System: FATE
GM Declan Feeney (me)
Players Six Players

Synopsis: An experimental game, based on group authorship. The exact nature of this game will be built up during the weeks leading up to the convention and will be detailed on the game website and my blog.


So what do I need from people?

For the first phase I need campaign aspects and genre suggestions. I promise that any suggestions I use will be attributed to the people who suggested them. I will write the game up, and I will note all the contributors who's ideas are used in the game. Good aspects would be aspects which could apply to any campaign. They could be rules of the universe, descriptors, or even objects (but if they are objects they are going to be absolutely central to the campaign

To start the ball rolling I'll put in a few suggestions of my own:

Aspects:
  • No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
  • "Why is it always Monkeys?"
  • There's always somewhere to hide
  • The last ones always toughest
  • The Star of Elra
(Note: This last one is pretty generic - The Star of Elra could be a star system in a sci-fi setting, it could be a jewel in a fantasy setting, Elra could even be a play or musical and it could refer to actors competing for parts.)

Genres:
  • Zombie Breakout
  • Musketeer Swashbuckling

Thanks in advance for getting involved.

Whirly

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 01, 2008 at 6:35 pm and is filed under , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed .

6 comments

Matt Sheridan  

This sounds like huge fun. I love the hell out of collaborative setting development, the FATE system, and the idea of using Aspects everywhere. I am subscribing to this blog.

Also, here's some Aspects.

• Never forgive, never forget.
• Fight the power!
• ancestor worship
• all things in balance
• victory in defeat

And genre suggestions:

• Napoleonic-era fantasy
• Lovecraftian superheroes
• nanotech apocalypse

None of these ideas are really intended to work together, of course.

1 April 2008 at 22:51:00 BST
Matt Sheridan  

On a related note, the idea of campaign Aspects reminds me of an older roleplaying concept from Torg, of all places. The different sub-settings in that game had properties called "World Laws", such as the Law of Morality--which mandated that everyone entering a certain realm immediately be classified as "good" or "evil", and act accordingly--and the Law of Vengeance--which grants a fate-point-like reward to characters who avenge wrongs done to themselves.

The idea, of course, was to give each sub-setting its own tone of gameplay. I don't think it was very thoroughly implemented, but it's an extremely cool idea.

2 April 2008 at 01:33:00 BST
Whirly / R00kie  

Hey Matt, Thanks for the Aspects and Genre suggestions. Its great to wake up and see this blog has born fruit already. Theres some really interesting ideas in there.

I've put them on the game website where I'm throwing together my aspect list and genre list.

I never did get to play Torg although I do have a deck of Torg cards. One of my friends likes to use them for random fortune events in her games. The Torg "World Laws" seem an interesting idea. I'm guessing the aspects we choose when I get to the location phase may end up playing a similar role. I'm definately hoping those location aspects will set a very real feeling to each location - so a place with 'Truth Triumphant' is going to feel very different to the locale with the aspect 'Hells darkest corner'. Of course what those locations may be is a long way off and will hopefully follow from the genre once picked.

Thanks again for my first comments. You'd be surprised how excited seeing my first comments made me.

2 April 2008 at 06:46:00 BST
s7610ra  

Aspects:

Don't step on the flowers.
Always respect height.

Genres:

Through the Looking Glass.

2 April 2008 at 10:42:00 BST
Nick  

Aspects:
*No One Gets Out Alive
*There's Magic Everywhere You Look
*How Do You Know He's Not a Demon?
*Eye for an Eye, Tooth for a Tooth
*The Final Frontier
*"When the Fifth Moon is in the Last House, a Great Hero will be Born"



Genre:
*Gangsters
*Monster Hunters
*Time Travelin' Space Cowboys
*Superheroes
*Street Kid Survival

2 April 2008 at 12:29:00 BST
Whirly / R00kie  

Wow. Thanks guys. I've just hit an astounding 33 aspects and 22 genre.

I was planning to stop taking suggestions on Monday and start the poll then, but at the current rate of expansion I'm going to have to stop phase 1 early or the list will be incredibly long.

I can't wait to see which are the most popular. Some of the aspects are intriguing, and I'm looking forward to the challenge of working them into the setting, and then the adventure. A couple of the genre I admit I had to look up on Wikipedia…

2 April 2008 at 13:00:00 BST

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