Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.
It might be best to figure out what kind of game you'd like to play.
Solitaire games are about just you and your Band in a city, dealing with lone monsters and minor gods. You keep watch and maybe deal with other groups that might come in. The Wulin Factions don't play much a role, but when they do, something big is happening.
Outfit games have you a part of a larger organization. You could be officers in a crime organization like the triads, a monastery tries to capture and reform monsters, a martial arts school that screens recruits for the Wulin, or something else. The Wulin is there, but they're in the shadows, and they're watching what you do. You might even report to them.
Faction games have you be a part of one of the factions of the Wulin. You are directly involved with their politics, you can speak with the bigger gods as a respected representative, deal with rival or enemy factions, serve their agenda and do missions for them. Mortal society is least important here. You are a hero with a capital 'H' (or getting there), and thus are expected to survive, win glory, and be thrown into dangerous situations regularly. You can also count quite a bit on faction resources. At this stage, your reputation is of utmost importance.
am i too late? here's my tenuous attempt at a character profile (i'm aware this will need a massive overhaul if we end up playing an outfit game)
Name: Hao Qieting Ethnicity: Chinese Age: 15 at game start
High Concept:Inquisitive Blogger Trouble:Indolent Slacker
Profile: A child of the age of technology, and of Chinese parents living in London. His mother is a second-generation immigrant whose own parents were born in southwest Shandong. His father was born in Hong Kong but took a job in London after completing his studies in Oxford. His father was then promoted within the company, which led to his moving back to Hong Kong, taking his wife, son and daughter with him. At the age of 15, Qieting is living with his parents and his younger sister in Hong Kong.
An INQUISITIVE BLOGGER, with moderately large followings on YouTube, Twitter, Sina Weibo and tumblr, he inadvertantly draws attention to himself after discovering and blogging about information relating to the present-day status of the Wulin.
Although well-intentioned and intelligent, he is not obvious hero material; he's the kind of INDOLENT SLACKER who spends more of his teenage years partying than studying.
Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.
We're all overhauling things. And really, there's a place for the quiet and inquisitive in the Wulin.
So Tachyon, am I correct in saying that your character follows rumors that would imply the existence of the Wulin? Because like, nobody knows. They're top-top-secret.
he follows and perpetuates rumours that do imply things about the Wulin, but only to those who knew the existence of the Wulin beforehand, to whom the information could be potentially valuable
he himself doesn't know about them, and certainly doesn't realize the significance of the things he's talking about; he thinks he's just talking about odd coincidences and curiosities
essentially this means he's probably the unwitting pawn of some other organization, but one that's playing a dangerous game
Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.
Okay so we've nailed down what kind of game you folks want to play. We've nailed down all the skills, all the characters. We know that we're going to play in Hong Kong.
Now we need a reason for you folks to know each other.
Tachyon: How about your name is Hao Qieting. "Hao" is the family name, and "Qieting" is your given name.
Okay so we've nailed down what kind of game you folks want to play. We've nailed down all the skills, all the characters. We know that we're going to play in Hong Kong.
Now we need a reason for you folks to know each other.
Tachyon: How about your name is Hao Qieting. "Hao" is the family name, and "Qieting" is your given name.
We should figure out what order we're writing the names in, because I have Akemi's name written in western order and inconsistency isn't good.
I get the impression that Akemi is somewhat spoiled (not bratty, but the type who is somewhat overprivileged and may not really realize it), so I was going to suggest that she perhaps ends up in Hong Kong on a parent's business trip.
Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.
So here's how it is. Right now we're playing with stripped-down Fate Core so that you can get the basics of the game.
After this section, we'll go through a "montage" where you describe how you were introduced to the Underworld, how you took the news, what areas you chose to better yourself in. The latter includes more specific skills, your supernatural abilities, and whatever gear or armament you chose. That's also where I'll introduce the slightly-more complicated mechanics like Qi.
Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.
Here's what's going to happen. You describe your character's action, and I model it with the system.
There are four types of actions that you can make in a game of Fate.
Overcome, where you achieve goals in general. Fix a car. Jump a gorge. There's a problem, and you Overcome it.
Create Advantage, where you place a situation aspect on something. Set something on fire. Unsettle your opponent. Accumulate energy. Wrestle someone to the ground. All of these give you an edge. At the same time, all these edges are temporary; these kinds of aspects are called boosts. You can also maintain Advantages, but it's still the same roll.
Attack, where you cause damage to something or someone. Punching. Kicking. Shooting. These cause stress.
Defend, where you defend yourself from damage or someone getting an edge over you. Dodging. Blocking. Avoiding. Dispelling a spell. Snapping out of a fugue state. Something is attacking you and you're Defending.
You roll this dice roller (also included in the opening post of the RP thread), taking each [-] as a -1, each [+] as a +1, and each blank face as a zero. Add that result together to the appropriate skill, and compare it to the difficulty. Active difficulty has someone else rolling against you, while static difficulty doesn't change.
There are also four basic outcomes.
If the difference in difficulty for you is -1 or less (say, you roll 3 and they roll 4), that's a Failure. You fail your action, or you pay a Fate point and succeed.
If the difference comes up to 0, that's a Tie. You succeed, but at a minor cost. Maybe your opponent gets a boost, maybe you suffer some damage. Maybe it's something else down the line.
If the difference comes down to +1, that's a Success. You succeed in Overcoming, Defending, or Attacking. If you succeed a Create Advantage, you place the aspect and gain one free invoke, which means you can call the aspect into play for free without paying a Fate Point once.
If the difference comes down to +3, that's a Success with Style. Style successes are very powerful, and if you Succeed with Style on Overcome, Attack, and Defend, your action goes as normal and you get one invoke. If you Succeed with Style on Advantage, you get two invokes.
Later on you can get stunts and other abilities to make specific actions within skill contexts even better, for a price.
Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.
You can give yourself an edge, by focusing on defense.
And if you feel that running is out of character, then you can give me a fate point to act out-of-character. That's another function of fate points: they represent your capacity to act against your nature.
You can also use them to re-roll, add a +2 to a roll, or invoke aspects, calling them into play.
Comments
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Name: Hao Qieting
Ethnicity: Chinese
Age: 15 at game start
High Concept: Inquisitive Blogger
Trouble: Indolent Slacker
Profile: A child of the age of technology, and of Chinese parents living in London. His mother is a second-generation immigrant whose own parents were born in southwest Shandong. His father was born in Hong Kong but took a job in London after completing his studies in Oxford. His father was then promoted within the company, which led to his moving back to Hong Kong, taking his wife, son and daughter with him. At the age of 15, Qieting is living with his parents and his younger sister in Hong Kong.
An INQUISITIVE BLOGGER, with moderately large followings on YouTube, Twitter, Sina Weibo and tumblr, he inadvertantly draws attention to himself after discovering and blogging about information relating to the present-day status of the Wulin.
Although well-intentioned and intelligent, he is not obvious hero material; he's the kind of INDOLENT SLACKER who spends more of his teenage years partying than studying.
Fair: Know, Speak
Average: Fight, Conviction, Sneak
at least initially, we could scale up later if the plot leads that way.
and yes i'm gearing up to roleplay in an action-oriented setting in a culture i know little about
this is possibly suicide
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
he himself doesn't know about them, and certainly doesn't realize the significance of the things he's talking about; he thinks he's just talking about odd coincidences and curiosities
essentially this means he's probably the unwitting pawn of some other organization, but one that's playing a dangerous game
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
i'm cool with that i guess but i feel like we're missing some important backstory here on how that came about
obviously i don't want to slow everyone down, but i'll warn you now that i'm really not sure i can commit to something that moves too fast
i should be asleep for that matter
I get the impression that Akemi is somewhat spoiled (not bratty, but the type who is somewhat overprivileged and may not really realize it), so I was going to suggest that she perhaps ends up in Hong Kong on a parent's business trip.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Also, I realize we start as adolescents. Presumably we do not have our weapons?
none of us have anything to kill zombies with
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Running would not be in character and fighting would be suicidal.
I also don't really think it's a good idea to burn fate points so early.
I don't know what to actually do, is the larger problem.
I got this.
I'm pretty sure that's literally a complete neutral. So I don't know what to do now.