A lot has been made of the fact that Fate is great when you first visualise an end result and then set about creating something using the rules to match your initial vision, rather than jumping straight into the rules and attempting to build something from the ground up, and rightly so, one of the strengths of the system is that the rules set is extremely versatile even without the various hacks and add-ons that are available either for free or online at a low cost.
Previously when i've thought about supernaturals (and in this case i'm talking specifically about supernaturals as player characters rather than as monsters or NPCs which is an entirely different subject) i've most often looked at an existing game (in my case generally the World of Darkness series since they're some of the games i'm most familiar with) and how Fate could be adapted or "hacked" to create a facsimile of the game in question; however there have recently been a spate of posts on the various Fate G+ communities where people have attempting to create versions of their favourite comic/fiction characters (and others) using the basic Fate rules. I've been pleasantly surprised by how close a lot of these attempts have come to matching their inspiration, and all mostly using the rules as presented in either the Fate Accelerated or Fate Core rulebooks. I ran a one-off game of 'Mummy: the Curse' recently since i've been dying to test it out and love the concept behind it (my review of Mummy can be found here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrPzZ9ClGyc), now i've been away from the World of Darkness rules-set for quite some time, aside from a brief read-through of the updated rules booklet that formed part of the 'God Machine Chronicles', since i've been moving towards less crunchy and more narrative based systems; whilst the game was very enjoyable and we all had a good time (the background of the game being one of the best i've read in a WoD game for a long time) I found going back to the nWoD rules extremely strange and wasn't completely sold on them.
This isn't a post to knock crunchier games, because I think that different systems suit different people and it really bugs me when people damn a system just because it happens to not be ideal for them, simply to say that my thoughts upon running the game were (as they so often are when games have a great background but a rules system that doesn't suit my style of gaming) "there's some great stuff in this book but I don't suit the rules, what system can I use to keep the background but make it more suitable for my style of play?" I'm sure it will be no surprise to any who knows me or reads my posts/watches my videos that Fate Core and Fate Accelerated are my go-to systems when this sort of question comes up; previously I would probably have dived straight into the system and started working out how I could hack it to make a workable version of the 'Mummy: the Curse' rules, and i've done this previously to produce some workable hacks (my WH40K hack and my (still not completed) Fate of Cthulhu hack amongst them). Recently though i've been playing in a Dresden Files game run by a friend of mine and, although we've only played a single actual session (the first being taken up by setting/character generation and discussion), one of the things that has really impressed me is how a list of Stunts and Aspect suggestions can be used to construct virtually any type of supernatural within the DFRPG universe, this, together with the recent G+ posts has got me thinking that perhaps i'm taking the wrong approach when it comes to playable supernaturals in Fate.
For example, here is an example of a vampire "package" that I threw together in about 30 seconds (using Fate Accelerated rules and some ideas from the Fate Toolkit):
Aspect: Must have one aspect that included the word vampireStunts:- (must have, +1 refresh) Blood-addicted: Gives the character an additional hunger stress track of 3 boxes; at the end of any scene where the vampire has used its power it is 'attacked' with a strength equal to the refresh cost of the power used, stress inflicted by this is added first to the hunger stress track.- (optional, -2 refresh) Vampiric strength: The character gets +4 when Forcefully attacking.- (optional, -2 refresh) Vampiric speed: The character gets +2 when Quickly overcoming obstacles that involve movement, the character automatically goes first in combats unless there are other combatants with vampiric speed.
The blood-addicted Stunt is based heavily on the DFRPG games use of a hunger stress track to track vampiric hunger, and the combined package would costs 3 refresh to purchase (the standard starting amount for a Fate Accelerated character); obviously there is a lot more work that could be done and i've not really covered feeding or standard vampiric weaknessed (sunlight, etc) at all in the rules above, but still it's a workable framework that could be played, created in relatively little time without a vast amount of rules hacking being required.
Looking at the Fate system in this light it has lead me to wonder whether or not, for my next game featuring supernatural protagonists, it might be an idea to present either a list of Stunts (or some amended Stunt rubrics) to my players and have them create the supernatural characters that they want rather than worrying overly much about whether the rules particularly mirror those present in some other existing game?
For example:
One of the main themes of the game "Mummy: the Curse" is that the Arisen start off very powerful but with little memory or context within which to use that power, as time progresses their magical energy (Sekhem) drains away (bringing them ever closer to a return to their death-like sleep) their memory improves, paradoxically, as they gain the memories that might allow them to use their powers more wisely, those very powers ebb away.
I might create such a creature in Fate Accelerated like this.
Aspects:- High Concept: Must have mention the word 'arisen'- Trouble: Must mention the word 'memory'- Must have one Aspect that mentions the purpose for which they have arisen.
I'm not sure at the moment how i'd handle something like the gradual decrease of power, but i'm pretty sure that, given enough though, the Fate system could handle it; if anyone out there has any suggestions please feel free to add them in the comments section.
Near the start of the year I ran a God Machine Chronicle using the Fate Accelerated rules and that seemed to work really well, although the player characters were only mortals in that game, the GMC game was a tester for when the "Demon: the Descent" game is released (probably in 2014); I think that when this is released, rather than attempt to mirror the rules i'm going to create some demonic powers/Stunts that are thematically similar to the ones listed in the book and then just lift the background from it. I'm also really looking forward to the Dresden Accelerated that is going to released in 2014 (further details here - http://www.evilhat.com/home/fate-core-dresden-files-accelerated/), but until that comes out there's a lot of potential ideas for supernatural powers as Stunts in the existing DFRPG that can be tapped and the Fate Toolkit offers a lot of advice on making different types of Stunts.
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