Fate Core : Campaign Write Up (Also please help with any of my questions)

[Earthwalker]

The first minor milestone reached. I decided at this stage that I would craft each adventure (as much as I am crafting things, I mean the players seem to provide most of the plot) with the aspects of each character.

The next section will deal with Dusty and his “I must prove I am better than academia” aspect.
I am taking this break to make some observations and ask some questions.

First what are good examples of conceding in combat?
What losses have your players taken in the past ?I was very poor at thinking what could happen to Raquel in the last section.

I think I am getting 3 or 4 sessions between milestones does this seem right ?

If I have done anything completely wrong or if you have any suggestions on how to improve things please let me know.


Oddly one more thing came up recently. I don’t have a question but just a comment. It was not until I was involved in a conversation with Raquel’s player about a roll she failed and really wanted to make. I think it was part of the negotiation with Drewcifer.
I asked why she failed that roll if she wanted to make it so much.
“Because I was out of fate points”.
I had to point out again the four possible outcomes on a roll.

You win and get what you want
You tie and get what you want with a minor complication.
You fail and don’t get what you want (and most likely a complication)
You fail the roll but decide to succeed with a serious complication.

It seemed that until the conversation (which was about this point in the story) the players had not picked up on this.

[NotDusty]

Tis an awesome campaign :D Looking forward to the next one! :)

[Earthwalker]

So Raquel had found more of her kind and the crew had a three more renegade replicants on board.

Spoiler: GM Note

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We had closed off a story arc for Raquel so I decided we should maybe work on a story arc for each of the characters. Let them drive the main plot and see what complications the other character throw into the situation.
Next up was Dusty. We talked some between the sessions to work out what he wanted to explore and we fixed on his attitude to acedias (Aspect : I must prove myself better than academia.
I can up with a few ideas as well as tried to tie in the rest of the crew

Dusty is disturbed from his task of improving the cargo doors of the Space raptor by the chirp of his PDA. He scans through the email, as a former alumni of the University of Lacor he is invited to participate in the Davies awards. He doesn’t get much time to consider this before Raquel interrupts him and starts asking for help with the girls. She needs an expert on replicant brain functions, she asks if Dusty knows anyone.

(One contacts roll later)

Yeah Dusty knows his own professor from back in the day. Professor “Monty” Montgomery a professor of psychology and replicant design.

At this stage Nova comes in and ask how the ship improvements are going, she has tasked Dusty with improving the cargo bay doors they are opening way too slowly. After showing some specs of what he had plans he has to announce he does need another part. He has already sourced a new one but the ship needs to pick it up from a scrap yard on new England. Hearing this Nova heads off to the cockpit to set a course for new England. She says “Good work Wallet” before heading away.

Spoiler: GM Note

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Dusty has the best resource skill and seems to have become the go to guy at finding things (his aspects back this up) so it appears he has a new name. Wallet. I have to say it made me laugh when nova just called him that.
We started this session and I wanted something for Dusty to do so I threw out a couple of things, the Award and the need for spare parts (both linked to Dusty’s aspects. We went with the spare part first. I had the idea for the next scene a negotiation for the part. Of course it didn’t go as I planned.
Read on dead reader

Dorris 3.2 aka New England

BritCorp, fallen empire
It’s all turning to scrap

The Space Raptor flies down to the planet and over a huge scrap yard, old spaceship hulls lay rusting on the ground. Piles of junk of every conceivable type are stacked in rows. Presumably someone knows what is wear. A small portable office has a few working ships parked in front of it.

The Raptor touches down. As she is landing the ship Nova notices a couple of Ravanger ships also parked in the lot. She makes sure she keeps out of sight of the Ravenger ships when she parks and makes a mental note to look into that later.

The trio head out of the ship and towards the part of the scrap yard where Dusty’s contact is waiting to make a deal. They get to an area that is fenced off. Unable to resist looking at the fence Dusty gives it a quick scan and is shocked by the amount of power flowing through the thing.
Before Dusty gets a chance to examine the fence further the group notice they are being followed a gentleman in a black suit is following them and doing a reasonable job of not being seen. Of course he does look completely out of place in the scrap yard wearing a black suit and not say overalls. For the time being the group just try to keep an eye on this odd fellow.

They come to a gate in the fence and push an intercom button. Instead of a voice at the other end a door opens on a shed inside the fence and a middle aged cyborg walks out. Dressed in greasy overalls and sporting a cyber arm and two replacement legs. He is headed towards the gate and carrying a shotgun.

(I put out the card)
Jamie “Jock” Duggan
More machine than man.
Both barrels every time

Jock looks over the crew and a spark of recognition shows in his eyes as he sees Dusty.

“Dusty mate, god to see you. I never did get a proper chance to thank you for them phase coils, blood good deal that. Only slight damage where they fell of the back of a spaceship, Come in and get a drink”

With that he waves his hand the gate starts to open. He checks the outside of his compound before closing the gate.

(I call for a group empathy, after hitting the target number I add “there out there somewhere” onto Jocks card)

The negotiation with Jock is brief and Dusty manages to buy the part he needs. Jock leaves him to go and find it among the junk inside the compound. The crew walk around inside the compound, Dusty also manages to take one of the power generators for the fence. Its small and produces an incredible amount of power.

(I do warn him it will leave a section of the fence without power, he is ok with that as its new technology. He gets a fate point for the trouble.)

Spoiler: GM Note

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I have plans here. There are people wanting to be in Jocks secret stash. That’s why the crew were watched. They could have found out more but bad dice rolls on capturing their watcher as well as ignoring certain aspects meant this played out a bit dull. Fortunately things are going to blow up soon

Back at the ship it looks like the Ravengers have noticed the Space Raptor and have got a couple Ravengaers watching out for the crews return. Fortunately the crew are too good for them and spot the watchers easily and hide nearby coming up with a plan

(Nova also gets a fate point “I’ll get you Astrid (the top ravenger)”)

Raquel “We need a distraction, then we can sneak onto our ship and fly away”
Nova “Perfect I will sneak onto one of the Ravanger ships, take off, hover over the other ravenger ship and hit the emergency eject. Once I am out the ship should fall and destroy both ships”.
Raquel and Dusty stare at her a while trying to work out if she is being serious.
Nova “What you said you wanted destruction…”
Dusty “well we said… erm well… oh never mind”.

Plan Nova was put into effect.

Raquel and Dusty both made distractions and Nova snuck up to the ravenger ship. A quick burglary roll later she is inside.

Quickly she scouts the ship and finds her old associate Jean Du Lac sleeping at the helm of the bridge. She grabs a length of pipe from the side of the wall and takes a couple of good whacks at Jean, soon he is down and begging to be spared.

Having Jean helped her plan, she got him to log into the ships computer and then programmed the auto pilot to take off, hover over the other pirate ship and cut engines. Once programmed she headed out of the ship with Jean Du Lac. She got him to stand his men down and then walked to the Space Raptor. Timing was important and nova got it perfect. The Space Raptor took off and flew away from the park just as the explosion from the crashing ships kicked in.

Just as the Space Raptor is about to head into Orbit they hear a familiar voice over comms.
Jock says over the comms “Mayday mayday, they got inside the perimeter….” Then the call is cut off by a gun shot.

[Earthwalker]

The Space Raptor returned to New England and lands near Jocks part of the scrap yard. The crew sneak up to overlook the buildings. They spot a couple of armed guards wereing prometheus initiative uniforms. (The crews first adventure featured these guys). Dusty runs a scan of the building and gets an idea what is happening inside the building, there are 5 people inside. One is clearly Jock the others are unknown. (I give the scene an aspect – Scanned ahead, Dusty has a free invoke on this)
Nova looks over the camp and notices a small hatch way in the back of Jocks shed that seems to be a secret entrance.(again I add the aspect ssecret entrance onto the map and give Nova a free invoke)

Spoiler: GM Note

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Now playing some games (I am looking at you shadowrun) this might start a massive planning session, not that I mind that in some games. In Fate not so much. The group decided they would sneak into the base take out the two guys outside quietly and then deal with the people inside.

The group stealthed into the compond easily (Well they did after Dusty invoked his scanned ahead to beat the notice roll I made) then quickly Requel and Nova subdued the guards outside the shed. (I handled this as a simple over come task on fight as these were namless goons)
Next the group burst into the shed, inside were Jock and a young girl (about 15) who were tied to chairs. Questioning them was a big man in a business suit flanked by two guards. Once the group was in Requeal told the goons to freeze. I call for an intimidate roll (Seems like intimidate isn’t one of team Raptors strong suits) the roll was a stunning failiure. As it was a stunning failure I gave the goons and Mr Suit an aspect of “These guys are just chumps” with a free invoke.

This added to what was on in the shed.
Secret Passage
Scrap everywhere
Over crowded.

It was fight time. Thanks to a stunt Nova can use shoot as notice for turn order as long as shooting is involved. Just adding that detail beucase just after the goons started to think this was going to be an easy fight, before they even got their guns pointed at the crew Nova droped one with a gut wound. (the goon even used the invoke on “these guys are chumps” for a re-roll but still was given a serious concequence) Raquel moved in and started throwing punches at the guy in the suit. He seemed even easier to hit than the guards and started taking some stress.

I did think Dusty might do something with the scrap everywhere but instead just went for the simple idea of firing his shotgun at the remaining guard. Again giving the guard some stress as he dived clear of the blast.

Mr Suit tried to encourage his guard. Hoping in someway to help. Well when I say encouragment it was more along the lines of telling the guard to stop the woman that was hitting him, and also make it clear his job was on the line. The last guard who was now “Highly motivated” shot at Raquel. With a free invoke on “Highly motivated” as well as a fate point on “trained guard” he did manage to get a good hit on Raquel. Raquel in turn dodge out of the way, she was quick being “A Rogue replicant” and had plenty to doge behind there was “Scrap everywhere”. Raquel picked up some stress but was still in the fight.
Nova shot the last guard and got a very good hit on him he too fell to the floor nursing a broken arm and not wanting to fight any more. As soon as his guards were down Mr Suit conceeded the fight. He would explain why he was there as long as the crew let him and his men leave. The crew agreed to this.

Spoiler: GM Note

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I am still getting used to the fights. Conceeding is a nice thing tho I am still working on that as well. This was a fairly simple little barney and I am sure as time goes on I will get a few things going wrong.

Once the fight was over the crew told the suit to spill the beans. He was working for Prometheus and was hired to investigate and if possible capture Rat. Rat being the young girl that was tied to the chair. The suit had no idea why prometheus wanted Rat but it was something to do with the stones he was carrying. The suit showed the group 5 blue and red stones. Similar to ones Nova had previously stolen.
Of course on seeing the stones Nova decided that she should keep them safe and stolen yet more of them. The rest of the crew didn’t feel like an argument. (Nova is an expert at her aspect – See, Want, Take)

Once the crew had finished questioning the suit they sent him on his way. (after taking anything of value he seemed to have).

Next they went on to question Jock and Rat. Rat seemed nervous with all the people talking to her but Raquel managed to calm her down. Jock seemed hurt and had damage his cyberarm and leg. Dusty got to work healing Jock and also trying to repair his systems. When Rat noticed she also helped fix Jock. Rat seemed to be some kind of technopath, all she needed to do was touch and talk to the machines and they began to repair.

Dusty of course had to know how she did it. As soon as he noticed this he got out one of his scanners and began collecting data. Rats ability seemed to be almost magical. Dusty was having trouble working out just how she was doing it. Once Rat noticed the scanner she grabbed it from Dusty
“Interesting” she said “Its not got very good range tho” she begand playing with the back of the scanner and twisting around the sensor. When she handed it back to Dusty the thng had a range of 5km.

For once Dusty was speechless.

(At this stage Requels player annouced that she knew how Rat was doing it. Rat was an alien. I was then handed a fate point. I had not been planing this but it seemed good to me. I took the fate point and ran with it)

Dusty’s scans confirmed that Rat looked human but was indeed something else….

(I am going to end this here for now. The crew asked more questions but Jock and Rat had no answers for them. Rat only remembered being in the junk yard and Jock finding her and keeping her safe. She didn’t know where she came from. Jock wondered how the bad guys got into his junk yard the fence must have been hacked somehow. Dusty helped repair the damage (that he did earlier). Finally I was now going to have to work out how I was going to fit aliens into the world. So much fun to be had)

[MadGrady]

I have to say, I usually do not read these text heavy posts, but this was something I read through in one sitting. Very enjoyable, and well done on your story so far. My group just tried out fate for the first time 2 weeks ago and loved it, and this thread is also helping me (i'm DMing) gain some insights into how I want to run things.

Very very nice job

[Earthwalker]

I have to say, I usually do not read these text heavy posts, but this was something I read through in one sitting. Very enjoyable, and well done on your story so far. My group just tried out fate for the first time 2 weeks ago and loved it, and this thread is also helping me (i'm DMing) gain some insights into how I want to run things.

Very very nice job

Thank you very much MadGrady.

It has prodded me to get into action and start writing this up again, Fate is a really fun system and works really well with my group.
If you do have questions about Fate I have found these boards very helpful.

[Novawaffles]

Don't mind me. Just checking in. :)

[NotDusty]

==Next time on Fate Core==

As the party gathers together Dusty cashes in on the party's monetary debt to him, selling their equipment and items as collateral.
Will the party hit him with pipes until he changes his mind?
Will they leak embarrassing secrets to his friends in low places?

*suspense*

[Earthwalker]

Well I think its time to pick this up again. We have been playng I just have not been writing up the notes. When we last left the Brave Crew of the Space Raptor they had just saved the lies of Jock and Rat and discovered that Rat was an alien…

This cuased a major re-think of some of my plans. For now I had some ideas of what aspects to hit on Dusty’s character sheet. We have introduced Jock and Rat thanks to his “friends in low places”. Time to start firing on “I don’t need acedimia”.

As the Space Raptor leaves New Englands Orbit the comm terminal beeps and there is an email waiting for Dusty. an invitation to the annual Davies Awards held at his alma mater, the university of Dorris. Dusty talks it over with the crew, the university is a good place to find out more about possible aliens, Dusty knows a guy that might be able to provide some insight as to what Rat is. (Contacts 2) It will also give Dusty a chance to see what the rest of the scientific community is working on.

<GM notes I was wanting to push on Dusty’s aspects with his university past also get the group looking at the central core planets of the Dorris system>

Nova informs the crew that traveling to the centre of the system will mean messing with the military. The space between Dorris 1 and Dorris 3 is patrolled and ships need permits to fly this space.

<GM note this sparked a conversation with the players as to what to do and how to deal with the situation, it is also one reason why I love fate. Possible Options.
Buy some fake permits from a dodgy source (Resources)
Just try to sneak in and avoid patrols (Flight and/or Stealth)
Forge some permits (Education and/or Burglary)
Just fly into the space and bluff their way through (deceieve)
They make their choice>

Dusty tells them he has got this and makes a few calls. A resources roll later he has permits to be in the central core system and the Raptor is away.
We cut to the Raptor touching down and docking at the space station next to the U-Dor campus.

Dorris-2
Planet of the Central Core
Everyone is in a ruch to get nowhere
They are watching.

This is a lot different to the small hick planets the crew has visited in the past. Here the feds are watching, cameras are every where. People seem to be in a rush to get places and all the corporations have some offices within the city.

U-Dor Campus
Knowledge is power
The brightest prosper.

The campus itself is massive covering a large section of the city. The crew head over to one of the main buildings in hopes with meeting Dusty’s contact. Profess Huggins.

<GM note I hand Dusty a card and ask him to fill in a few details about professor Huggins. May as well let Dusty describe this contact that will hopfully help explain the odd alien the group ha found I get back>

Professor of Acheology <GM note ok I was thinking biology>
“just a normal professor” <GM note I like the use of “ there>

As the crew approach the building they see a group of protesters. A small crowd of about 10 people are waving banners and shouting anti technology rants.

<GM note now I had been talking a while. Something that always worries me as GM. I described the ship landing. The look of the city the feel of the campus. I felt it was about time I did something or rather I let the players do something. So I added this little scene in to compel Dusty, lets hit on his genius engineer aspect. Of course I didn’t get a chance>

Straight away Dusty ears pick up… How dare these scruffy hippies complain about technology. Dusty was going to do something about this… <Dusty gets a fate chip> Dusty filled with self importance addresses the crowd, wanting to explain to them how technology was a good thing. How these scruffy hippies should be gratful how much better their lives are.

<Ok Rapport 2 check, rolls dice. Results -3. Ok a failure>

Dusty explains to these peace loving hippies how greate technology is, he talks of might machines of war or how it helps the government monitor their every move. To his surprise this does not play well with the Hippies. Eggs are thrown and Dusty and crew hide inside the building.

The plan was to convince the hippies to move on. Looks like they are now here to stay. In fact a few more have joined their number. When the press turn up looking into the egg throwing event Raquel decides its time for the group to move on.

<I add the aspect – Anti Technology protest. On to the U-Dor campus card.>


Ok that’s it for this update.
Next update we move onto the Davis Award and also talk to Professor Huggins.