Fading Suns using dicepool is stupid - mod time!

There are some people behind Fading Suns who created some White Wolf products. And you can see the effect.

The basic system I like. To do a task add Attribute and Skill together and roll under with d20. The higher the result is more Victory Points you get. Victory Points determine how well you succeeded. Roll exactly the same and double the Victory Points. Simple.

But damage is tricky one. Add weapon damage to Victory Points. That is your dicepool of d20s. Every d20 over result 13 is one point of damage. That is stupid!

I haven't tested this at all but this could be how it works also:

The dicepool of damage would be the target number to roll with d20. The amount of the damage is equal to d20 result.

So for example if weapon damage is 4 and you get 4 victory points from to hit roll you have to roll 1-8 to deal that amount of damage. If the result is 9-20 you:

• Don't inflict any damage
• You only deal 1 point of damage
• You only deal damage equal to to hit Victory Points (or weapon damage which is lower)

(The above needs testing.)

If you roll exactly the same result as weapon damage + Victory Points you get +2 damage as a very successful hit.

Started Mass Effect the second time and wrote scifi rpg in my sleep

Picture from Bioware website

Yesterday I started playing Mass Effect with PC again. I had started it earlier but didn't like PC gaming. Now I got gaming room with a nice armchair to sit when using PC so PC gaming is much more enjoyable.

Don't know yet how good Mass Effect plot is but I like the system how it works.

After playing Mass Effect I moved into bed and watched some movie before fell asleep. And in my dream I wrote scifi rpg! Here are some ideas I got from my dream:

- Game is based on LotFP rules (races as class, ascending AC, encumbrance system etc. etc.)
- It had a silly name: Oddities of the Darkest Space - Weird science fiction
- There are power shields what protect any damage in shields range. So if shield's range is 2-5 all damage results between 2-5 are nullified. Shields have charges how many times they can nullify damage before recharging it (Fading Suns style)
- To hit and Damage is D20 + AB + weapon damage solid + d against armor class. The amount of damage is the difference of AC and To hit roll (I think base AC should be higher than 12... maybe 15 or something).
- Weapon clip is empty when you roll weapon damage d equal to "empty" score. For example if weapon's damage die is d6 and "empty" is 1-2 you roll that damage result you need to reload
- Magic is replaced with psi-powers modified magic rules

Those above are the rules I was writing in my dream. It's a mix of LotFP, Fading Suns and Dungeonslayers I see.

Naming characters

For me naming characters is easy when I have time to put thought behind it. But sometimes when I have to come up with names quickly for npcs it can be harder. Sometimes using name generators is not possible or it feels just lame option after you have clicked dozen times and you haven't got any name that you want to use.

Problem with name generators:
It takes time to find a suitable name.

Then I start to look around. Author of the book scrambled or altered is a good option. Or taking a product name to use or alter slightly. One Vampire: the Masquerade sheriff's surname was Crusti. Crusti is a brand of chips, but it sounded like dramatic old European vampire name, and still does. One motorbike driving gang leader Brujah was Heller inspired by Hell's Angels. Heller is actual surname I found out later so it was good and suited him.

There are dozens of names for npcs I have created from different real person names and product names this way.

But name can be also from items or other things. For example Straw McCloud can be a Fading Suns Charioteer pilot (I have a straw next to me and it's been more cloudy than clear summer).

Few examples I do right now using my surroundings.

- Toby Diskos (Tobacco and Diskos sports club pennant)

- Ash Tray (that's lame and obvious but could work)

- Rod Ernest Orwell (Rodeo energy drink)

- Toby Yellow (Yellow table)

- Orlando Trax (X-Tra Orange Cakes)

- Evira Glass (Evira company sticker and glass bottle)

It is easier to create more fantasy type names than realistic names this way. These names could work with scifi or fantasy setting better than modern world. Fantasy names are easier to generate. Just scrabble a lot.

In comments you generate names using these methods!

A-Z A for Adventuring in my games

For some reason only games I have ran adventures are fantasy games. Fantasy games I mean games like Praedor (Finnish low-fantasy rpg based on graphic novels), Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition, Blue Rose, Lamentations of the Flame Princess and Fading Suns (even though Fading Suns is science fiction I see it more fantasy than sci-fi). Other games I have ran are more character, location or politics of the place oriented. I haven't hand adventuring in Vampire: the Masquerade or Call of Cthulhu for example.

In my Vampire games focus is in city and how character fits in or what character does in there. It is not like adventuring but more like life in there. Also Call of Cthulhu games have been revolving around how character is affected by the situation rather than character following a path of an adventure.

In fantasy rpgs (like those I mentioned in the beginning) it's been somehow easier and more natural to run an adventure. There's a beginning and a end and things in between and character follows it. It doesn't matter that much what kind of character is as similar adventure would have been with different characters. Of course some parts of the adventure might differ depending on character's actions and even the outcome of adventure might vary based on that. But for fantasy type of games I usually make an adventure. Something where it begins and what should have accomplished in a way or another for adventure to end. Other games are more freeform for me. There is this overall situation where character is put and while playing we see what happens to the character.

Difference is, that in fantasy games character is put in the adventure and we see how character deals with it and what he does before it ends and how his actions affect the ending.
In other games there is a situation, starting point, we put character there and see how character affects the surroundings and how surroundings affect the character.

Frelling in Fading Suns

I am currently editing and blogging my Fading Suns campaign's game sessions to my campaigns blog (you can find it here in Finnish, but google translate can give you a hint what's going on). When saving sessions to blog I found that we use a lot of word "frell" when playing characters. Some of you know that frell is word from tv series Farscape and it is basically an space equivalent for F-bomb.

Usually characters in my games don't curse that much if it doesn't suit for character or NPC concept. People speak quite strictly in that manner. But in Farscape word frell was used quite frequently and I think it suits it. Everyone knows what it means and how it is used, but somehow it doesn't sound as vulgar as dropping F-bombs. I also like Farscape a lot and maybe got an idea from here and there to my campaign. Actually, after watching four seasons of Farscape I got urge to play Fading Suns.

So, we took word frell from Farscape and made it into Fading Suns lexacon, and now we had people frelling!

"What the frell was that?"
"Let's get the frell out of here!"
"This frelling machine doesn't work."

It sounds scifi and for some reason gives more depth in situations of distress or frustration. And it's fun and safe to use. Even though frell is just another science fiction space word for f*** it is not that bad.

http://farscape.wikia.com/wiki/Frell

Also another word we used was "dren", what is equivalent for s**t. Not as much as frell, but some times. When reading campaign session save games, using both of these words every now and then in a situation you would say f**k or s**t but instead characters say frell or dren, it gives a nice extra touch for the game. There have popped also few other words, but not often enough to mention.

http://farscape.wikia.com/wiki/Dren

A-Z: F for Fading Suns, my science fiction favorite

Here are few reasons, why Fading Suns is one of my favorite science fiction roleplaying games.

Rules Are Good
If I have understood right, some guys behind Fading Suns have been working with White Wolf before (Mage, maybe Changeling too, but most definitely mage...) And you can see something from oWoD in rules.
Basically, you add attribute with skill to get target number, similarly like in oWoD. Difference is, that range in Fading Suns is 1-10 instead of oWoD's 1-5. In oWoD, you roll numbers equal to your attribute called dice pool (roll dice and all results that meet target number are considered a success) when in Fading Suns you try to roll below the target number with D20 to success.
But there's a trick. Even though you try to roll below, higher number is still better. There is Victory Chart, where higher number gives more "successes" than lower. For example:
If your character's target number is 13, and you roll 4, you do success but get less Victory Points than rolling for example a 10. Really cool system, but basically you have to refer every roll to Victory Chart (included in character sheet).

One problem there is though, damage is rolled as dice pool (Victory Points + weapon damage = dice rolled against target number of 13). This might be a bit confusing, because system is different for different kinds of things. Also, dice pool is rolled using D20, what is a lot of uncontrollably rumbling dice on the table.

Even though I like the system, it works smooth, I think that it could be a bit smoother. Still, I haven't have problems using it, so it's good enough.

World Is Really Interesting
I like the background story of the game. Basically, it's year 4996 (notice, that the game was published in 1996) humanity has reached the stars and had it's glory in advance, but then it descended back into middle ages and now world is mix-up with middle ages, priesthood, laser weapons and space technology. Cool isn't it.
There are so many possibilities for adventures. You can run basically anything between middle age fantasy to space opera.
Also, there are aliens, but not too many of them. Few basic alien races, one mysterious and one hostile (not sure if there are more in source books, but this is enough for me as you can design mutants, human-animal hybrids and animal aliens still being loyal to setting).

Good Experiences Of Play
When I got this game, my gaming group was not very interested in it (fantasy-heads). Had few test runs I guess, but cannot remember any details. I only have had two Fading Suns campaigns, but both of them were over 100 game sessions (last over 150!) So, even though I have had basically only two campaigns, they were really long and rich in incidents (I have to look back those with my player, and write about them later). I don't lie much, but those two campaigns were easily worth of double the campaigns. This game for me and my player is the one, that when you pop you cannot stop. Once Fading Suns starts, you don't dare to stop.

Newer Editions?
I know, there are newer editions than my ancient first edition, but frankly, I am not interested in them. I like my first edition, it works fine. I don't want to read my game once again with a bit different twist, because this is what I am used to (same with oWoD to nWoD, or for OSR players 4th edition... I guess) play. I could want some source books though, just for additional ideas (this far I have used my Agent Valerian encyclopedia, Farscape and other science fiction for inspiration). Oh, and an extra copy of Fading Suns 1st edition core rules book would be nice, my print looks like it's been in a barbarian war of space.

Fading Suns - 50th session

Today we started our 50th session in Fading Suns campaign Lost in space. We played our first session of this campaign in February 25. So this far game has lasted around 3 months.

Sessions haven't been that long, one or two to six hours depending on weekday. But we have played around 4-5 times per week, sometimes less, sometimes more.

Many strange and adventurous things have happened. They have met space pirates, little spy Sha-Tzuu who accompanied them, hunted goatsucking monster, were kidnapped to harem... There has been adventures, talking, drama, partying.

I can't tell how many times we have used dice in this campaign. Many sessions we didn't use rules or dice at all, just told the story. Some sessions we did roll dice just for fun. In this campaign there hasn't been that many fights. Main character maybe has fired her laser gun without emptying a clip yet. But shooting stuff isn't the point here. But the story.

Fading Suns is a science fiction game with rich game world, but I liked to add this another world to invent my own star system with it's unique encounters and planets. I used Valérian and Laurine comics as inspiration for new races and planets and it has been working fine.

Story started when main character encountered Sarwen and got into his crew in a space ship. Sarwen and the ships crew were in hurry to take off from the planet. Main character Chiasm wasn't sure, what was going on, but soldiers were after them. They did hasty jump through jumpgate and got lost. When they checked out where they had gotten themselves into, got into trouble and decided that it's time to get back to home the jumpgate wasn't there anymore. They were totally lost in alien star system and the adventure begun.

At this point the campaign is reaching it's end. Somehow I feel a bit sad. When campaign is fun, it's not easy to end it. Still, the end will be when they finally find their way back home.

50 sessions with great game Fading Suns, with fun story and great adventure.

[Rules] Fading Suns and Storytelling similarities

First, I have to mention that designers of Fading Suns Bill Bridges and Andrew Greenberg have been involved in World of Darkness (hit me if I am wrong, but Mage: the Ascension and Werewolf: the Apocalypse) and I can see that in Fading Suns.
Long before I knew this background of those developers, I had always that picture, that somehow Fading Suns was similar to WoD. Well, now it is explained to me and is quite clear why so.

Fading Suns and old World of Darkness are different game system, and ofcourse different, but there is some similarities I point out now.

Attribute + Skill

Basic mechnics to resolve what characters ability to success is quite the same. In both games you add your attribute rating to your skill rating. So, if you shoot, in Vampire: the Masquerade you add your Dexterity to your Firarms. In Fading Suns you add Dexterity to your Shoot.
Difference is, that in Vampire (oWoD) usually Attributes and skills range from 1 to 5, when in Fading Suns range is 1 - 10. So, in Vampire Skill + Attribute varies from two to ten, when in Fading suns it varies from two to twenty.
But still, (usually) both work with Attribute + Skill.

Dice

In World of Darkness you use D10, but in Fading Suns you use D20. But if you think about it, it makes perfect sense and the basics is still very close. As in WoD Skill + Attribute range from 1 - 10 and in Fading suns from 2 - 20, it is not hard to see the dice. WoD highest score is 10 so the used die is D10. In Fading Suns highest score is 20 so you use D20. Makes perfect logic this far, doesn't it?

Dice pool versus Victory chart
Here comes the tricky part, but you can see, it is basically the same whether you throw bunch of dice or just one die. See, in WoD amount of dice you roll is equal to your Skill + Attribute. And (usually in normal tasks) every D10 result over 6 is one success. So, if you're Dexterity + Shoot is 7, you roll total of 7 D10's and every D10 what results 6+ is a success. So, you roll for example:
3, 6, 7, 3, 2, 9 what equals to 3 successes. Not bad!
In Fading Suns, you roll only one D20. But, you have a Victory Chart to refer. You try to get below your Attribute + Skill score to success. The nearer you get to your Att + Skl the more you gain Victory points equals successes. So, with one die roll referring to Victory Chart, you can see how many successes your character got.

Basically those are similar, even if die is different and other uses chart to reference successes and other dices.

Multiple Successes
In Dicepool system you easily see how many successes you got. Some of dice you threw are successes, some of them aren't. In Fading Suns you first check did you success (score below than your Attribute + Skill) and then refer to Victory chart with the score you got. You see how many successes your character got.

In both game number of successes tells you how well your character did. Only one success means you made it just and just, but 5 successes tells you did a great job.

Autofail and Botch
When you just don't fail, but really screw things up it's different in both games. In oWoD system if you score 1's more than you success, you fail no matter what. But if you get even one 1 but no successess at all, you botch. Something terrible happens when you fail.
In Fading Suns when you score 20 with a die, you botch. It has nothing to do with character's abilities. So, it doesn't matter are you a peasant with little battle training or lord of the lazer swords, you fail every 20th time. And in Fading Suns result 19 is always autofail.

That is the biggest difference between World of Darkness' Storytelling rules and Fading Suns 1th edition. But I think you all can see the similarities in both. Even if one uses tons of dice for a resolution and other uses one die and a chart, I think their function is basically the same.

And did I tell you how you throw damage on both of the games? Well, here is similarities more than before:

Damage
In Storytelling system you throw D10 equal to your damage rating (successes + weapons damage). Every die result over 6 is one point of damage. In Fading suns you throw D20 equal to your damage rating (victory successes + weapons damage). Every die result over 13 is one point of damage.

See, that's like 1-on-1.

Watching Farscape, running Fading Suns

I am a proud owner of Fading Suns 1st edition. I remember my friend got that game long time ago but didn't like it that much, so I got it from him. Never actually played it before 2000-ish when I and my girlfriend started it. And I have to say, the game is lots of fun and the campaign was awesome. We still talk about it.

So, as previous post told, AFMBE didn't work out. So, checking out my rpg shelf and lately watching lots of Farscape, we decided to give Fading Suns another shot.

Just created character, and have played it for 15 minutes or so, so cannot tell much about the campaign yet. Still, expectations are high for this one.

I know, that running Fading Suns is told to be a bit complicated. The world and setting are quite rich of detail and a bit complicated in some decree. Still, I decided to approach game with more adventure and episode style play, so campaign set in same location shouldn't be a problem. And hey, I am watching Farscape big time, so there should be lots of inspiration! Inspiration worth of 4 seasons.

I have always thought Fading Suns settings to be somehow a bit like Star Wars. There is different planets with different societies and tech levels. But somehow, I think Farscape could suit that concept a bit better. Or what do you think? Only drawback for Fading Suns is lack of races. There is basically five of them. Human (divided to different orders, houses and guilds), Ur-Ukar and Ur-Obun, Vorex and barbarians. When watching many scifi-series from TV there is always countless numbers of different races. I could easily add my own races to Fading Suns, but I like to play game as it is "ment" to play. Still, there is genetic engineering and symbiots, what can add countless new races. Well, symbiots are bad guys, but genetically manipulated could come in any form and aren't necessary hostile. So, even if there is not many races presented in core rulebook, there is ways to hack many different races into game without breaking it.

Fading Suns rules have been criticized also but I find them ok. Basically you add charasteristic (strength, dexterity etc.) to skill and roll D20 to score below for a success. Victory chart adds a little twist. The more you roll under, the better the result is. And I think critical success is brilliant. If you roll same number as your charasteristic + skill you double the victory chart's result. So, better you are, better critical you can get. Roll 20 is natural botch.
Energy shields are also cool. They have value what damage they can absord. If damage is too low, it doesn't trigger on, and if damage is too high it cannot absord it anymore. For example basic energy shield has value 5-10 what means, it can absord damage between 5-10 but doesn't turn on on damage below 5 or cannot absord higher damage than 10. They also have "hits", what means how many times they can trigger on before their battery is used. I find energy rules quite fun and cool.
There is also "magic powers" so to speak. Divine miracles from religion and psychic powers. I have to admit, it's been quite long time last time I have read the book, so cannot remember those that well. Basically you try to balance with your light and dark side when committing them. Luckily, that is not important information to read at this moment, as those occult powers aren't available for player character.

There is much more in Fading Suns. I don't remember it all, so I must read the book again asap to refresh my memory. I don't care about other's opinions, but in my opinion Fading Suns is cool. One of the best rpg's out there. Propably even in top 5 (if WoD games go into one general position).

Related links (Fading Suns generally from newer editions):

Fading Suns @ wikipedia
Fadingsuns.org
Farscape official site
Farscape wikia
RPG.net reviews listing

Too much great rpg's

I have nice Vampire: the Masquerade chronicle running (blogging it in finnish), yet my game shelf is full of interesting products calling my name. Reading them is fun, but trying them out would be more fun. Unfortunately there is not enough time to learn them properly, and even less time to run them. As I have this V:tM chronicle going on, I wouldn't want to put it on pause to try something else. There is always a risk, that game gets stuck where it is last left for some time.

If I am so darn busy, how can I storytell Vampire then? Reason is simple, game is familiar, I know the rules and setting already. It is easy to just grab and start playing right away!

Games, what I own and I would really like to give a shot, are:

- All Flesh Must Be Eaten. I know I did plan running BBQ from hell, but it never quite worked out. Thanks to learning rules and writing a campaing. I just didn't have enough time for that at the time. AFMBE would be nice for one-two-shots though, as there is survival and if character dies, it is because of the genre. Usually I don't prefer characters dying in the middle of story, but in the case of AMFBE it wouldn't matter that much. Zombies won!

- Star Wars SAGA. D20 is not exactly my game, but still this game feels good. I have read it from here and there, skipping pages, but hey, it's Star Wars and it is asking to great adventures, drama and action. And somehow I got a feeling that D20 suits it quite well! Not sure does D20 win D6 system, but I'd give D20 a shot in this case. If I'd run SW Saga, character should be a jedi. What's the point running short adventure of SW if you play some pilot, or rebel scout? None! You can play those character archtypes in any scifi rpg out there, but playing a jedi? That is what SW Saga is for.

- Unknown Armies. I like horror, alot. Somehow though even if I love Kult's setting, the rules don't tickle me from right places. UA could be answer to that. I also have heard that it is a good game, with good rules, and setting is also grim and good. Haven't read it actually much, so cannot say much about it. Still I am curious towards it.

- Call of Cthulhu. Hey, everyone loves CoC, right? What would be better for horror-mystery game than CoC? Yes, I know, nothing. CoC is a legend in roleplaying games. It is old, but still kickin'. Agatha Christie meets monsters from the deep... priceless.

- Savage Worlds. This one I have heard alot of good also. I also got free download of demo rules (Test Drive version 6), and it seems cool game. Fast, simple rules, not much accounting. Flaw is that it runs better with miniatures what I don't prefer much. And this test drive rules is cool. It pretty well shows what game is about and it looks neat too. Unfortunately there is no setting or world to play with, but I've found nice Aliens versus Preadator stats for it, what would be cool to try out. I was thinking about gettind Deadlands Reloaded, but it is quite expensive for now.

- Werewolf: the Apocalypse. Yeah, started playing Werewolf: the Forsaken and it was cool. Unfortunately game basically died because of my lack of knowing rules and world properly. And there is something in nWoD I don't quite like. Not sure what it is. Even if I have heard that Forsaken is Better than Apocalypse, I think for me Apocalypse is more fun to read and run. I was fortunate to get Apocalypse by luck some time ago, but haven't had time to read it yet. But it would most definately be a game I would run immediately, if I knew it well enough. nWoD might be better than oWoD, but oWoD has magik!

- Violence RPG. I am not sure is it ment to be just a joke, or can you actually play it. It is fun to read, even if sometimes it just get's too harsh on text. Rules are fun to read, because writer gives the picture he is inventing rules same time he is writing the game. And the rules... pffft, they are a bit complicated. Still, I'd give it a shot, just for fun. Not sure though, will I ever.

- Fading Suns. Love the setting, rules are ok. Have so good memories of campaing what was a diamond. That is a great game. Still, not sure if I will play it any time soon. Too much things to do, and still, I have those good memories of it.