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Welcome to Adventures in Ooo, wherein we have adventures. In Ooo. It's one of those self-explanatory names, really.
This tabletop campaign is going to be run in Fate Accelerated. I'm making this as a sort-of quick-start guide to the game and its concepts, enough to at least familiarize yourself with it enough to make a character.
You can download the full PDF rulebook here!
Fate Accelerated is meant to be a very easy system to get into, so this will hopefully be quick!
TERMS
"Fate Points" are a stat used in the game to represent your (and your character's) ability to do great things. In game, you use them to invoke something for a +2 bonus to your roll or a reroll - don't underestimate their usefulness.
"Aspects" are basically very short phrases used to describe something, most often your character. When you take all of a character's aspects together, you should be able to get a clear picture of who the character is, how they act, and what they stand for. In game, aspects are either "invoked" by the player, where you state that an aspect can help you out and spend a fate point for a +2 bonus or a reroll, or "compelled" by the GM, who uses it to make your life harder but rewards you a Fate Point for it.
As an example, if your character is "The Fastest Draw in Town" then you could invoke that aspect to give yourself a bonus to a shoot-out scene. The GM might later compel the same aspect when a villain comes for them first, since your character might be seen as the biggest threat thanks to that.
Aspects can also be used to describe objects, scenes, settings, or NPCs. If known, these aspects can also be invoked by a player for a boost to their own rolls - the forest being On Fire might normally be bad, but maybe it helps a player make their daring escape.
"Approaches" describe how well your character does using certain methods. The six approaches are Forceful, Flashy, Quick, Careful, Clever, and Sneaky. Any time you perform an action, you perform it one of those six different ways, and you add your score in the approach to your roll. You might try to Forcefully open a door, and if you have +3 in forceful, you'd add 3 to that roll. You might Quickly attack an enemy, and if you have +2 in quickly, you'd add 2 to that roll. In short, it functions like skills in other tabletop games, but on a much broader scale.
"Stunts" represent what your character has a special skill in. They usually do one of two things: give you a bonus on certain rolls in certain circumstances, or change the way the rules work in a limited way for your character. If your character is an expert lockpicker, they might receive +2 to sneakily pick locks.
"Success" and "Failure" are simple descriptors for succeeding or failing on a roll. "Success with Style" happens when you succeed a roll by 3 or over, and is basically equivalent to a natural 20 in other systems - you win big time in other words.
"Stress" and "Consequences" are how damage (both physical and mental) is kept track of in Fate Accelerated. In this game, everybody has a stress track with three boxes. If your stress can't handle the damage, consequences are used.
"Rolls" in Fate systems are done with special Fate dice. They have three possible rolls; +, -, and a blank side (or 0). Roll four of them and add your approach rating. As an example, if you're trying to do something cleverly, and your clever is +1, you'd roll 4 dice and add 1. If you rolled +, +, -, and 0, that'd be 1 (the roll) + 1 (your approach) for a total of 2.
COMBAT
Turn order isn't run using the described method in the rulebook. Rather, we use the "Popcorn Initiative," which runs like this: the initiator of the conflict gets the first turn, and they pick who goes next. That person, at the end of the turn, decides who goes next. And so on down the line until everybody has gone. It's a more narrative flow to combat (and thanks to the other campaigns before this for coming up with it.)
Zones describe how the battlefield is divided. It's much less exact than a grid system; you attack others in the same zone and can move one zone per round and still act.
On your turn, you can do several things:
Attacking is as simple as picking an enemy and picking an approach to attack with. Describe how you're attacking (narratively, it needs to fit the approach being used) and roll. The defender describes how they defend, and rolls defense using whichever approach.
If the attacker's roll wins, damage is dealt equal to the attack roll minus the defense roll. If the defender's roll wins, no damage is done. In the event of a tie, no damage is done, but a one-use Boost is made on the enemy. If the attacker's roll wins by 3 or more, they can choose to lower the damage by 1 and inflict a Boost as well.
A "Boost" is a one-use aspect that can be invoked for free (no Fate Point required) but disappears after being used. A Boost might be something like "Knocked Off Balance," "Temporarily Dazed," or "Caught Off Guard."
If the attacker succeeds with style (by 3 or more), they can choose to lower the damage by 1 and inflict a Boost as well. If the defender succeeds with style, they inflict a Boost on the attacker.
"Create an Advantage" is the other action taken in battle. This covers just about anything that you'd do to gain the upper hand; take the high ground, line up a shot, throw sand in your opponent's eyes, grapple, etc. Roll whatever approach you can justify, and your opponent does the same to stop you.
If you succeed, you create a brand new aspect to the scene - give it a name that represents what you did to gain the advantage, whether it's "Taken the High Ground" or "Sand in the Eyes." You can invoke it FOR FREE once later in the fight for the +2 bonus or reroll, but it remains afterwards and can be invoked again for a Fate Point, as normal.
If you tie, you gain a Boost instead. In the defender succeeds, nothing happens. If the defender succeeds with style, they gain a Boost to use on the attacker. If YOU succeed with style, then the aspect you create has TWO free invokes instead of one.
DAMAGE
Damage is kept tracked of using the stress track. Everybody's stress track looks like this:
[ ] [ ] [ ]
When damage is done, you mark off that box. For example, if 2 damage is done, you'd mark the second box, and your stress track would look like this instead:
[ ] [X] [ ]
If 1 damage is done then, you'd mark off the first box.
[X] [X] [ ]
If a box is already ticked, you have to mark the box to the right. In the example being used here, if 1 damage is dealt again, both the first and second box are already marked, so you'd have to mark the third.
[X] [X] [X]
If a hit is too much for your stress boxes alone, or your stress boxes are full, you have to use Consequences instead. Consequences take further hits, but create an injury aspect. They come in Mild (2 stress), Moderate (4 stress), Severe (6 stress), and Extreme (8 stress.) Consequences remain for a while, but fade over the course of several sessions. Extreme consequences are a special case, though, and are so severe that they permanently change your character - think losing an arm.
If your stress boxes are free, you can use a consequence and stress box in conjunction - a 5-shift damage hit can be taken by your third stress box and a Mild consequence.
If you take so much damage that you can't absorb it with stress and consequence, you lose. But at any point in a conflict, you can also concede - you lose, but you get to choose how you lose, and gain some Fate Points to boot. Better to lose and run away than, you know, have the enemy do whatever with you when you lose.
This tabletop campaign is going to be run in Fate Accelerated. I'm making this as a sort-of quick-start guide to the game and its concepts, enough to at least familiarize yourself with it enough to make a character.
You can download the full PDF rulebook here!
Fate Accelerated is meant to be a very easy system to get into, so this will hopefully be quick!
TERMS
"Fate Points" are a stat used in the game to represent your (and your character's) ability to do great things. In game, you use them to invoke something for a +2 bonus to your roll or a reroll - don't underestimate their usefulness.
"Aspects" are basically very short phrases used to describe something, most often your character. When you take all of a character's aspects together, you should be able to get a clear picture of who the character is, how they act, and what they stand for. In game, aspects are either "invoked" by the player, where you state that an aspect can help you out and spend a fate point for a +2 bonus or a reroll, or "compelled" by the GM, who uses it to make your life harder but rewards you a Fate Point for it.
As an example, if your character is "The Fastest Draw in Town" then you could invoke that aspect to give yourself a bonus to a shoot-out scene. The GM might later compel the same aspect when a villain comes for them first, since your character might be seen as the biggest threat thanks to that.
Aspects can also be used to describe objects, scenes, settings, or NPCs. If known, these aspects can also be invoked by a player for a boost to their own rolls - the forest being On Fire might normally be bad, but maybe it helps a player make their daring escape.
"Approaches" describe how well your character does using certain methods. The six approaches are Forceful, Flashy, Quick, Careful, Clever, and Sneaky. Any time you perform an action, you perform it one of those six different ways, and you add your score in the approach to your roll. You might try to Forcefully open a door, and if you have +3 in forceful, you'd add 3 to that roll. You might Quickly attack an enemy, and if you have +2 in quickly, you'd add 2 to that roll. In short, it functions like skills in other tabletop games, but on a much broader scale.
"Stunts" represent what your character has a special skill in. They usually do one of two things: give you a bonus on certain rolls in certain circumstances, or change the way the rules work in a limited way for your character. If your character is an expert lockpicker, they might receive +2 to sneakily pick locks.
"Success" and "Failure" are simple descriptors for succeeding or failing on a roll. "Success with Style" happens when you succeed a roll by 3 or over, and is basically equivalent to a natural 20 in other systems - you win big time in other words.
"Stress" and "Consequences" are how damage (both physical and mental) is kept track of in Fate Accelerated. In this game, everybody has a stress track with three boxes. If your stress can't handle the damage, consequences are used.
"Rolls" in Fate systems are done with special Fate dice. They have three possible rolls; +, -, and a blank side (or 0). Roll four of them and add your approach rating. As an example, if you're trying to do something cleverly, and your clever is +1, you'd roll 4 dice and add 1. If you rolled +, +, -, and 0, that'd be 1 (the roll) + 1 (your approach) for a total of 2.
COMBAT
Turn order isn't run using the described method in the rulebook. Rather, we use the "Popcorn Initiative," which runs like this: the initiator of the conflict gets the first turn, and they pick who goes next. That person, at the end of the turn, decides who goes next. And so on down the line until everybody has gone. It's a more narrative flow to combat (and thanks to the other campaigns before this for coming up with it.)
Zones describe how the battlefield is divided. It's much less exact than a grid system; you attack others in the same zone and can move one zone per round and still act.
On your turn, you can do several things:
Attacking is as simple as picking an enemy and picking an approach to attack with. Describe how you're attacking (narratively, it needs to fit the approach being used) and roll. The defender describes how they defend, and rolls defense using whichever approach.
If the attacker's roll wins, damage is dealt equal to the attack roll minus the defense roll. If the defender's roll wins, no damage is done. In the event of a tie, no damage is done, but a one-use Boost is made on the enemy. If the attacker's roll wins by 3 or more, they can choose to lower the damage by 1 and inflict a Boost as well.
A "Boost" is a one-use aspect that can be invoked for free (no Fate Point required) but disappears after being used. A Boost might be something like "Knocked Off Balance," "Temporarily Dazed," or "Caught Off Guard."
If the attacker succeeds with style (by 3 or more), they can choose to lower the damage by 1 and inflict a Boost as well. If the defender succeeds with style, they inflict a Boost on the attacker.
"Create an Advantage" is the other action taken in battle. This covers just about anything that you'd do to gain the upper hand; take the high ground, line up a shot, throw sand in your opponent's eyes, grapple, etc. Roll whatever approach you can justify, and your opponent does the same to stop you.
If you succeed, you create a brand new aspect to the scene - give it a name that represents what you did to gain the advantage, whether it's "Taken the High Ground" or "Sand in the Eyes." You can invoke it FOR FREE once later in the fight for the +2 bonus or reroll, but it remains afterwards and can be invoked again for a Fate Point, as normal.
If you tie, you gain a Boost instead. In the defender succeeds, nothing happens. If the defender succeeds with style, they gain a Boost to use on the attacker. If YOU succeed with style, then the aspect you create has TWO free invokes instead of one.
DAMAGE
Damage is kept tracked of using the stress track. Everybody's stress track looks like this:
[ ] [ ] [ ]
When damage is done, you mark off that box. For example, if 2 damage is done, you'd mark the second box, and your stress track would look like this instead:
[ ] [X] [ ]
If 1 damage is done then, you'd mark off the first box.
[X] [X] [ ]
If a box is already ticked, you have to mark the box to the right. In the example being used here, if 1 damage is dealt again, both the first and second box are already marked, so you'd have to mark the third.
[X] [X] [X]
If a hit is too much for your stress boxes alone, or your stress boxes are full, you have to use Consequences instead. Consequences take further hits, but create an injury aspect. They come in Mild (2 stress), Moderate (4 stress), Severe (6 stress), and Extreme (8 stress.) Consequences remain for a while, but fade over the course of several sessions. Extreme consequences are a special case, though, and are so severe that they permanently change your character - think losing an arm.
If your stress boxes are free, you can use a consequence and stress box in conjunction - a 5-shift damage hit can be taken by your third stress box and a Mild consequence.
If you take so much damage that you can't absorb it with stress and consequence, you lose. But at any point in a conflict, you can also concede - you lose, but you get to choose how you lose, and gain some Fate Points to boot. Better to lose and run away than, you know, have the enemy do whatever with you when you lose.
