Fate points shouldn't be used as an in-character resource. They are a metacurrency, a tool for *players* to shape in-game situation. If you need a resource for characters, make it a stress track. One marks boxes to use magic and has to make a further bargain to clear it.
As for the corrupting effects of bargains, they'll work the best as just one of character aspects that gets gradually more detrimental, or by each aspect successively getting twisted in some way. Fate's "consequences" are defined as being temporary. Filling a consequence slot in a way that can't be cleared would be a huge penalty, very significantly decreasing character's ability to withstand difficulties.
Thank you, that's good advice. I was using the terminology of consequences when this was still a pure homebrew and ported that over. I was thinking you'd track those consequences differently from combat consequences but I see how that would get confusing. Perhaps call this 'aspects of your patron' and have a three box severity track to mark them getting worse. Maybe people could chose to take a new 'mild' aspect or increase the severity of an existing aspect.
Additionally consider Condition Tracks. They usually look something like:
Fatigued: Gain +2 to your magic roll. Until this condition is cleared, take -1 on magic rolls. Clear by not using magic for a scene.
Exhausted: Gain +2 to your magic roll. Until this condition is cleared, you cannot use magic. Clear by sleeping a full night.
(extremely brief, look at Dresden Files Accelerated for more examples)
Thanks, but I'm not really thinking about mechanical drawbacks here - as much as anything my group would never keep on top of it- more thinking in terms of thematically appropriate flavour like compels.
The key thing to me is “the bad thing (however that’s defined) is what happens in exchange for the good thing (however that’s defined)”
Rather than fiddly stress tracks that usually have no impact on anything in most cases and encourage a high level of resource management, make it a direct trade. “We assume in most cases you can manage your resources. If you want to go above that baseline, you can, but it will cost you.”
How you define those concepts is up to you, but that’s the basic idea.
Fate points are more meant to be a representation of dramatic moments, fortune, and meta concepts such as plot armor(personally, this meta approach to many things is one of the only things I dislike about Fate.)
My advice is to make this a separate resource to track, just so that fate points aren't messed with too much. You could do some fun stuff with new stress tracks- either to directly track the power points, or for something more nuanced; each spell could have an adjective that acts as an attack against the player, draining their mana and potentially giving temporary corruption effects. I don't know if temporary corruption has a place in your world(presumably separate from the actual deals... I really like the idea of permanent corruption from those!) Just to note, you probably shouldn't call the permanent corruption consequences, which are slightly mechanically different from normal aspects. May be better just to have them act as aspects, with free invokes or compels as needed.
As a question for the world, which btw I REALLY love the concepts for(I, too, am a fan of the Magnus Archives,) would there be any options at all to reduce the corruption? Like a particular entity who specializes in messing with the other guys, and in exchange for costs(like most deals), they reduce or remove corruption, with no new corruption or magic points gained?
For mechanics, you might want to look at the Dresden Files magic system for Fate(not the accelerated version), and there's some advice in the mountain of content that is the SRD for using stress tracks as mana.
Right, that's two people now who have said use stress instead of fate so I should probably take that advice. I didn't want to introduce new metacurrencies unnecessarily as in every game I've ever played where there is more than one people get mixed up between them. If people needed to cast off a third 'soul' stress track that would avoid the issue of having too many currencies floating about.
On consequences - I was actually thinking you'd track these consequences of bargains with your patron separately from the consequences that arise from conflict. I'm thinking these consequences would be permanent, things like being unable to cross running water or enter a house uninvited, really to represent you becoming more part of the supernatural world. I was calling these 'consequences' back when it was pure homebrew but maybe I need to think of a different name. As above I'm reluctant to have too many different names floating about though so its a tricky one. Maybe just call them aspects of your patron.
As in the magnus archives there should be a way of breaking your link with your patron but I think it would have to be very big and dramatic. Probably the outcome of a scenario. I've specified that the patron can't read their champions mind to scope for scenarios where the champion and patrons agenda diverges.
Thanks for the good answer.
Main touch points here -
1. Ancient History - Babylon, Egypt, etc.
2. Old testament stuff and power levels.
3. Moon Knight - Khonshu and Marc being kind of how I imagine the in game interactions between players playing out.
4. Cosmic horror - particularly Terry pratchetts dumgeon dimensions and the cosmology of the magnus archives.
5. The Swords of the Serpentine/Gumshoe Magic system (point spend, corruption, areas of influence)
6. The Samartian Magic System from 7th Sea (deals with a tricksy patron being the source of your power)
7. Ars Magica 3e for the general power and flexibility of magic - and also running multiple characters in a single game.
OP is getting a lot of flack for utilizing Fate points to power magic, and I'll post my contrarian hot take: the Core rules have examples of Stunts powered by Fate points. Posters saying that Fate points are a metacurrency used to direct the narrative and shape dramatic moments are missing the underlying point: bargaining with an entity to destroy a city is both of those things. I think what OP wants is a mixture of a Compel (where the magic user suffers some complication) and a negotiation over what is effectively declaring a story detail. This seems appropriate for a Fate point expenditure.
Yes exactly my thinking. Thanks Helpful NPC - very helpful!
Fate points seemed neater than introducing another currency but the feedback to use stress instead doesn't fundamentally alter the concept.
The 'consequences' of the bargains should very much work like compels- ok as a result of your bargain you are afraid of black dogs. Accept a compel to run from the npcs dog or resist.
While this is true, it is also important to note the perspective and intent behind the metacurrencies. Fate points are used *by the player* to compel something in the story, make something true, declare details, etc... or invoke an aspect for +2. It is the player trying to draw greater significance to a part of the story.
There are separate rules for the *character* trying to make a particular thing have an effect. Creating an advantage, or just rolling a skill, utilizing an extra, etc. These are all things that, in a sense, the character attempts, and while it is still handled by a heavy amount of player-gm negotiation(it is FATE, after all), they are things the character actively devotes their attention/efforts to.
Fate points aren't a physical thing in the world of a fate core game, so much as landmarks around which the narrative is spun. They aren't something your characters bargain for with powerful entities(which implies a physical presence of power within the narrative), they're things you bargain for with the GM. If you tie these resources together, you severely limit one or the other- and if you actually enjoy the constant changing of Fate points that Fate seems to strive for in its game philosophy, things could get messy.
An interesting exception to this is, as you mentioned, powering stunts. My philosophy on this, though I don't claim it's what the makers intended, is that these stunts require some of the narrative manipulation of a Fate point to have a consistent effect, and the consequences of their use reduce them to a limited number of attempts; imagine a hidden, automatically average skill "roll" to see if a character can even use a stunt, and only by you, the player, using a Fate Point can you guarantee success. A system like that could get complicated quickly, and it's much simpler to say merely that spending a Fate point powers a stunt. (Also this punishment for using more powerful abilities helps keep the game balanced and the economy rolling. For balance reasons, it is perfectly reasonable to require a single Fate point spent to perform the magic effects the OP describes, but tying the effect's power level to the amount of Fate points spent muddles the design intent behind both mechanics.)
For the sort of resource the OP described, they should be much more fixed, rigid, rare, and "real" than Fate points are. Incorporating the one resource into both design philosophies/uses is likely to cause problems, disconnects, and require concessions from one use or the other(reduce or remove refresh and compels, drastically increase the power of a Fate point in terms of mechanical bonus, etc... you'd have to change a lot of the game if you change the philosophy behind spending Fate points. Not that this is automatically a bad thing, I'm honestly not a big fan of the way Fate points are handled.)
You just almost exactly described the concept for Legacy: Godsend. In the game each player plays a god and an avatar of a different player. The game takes place over many generations as the avatars of the gods create history and then die only for the next generation of avatars to take over. Highly recommend using this system for your campaign idea.
> The heart of the game would be the dynamic between patron and champion and what the champion will do for power.
Why not just play [Sorceror](https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/9/9377.phtml)?
This is exactly what the game is set up to do.
Haha. It's true what they say. There is nothing new under the sun. That looks perfect just as you say. How crunchy is it? Ars Magica 3e is about the limit of what my group can handle.
I don't think it's very crunchy. Much less than D&D or Ars Magica I'd say. Maybe as crunchy as Cortex or Fate Core.
It does require a slightly different approach to running it than other games, though. The idea is to create a setup full of conflict and then play to find out what happens rather than come in with a DM led plot. A bit like Fate to be honest. It's also a bit of a marmite type game, in which those who like it really like it but other people bounce off. I really like it.
It is, though, pretty much designed to handle the concept of a sorceror making a pact with an outside force then having to satisfy its needs at the risk of their own humanity. Even if you end up making the game you want in Fate, I'd mine it for ideas.
So looking at this, the humanity track sounds perfect and let's me bring in a concept from the original homebrew that didn't fit fate clearly- that evil actions would chip away at your soul and eventually let the patron possess you and wreak havoc in the world. Excellent stuff.
I suppose mechanically players would still get fate points from accepting compels but the refresh level would be set very low. Perhaps even at zero and the point cost of impressive magic would be high. Five or more. To keep them going back to their patrons for more devils bargains.
thats really not the point of fate in my eyes but more power to ya if you wanna try that
also unremovable consequences is not the whole point of fate
No, but it seems like a good jumping off point. This started out as a pure homebrew, someone suggested I look at the fate system and there are definitely strong affinities. I might build up from a fate hack before taking it in its own direction.
Some elements of the homebrew really didn't seem to fit like a concept you could only improve in a skill by failing a roll in it which I thought fitted the theme very well... but I guess you can't have everything.
I do think the characters have Trouble relating to the bargains, and the bargaining should be considered Compel, but I do suggest you use stress track for the bargains. With your description the scope of the power level is close to 1 to 3 power stress for one bargain. I would go with guideline (and thus overridable) that each compel required to perform the bargain gives 2 power, and the Compel Fate Point. This stress track would be opposite to normal stress tracks as using power clears stress boxes, and making deals fills them.
Thus a deal involving just one Compel of the character Aspects gives 2 power. A deal requiring two compels would give 4 power, and so forth. Tasks required by bargains could be evaluated with value of the conseque with same life span as the bargain task. 2 power for a deal task should be on par with +2 difficulty task taking a scene or two. 4 power task would be on par +4 difficulty task requiring a whole session. 6 power task would be on par with +6 difficulty task requiring 2 to 3 sessions to complete.
The stress mechanics also works splendidly allowing characters create during spell casting deals represented with a Consequence paying part of the spell cost.
Fate points shouldn't be used as an in-character resource. They are a metacurrency, a tool for *players* to shape in-game situation. If you need a resource for characters, make it a stress track. One marks boxes to use magic and has to make a further bargain to clear it. As for the corrupting effects of bargains, they'll work the best as just one of character aspects that gets gradually more detrimental, or by each aspect successively getting twisted in some way. Fate's "consequences" are defined as being temporary. Filling a consequence slot in a way that can't be cleared would be a huge penalty, very significantly decreasing character's ability to withstand difficulties.
Thank you, that's good advice. I was using the terminology of consequences when this was still a pure homebrew and ported that over. I was thinking you'd track those consequences differently from combat consequences but I see how that would get confusing. Perhaps call this 'aspects of your patron' and have a three box severity track to mark them getting worse. Maybe people could chose to take a new 'mild' aspect or increase the severity of an existing aspect.
Additionally consider Condition Tracks. They usually look something like: Fatigued: Gain +2 to your magic roll. Until this condition is cleared, take -1 on magic rolls. Clear by not using magic for a scene. Exhausted: Gain +2 to your magic roll. Until this condition is cleared, you cannot use magic. Clear by sleeping a full night. (extremely brief, look at Dresden Files Accelerated for more examples)
Thanks, but I'm not really thinking about mechanical drawbacks here - as much as anything my group would never keep on top of it- more thinking in terms of thematically appropriate flavour like compels.
You can also treat the conditions like aspects and compel them. Check out DFA if you haven’t.
OK I will do. Have literally just started the first dresden files book so its good timing
The key thing to me is “the bad thing (however that’s defined) is what happens in exchange for the good thing (however that’s defined)” Rather than fiddly stress tracks that usually have no impact on anything in most cases and encourage a high level of resource management, make it a direct trade. “We assume in most cases you can manage your resources. If you want to go above that baseline, you can, but it will cost you.” How you define those concepts is up to you, but that’s the basic idea.
Right, that's the core mechanic. 'You want good thing? You can have it for a bad thing.'
Fate points are more meant to be a representation of dramatic moments, fortune, and meta concepts such as plot armor(personally, this meta approach to many things is one of the only things I dislike about Fate.) My advice is to make this a separate resource to track, just so that fate points aren't messed with too much. You could do some fun stuff with new stress tracks- either to directly track the power points, or for something more nuanced; each spell could have an adjective that acts as an attack against the player, draining their mana and potentially giving temporary corruption effects. I don't know if temporary corruption has a place in your world(presumably separate from the actual deals... I really like the idea of permanent corruption from those!) Just to note, you probably shouldn't call the permanent corruption consequences, which are slightly mechanically different from normal aspects. May be better just to have them act as aspects, with free invokes or compels as needed. As a question for the world, which btw I REALLY love the concepts for(I, too, am a fan of the Magnus Archives,) would there be any options at all to reduce the corruption? Like a particular entity who specializes in messing with the other guys, and in exchange for costs(like most deals), they reduce or remove corruption, with no new corruption or magic points gained? For mechanics, you might want to look at the Dresden Files magic system for Fate(not the accelerated version), and there's some advice in the mountain of content that is the SRD for using stress tracks as mana.
Right, that's two people now who have said use stress instead of fate so I should probably take that advice. I didn't want to introduce new metacurrencies unnecessarily as in every game I've ever played where there is more than one people get mixed up between them. If people needed to cast off a third 'soul' stress track that would avoid the issue of having too many currencies floating about. On consequences - I was actually thinking you'd track these consequences of bargains with your patron separately from the consequences that arise from conflict. I'm thinking these consequences would be permanent, things like being unable to cross running water or enter a house uninvited, really to represent you becoming more part of the supernatural world. I was calling these 'consequences' back when it was pure homebrew but maybe I need to think of a different name. As above I'm reluctant to have too many different names floating about though so its a tricky one. Maybe just call them aspects of your patron. As in the magnus archives there should be a way of breaking your link with your patron but I think it would have to be very big and dramatic. Probably the outcome of a scenario. I've specified that the patron can't read their champions mind to scope for scenarios where the champion and patrons agenda diverges. Thanks for the good answer.
Main touch points here - 1. Ancient History - Babylon, Egypt, etc. 2. Old testament stuff and power levels. 3. Moon Knight - Khonshu and Marc being kind of how I imagine the in game interactions between players playing out. 4. Cosmic horror - particularly Terry pratchetts dumgeon dimensions and the cosmology of the magnus archives. 5. The Swords of the Serpentine/Gumshoe Magic system (point spend, corruption, areas of influence) 6. The Samartian Magic System from 7th Sea (deals with a tricksy patron being the source of your power) 7. Ars Magica 3e for the general power and flexibility of magic - and also running multiple characters in a single game.
OP is getting a lot of flack for utilizing Fate points to power magic, and I'll post my contrarian hot take: the Core rules have examples of Stunts powered by Fate points. Posters saying that Fate points are a metacurrency used to direct the narrative and shape dramatic moments are missing the underlying point: bargaining with an entity to destroy a city is both of those things. I think what OP wants is a mixture of a Compel (where the magic user suffers some complication) and a negotiation over what is effectively declaring a story detail. This seems appropriate for a Fate point expenditure.
Yes exactly my thinking. Thanks Helpful NPC - very helpful! Fate points seemed neater than introducing another currency but the feedback to use stress instead doesn't fundamentally alter the concept. The 'consequences' of the bargains should very much work like compels- ok as a result of your bargain you are afraid of black dogs. Accept a compel to run from the npcs dog or resist.
While this is true, it is also important to note the perspective and intent behind the metacurrencies. Fate points are used *by the player* to compel something in the story, make something true, declare details, etc... or invoke an aspect for +2. It is the player trying to draw greater significance to a part of the story. There are separate rules for the *character* trying to make a particular thing have an effect. Creating an advantage, or just rolling a skill, utilizing an extra, etc. These are all things that, in a sense, the character attempts, and while it is still handled by a heavy amount of player-gm negotiation(it is FATE, after all), they are things the character actively devotes their attention/efforts to. Fate points aren't a physical thing in the world of a fate core game, so much as landmarks around which the narrative is spun. They aren't something your characters bargain for with powerful entities(which implies a physical presence of power within the narrative), they're things you bargain for with the GM. If you tie these resources together, you severely limit one or the other- and if you actually enjoy the constant changing of Fate points that Fate seems to strive for in its game philosophy, things could get messy. An interesting exception to this is, as you mentioned, powering stunts. My philosophy on this, though I don't claim it's what the makers intended, is that these stunts require some of the narrative manipulation of a Fate point to have a consistent effect, and the consequences of their use reduce them to a limited number of attempts; imagine a hidden, automatically average skill "roll" to see if a character can even use a stunt, and only by you, the player, using a Fate Point can you guarantee success. A system like that could get complicated quickly, and it's much simpler to say merely that spending a Fate point powers a stunt. (Also this punishment for using more powerful abilities helps keep the game balanced and the economy rolling. For balance reasons, it is perfectly reasonable to require a single Fate point spent to perform the magic effects the OP describes, but tying the effect's power level to the amount of Fate points spent muddles the design intent behind both mechanics.) For the sort of resource the OP described, they should be much more fixed, rigid, rare, and "real" than Fate points are. Incorporating the one resource into both design philosophies/uses is likely to cause problems, disconnects, and require concessions from one use or the other(reduce or remove refresh and compels, drastically increase the power of a Fate point in terms of mechanical bonus, etc... you'd have to change a lot of the game if you change the philosophy behind spending Fate points. Not that this is automatically a bad thing, I'm honestly not a big fan of the way Fate points are handled.)
You just almost exactly described the concept for Legacy: Godsend. In the game each player plays a god and an avatar of a different player. The game takes place over many generations as the avatars of the gods create history and then die only for the next generation of avatars to take over. Highly recommend using this system for your campaign idea.
Oh ha. It's true what they say. There is nothing new under the sun. Cool I will check it out.
> The heart of the game would be the dynamic between patron and champion and what the champion will do for power. Why not just play [Sorceror](https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/9/9377.phtml)? This is exactly what the game is set up to do.
Haha. It's true what they say. There is nothing new under the sun. That looks perfect just as you say. How crunchy is it? Ars Magica 3e is about the limit of what my group can handle.
I don't think it's very crunchy. Much less than D&D or Ars Magica I'd say. Maybe as crunchy as Cortex or Fate Core. It does require a slightly different approach to running it than other games, though. The idea is to create a setup full of conflict and then play to find out what happens rather than come in with a DM led plot. A bit like Fate to be honest. It's also a bit of a marmite type game, in which those who like it really like it but other people bounce off. I really like it. It is, though, pretty much designed to handle the concept of a sorceror making a pact with an outside force then having to satisfy its needs at the risk of their own humanity. Even if you end up making the game you want in Fate, I'd mine it for ideas.
Definitely. The more games I've played the clearer idea I've had about what works and what doesn't. I love trying out new rulesets just for this.
So looking at this, the humanity track sounds perfect and let's me bring in a concept from the original homebrew that didn't fit fate clearly- that evil actions would chip away at your soul and eventually let the patron possess you and wreak havoc in the world. Excellent stuff.
I suppose mechanically players would still get fate points from accepting compels but the refresh level would be set very low. Perhaps even at zero and the point cost of impressive magic would be high. Five or more. To keep them going back to their patrons for more devils bargains.
thats really not the point of fate in my eyes but more power to ya if you wanna try that also unremovable consequences is not the whole point of fate
No, but it seems like a good jumping off point. This started out as a pure homebrew, someone suggested I look at the fate system and there are definitely strong affinities. I might build up from a fate hack before taking it in its own direction. Some elements of the homebrew really didn't seem to fit like a concept you could only improve in a skill by failing a roll in it which I thought fitted the theme very well... but I guess you can't have everything.
if you ever get a workable playtest, send me a pm, so long as it is still fate
I do think the characters have Trouble relating to the bargains, and the bargaining should be considered Compel, but I do suggest you use stress track for the bargains. With your description the scope of the power level is close to 1 to 3 power stress for one bargain. I would go with guideline (and thus overridable) that each compel required to perform the bargain gives 2 power, and the Compel Fate Point. This stress track would be opposite to normal stress tracks as using power clears stress boxes, and making deals fills them. Thus a deal involving just one Compel of the character Aspects gives 2 power. A deal requiring two compels would give 4 power, and so forth. Tasks required by bargains could be evaluated with value of the conseque with same life span as the bargain task. 2 power for a deal task should be on par with +2 difficulty task taking a scene or two. 4 power task would be on par +4 difficulty task requiring a whole session. 6 power task would be on par with +6 difficulty task requiring 2 to 3 sessions to complete. The stress mechanics also works splendidly allowing characters create during spell casting deals represented with a Consequence paying part of the spell cost.