WHY WE ROLL WHAT WE ROLL
I had the opportunity to run my first Twitch stream last weekend. Gregory Wilson had me on his channel as part of a charity weekend fundraiser. More than anything I just wanted the chance to run Hearts of Wulin for my sister Cat Rambo, who taught me D&D. She lives in Seattle so we rarely get a chance to interact, let alone play together. It was a great session, and I respect Greg for being willing to bring a storygame into a channel that leans more trad.
 
Second hand I heard viewers had some confusion about the stat/rolling system—in particular why someone wouldn’t always choose to roll their best stat. It’s something I mentioned during character creation, but didn’t do a great job of reinforcing during play. This requires a little bit of a deep dive into HoW’s mechanics.
 
The stats in Hearts of Wulin come from the intersection of three of my favorite games: The Veil, Masks: A New Generation, and Fate Accelerated. Basically you have five elements as your stats. That’s not unusual—we’ve seen that in both Legend of the Five Rings and Weapons of the Gods. But in both those games, there’s a tight association between stats and particular actions. Masks showed me you could track harm functionally. Characters mark conditions which in turn give a penalty to particular moves. So Guilty gives a -2 to "Provoke Someone" and "Assess the Situation."
 
Fate Accelerated showed me that you didn’t have to link stats with specific actions. Other systems have done that, but FAE made that a cornerstone. The Veil presented a new way to look at actions making them about how your character feels when they act. It also gave the stats a limitation in that using a “state” repeatedly spikes it out. That affects your actions and limits your choices. Hearts of Wulin combines all three of these concepts.
 
When you go to roll a move, you choose which of your five elements applies. Each element has some loose themes associated—it weaves between feeling and substance. So while Water’s aspect of awareness might seem the go to for rolling "Study", it could also be Earth’s focus or Metal’s calculation. It depends on your character and where they are. And your character might not always have all your choices.
 
Two moves limit what you roll. You always roll with the element associated with your fighting style in a combat. But you can roll with anything but your style element when you face "Inner Conflict." More importantly, when the GM deals you harm through a move, you will “mark” an element. That means you can’t roll with it until you get that cleared. If you mark the element of your fighting style, you can’t fight. You have to choose another approach.
 
And here’s where all of that comes together. When you roll a miss, a 6 or less, the GM makes a move. Either as a soft move or part of a hard move, the GM inflicts harm by having you mark an element. But you always mark the element you rolled with. So if you go spamming your best element, eventually it will get marked. And as a GM, if I see you always using the same element, I’m going to enjoy making you mark it. I love push your luck mechanics and that’s what this offers. Choosing what to roll isn’t just about rolling high, you have to think more clearly about your situation and if something is worth the risk.

SHURIKEN IN THE DARK
This month has been about experimentation and trying out hacks. I’ve made minor mods to Things from the Flood, run The Veil as a fantasy game, and tried out Sherri Stewart’s reskin of my Neo Shinobi Vendetta setting. That’s an anime/ninja/mish-mash tech future game we’ve played previously with Fate and Action Cards. In it you’re part of a Shinobi Clan in a science-fantasy future megaplex. You discover that all the ninja clans, including your own, have been corrupted. You need to find out who did this and how to fix it while evading the attention of your peers. 

You can see an early-draft premise statement here. Forged in the Dark’s mission-based approach fits well. Sherri framed the playbooks as team roles and then allowed players to choose their Source (i.e. how their particular powers work). That choice affects their talents and traumas. We boiled the Crew mechanics down to one type, with more choices for customization. Finally we also added a new phase after Downtime—Home Life. In these scenes characters play out their day-to-day within the clan or for their cover identity.
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This is very much a 1.0 draft at this point. That's built on a Google sheet found in the Gauntlet Resources (still tracking down who made it). Sherri plans to tweak the talents—moving away from a simple reskin. We’ve enjoyed our sessions so far. You can watch session one & session two. Since the game is relatively low-prep, I poured my energy into alternate, long-term prep: creating random mission generators. I love building tables and these pay homage to two great products: Augmented Reality, the best cyberpunk supplement, and The Heist Deck, the best Blades in the Dark supplement. When we move forward with this hack I’ll probably flesh these items out but for right now they serve as useful inspiration.

BRAVURA NEW WORLDS
This is the second half of my look at Evil Hat's Fate RPG. See the first installment here. Even if Fate isn't your bag, I encourage you to check out this list filled with amazing campaign concepts. 

FATE WORLDS
Evil Hat has released four volumes of Fate Worlds. Each includes several adventures, campaign settings, and genre frameworks. The first two collections came from the original Kickstarter; the second two volumes from bundling later material. How are these useful? First, they offer easy variant Fate settings to try out the system. Second, the authors have developed exciting and original universes, worth playing in Fate or any other system. Third, they show how a GM can create new and varied campaigns. Each plays with Fate's system and you can pick up tricks from these slightly different approaches. Fourth, several model new mechanical elements. We see new subsystems for mutations, capers, superpowers, air combat, and a host of other concepts.

The Clockwinders: So full of wild and striking ideas, it's hard to distill. The world of Cadvini is made of wondrous, magical clockwork. It has kept out incursions, but over time also decayed and broken down. You play Clockwinders trying to repair the mechanisms and face down destructive forces. But fixing the world will change it and have repercussions. Uses skill modes ala Atomic Robo to make character creation more focused and conditions ala Dresden Files Accelerated. Rules for the use of the Deck of Fate (a default) and "adventure tracks,"to offer meaningful campaign milestones.

The Crisp Line: Subtitle, "DNA is not destiny."A game about transhumanism, body-modification, and gene-hacking. But as importantly a consideration of class and power. You play characters who have invested in transgenic enhancements with the hopes of changing something about your life. Stories deal with emotional, financial, and political fallout from that. Includes rules for mutations, genetic enhancement packages, and several useful random generators. Worth checking out to see how serious issues can be handled well in a tight format. 

Deep Dark Blue: A near-future game where resource depletion has sent explorers into the ocean in search of wealth and advancement. Characters serve on a single ship and there's some emphasis on building that as a shared location. Lots of stuff on underwater adventuring, including ship to ship combat.

Eagle Eyes (FAE): Cop noir in ancient Rome. A good use of this historical setting, but probably works best in conjunction with further period sources. The supplement includes mechanics for social class, conspiracies, and invocations to the gods. There's a good section on investigations and mysteries. 

Frontier Spirit: Delivers a planetary colony setting. It has some echoes of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri and The 100. But the threat isn't really sci-fi, more supernatural in the form of spirits which threaten the settlers. The ritual and technology rules are especially interesting and adaptable.

Ghost Planets: The PCs are members of the Xenohistory Corps, tasked with investigating the ruins and artifacts of the many dead aliens civilizations discovered in space. The backstory hints at something like the Reapers from Mass Effect or the Mizari from Emprey. Has some new skills as well as a new take on research tied to character concept.
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Straw Boss: The PCs belong to a cult/organization which understands that beliefs shape reality. They travel a modern world looking for supernatural issues which threaten to tear or twist that reality. Character creation strongly reinforces the setting; players create a shared character representing their "group." Individual PCs have a character sheet which rotates between their scholar self and their familiar self. Also includes a corruption mechanic. Like the setting above, Straw Boss has echoes of DitV.

The Three Rocketeers: Dumas inspired space opera. Uses a skill-free approach to Fate Core. Nice stunt list for weapon styles. Includes rules for modelling conspiracies, sample analogues to characters from The Three Musketeers, and a sample adventure. 

Til Dawn (FAE): An exploration of romance, queerness, and performance in a transhumanist future. The setting focuses on social and musical combat, eliminating physical conflict as an option. Rules for multiple identities (called skins) which take consequences, relationships, and DJ battles. Includes a sample event set up for the musical competition tour.  

Under the Table: The tagline tells it really well: "Arthurian mythology meets Prohibition-era gangster fiction in this retelling of the Round Table set in a magic-infused alternate timeline during the days of Prohibition." Has a few new mechanical elements, but is mainly focused on presenting the setting and characters.

Uranium Chef (FAE): Tongue-in-cheek space comedy. It seems like this might be a slight concept, but the supplement's longer than most other WoA settings. Contains a sub-system for dealing with the eponymous culinary competitions. There's a reality show element which reminds me of World Wide Wrestling and InSpectres. Has mechanics for seasons, specialty episodes, and a full sample adventure.

The Way of Pukona (FAE): You play warrior-women defending your chieftain against threats supernatural or otherwise. Set within ancient Mapuche society, pre-Spanish invasion. A unique setting rarely explored in rpgs. Includes rules for community generation and new ideas for investing approaches with meaning. Includes sample adventure. Available in Spanish and English versions on DTRPG.

Weird World News: A world where Scooby-Do-like investigators became a cultural phenomenon and not all monsters turned out to be rubber masked. You play travelling teens working for a modern media entity searching these stories out. Uses only four skills, but they're more prescriptive than Approaches. Includes random episode generator, sample monsters & characters, as well as a short adventure. ​

Wolf's Head: Subtitle- "Outlaws and Rebellion in Feudal England."  Your characters are not Robin Hood, but people at the margins driven to rebellion. Brings modern sensibilities into a historical context in a cool way. Also establishes that the campaign’s finite: eventually the crown will crush the PCs. Adds mechanics for handling treasure, using local support, and a campaign threat clock. Also has light rules for magic. Strong setting building. Has an introductory and a final adventure. 

Fate System Guide for New Players (Part One)
​​For the full backlog of Age of Ravens posts on Blogger see here. ​​

FOLLOW YOUR DESTINY
I’m one of the Fate advocates among the Gauntlet. In fact, I’m the person who has run the most Fate for our Hangouts (but I’m also the person who has run the most Cypher, 2d20, Mutant System, 7th Sea, and Rolemaster). I dig much about Fate and it’s a core element for our long-running homebrew, Action Cards. As of this posting a major new Fate supplement is on Kickstarter: Fate of Cthulhu. So I’ve revised this list to help interested players figure out what’s available for the system and what they need to buy.
 
This is a revision of my earlier lists; I've marked new items with an '*'. For this first half, I’ve grouped the items, beginning with the core rulebooks. Other Evil Hat Fate products then follow: toolkits, setting supplements, and stand-alone games. The next post will briefly run through all the currently available Worlds of Adventure for Fate. Even if the system isn’t your bag, those offer more varied and exciting campaign ideas than almost any other system out there.
 
What Is Fate?
Fate is a universal rpg, like GURPS, Savage Worlds, or Cypher. It takes a more abstract approach than those games. Fate builds on the earlier Fudge System and has had several editions/evolutions. It uses a set of unique dice: six siders with 0, +, and – sides (2 each). Rolling a set of four yields a value from +4 to -4, with most results in the middle. A 2d6 variant is possible, subtracting one die from the other, but it offers more swingy results. Players generally roll dice for actions, add a value (skill or approach), and compare it to the opposition’s value. Fate gives players several ways to affect and modify dice results after rolling.

Tachyon Squadron*
A Fate Core campaign setting where the group plays as members of a space fighter group. Character creation’s slimmed down with a tighter skill list, specific aspect questions, and a light stunt list. The meat of the book lies in its detailed but still relatively light space engagement system. Rather than zones, combatants operate on a maneuver chart which gauges relative positioning. These conflicts have four phases: Detection, Maneuver, Action, and End of Round. They also have a unique set of action options. The rules also have some nice material on ship construction, downtime activities, and mission generation. Tachyon Squadron includes a fully developed setting with sample locations and NPCs. Recommended for those interested in Fate games with dogfighting and positional conflicts (like Crimson Skies).

Venture City
Presents a superhero setting of ambiguous morality. Includes a new and useful approach to superpowers. Originally released as a World of Adventure, Venture City Stories, Evil Hat expanded and re-released it as Venture City. You can see my review of the original here. That includes a link to an actual play video using the rules. The new edition adds many more sample characters, a stronger list of example powers & themes, and some mini-adventures. Venture City takes a minimal approach to power design. It offers a simple, customizable framework. That separates it from some of the other third-party Fate supers games which have been released (Daring Comics and Wearing the Cape). These take a more granular approach to the mechanics.

STAND ALONE FATE GAMES
Atomic Robo
A complete version of Fate Core covering the Atomic Robo comic universe. It's a large, solid book with incredible layout and illustrations. Most importantly it captures the feel of the original comics and the emphasis on "Action Science." That's a modern pulp with high pseudo-science weirdness. Atomic Robo takes a streamlined approach to mechanics, rearranging and paring the skill system. It emphasizes on-the-fly character creation in stunts, aspects, and skills. It also brings several new or tweaked mechanics to the game: brainstorming, factions, and organizations. Atomic Robo shows how Fate can simulate a particular genre. As well, it offers some of the best examples of play. Recommended if you're interested in the comic or the idea of modern pulp. You can see my review here. Has a single supplement, Majestic 12.
 
Do: Fate of The Flying Temple
A “Windpunk” adventure game in the vein of Avatar the Last Airbender and Korra. Originally created for another system, this version adapts the world to Fate Accelerated. Players take on the role of youths tasked with solving problems and bringing peace. The focus includes non-violent conflict resolution and creative thinking. Do is explicitly designed to be a family-friendly game. It’s a good example of how Fate can be modified to handle certain tones and limits.
 
Dresden Files Accelerated
An adaptation of the earlier Dresden File Roleplaying Game to FAE. I’ve run this and I’ve written up my thoughts here. DFAE offers many new and interesting mechanics: unique conditions to define player archetypes, mantles representing role powers, and simple ritual magics. It’s a solid game and really shows how the rules can be tweaked and expanded. Well worth picking up for fans of The Dresden Files and/or urban fantasy. Also a great model for how to model character archetypes with distinct and unique powers. Highly recommended for those interested in tweaking Fate. Though not directly related, The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game can be an invaluable tool for generating scenarios for DFAE. That includes a ton of “build a case” cards to play with.

by Jason Cordova

I spend a lot of my time thinking about the future of The Gauntlet. 

As a leader of this organization, if I’m not always looking around the corner for what’s next, for what ways this organization can innovate, then I’m not doing my job. 

We’re getting ready to turn around one of those corners. In one week, we launch the Kickstarter campaign for our very first standalone game, Hearts of Wulin. I’m going to use this space to talk a little bit about The Gauntlet as publisher. I’m going to talk about why The Gauntlet is getting into publishing in the first place, what we hope to accomplish in the publishing space, and how Hearts of Wulin fits into that vision. 

UPDATE: Hearts of Wulin is now on Kickstarter! You can find the campaign by clicking here. 

Why publishing? 

I have a close friend who is writing a major, standalone game for a big TTRPG publisher. I asked if they would share details of their compensation with me so I could get a better sense of what the market was like. What they told me was, frankly, disturbing—so disturbing, in fact, I decided right then and there I would try to create something better.

My friend explained that, in exchange for writing the text of a full game for this major publisher, they were being paid 3 cents USD per word. Folks, that is breathtakingly low (at the time, our zine, Codex, which has a budget that isn’t even a scintilla of this publisher’s budget, was paying 5 cents per word). And that 3 cents per word does not account for any playtesting and revisions my friend is responsible for, which they have to do for free. To make matters worse (and, to be clear, I’m not sure if this applies to my friend’s deal) many publishers don’t pay for the entirety of the words their freelancers write, only what they decide to actually publish. 

I remember asking my friend: “Why are you doing this? You know this is predatory.” Their answer: they wanted to work with the publisher in question. It was worth it for my friend to take this shitty deal because they wanted the prestige and professional development that came with working with this big publisher. And there is definitely a part of me that gets that: my friend is involved with the TTRPG industry in a myriad of capacities besides publishing, and I could see how something like this would help them in other parts of their career. I know there are people who work for Codex at a rate lower than what they normally charge, and they do so for similar reasons: because there are rewards for doing so outside of the purely financial. 

But I still think there is a better way. In fact, this conversation with my friend solidified in my mind that The Gauntlet needed to get into publishing so we could develop a better model. 

Exploring a better model

Codex’s 5 cents per word (soon to be 6 cents per word) isn’t amazing. We know that. But it’s what we can afford, and furthermore, the Codex publishing model is structured to be extremely friendly to authors. For starters, Codex pieces are shorter than what you might find in a bigger TTRPG book; these are projects the authors don’t have to spend huge amounts of time on. Second, the author 100% owns their text. They can turn right around after we publish their work in Codex and publish the text on their own Patreon or itch.io account or whatever. Finally, if playtesting or revisions need to happen before publishing, we will take care of that (although many authors choose to do their own playtesting). That last point should be especially salient considering the author still owns the text and can continue to benefit from our playtesting and revision. 

I bring all this up to say: we have taken into consideration basic fairness in the publishing process when it comes to Codex. 

But Codex is a periodical, and one that does not have to get X sales per month or hit Y dollars on Kickstarter in order to be viable. Basically, we can afford to take a lot of risks with it. 

A traditional, standalone game is a more complicated proposition. When devising a publishing model for a standalone game that is both fair to the author and respectful of their time—but also makes it worthwhile for the publisher to do—you have to be much more careful. 

After a great deal of thought, and conversations with some of our mentors in the industry, we have settled on a 50/50 profit split. The Gauntlet, as publisher of the standalone game, will pay authors a royalty equal to half the profits earned on the project. That includes profits from crowdfunding, physical book sales, PDF sales, and any licensing agreements we enter into. We will even pay an advance on those royalties, dependent on crowdfunding performance and other factors. 

We think our publishing model is a generous one, and, to be honest, it may not even work. But we’re going to try. If we can pull it off, we will have created a system by which authors get paid real money for their work and The Gauntlet community has a source of income that exists outside the vicissitudes of Patreon. And that last part is really important: in order to continue being viable into the future, The Gauntlet must find new ways of raising money. We simply can’t do everything we want or are expected to do on 4K a month, and there are a lot of signs Patreon may not even be a going concern in a few years. Remember when I said I'm always thinking about the future of The Gauntlet? This is one of the things that weighs heavily on my mind. 

Hearts of Wulin

​So, how does Hearts of Wulin fit into this? Well, to be blunt, it’s our test project. Hearts of Wulin is going to prove whether or not our model works.

Now, before I go any further, I want to note that discussing Hearts of Wulin as a game is beyond the scope of this blog post. If you want to know more about it, check out our Kickstarter preview page right here.

What I'm interested in doing here is discussing the specifics of our arrangement with the authors of the game, Agatha Cheng and Lowell Francis, so you can see how our model will work. 

In exchange for delivering a draft of the game text by XXX date, Agatha and Lowell are entitled to royalties equal to 50% of the game’s profits (split evenly between them). They will receive an advance on those royalties equal to 10% of the crowdfunding so long as the project hits $40,000 during the crowdfunding campaign. They will be expected to a do a reasonable amount of promotion, such as appearing on podcasts and similar, but the only hard requirement is to deliver their draft by our agreed-upon date. 

The Gauntlet gets a grant of rights that makes it the exclusive publisher of Hearts of Wulin. We also have the right to publish supplements and add-ons for the game, and to enter into licensing agreements. If Lowell and Agatha are ever unhappy with our marketing of the game, they can terminate the contract so long as we have been given a chance to address their concerns. 

There are, obviously, many more details, but the above represents our basic agreement. 

A note about self-publishing

Why would an author want to enter into an agreement with a publisher at all, especially given that self-publishing is easier than ever? That’s a great question, and, in fact, we strongly recommend it. For many people, self-publishing is a completely viable, financially rewarding path to take. Our model was not developed to suggest otherwise. 

But I do think there are a lot of advantages to working with a publisher. I can only speak for The Gauntlet, but here is what we bring to the table for our 50% cut: we handle editing, layout, artwork, and the logistics of printing and shipping; we offer a platform for promotion; we offer a platform for playtesting; we set up and manage the crowdfunding; we offer project management; and, importantly, we take most of the risk. The author is likely going to write the text no matter what, but we’re the ones putting extra resources on the line to get the project going. 

Also: many game designers simply may not want to do all the things needed to self-publish. A great many self-published game designers only have time for working on their game, and get separated from the pleasures of the TTRPG hobby. Our model creates space for designers to write their game and exercise their creativity, but otherwise continue enjoying TTRPGs as they wish. 

Closing thoughts

As mentioned above, this may not work! At all. It is as equally likely to be a total misfire as it is to be a reasonable success. Is Hearts of Wulin going to get published? Yes. Will we meet our obligations to our crowdfunding backers? Yes, absolutely. Will the project be so successful that The Gauntlet can push forward with this publishing model? Unknown. If the crowdfunding fails, then no—that future as a publisher of standalone games is foreclosed to us. That could be the case even if the crowdfunding is a moderate success. If crowdfunding is a great success, then yeah, we think our model will work. 

We shall see!