Devlog #0 - The one about whys and hows

How did all start? Well, it started about the same time when Fate Core was published. I bought my copy as soon as it was available in my country, read it through and started playing. And as I learned Fate, I learned another thing. Fate NEEDS to be hacked. It's not like Savage Worlds, I used to play earlier. You don't get any ready to use magic systems, feats, and rules. The base system is cool for some modern-age action or low-magic fantasy. The example setting in the Fate Core represents the latter, and it looks to work well, but it wasn't what I wanted to achieve.

Because, you know, I started my RPG adventure with D&D and I hated the complexity of D&D at the same time. I wanted to play Fate, but have numerous options of magical powers to choose from. Not only magical spells, but also supernatural feats or qualities, that characters could have. I spent ten years playing and trying to create something like this, but failed multiple times. Failures aside, I learned much from these experiences. I had many memorable sessions of play, and I developed a more profound understanding of Fate systems. I tested a couple of Worlds of Adventure and implemented some of their ideas in my games. Likewise, I had a couple of moments when I wanted to stop playing Fate altogether. I wanted to switch to PBTA games, but I had an impression that hacking them would be much more difficult than hacking Fate.

So, what can you expect now? Is there anything new and fresh that I can show you after 10 years of trials and errors? Yes and no. I have an idea. Idea than needs polishing, but had some promising results in the playtests. The problem is, it's not as generic as I thought it would be. It's not complex, but it will be big. At this point, there are four things I need to focus on:

1. Inspiration — I know a couple of magic/power systems for Fate and some of them inspired my work (Aether Sea, Jadepunk, Venture City), but I would like to learn more. If you know anything that could help me, give me some inspiration or maybe just do the things I want to achieve, I would be truly grateful if you let me know.

2. Power balance — it's difficult to balance the powers, if you agree on some level of generalization. For example. A character who can turn into a wolf can bite enemies and run fast, and both of these qualities can be achieved using two other spells. So it's a hack you could use to have the effects of multiple spells as one spell.

3. Power effect library — As I said, I hoped I could describe powers using a couple of general categories, but it needs to be much more detailed. I need a collection of power effects, that can then be used to construct spells, magical abilities, superpowers etc. This with power balance allows me to create magic systems tailored for different settings and games.

4. Putting things together — finally, I need to find a way to use the power system in Fate Core rules so that I could achieve various effects. For example, at this point I'm sure I'll have to name a new aspect type to be used as an effect of some kind of powers. This part is a glue that will join everything together and allow attaching it to the Fate system.

That's a lot of work! Wish me luck :)

Cover image source: https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/illustrations/outward-bound-houghton/