2011-02-08 Der Geist Mesopotamiens – ein kurzes, deutsches Fate
Für unsere Montagsrunde brauchte ich eine Adaption von Spirit of the Century und Diaspora für eine hellenistisch-babylonische Kampagne. Insbesondere war mir wichtig, von den bestehenden Büchern weg zu kommen. Das Spirit of the Century Regelbuch sind mir viel zu lang. Die Beschreibungen der Skills sind langweilig, die Stunts verwirrend, Gadgets kompliziert, Spielleitertipps unnötig, Hintergrund sowieso anders. Und von Diaspora brauche ich weder Cluster Generation noch Platoon Combat, und Social Combat wollte ich einfach live zeigen. Die Ladder für Schwierigkeiten, Zeit, und all die anderen zehntausend Dinge brauche ich auch nicht. Und bei den Skills brauchte ich natürlich einen Ersatz für Schusswaffen. Und ausserdem habe ich gerne deutsche Namen für die Dinge wenn wir am Abend sowieso auf Deutsch spielen. Irgendwie mag ich es nicht, wenn wir Deutsch spielen aber alle Talente und Ausrüstungsgegenstände Englisch sind.
Egal, die Kurzregeln stehen! Wiki Seite: Der Geist Mesopotamiens auf dem Campaign Wiki, oder das ganze auch als PDF.
Heute war Feuertaufe! Der erste Spieler ist schon mit einem Charakter nach den Spirit of the Century Regeln mit fünf Stunts gekommen und hat wegen Begleittier und Gadget sich je +1 im Kampf gegeben. Ich hatte keine Lust auf eine grosse Diskussion aber das nächste Mal will ich wie bei Diaspora einfach mit have a thing ohne Bonus spielen. Ansonsten hat die Kurzfassung sehr gut geklappt und die richtigen Bücher wurden kein einziges Mal aufgeklappt. Damit hat sich eigentlich gezeigt, dass eigene Kurzfassungen der Regeln mit eingebauten Hausregeln auch wirklich schnell zusammengestellt sind.
Nur die NeoOffice Bastelei war mühsam. 
Update: Die neue Version wurde mit LaTeX erstellt!
Comments on 2011-02-08 Der Geist Mesopotamiens – ein kurzes, deutsches Fate
2010-10-03 Fate Notes Compared
I just listened to 2d6 Feet in a Random Direction episode 55 with Ryan Macklin and Brian Isikoff talking about the GM side of the EndGame Iron GM competition. What I really liked about this show was hearing two GMs comparing notes on two similar FATE games. Choices to implement, timed aspects, character creation, what they did to get players talking, how they handled having no time to prep at all, how they handled the themes they were given which they did not like, and many things besides. It was real, hands-on, useful information, with context, commentary. Simply inspirational and awesome.
Does anybody know of similar hands-on GM oriented episodes? There are a lot of broad, theoretical advice shows. But this episode was about the nitty-gritty details of running a game delivered in a conversational style. I’d like to listen to one or two similar shows.
Comments on 2010-10-03 Fate Notes Compared
Glad you found the episode useful and enjoyable - as always, thanks for listening!
– Brian 2010-10-03 20:09 UTC
2010-09-23 Mixing Fate and Skill Challenges
I’m running a biweekly Diaspora game in a Traveller Subsector. The party had just crash landed on a planet after being shot down by a gunship using space combat rules and made it to the base on a sort of social combat map with the opponents being earthquakes, a sea monster, and a patrol of aliens. Inside the base, they saw the overgrown and partly disassembled remnants of the ship that had brought the alien infection to the system and decided they were going to hook their diplomat-hacker up with the central nervous system running the base. I asked the table whether they felt like another map and combat but Harald reminded me of another technique I often use: Just go around in a circle and ask each of the players what they’ll do to help solve the problem.
Four players, four rolls. I said you need at least two successes. First attempt by Thomas at finding a quiet corner fails spectacularly. The aliens get spin. Second attempt by Florian at fighting the immune system of the mega-organism fails spectacularly. The aliens get spin. Third attempt by Harald at hooking up the hacker fails spectacularly. The aliens get spin. Whoa!! The last roll comes up and I ask for the stakes. What’s going to happen when Jörg fails? I say he’s going to be taken over and integrated into the base if he fails. He says “w00t!?” He doesn’t want to take the consequences for all the earlier failures. Harald volunteers to take a severe consequence that would change his result into a success – “infected by an alien mind”. Yay!! Jörg manages to reprogram the alien factory in order to make the resulting ship something they can use. Victory!
As the session was about to end, I give the diplomat-hacker the following choice:
- will you try to get off-world as quickly as possible with the intelligence you gathered, ie. leave safely but without resolving the situation? No fight, no loot, minimal plot advancement.
- will you man the ship as soon as possible, head over to the wreck of the old ship to rescue an ancient artifact, delaying long enough that you’ll have to fight your way out of the system? One space combat, but save artifact.
- will you confuse the three ships in the system in order to gain enough time to penetrate the central nervous system of the base, eliminate the threat, and then try to get off the system? One personal combat, and one ship combat, but resolve situation.
They picked #3 – Alien 2 style. So proud. 
Tags: RPG
Traveller
Diaspora
FATE 
Comments on 2010-09-23 Mixing Fate and Skill Challenges
If I wanted an easy way out, I wouldn’t be playing in the first place.
– Harald Wagener 2010-09-23 14:04 UTC
2010-07-14 From Traveller to Diaspora
Bye bye Traveller category – our gaming group has decided to give Diaspora a try!
What happened?
- One player left the campaign because he’s working in Berlin during the week and can’t play in Zürich on Wednesdays.
- Another player said that the campaign wasn’t really working for him.
- That leaves only three players – and one of them very busy – and a game master.
- I said that I felt the system was pushing us into micro-managing things we only cared for on an abstract level; basically we weren’t interested in anything involving money: trade, maintenance costs, equipment costs, etc.
- Three of us had given Spirit of the Century a try; we liked FATE but didn’t like the rulebook.
- Harald and I had read the Diaspora book and liked it.
Today we had three hours. First we discussed the state of the campaign and decided to switch to Diaspora. I printed out character sheets, skill reference sheet, personal combat sheet while Harald explained a bit about the rules. Then we converted our Traveller characters. It went pretty smoothly. The free form aspects are a real boon.
We assigned a system to each one of us, and said that we’d convert the UWP to the Diaspora stats on our Campaign:Kaylash subsector wiki. We’ll convert them as we go. Technology, Environment, Resources, and three aspects, that should not be too hard. We already have a map and a lot of info on some of the systems.
I don’t think we need a Diaspora cluster. Perhaps I’m missing something? The benefit of having small clusters might be a localized game suited for people that like to switch campaigns often? We’ve been playing our biweekly game for a year, now. I think we want to keep playing in this subsector and we want to keep exploring our characters for quite a bit more.
Wish us luck! 
Tags: RPG
Traveller
Diaspora
FATE 
Comments on 2010-07-14 From Traveller to Diaspora
Good luck!
I’ll be following this with interest - Diaspora is firmly on my To Do list!
– greywulf 2010-07-14 21:36 UTC
Well, I converted one character: CW:Kaylash/Bergofan Maia for Traveller → CW:Kaylash/Bergofan Maia.
– AlexSchroeder 2010-07-15 01:19 UTC
2009-11-18 Traveller or Diaspora
Tonight we’ll play in my Campaign:Kaylash Traveller campaign again. I’ve played Spirit of the Century twice in our regular experimental Monday one-shots and liked it. The game uses the Fate rules, which are based on Fudge. I’ve been a long time Fudge fan even though I never got to play it before. (I did prefer the “subjective” rules, however.)
I had heard about the new Traveller-like Fate-using Science-Fiction game Diaspora.
So when Haarald started comparing Traveller and Diaspora (in German), I was intrigued. Instead of getting eight pseudo-realistic stats and a multitude of trades codes from Traveller tables, you get three meta-stats, and some aspects. The question I’m asking myself is how much do the Traveller subsector generation rules afford the typical gameplay? Can you make good use of Diaspora without having played Traveller before?
I think you can. You’ll use Diaspora and it’ll end up being colored by whatever background you have: Mars, Earth, and Venus; or Corruscant, Tatooine, and Dagobah; or whatever they’re called in Mass Effect. I haven’t played in Traveller’s Imperium – is it an essential element of the game? I don’t think so. But perhaps the subsector generation rules and it’s implied setting generate a suitable campaign map.
I’d love to read more comparisons between the two.
| Traveller Stats | Traveller Trade Codes | Diaspora Stats |
|---|---|---|
| Starport | Agricultural | Technology |
| Size | Asteroid | Environment |
| Atmosphere | Barren | Resources |
| Hydro | Desert | |
| Population | Fluid Oceans | |
| Government | Garden | |
| Law Level | High Population | |
| Tech Level | High Technology | |
| Ice-Capped | ||
| Industrial | ||
| Low Population | ||
| Low Technology | ||
| Non-Agricultural | ||
| Non-Industrial | ||
| Poor | ||
| Rich | ||
| Water World | ||
| Vacuum |
Tags: Traveller
Diaspora
Fate
RPG 
Comments on 2009-11-18 Traveller or Diaspora
You might want to check out Brad Murray’s blog blue collar space. In his article Diaspora and giant bugs he writes
“One design principle going into the Diaspora project was to leverage Fate (via SotC)’s intrinsic power to maintain balances by using as much paint as possible where paint will suffice.”
From my point of view, paint suffices when people have a good understanding of what is being painted. To stick with the art analogy: Diaspora’s painting IMHO is the “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” to Traveller’s pipe.
So, assuming that people surely can play a (hardish) sf game with Diaspora without ever having as much as walked by a Traveller rule book, my expectation is that people who played (and enjoyed) Traveller will paint their game with Diaspora in a very distinct way that will remind you of all the building blocks Traveller explicitly puts on a table.
– Harald Wagener 2009-11-18 13:25 UTC
Yes, I subscribed to the blog this very morning! 
All this talk makes me want to start a parallel Diaspora game and see whether it turns out much different. And if it does, whether I like it better!
– AlexSchroeder 2009-11-18 14:12 UTC
2009-10-12 Diaspora
I’ve selectively read the Spirit of the Century rule book in anticipation of a one-shot. It’s called a pick-up game, but it’s not easy to pick up – it just seems to lend itself to little planning and episodic play. I discovered Diaspora at a friend’s place, and it seemed smaller.
I like small books! Hopefully the rules are quicker to read.
Since we’re also playing a Mongoose Traveller game, I’m interested. I also like the rant at the beginning of the 16 page thread on rpg.net.
I’m interested in replacing the skill list with free form qualities à la Subjective Fudge of Zo. Too bad the skill list available from their website is a plan ol’ skill list.
But unfortunately the price is not my friend:
| Subtotal | $34.95 |
| Shipping and Handling | $12.89 |
| Total | $47.84 |
Maybe I’ll take another look at my friend’s copy before buying anything.
Tags: RPG
Fate
Spirit of the Century 
Comments on 2009-10-12 Diaspora
Hey, I looked at my Lulu shopping cart again, and shipping and handling went up by a dollar: $13.97! Weird.
– AlexSchroeder 2009-10-16 11:06 UTC
Buying it from Sphärenmeister in Germany is much better:
| Bezeichnung | GP |
| Diaspora - Hard SF FATE | 28,95 € |
| Versandmethode | 1,80 € |
| Gesamtbetrag ohne MwSt. | 28,74 € |
Often small shops will not sell without VAT to Switzerland. This is cool. About $43.
– AlexSchroeder 2009-10-16 11:21 UTC
You probably know this already, but I read on an amazon.de info page that certain tax exemptions exist when importing from Germany to Switzerland. Sure enough, the package arrived without me having to pay anything extra.
– Marco 2009-10-16 14:38 UTC
Yup. No VAT if and only if 7.6% of the package does not exceed CHF 5.- – otherwise you’ll pay 7.6% + CHF 18.- service charge. A source of much annoyance!!
– AlexSchroeder 2009-10-16 18:51 UTC
AlexSchroeder
Oder auf dem Richtig Rollenspielen! Forum.
– AlexSchroeder 2011-02-08 11:32 UTC
Add Comment