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Old 04-25-2015, 08:26 PM   #1
Raekai
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Default [RPM] Critique My Conversion of Ritual Path Magic to Fate Core

Hey, all!

I haven't been around much since I've been experimenting with Fate Core. Don't worry. I haven't left you guys, but I have been enjoying trying out another system. This is for those of you who have both an understanding of Fate Core and GURPS's own Ritual Path Magic system. I did my best to convert the spirit of RPM into a system of magic for Fate Core since it was the one big thing that I was reeeaaaaally missing from this new system.

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Fate Core RPM will use the Lore skill, and the standard Lore skill will be replaced by a better-named Knowledge skill. Lore is rolled against a Fair (+2) opposition, which is modified by +2 for each of the following: if there is no consecrated space, if the subject of the ritual is not immediately present, if the first roll takes a few seconds instead of a few minutes, and if the subsequent rolls take a few seconds instead of a few minutes. On the other end of that, the difficulty of the ritual being cast is also added to the opposition. A ritual's opposition can be anything from Mediocre (+0) for a spell like Light to Divine (+10) for a spell like Resurrection. The final opposition can never exceed Divine (+10) total. The final total of the opposition is also equal to the number of rolls that must succeed in order to overcome the ritual. However, longer rituals are dangerous, and each successive roll after the first garners a -1 to the Lore skill in question. If a roll is failed, the caster must pay the difference between the roll and the opposition as stress.

Furthermore, there are a few other ways to reduce the final opposition. A caster can certainly always chip in a fate point. There may be certain material components for rituals. A caster's Vial of Dragon's Blood might confer a one-time bonus to creating a potion of the Fire Resistance ritual while A Human Sacrifice might be more relevant to performing the Resurrection ritual. There are also stunts akin to those in the Freeport Companion which would allow a caster to know certain rituals well enough to reduce the opposition of those known rituals. Plus, you could easily have stunts reflecting Ritual Adept. Details on that will come later.

Example: Jermaine wants to cast the Heal ritual on his dying buddy Lewis. His skill in Lore is Good (+3) and, while the opposition of the Heal ritual is normally Superb (+5), Jermaine also has Heal as a known ritual, reducing the opposition to Good (+3). Luckily, he still has his consecrated space from earlier. Furthermore, he has a connection with the subject since his buddy Lewis is right there with him. Since he has time to kill, he will go ahead and take a few minutes for each roll. All in all, that whittles down the total Lore opposition to Superb (+5). He'll take six hits of stress to reduce that to Fair (+2), which is a lot more manageable for his Lore skill. Jermaine takes his time and rolls, and he gets a final total of Good (+3), which is a success. He rolls again and gets a final total of Mediocre (+0), which is a failure and also means that he must pay the difference in stress hits. Since Jermaine used up all of his stress earlier, he'll have to take a mild magical consequence. It's not ideal, but it's a small price to pay in order to completely heal his buddy. So he rolls again and gets a total of Fair (+2), which is a tie, meaning that he will succeed the ritual with a cost. Lewis is feeling much better, having all of his stress and consequences removed with the exception of his last mild consequence, which is still recovering as the cost.

Yes, the opposition is steep, but Jermaine managed to heal Lewis of every bit of stress save for a final recovering mild consequence at the cost of 8 stress, most of which will very soon go away except for the lingering mild consequence he took on as well.
Please critique this, ask me to clarify something, or tell if it's rather good. If it's rather good, then I'll run with it. I think one of its biggest problems already is that it's still rather complicated, but I'd like to think that it's still functional. If this is working, I think I'd obviously add some stunts in the way of Ritual Adept that would stand in for the space, connection, and time bonuses (and maybe an extra one for material components).

Thanks!

Last edited by Raekai; 04-26-2015 at 10:47 AM.
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Old 04-25-2015, 09:08 PM   #2
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Default Re: [RPM] Critique My Conversion of Ritual Path Magic to Fate Core

Could you clarify a few things:

For the Using a Known Ritual advantage, how do you know if it's known? Are rituals Stunts or Skills or Aspects or what?

Is the advantage Relevant Material Component created by a Resource roll?

How is Consecrated Space created?

What does the Heal actually heal? How many stress boxes/consequences are removed?

Thanks!
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Old 04-25-2015, 09:26 PM   #3
Raekai
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Default Re: [RPM] Critique My Conversion of Ritual Path Magic to Fate Core

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Originally Posted by GoldenMonkey View Post
Could you clarify a few things:

For the Using a Known Ritual advantage, how do you know if it's known? Are rituals Stunts or Skills or Aspects or what?

Is the advantage Relevant Material Component created by a Resource roll?

How is Consecrated Space created?

What does the Heal actually heal? How many stress boxes/consequences are removed?

Thanks!
Sure! Using a Known Ritual came from the magic system in the Fate Freeport Companion. It would be a stunt which allows access to a certain number of spells based on keywords. Five if loose, three if more restricted. Maybe. Relevant Material Component is probably a Gear thing. You have the Vial of Dragon's Blood which would be perfect for the Fire Resistance spell. Consecrated Space, I would probably leave that up to fluff, most likely. As for the Heal ritual, that's also from the Freeport Companion. It wipes away all stress and consequences, I believe. I'm mobile right now, so it's not too easy for me to check.

Hope that helps!
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Old 04-25-2015, 10:06 PM   #4
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Default Re: [RPM] Critique My Conversion of Ritual Path Magic to Fate Core

From what I'm seeing you give the RPM mage an extremely high passive opposition (+10) and allow them to offset it with aspects. The trouble is in order to invoke an aspect (without previously succeeding on a Create Advantage roll) to get a +2 you have to spend a Fate point. So either you're expecting the mage to succeed on a ton of Create an Advantage rolls (statistically unlikely), drain all of their Fate points for a single task (unfair) or meet el Diablo when the spell inevitably fails. You'd need a ton of favorable Aspects you could invoke to even hope to light a match with magic, much less do anything fun.

If this is a game where RPM mages are supposed to shine (or be anything but smears of blood in the middle of a pentagram the rest of the characters are investigating) I'd drop the default +10 difficulty and make it no more difficult than a routine task the other characters are expected to do, except only the RPM mage can do it because they have a character aspect that allows them.

Or, you could modify the Challenge rules and allow the use of a single skill, by a single person and allow them to add rolled successes until they succeed. Of course any negative rolls mean they lose that many accumulated successes and if they go too far negative then, again, they meet el Diablo for afternoon tea.
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Old 04-26-2015, 12:45 AM   #5
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Default Re: [RPM] Critique My Conversion of Ritual Path Magic to Fate Core

Let me second ciaran_skye's advice, and add a bit of my own: pick up the Fate System Toolkit. That's got a number of magic systems in it, plus advice on how to make more.

I would strongly recommend ditching the hardwired opposition: in general, Fate Core works better when less is hardwired. Likewise with the various advantages you cite: all of them should be suggestions of the types of Aspects that would help with a RPM casting; but none of them should be requirements.
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Old 04-26-2015, 08:44 AM   #6
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Default Re: [RPM] Critique My Conversion of Ritual Path Magic to Fate Core

Sorry, I did not realize you were using Freeport Companion spells. There are any number of magic systems you could use and, as fateweaver said, the Fate System Toolkit has a bunch of cool prefab ones to pick from.

I have to agree that the +10 is prohibitive, especially with the one point per consequence/stress box failure penalty. Odds are that you'll kill yourself before you even get off a single spell. In your example, the caster takes 8 stress box hits to cast Heal in a non-combat setting. What's the advantage of RPM in this case?
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Old 04-26-2015, 10:46 AM   #7
Raekai
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Default Re: [RPM] Critique My Conversion of Ritual Path Magic to Fate Core

Quote:
Fate Core RPM will use the Lore skill, and the standard Lore skill will be replaced by a better-named Knowledge skill. Lore is rolled against a Fair (+2) opposition, which is modified by +2 for each of the following: if there is no consecrated space, if the subject of the ritual is not immediately present, if the first roll takes a few seconds instead of a few minutes, and if the subsequent rolls take a few seconds instead of a few minutes. On the other end of that, the difficulty of the ritual being cast is also added to the opposition. A ritual's opposition can be anything from Mediocre (+0) for a spell like Light to Divine (+10) for a spell like Resurrection. The final opposition can never exceed Divine (+10) total. The final total of the opposition is also equal to the number of rolls that must succeed in order to overcome the ritual. However, longer rituals are dangerous, and each successive roll after the first garners a -1 to the Lore skill in question. If a roll is failed, the caster must pay the difference between the roll and the opposition as stress.

Furthermore, there are a few other ways to reduce the final opposition. A caster can certainly always chip in a fate point. There may be certain material components for rituals. A caster's Vial of Dragon's Blood might confer a one-time bonus to creating a potion of the Fire Resistance ritual while A Human Sacrifice might be more relevant to performing the Resurrection ritual. There are also stunts akin to those in the Freeport Companion which would allow a caster to know certain rituals well enough to reduce the opposition of those known rituals. Plus, you could easily have stunts reflecting Ritual Adept. Details on that will come later.

Example: Jermaine wants to cast the Heal ritual on his dying buddy Lewis. His skill in Lore is Good (+3) and, while the opposition of the Heal ritual is normally Superb (+5), Jermaine also has Heal as a known ritual, reducing the opposition to Good (+3). Luckily, he still has his consecrated space from earlier. Furthermore, he has a connection with the subject since his buddy Lewis is right there with him. Since he has time to kill, he will go ahead and take a few minutes for each roll. All in all, that whittles down the total Lore opposition to Superb (+5). He'll take six hits of stress to reduce that to Fair (+2), which is a lot more manageable for his Lore skill. Jermaine takes his time and rolls, and he gets a final total of Good (+3), which is a success. He rolls again and gets a final total of Mediocre (+0), which is a failure and also means that he must pay the difference in stress hits. Since Jermaine used up all of his stress earlier, he'll have to take a mild magical consequence. It's not ideal, but it's a small price to pay in order to completely heal his buddy. So he rolls again and gets a total of Fair (+2), which is a tie, meaning that he will succeed the ritual with a cost. Lewis is feeling much better, having all of his stress and consequences removed with the exception of his last mild consequence, which is still recovering as the cost.

Yes, the opposition is steep, but Jermaine managed to heal Lewis of every bit of stress save for a final recovering mild consequence at the cost of 8 stress, most of which will very soon go away except for the lingering mild consequence he took on as well.
I took the critique that I have received so far and revised what I had. I think this will make casting a little bit easier, but it's still pricey. It's also still a little more complex than what Fate Core and the Fate System Toolkit offer, but I don't mind a little complexity, especially when it's for something that I'm tacking on as a special ability. Casters are not supposed to shine, but they aren't supposed to be useless either, especially when being a caster only requires having a relevant character aspect. No refresh cost.
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Old 04-26-2015, 12:43 PM   #8
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Default Re: [RPM] Critique My Conversion of Ritual Path Magic to Fate Core

Not sure what changed...did the Heal ritual drop? The example still seems to be the same.

Keep in mind that the odds of rolling +2 or higher on Fate dice is only 18.5%. The odds of rolling it three times in a row is (.185 ^ 3)= 0.006 or 0.6%. That's once in 166 attempts.

Even the odds of rolling greater than +0 Mediocre three times in a row are less than 25%. (.62 ^ 3)=0.24.

Adding consequences to the magnitude of the failed dice rolls, especially repeated rolls, will cause a rapid accumulation of hits.
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Old 04-26-2015, 12:58 PM   #9
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Default Re: [RPM] Critique My Conversion of Ritual Path Magic to Fate Core

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Originally Posted by GoldenMonkey View Post
Not sure what changed...did the Heal ritual drop? The example still seems to be the same.

Keep in mind that the odds of rolling +2 or higher on Fate dice is only 18.5%. The odds of rolling it three times in a row is (.185 ^ 3)= 0.006 or 0.6%. That's once in 166 attempts.

Even the odds of rolling greater than +0 Mediocre three times in a row are less than 25%. (.62 ^ 3)=0.24.

Adding consequences to the magnitude of the failed dice rolls, especially repeated rolls, will cause a rapid accumulation of hits.
The main thing that changed is that I got rid of a lot of Create Advantage rolls in the beginning. Instead, I just made them modifiers to the opposition itself. This cuts down on the number of rolls one has to succeed.

Your idea of altering stress for this system is a good one. Your numbers don't lie. I could change it to 1 hit of stress to reduce the opposition instead of 2 hits, and I could make a failure just a flat 1 hit of stress. Do you think that would balance it out a little bit better? For this example, Jermaine would easily be able to get Heal down to Mediocre (+0) with five hits of stress, and he probably wouldn't have any failures with that against his Good (+3) Lore. The problem is that stress will simply disappear rather quickly (at the end of the conflict), which makes casting such a powerful ritual rather cheap.
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Old 04-26-2015, 01:34 PM   #10
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Default Re: [RPM] Critique My Conversion of Ritual Path Magic to Fate Core

"the first roll takes seconds instead of minutes" and "subsequent rolls take seconds instead of minutes" are artifacts of GURPS Thaumatology; there's no reason to port the distinction between the two to Fate.

Also, Fate doesn't measure time in seconds or minutes; it measures time in turns, where the length of a turn depends on what makes sense for the scene that's playing out. What you're really discussing is whether the casting is fast enough to influence a scene that's in progress or if it's something that you do between scenes.

I do appreciate the switch to a variable Opposition, as that nicely sidesteps the aforementioned need to create and invoke Aspects to stand a chance at succeeding. Conversely, I'd ditch the +10 cap on Opposition, and i'd also be a bit more open about how the caster can get bonuses to his roll: instead of the current implication that there's a select list of ways to improve your roll, note that invoking appropriate Aspects benefits your roll as usual, and mention material components as an example of appropriate situational aspects. Fate runs off if giving the players free rein to invent their own solutions to a problem (such as how to properly power up the ritual); don't restrain them by implying that there's a box that they must stay in.

The Ritual Adept stunts are essentially of the "rule breaker" variety, with each one removing one of the three types of Opposition increases — that is, if you have Ritual Adept: Sacred Space, you don't get a +2 to the Opposition if you're not in an appropriate ritual environment.
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