Harry Potter - Fate Accelerated Hack

When I talk about licensed games, one of the IP that I always get questions about is Harry Potter. This setting has an immense, passionate fandom. Why is there no tabletop RPG? The answer to that is a lot of heresay plus my own conjecture. The follow up question is: Well, what system would you use to run a HP game? My answer is, inevitably, Fate. Specifically, Accelerated because I think its abstractness does a good job at modelling established fictional characters.

So, after years, of suggesting it, I finally decided to do it. It's not a heavy hack, which its why I shied away from it for so long, but the itch to design it finally irritated me enough to put it down on blog paper.

Follow my Harry Potter Fate Accelerated (Fate Accio?) hack after the jump!

Shadowrun Classic - Fate Core Hack

I've noodled around with a few fate hacks of Shadowrun before, but a mixture of circumstances allowed me a little time to put down my thoughts on the matter in more detail. This time of year is innately frustrating for freelance designers since projects talked about at Gen Con are slowly rolling into production but much of the time is spent waiting for that pivotal "Okay, go!" email. There's a lot of unpaid words here, but sometimes you have to clear the decks before you can focus on new work.

This hack was built for running Shadowrun during the 1st through 3rd editions of the game, set during the 2050s and 2060s. My intent was to run classic Shadowrun adventures like Bottled Demon without houseruling the hell out of the original rules. It doesn't have everything out of every book, but it has enough that converting your favorite piece of equipment should not be difficult. Fans of technomancers should be able to do them by reskinning Magic as Resonance, but I didn't tackle them here because they fell out of the time period. (I may return at a later date to do it.)

The rules for setting up the run take a lot of inspiration from +John Rogers amazing CrimeWorld setting from Worlds in Shadow. You should read it anyway if you're planning on running any game where your protagonists are criminals, because its densely packed with information and inspiration.

I wrote down these rules in advance of the next meeting of Adventurer's Guild Local 42, a series of RPG events I'm running at 42 Lounge in downtown Milwaukee. I'll be running it on Sunday, November 13th at 3 pm. You might also see it added to the mix of games I run at conventions.

Click here to check out the complete Fate Shadowrun Classic rules.
Click here for characters ready for aspects based on some of my favorite classic Shadowrun archetypes.

Fate Hack - Star Trek Prime Accelerated

TNG is my jam, but this hack should work for any era/series.

I am sad I won't be at Gen Con this year. It seems like Star Trek is coming back in a big way thanks to a variety of board game releases and the recent announcement of the first licensed RPG in a decade. Much of these products focus on the so-called "Prime Universe", the long-standing one not affected by the time travel shenanigans of the reboot film series. I did a hack set in that universe a while ago, so it seemed like a good time to try something for the original.

More often than not, Fate Accelerated is my base of choice for any hacks involving media. It's much easier to interact with characters when you don't have to calculate XP based on the amount of books and films and shows those characters are in. TV shows are also relatively static, which matches the idea that Fate characters change faster than they grow. Finally, Accelerated shines when all the characters are the same thing (like officers on a Starfleet vessel, or wizards at a boarding school) and approaches can really show the differences between them.

Special thanks to +Morgan Ellis for suggesting approaches that split infinitives!

We boldly go to the hack after the jump.

Nexus Game Fair - Schedule

This weekend, from June 25th - 28th at the Crowne Plaza Hotel - Milwaukee Airport, I'll be a Guest of Honor for the second annual Nexus Game Fair. In addition to the tournaments and MilCog's ginormous board game library, I'll be involved with games, panels and wandering around talking with designers. Here's where I'll be officially:

Thursday - 7 PM: Ghostbusters - Satanic Panic (SOLD OUT)

I'm running a session of my Fate hack for Ghostbusters at the show. We'll make up a franchise and get down to busting heads...in a spiritual sense of course.

Friday - 10 AM: Feng Shui 2 - Demo

I'm pinch hitting for Cam Banks who had to cancel his appearance at the con. As a Feng Shui 2 backer, I'm excited to get the game on the road and kick some butt!

Friday - 6 PM: Fun Facts About Fate

If you've ever wanted to pick my brain about Fate, here's your chance. I'm talking about the different variations and my experiences working with Evil Hat.

Friday - 7 PM: Firefly RPG - All In The Family (SOLD OUT)

I'm running an adventure out of one of the books for a Full Boat: 9 players, each taking a role of the Serenity Crew!

Sunday - 1 PM: Atomic Robo RPG - Neil DeGrasse Tyson Is Missing!

Sign up as Tesladyne interns assigned to pick up the famous scientist for a meeting with Robo...and then brainstorm to figure out what happened to him!

Even if events are sold out, don't fret. I'll be running these events again at Gamehole Con in November, and feel free to swing by and see if people dropped out.

Fate Hack - Ghostbusters, Too!

As part of my con programming for this year, I'm running a Ghostbusters game using Fate. Seems easy enough, since I already did one, right? I decided to take another swing at it now that I have two more years of Fate design under my belt, and Atomic Robo had some neat ideas about brainstorming and building gadgets. Summer is sequel season at the movies, so here's my second crack at a Ghostbusters hack after the jump.

MKE RPG - On Facebook

If you ever want to come play games with me, chances are I'll be running something for MKE RPG at 42 Lounge or 42 Ale House, one of two excellent geek bars in the Milwaukee area. I run playtests, one shots, blog hacks and a variety of games, so if you're in the area, sign up for the group and see what's coming up on the schedule.

Save Game - In Print

My author's copies of Save Game arrived this morning. It's even more gorgeous in print! If you want yours, order it (and a bunch of other stuff, why not?) from Evil Hat today!

Actual Play - Save Game

Here's a great review/actual play from Michael Duxbury with some awesome characters!

Save Game - Press Start

The day is here. Create retro video game heroes to battle a vicious computer virus in Save Game, powered by Fate Core.

Save Game is available here. Like all the Worlds of Adventure funded through the Evil Hat Patreon, it's Pay What You Want. You can download it for free if you like and then dip back to pay for it later. Or sign up for the Patreon and fund other totally awesome worlds coming up and get a chance to look at them early.

Thanks to Fred Hicks and Rob Donoghue for giving me another chance to wear the Evil Hat. Their company is one of the best in the biz. Joshua Yearsley and Lenny Balsera whipped the manuscript into shape.

Thanks to the patrons of Patreon for investing in this experiment. I want you all to tell me about your characters.

Thanks to Aaron Lyle, Brad Davies and Ryan Smith as my official playtesters and to the gamers at Nexus Game Fair who played in my public playtest.

Thanks to Brian Patterson, who did all the amazing art for the book. His webcomic is awesome.

Fate Hack - Mass Effect

Several Fate hacks grace these pages, but I decided today to post a link to one elsewhere on the web. Don Mappin's Mass Effect hack is massive and has everything you need to play a tabletop RPG in the Mass Effect universe except the official stamp from Bioware.

Save Game - Gone Gold

Save Game is in the loving arms of Evil Hat going through the layout process as of today. I don't have a firm release date yet, but as soon as I do, check my social media outlets to see when it will be available.

Thanks to everyone at Evil Hat for being amazing. If you haven't already, check out the first two products in the World of Adventure line: +Brian Engard 's cyberpunk supers setting Venture City Stories and +Richard Bellingham 's urban fantasy cats setting The Secrets of Cats. Not only are they both awesome, they are available as Pay What You Want.

Nexus Game Fair Schedule

I'm a guest of honor at the Nexus Game Fair here in Milwaukee, WI from June 19th - June 22nd. There are a lot of excellent people at the show, but, for some reason, if you want to come and see me instead, here's where I'll be. The demos are all sold out, but there are plenty of tickets available for the Firefly seminar.

Thursday, June 19th:

6 PM: Camelot Trigger Demo

Friday, June 20th:

4 PM: Firefly RPG seminar

7 PM: Save Game public playtest

Saturday, June 21st:

Noon - Firefly Demo "Bucking the Tiger"
6 PM - Firefly Demo "Bucking the Tiger"

In addition, my friends at Plot Points podcast will be doing a live show at 8PM on Friday.

Save Game - First Save Point Reached!

I just submitted my first draft of Save Game to the heads under the Evil Hat. A playtest this weekend really helped tighten up the manuscript and the focus of the game. I'd also like to thank everyone for their support and enthusiasm in working on the game.

After the jump, there's an except for the random aspect generation I use to give each character flavor. My playtesters giggled with evil glee picking the words for their fellows to use while creating their aspects. I thought it was a clever twist to the phase trio from Fate Core.

Save Game - The Really Real World

Save Game is a fairy-tale land based on video game source material. It’s not the first tale to be told using these stories as a basis. Many other tales feature some connection to the real world, like a person trapped inside a computer or being able to look through a screen out into the real world. How important is a connection to the real world for your game?

Games that end with the rescue (or destruction) of Cartridge Gardens likely don’t need much thought about the subject. For games that proceed to other islands, some consideration about the effects on the real world can give the game more texture. Is the Glitch a virus looking to overtake all systems to gain sentience? Is it a local virus eating through the computer of one family that could wreck their daughter’s paper?

How important is the Real World to you in Save Game?

Save Game - The Boss Monsters

Here are the descriptions of the bad guys in the campaign included in the game. Each generation is a different island, so we're focusing on the 8-bit island in this project. The biggest heroes have already fallen to the Glitch. They call themselves the Zeroes, and they look to destroy the final free city on the isles. Presstarton is your home and if you fall, it falls, and the Arcadian Isles will be overrun with the Glitch.


I'm sure you'll see the inspirations for the Zeroes, but I hope you get a kick out of the twists, too. They were heroes once, just...like...you...

Save Game - The Outline

I submitted my outline for Save Game to Evil Hat. How much of the outline survives to the end is pretty flexible, especially once words start pouring out and mechanics are solidified. My goal is to keep Save Game split evenly between mechanics, setting and adventure, but once I carve out the text we'll see how well that split maintains.

The outline I submitted is a bit more detailed with bits of text, but this should provide a good tease for where I'm going. Full outline after the jump!

Save Game - The Ingredients

With the release of Venture City Stories this week, the Fate Patreon experiment begins to bear fruit. My project, Save Game, is moving forward, so I thought another series of development blogs would be in order.

What's going into the pot this time?

Tron: The grandaddy of pop-culture inside the computer fantasy. It's a bit of a mixed bag between the original, the sequel/reboot (requel?) and the animated series, but it's got a lot of great ideas that still resonate today. 

Wreck It-Ralph: This love letter to video games put the idea of video game heroes coming together into the public consciousness. It also mashed up video game genres in fun ways. I want the heroes to deal with problems they aren't used to in the safety of their own game. they also did a lot of clever references and Easter eggs, which should be evident as setting details come out.

ICONS: This excellent supers game has a fun random power generation engine that compels the player to come up with a reason to link the randomly rolled powers. When I saw some combinations, I immediately thought of classic video game heroes that had really odd collections of abilities. You've got a surfboard and you're a ninja? Makes sense. You are an angry hockey player with a laser guitar? Obviously. You're a plumber who can shapeshift, jump really high and hurl fireballs? Welcome aboard! Sounds like a group of players to me!

Lord of the Rings: When I originally  envisioned the setting, I was thinking of it in superhero terms. But reframing it as an epic quest not only fit the video game paradigm, but also let me focus on the Glitch, the main bad guy. Rather than a battle against other characters, it became protecting home from the invaders. It also explained why the most well-known characters aren't fighting this battle - they blew it.

NES: I needed to pick a specific timeframe of video games because that's a pretty broad category to cover in 15,000 words. The 8-bit era was when I remember characters having personality on a regular basis rather than only the breakout stars. I'd love to see the artwork done in 8-bit style for a unique visual look. In theory, there are other islands on the Sea of Information for 16-bit, 32-bit, and 64-bit versions. I don't think I'll be able to go into much detail, but I do know that the same character's different versions are distinct - and they squabble like family.


Mystery Men: The odd combinations of powers and the lack of famous video game characters reminds me this is a story of unlikely heroes. There are hundreds of characters that were made. This is their chance to shine, as the last defenders of their home, with everyone else unwilling or unable to do anything. I think a lot of groups will have fun playing knock-off versions of popular characters, heroes who think they are more popular than they really are or has-beens who never thought they'd get a chance to save the world.

That's what's currently bubbling in the pot. Thanks for taking the time to read this first entry. If there's anything you'd like to see in one of these entries, feel free to comment or Tweet me at @robowieland.

Camelot Trigger - The Big Red Couch Review

Gaming blog The Big Red Couch posted a review of Worlds in Shadow in which they said some lovely things about Camelot Trigger. I think my favorite line is: "If you want mecha-themed games in Fate, this is a fantastic place to stop."

Fate Core Hack - Shadowrun 2050

Here's a link to the archetypes I used for an upcoming Fate core game set in the classic Shadowrun time period of 2050.  One of the important revelations: Adapting up from Fate Core is easier than adapting down from Shadowrun.

Fate Patreon - Save Game

Part of knowing evil geniuses is being asked to participate in their experiments from time to time. When Fred Hicks sent me an email asking for some more pitches, I was just glad he wasn't asking me to watch cheesy movies in outer space. (I prefer the comfort of my couch) The company had a lot of success with Kickstarter last year, to which I was excited to contribute CAMELOT Trigger. If you're a fan of CAMELOT Trigger, and are already saying "Shut Up And Take My Money", bless your crooked little heart, and head on over to the Patreon page. Otherwise, let me bend your ear eyes for a moment and tell you about the project.

This year Evil Hat wanted to try out a new crowdfunding website called Patreon. Rather than release another big book of Fate Worlds, they want to try out a periodical model, for which Patreon is a better fit. You pledge a small amount and, when the producer is ready to put out the periodical, they send it out to you and you get charged. You only get charged when an issue is ready to go. So rather than get 6 awesome Fate settings at once, you get a regular deposit throughout the year. Brian Engard's superpunk Venture City Stories is the first out of the gate and the only one currently guaranteed to release right now. Fred's tapped some great folks in addition to myself should the project be successful, like Pete Woodworth, Shoshana Kessock and Quinn Murphy, all of whom have much prettier websites than mine.

Like Kickstarter, there are different levels of patronage, with early access and backer feedback accompanying a bigger buy in. Backer feedback was invaluable to the success of CAMELOT Trigger, and I'm looking forward to that feedback for Save Game.

For those of you who haven't looked at the page yet, here's the pitch for Save Game:

"A vicious computer virus threatens to corrupt the entire internet. The only thing standing in its way are the characters from your video games. 8-bit heroes battle monsters and corrupted files. It's Wreck-It Ralph meets Lord of the Rings. This will feature randomized character creation and other new-player-friendly features, as well as rules for playing in a digital world."

There's some ReBoot and Tron in there, too. Part of the fun will be rolling random powers and figuring out why your character jumps high, shoots fire and occasionally dresses up as a raccoon to fly. We've had some interesting discussions about characters having Lives instead of consequences and a couple of different ways to randomize power generation. Even if you don't like the idea of old-school video game heroes, you could use it to make a slightly meta game about your favorite MMO characters teaming up to beat back the forces of the Glitch.

An example of a character mutated by the Glitch?

"Corrupted pac-man sits, sarlacc/azathoth like, hungering for data in the center of a twisting turning maze, with his ghosts bringing him morefoodmorefoodmorefood"

Should the pitch get the green light, I will post development blogs again. One of the most common bits of feedback I got from CAMELOT Trigger were people who were lukewarm on the initial pitch but then came around after they read my development blogs or saw the backers draft. If that sounds like fun, and I hope it does, you can make it happen.

As long as we're talking about Fate-related Patreons, I'd like to mention Mark Diaz Truman's Fate Codex is doing well. We discussed some article ideas over the past few days, and the essay I'll be working on will be a great short project in between larger Fate gigs.

Wait. Gigs? Was that plural? Stay tuned, Fate fans...