ICRPG + FATE Character Hack

#1

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Character Sheet Preview.JPG819x549 63 KB

I finally created a game my wife enjoyed playing!!! So I figured I should share it with ya’ll!

I recently ran a 1-shot with my wife, mom, and mother-in-law - all with little to no RPG experience. The part they struggled most with was the concept of “roll playing” - more specifically, imagining how their character would react to a situation. At the end of the session they said they liked it but wanted something on the character sheet to help guide their roll playing.

So, I replaced the standard stats (strength, dexterity, etc.) with the “Approaches” from FATE Accelerated (Forceful, Clever, Sneaky, Flashy, Quick, Careful). I ended up creating 9 different ‘partial-pre-gen’ characters (each with 2 art variations) for them to choose from and it worked GREAT!!! The next time we played, I got a HUGE positive response from all of them regarding the “Approaches.”

For anyone interested, the link below gets you the full 9 page document of characters I hacked together.
Intelligence spells became tied to “Clever” while I tied Wisdom powers to “Careful.” When necessary, Loot items were all modified on the fly to give bonuses to whichever Approach seemed best at the time.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1uzJc_Uy9Kv61etRIgV3o7iTUvrv_GEUi

Hacking with FATE ASPECTS
Repository: Character Sheets
#2

so let me get this right. these are no gear per gen characters? with out there class bonus or rewards? this is just 6 points places? just want to know if im reading this right

#3

Right. They still got to pick their starting gear and weapons. The pre-gen part was just a few points in the stats to give a “feel” for who the character is. Which is why I called them ‘partial-pre-gens.’

#4

looks cool. :vulcan_salute:

#5

I love the resourcefulness! Well done!

I do really like Approaches.

Did it play the same as ICRPG or was it a combination of that and FATE?

One could do Zones and Tags very easily for EASY and HARD checks.

#6

Thanks!

I’ve never actually played FATE. The only part of that system I imported was the Approaches.

So it played essentially the same as ICRPG just using different stats.

Example, Chase Scene:
Me: The assasin dashes into the crowded marketplace. This is a ‘Quick’ challenge.
Mom: But I have minus one on Quick! Can’t I roll ‘Careful’?
Me: Mom, you’re chasing an assasin through a crowded marketplace, it’s totally a Quick challenge.
Mom: And I’m CAREFULLY maneuvering through the crowd!
Wife: And I’m FORCEFULLY pushing my way through!
Mother-in-law: And I’m gonna shoot him!
Me: sigh The marketplace is crowded, if you miss, you’ll hit a random towns person with a arrow in their face. Also, you can only really see the assasin’s head, so that’s a HARD attempt.
combination of pouty faces & fluttering eyelashes
Me: Fine! Chasing someone is now a Careful & Forceful challenge… Sure, you can shoot him no problem…

And that’s about how the whole session went… lol!

#7

Awesome. I love the rejiggering of the stats into approaches. It’s amazing how little things like that can open up the hobby for people. Well done.

#8

Ok so I too have never played FATE but have both the accelerated and normal version. I have been looking at the book trying to figure out how to port it over to ICRPG because like you, my wife has struggled with role playing and I felt like FATE’s wording could help non-gamers come out of their shells. Me and the kids love role playing together and a lot of the time she feels lost. We enjoy ICRPG as our “go to” system. She has never been able to get the concept of stats or how to get into the mind of her character.

I NEVER actually wrote out the approaches!

It’s a total 6 count swap and I feel completely silly for not seeing it sooner. I think I will add the TAGS concept from Blood and Snow for the milestones and make gear tags a matching approach tag. Like Lock Picks: Clever (+3) or Traps: Sneaky (+3) // WEAPON effort if triggered. A crowbar could be Forceful (+3).

Thanks for posting this. It is exactly where my mind has been. Sometimes we take for granted an exposure to role playing and fail to realize for those who have like NO experience with something like this, stats make way less sense than something like approaches.

#9

Thanks @Geoffrey_Nelson & @BigGrump!

A couple of things to consider if you’re going to use the hack:
Some things translate pretty smoothly:

Forceful sort of equals Strength
Quick sort of equals Dexterity
Flashy sort of equals Charisma
Clever sort of equals Intelligence
Careful sort of equals Wisdom
BUT Sneaky and Constitution aren’t even close!

Constitution doesn’t have a good equivalent in the FATE Approaches. The only thing I found this really messes with in the Core Rules is the Recovery mechanic (pg 21, 2E). It hasn’t been a problem at my table as my mother-in-law is rather overzealous in her role as Cleric!
Something to think about if you’re considering the hack.

#10

Thanks for the advice. I already thought of it. The only reason the CON bonus was added to your recovery check was because we were all like “who the heck even uses CON?!!!” Then version 2 of ICRPG had that rule included which many of us were already doing in the early days. With this I would personally make it “you recover 1 (+) 1d4” with maybe a milestone that can make it 1d6 and perhaps dwarfs who get back 1 (+) 4. The dice roll would not have a bonus to support the possible increase of a random die result. Might even drop the base of a promised 1 and just do the 1d4. I usually only require the roll in combat since out of combat I don’t make them roll the check but I do make them use their turn which when played right at the table, is actually a pretty hard choice between getting loot or healing since they are terrified of the D4 timer I place for them all to see :). At the end of the day — having the adjective instead of a noun is where FATE shines with getting people more into role playing and gets them away from “I use my strength” and gets them into “because I am clever, I ask the big guy to lift me up.” Like they find ways to use their stats that I would have never considered and then you have a cooler gaming session.

#11

FATE accelerated was my last major game crush before digging into ICRPG. It ended up being just too loosey-goosey for most of the folks I game with, but I do really like some of the key concepts. Like horizontal advancement, success At a cost, and the simplicity of designing mooks and baddies And even room challenges (like traps) without having to fully stat everything out.

This is neat stuff that you have done here

#12

Fully concur. Take a hero coin. :herocoin:

#13

Thats an idea for a game show! “How to work a DM” Starring all the females in your life! Awesome work man… I have the accelrated on my shelf too… might have to use this for the holidays!

#14

Wow! Thanks @Alex & @Lon!!

#15

Like this OldBen, thanks for sharing it. As I was reading posts, this jumped out to me…could add an “Endure” or “Resist” approach…and it fits with fantasy literature. Think about characters like Zelazny’s Corwin or Tolkein’s Frodo with their primary strength being that they didn’t give up. That seems like an approach to me. It could work as an approach for many things; recovery, poison, travel, climbing, trying not to fall off a climb, and more. I can even imagine a player using Endure or Enduring as an approach to social situations “I ENDURE my way through the party and find the spy with the details!” GM responds by talking about how inane the conversations seem and how the PC endures such conversations, posturing, bragging until they finally figure out who the spy is with whom they need to speak; so roll to see what you learn from the spy by ENDURING the party…

#16

I’d say keep the Sneaky and meld Con with Armor. So, if you invest a point out of your 6 points to armor then a. an enemy has to roll an 11 to hit you and b. you get to ignore 1 point of any incoming damage.

#17

Also, D20 Modern had Character Classes based off each stat: Strong, Fast, Tough, Smart, Dedicated, and Charismatic.

#18

Do you have a blank or fillable pc sheet?

#19

Wow! It’s crazy that this post is still going!

I just added a Word document Character Template sheet to the google drive linked in the first post.

Enjoy!

#20

@Sweenie_McGuffin, @John_Cooper, thanks, love the ideas, especially “Endure” as an approach!