Planefate

I’m terrible with names, but let’s go with Planefate for now. I’m a backer of Fate Core on Kickstarter (you should be too, if you’re able), and I can’t help but try and hack Planescape into Fate Core (it’s a sickness, one that apparently other designers share).

I’ve done a little bit of work with this in the past, although at the time, I hadn’t played either Fate or Cortex+, so I was a bit confused by the similarities between the two systems. Fast forward to now, and I’ve been able to play a few sessions of different implementations of Fate (Bulldogs!, Atomic Robo, Dresden Files) and some Marvel Heroic Roleplaying (a Cortex+ implementation). I’ve also several conversations about alignment in various places around the Internet (the most recent one on G+ here).

This post serves as a jumping-off point, a place to jot some quick thoughts down so they don’t get lost.

Everything’s a Character

Still one of my favorite things about Fate, and a concept that the designers carried forward into Fate Core. Each plane must have its own Aspects (I talked about something similar here).

Planar Influence

Each plane should have an influence on the adventurers. This is similar to some of the work I did in the post in the last link (involving stress), but I really need to make this a major part of this conversion.

Skills

I know a major part of this is going to be what skills the characters have. I’m still thinking about what the skills should be, although I kind of want to use something similar to Dungeon World’s moves. I’m not sure if this would work, but it seems reasonable, as it covers a lot of the things a D&D character would need to do. On the other hand, that may not fit really well with Fate. I’ll probably have to try it out and see what happens.

Scalability

One of the tenets of Fate Core is scalability. Personal and epic conflict should both be viable parts of the campaign. In fact, I’d argue both should occur, but that’s a discussion for another time. For the purposes of this, I mean that it should be just as possible to play Planefate without the protagonists ever leaving Sigil or a Gatetown. An epic, plane-hopping campaign should also be doable.

Conclusion

Let me know your thoughts on G+ or Twitter. I know I’m crossing the streams here, but good design pulls ideas from wherever.

---

Comments

Liam said:

Sorry to necro this but a FATE hack of Planescape!! As a backer did you get the freeport FATE companion? It could definitely give you a few ideas on how to use STR DEX etc as skills. I love the setting, I would be cool to see how far along you’ve come assuming

TriskalJM said:

No, I missed that one. Does it have Planescape-related stuff in it?

Liam said:

Unfortunately not much. it briefly mentions the planetouched, races. However, it seems a good template for converting the mechanics. If you’re serious about it I can’t recommend it enough for character/skills/spells stuff.

The world of The Cage, Baator etc. isn’t done… but I’d not mind being part of helping to develop the PlaneFATE setting.

TriskalJM said:

If I decide to do something more substantial, I’ll keep you in mind. :)

Liam said:

Please do. I’ve a couple of PS related documents on races, planes etc. The only thing I don’t have here is people to playtest with really but I’m sure google+/hangouts etc will have people willing to try if we mod the document into FATE.

TriskalJM said:

Feel free to email me, and I’ll look over what you’ve got.