Si parte!

Avete presente quella saga di libri con dei maghi adolescenti che affrontano l'Oscuro Signore del Male? E quel film in cui i nani sfidano un drago per riconquistare la loro cara montagna? E quel cartone animato sui cavalieri mistici che riportano la giustizia nella galassia con un esercito di cloni?

Sono o non sono storie fighissime?

Bene, ora avete l'occasione di viverle in prima persona.

Avventure dell'Altro Mondo è un gioco di ruolo da tavolo in cui potete riunirvi con gli amici per raccontarvi storie piene di peripezie, adrenalina e avventura. Se avete già provato Dungeons & Dragons o altri giochi simili partirete avvantaggiati, ma se non lo avete fatto va bene lo stesso: questo breve manuale vi guiderà passo passo attraverso il gioco.

Ecco cosa serve per giocare:

Raccontare storie collettive

Ora che avete radunato amici, dadi e cartoncini, siete pronti a giocare ad Avventure dell'Altro Mondo (AAM, da qui in poi). Forza, cominciamo a raccontare un po' di storie!

Raccontare storie? In che senso?

AAM è completamente incentrato sulla narrazione. Bisogna creare un gruppo di personaggi e accompagnarli in un'avventura immaginaria. Ognuno di voi prenderà parte all'avventura raccontandone un pezzetto.

Pensate a un film, a un videogioco o a una serie TV in cui i personaggi partono per un'avventura: One Piece, Star Wars, The Avengers, Zelda, Doctor Who, Il Signore degli anelli e chi più ne ha più ne metta. Adesso immaginate una storia su questa falsa riga. Qui sarete voi a scegliere per i vostri personaggi e le vostre scelte cambieranno il corso degli eventi.

Ogni tanto qualcuno tenterà un'azione dall'esito incerto; in questo caso si tireranno i dadi per scoprire cosa succederà. Maggiore è il risultato del lancio, maggiore è la probabilità che le cose vadano nel verso giusto.

E come si fa?

Be', per prima cosa dovete capire il tipo di storia che racconterete. C'è un genere in particolare che vi appassiona? Ambientazione fantasy, fantascientifica o realistica? Sceglierete l'universo di una serie TV, di un fumetto o di un film? O ne creerete addirittura uno tutto vostro? Per avere qualche spunto su come strutturare la partita, consultate il capitolo Creazione della partita, disponibile gratuitamente su https://www.fateitalia.it/.

Adesso bisogna decidere chi saranno i giocatori e chi il game master. Per giocatori si intendono tutte le persone al tavolo, eccetto una. Ciascun giocatore interpreta il ruolo di un personaggio giocante (PG) all'interno della storia e compie le scelte pensando con la testa di quel personaggio. La persona rimasta è chiamata game master (GM). Il GM ha il compito di presentare le varie sfide e interpretare tutti i personaggi non controllati dai giocatori (personaggi non giocanti o PNG).

Una volta stabiliti il GM, il genere e il contesto della storia, bisogna creare i personaggi giocanti. Nel capitolo successivo vedremo come fare.

Che vuol dire "storie collettive"?

Tutte le persone al tavolo, sia il GM che i giocatori, hanno il compito di raccontare la storia. Quando prendete una decisione per il vostro personaggio (o per uno dei PNG, nel caso del GM), dovete fare due cose.

Primo, entrate nella testa del personaggio e riflettete a fondo su ciò che farebbe... anche se è una stupidaggine. Se giocate con un personaggio che ogni tanto prende decisioni pessime, non abbiate timore a sbagliare di proposito.

Secondo, ma non per importanza, tenete a mente la storia. Pensate sempre alla scelta che migliorerà la storia e la renderà più interessante, più emozionante, più spassosa. C'è una scelta che potrebbe dare a un personaggio giocante la possibilità di mostrarsi in tutta la sua figaggine? Be', che aspettate? Fatela subito.

È così che nascono le grandi storie collettive: non avendo paura che il personaggio commetta errori e facendo scelte che rendono più avvincente la storia di tutte le persone al tavolo, non solo la vostra.

Chi volete diventare?

Dopo aver scelto il tipo di storia da raccontare nel gioco, bisogna decidere chi sarà il vostro personaggio: il suo aspetto, le sue abilità e i suoi valori.

Che tipo di personaggi scegliere?

Non dovete fare altro che lasciarvi guidare dall'ambientazione in cui avete deciso di giocare. La storia è ambientata in una scuola di giovani stregoni? Scegliete un giovane stregone! Ci sono dei piloti spaziali che combattono contro un impero malvagio? Non spaziate troppo, scegliete un pilota spaziale! L'importante è che il vostro personaggio abbia un motivo per interagire e collaborare con gli altri PG.

Come si crea un personaggio?

È il momento di buttare giù qualche appunto. Prendete una matita e una copia della scheda personaggio. C'è chi preferisce usare le schede in versione PDF modificabile su un portatile o un tablet. Entrambe le opzioni vanno bene, l'importante è avere la possibilità di cancellare e modificare la scheda.

Aspetti: una panoramica

Per aspetto si intende una parola, un'espressione o una frase che descrive qualcosa di centrale per il personaggio. Può essere un motto che lo accompagna nella vita, un vezzo particolare, una descrizione del rapporto con un altro personaggio, un cimelio o un'arma in suo possesso. Insomma, va bene qualunque cosa sia di vitale importanza per il personaggio.

Gli aspetti consentono di cambiare la storia in modo coerente con le tendenze, le abilità e i problemi del personaggio. Potete sfruttarli anche per stabilire delle peculiarità dell'ambientazione, ad esempio la presenza della magia o l'esistenza di un fedele alleato, di un nemico pericoloso o di una società segreta.

Il vostro personaggio deve avere 3-5 aspetti, tra cui un concetto chiave e un problema. Approfondiremo gli aspetti nel capitolo Aspetti e punti destino. Per il momento, la scheda seguente dovrebbe bastare a darvi un'idea generale.

Concetto chiave

Per prima cosa, definite il concetto chiave. Il concetto chiave è un'espressione o una frase che riassume in modo chiaro il vostro personaggio: chi è, cosa fa e che vuole dalla vita. Quando riflettete sul concetto chiave, provate a porvi due domande: in che modo questo aspetto potrebbe aiutarvi? Come potrebbe ostacolarvi? Un buon concetto chiave risponde a entrambe le domande.

Esempi: Capitano felino della Libellula Saettante; Invocasoli del Deserto di Andral; Agente speciale dell'ASSAI (Agenzia Super Segreta con Acronimo Improbabile).

Problema

Ora stabilite il problema, ovvero l'aspetto che vi metterà costantemente nei guai. Potrebbe essere un punto debole, un acerrimo nemico, un impegno importante da rispettare o qualunque altra cosa vi complichi la vita.

Esempi: Gli assassini assatanati vogliono uccidermi; Prima l'azione, poi le domande; Devo badare al mio fratellino.

Terzo aspetto

Formulate un terzo aspetto. Pensate a una peculiarità affascinante del vostro personaggio. È la persona più forte del suo villaggio? Possiede una spada leggendaria che ha combattuto mille battaglie? Ha la lingua lunga? Naviga nell'oro?

1-2 aspetti aggiuntivi (opzionali)

Se volete, potete definire uno o due aspetti in più. Gli aspetti aggiuntivi si possono sfruttare per descrivere il rapporto del personaggio con i PG o con un PNG. Oppure, come il terzo aspetto, possono aggiungere un tocco in più al vostro personaggio.

Se preferite, potete lasciare questi aspetti in bianco e aggiungerli nel corso della partita.

Nome e aspetto fisico

Descrivete l'aspetto fisico del personaggio e dategli un nome.

IN 30 SECONDI: CREAZIONE DEL PERSONAGGIO

• Scrivete due aspetti: un concetto chiave e un problema.
• Formulate un terzo aspetto.
• Date un nome al personaggio e descrivetelo fisicamente.
• Scegliete gli approcci.
• Indicate 3 punti destino per la ripresa.
• Se volete, scrivete uno o due aspetti aggiuntivi e scegliete un talento. Potete farlo anche a partita in corso.

Dalle parole ai fatti: Esiti, Azioni e Approcci

È arrivato il momento di entrare nel vivo della partita. Dovete saltare dal vagone di un treno in corsa all'altro. Dovete setacciare la biblioteca per quell'incantesimo di cui proprio non potete fare a meno. Dovete distrarre la guardia per intrufolarvi nella fortezza. Come determinare lo svolgimento dei fatti?

Dadi o Carte

L'esito delle vostre scelte dipende in parte da un numero casuale, generato tipicamente in uno di questi due modi: tirare quattro Dadi del destino o pescare una carta dal Mazzo del destino.

Dadi del destino: i Dadi del destino (chiamati anche dadi Fudge, dal gioco omonimo per cui erano stati creati) sono uno dei modi per determinare l'esito delle vostre azioni. I Dadi del destino vanno sempre tirati quattro per volta. Su ogni dado apparirà  + ,  0 , o  -  che, sommati, sveleranno il risultato del lancio.

Mazzo del destino: è un mazzo di carte che simula le probabilità dei Dadi del destino. Potete scegliere di usare le carte al posto dei dadi: entrambe le opzioni vanno alla grande.

Queste regole partono dal presupposto che stiate utilizzando i Dadi del destino, ma potete usare il metodo che preferite. Ogni volta che dovete tirare i dadi, potete invece decidere di pescare una carta dal mazzo.

Esiti

Dopo aver tirato i dadi, aggiungete il vostro bonus d'approccio (ne parleremo più avanti) ed eventuali bonus derivanti da aspetti o talenti. Confrontate il totale con una determinata soglia numerica, che può corrispondere a una difficoltà prestabilita o al risultato di un lancio del GM per un PNG. In base a questo confronto, l'esito sarà:

• Un fallimento, se il vostro risultato è inferiore a quello dell'avversario;
• un pareggio, se il vostro risultato è pari a quello dell'avversario;
• un successo, se il vostro risultato è superiore a quello dell'avversario;
• un successo con stile, se il vostro risultato è almeno il triplo di quello dell'avversario.

Ora che abbiamo parlato degli esiti, possiamo passare alle azioni e al modo in cui questi due elementi del gioco sono collegati.

Azioni

Avete deciso il piano d'azione del vostro PG e appurato che potreste fallire. Ora, scegliete quale azione si adatta meglio a ciò che state cercando di fare. Ci sono quattro azioni base che comprendono qualsiasi cosa si faccia nel gioco.

Creare un Vantaggio

Ogni volta che tentate di aiutare il vostro personaggio o gli altri PG, create un vantaggio. Fare un respiro profondo mentre prendete la mira con il vostro fucile a impulsi, passare diverse ore in biblioteca a studiare o fare lo sgambetto al furfante che vuole derubarvi... tutte queste cose contano come la creazione di un vantaggio. Il vostro bersaglio potrebbe utilizzare l'azione di difesa per fermarvi. Il vantaggio che create vi permette di fare una di queste tre cose:

• Creare un nuovo aspetto contestuale.
• Scoprire un aspetto contestuale preesistente o un altro aspetto del personaggio di cui non eravate a conoscenza.
• Approfittare di un aspetto preesistente.

Se state creando un nuovo aspetto o scoprendone uno preesistente:

• Fallimento: non create né scoprite l'aspetto oppure, se lo fate, date a un avversario l'opportunità di invocarlo gratuitamente. La seconda opzione funziona meglio quando l'aspetto creato o scoperto è qualcosa di cui gli altri personaggi potrebbero usufruire (come un Terreno impervio). Potreste avere bisogno di riformulare l'aspetto in modo che un altro personaggio ne possa beneficiare al vostro posto; escogitate la soluzione più sensata insieme al giocatore che riceverà l'invocazione gratuita. Potete comunque invocare l'aspetto, se volete, ma vi costerà un punto destino.
• Pareggio: se state creando un nuovo aspetto, ricevete un beneficio. Ditelo ad alta voce per invocarlo gratuitamente una volta. Dopodiché, il beneficio svanisce. Se state cercando di scoprire un aspetto preesistente, contatelo come un successo.
• Successo: create o scoprite l'aspetto; il vostro personaggio o un alleato può invocarlo gratuitamente una volta. Scrivete l'aspetto su un cartoncino o un post-it e posizionatelo sul tavolo.
• Successo con stile: create o scoprite l'aspetto; il vostro personaggio o un alleato può invocarlo gratuitamente due volte. Solitamente non si può invocare lo stesso aspetto due volte per turno, ma questa è un eccezione: il successo con stile vi dà un ENORME vantaggio!

Se state cercando di usufruire di un aspetto che già conoscete:

• Fallimento: non ricevete ulteriori benefici dall'aspetto. Potrete comunque invocarlo in futuro, se volete, al costo di un punto destino.
• Pareggio o successo: ottenete un'invocazione gratuita per il personaggio o un alleato, da utilizzare in seguito. Potrebbe tornarvi utile disegnare un cerchietto o un riquadro sul post-it dell'aspetto, per spuntarlo dopo l'utilizzo dell'invocazione.
• Successo con stile: ottenete due invocazioni gratuite, che potete anche far utilizzare a un alleato.

Challenges, Contests, and Conflicts

We’ve talked about the four actions (create an advantage, overcome, attack, and defend) and the four outcomes (fail, tie, succeed, and succeed with style). But in what framework do those happen?

Usually, when you want to do something straightforward—swim across a raging river, hack someone’s cell phone—all you need to do is make one overcome action against a difficulty level that the GM sets. You look at your outcome and go from there.

But sometimes things are a little more complex.

Challenges

A challenge is a series of overcome and create an advantage actions that you use to resolve an especially complicated situation. Each overcome action deals with one task or part of the situation, and you take the individual results together to figure out how the situation resolves.

To set up a challenge, decide what individual tasks or goals make up the situation, and treat each one as a separate overcome roll.

Depending on the situation, one character may be required to make several rolls, or multiple characters may be able to participate. GMs, you aren’t obligated to announce all the stages in the challenge ahead of time—adjust the steps as the challenge unfolds to keep things exciting.

The PCs are the crew of a ship caught in a storm. They decide to press on and try to get to their destination despite the weather, and the GM suggests this sounds like a challenge. Steps in resolving this challenge could be calming panicky passengers, repairing damaged rigging, and keeping the ship on the right heading.

Contests

When two or more characters are competing against one another for the same goal, but not directly trying to hurt each other, you have a contest. Examples include a car chase, a public debate, or an archery tournament.

A contest proceeds in a series of exchanges. In an exchange, every participant takes one overcome action to determine how well they do in that leg of the contest. Compare your result to everyone else’s.

If you got the highest result, you win the exchange—you score a victory (which you can represent with a tally or check mark on scratch paper) and describe how you take the lead. If you succeed with style, you mark two victories.

If there’s a tie, no one gets a victory, and an unexpected twist occurs. This could mean several things, depending on the situation—the terrain or environment shifts somehow, the parameters of the contest change, or an unanticipated variable shows up and affects all the participants. The GM creates a new situation aspect reflecting this change and puts it into play.

The first participant to achieve three victories wins the contest.

Conflicts

Conflicts are used to resolve situations where characters are trying to harm one another. It could be physical harm (a sword fight, a wizard’s duel, a battle with laser blasters), but it could also be mental harm (a shouting match, a tough interrogation, a magical psychic assault).

Determine Turn Order

Your turn order in a conflict is based on your approaches. In a physical conflict, compare your Quick approach to the other participants’—the one with the fastest reflexes goes first. In a mental conflict, compare your Careful approach—attention to detail will warn you of danger. Whoever has the highest approach gets to go first, and then everyone else goes in descending order. Break ties in whatever manner makes sense, with the GM having the last word.

GMs, it’s simplest if you pick your most advantageous NPC to determine your place in the turn order, and let all your NPCs go at that time. But if you have a good reason to determine turn order individually for all your NPCs, go right ahead.

Exchanges

Next, each character takes a turn in order. On their turn, a character can take one of the four actions. Resolve the action to determine the outcome. The conflict is over when only one side has characters still in the fight.

Ouch! Damage, Stress, and Consequences

When you’re hit by an attack, the severity of the hit is the difference between the attack roll and your defense roll; we measure that in shifts. For instance, if your opponent gets +5 on their attack and you get a +3 on your defense, the attack deals a two shift hit (5 – 3 = 2).

Then, one of two things happens:

• You suffer stress and/or consequences, but you stay in the fight.
• You get taken out, which means you’re out of the action for a while.

What Is Stress?

If you get hit and don’t want to be taken out, you can choose to take stress.

Stress represents you getting tired or annoyed, taking a superficial wound, or some other condition that goes away quickly.

Your character sheet has a stress track, a row of three boxes. When you take a hit and check a stress box, the box absorbs a number of shifts equal to its number: one shift for Box 1, two for Box 2, or three for Box 3.

You can only check one stress box for any single hit, but you can check a stress box and take one or more consequences at the same time. You can’t check a stress box that already has a check mark in it!

What Are Consequences?

Consequences are new aspects that you take to reflect being seriously hurt in some way. Your character sheet has three slots where you can write consequences. Each one is labeled with a number: 2 (mild consequence), 4 (moderate consequence), or 6 (severe consequence). This represents the number of shifts of the hit the consequence absorbs. You can mark off as many of these as you like to handle a single hit, but only if that slot was blank to start with. If you already have a moderate consequence written down, you can’t take another one until you do something to make the first one go away!

A major downside of consequences is that each consequence is a new aspect that your opponents can invoke against you. The more you take, the more vulnerable you are. And just like situation aspects, the character that creates it (in this case, the character that hit you) gets one free invocation on that consequence. They can choose to let one of their allies use the free invocation.

Let’s say that you get hit really hard and take a 4-shift hit. You check Box 2 on your stress track, which leaves you with 2 shifts to deal with. If you can’t, you’re taken out, so it’s time for a consequence. You can choose to write a new aspect in the consequence slot labeled 2—say, Sprained Ankle. Those final 2 shifts are taken care of and you can keep fighting!

If you’re unable to absorb all of a hit’s shifts—by checking a stress box, taking consequences, or both—you’re taken out.

What Happens When I Get Taken Out?

If you get taken out, you can no longer act in the scene. Whoever takes you out narrates what happens to you. It should make sense based on how you got taken out—maybe you run from the room in shame, or maybe you get knocked unconscious.

Giving In

If things look grim for you, you can give in (or concede the fight)—but you have to say that’s what you’re going to do before your opponent rolls their dice.

This is different than being taken out, because you get a say in what happens to you. Your opponent gets some major concession from you—talk about what makes sense in your situation—but it beats getting taken out and having no say at all.

Additionally, you get one fate point for conceding, and one fate point for each consequence you took in this conflict. This is your chance to say, “You win this round, but I’ll get you next time!” and get a tall stack of fate points to back it up.

Getting Better—Recovering from Stress and Consequences

At the end of each scene, clear all of your stress boxes. Recovery from a consequence is a bit more complicated; you need to explain how you recover from it—whether that’s an ER visit, taking a walk to calm down, or whatever makes sense with the consequence. You also need to wait an appropriate length of time.

• Mild consequence: Clear it at the end of the scene, provided you get a chance to rest.
• Moderate consequence: Clear it at the end of the next session, provided it makes sense within the story.
• Severe consequence: Clear it at the end of the scenario, provided it makes sense within the story.

Aspects and Fate Points

An aspect is a word or phrase that describes something special about a person, place, thing, situation, or group. Almost anything you can think of can have aspects. A person might be the Greatest Swordswoman on the Cloud Sea. A room might be On Fire after you knock over an oil lamp. After a time-travel encounter with a dinosaur, you might be Terrified. Aspects let you change the story in ways that go along with your character’s tendencies, skills, or problems.

You spend fate points—which you keep track of with pennies or glass beads or poker chips or some other tokens—to unlock the power of aspects and make them help you. You earn fate points by letting a character aspect be compelled against you to complicate the situation or make your life harder. Be sure to keep track of the fate points you have left at the end of the session—if you have more than your refresh, you start the next session with the fate points you ended this session with.

You earned a lot of fate points during your game session, ending the day with five fate points. Your refresh is 2, so you’ll start with five fate points the next time you play. But another player ends the same session with just one fate point. His refresh is 3, so he’ll begin the next session with 3 fate points, not just the one he had left over.

What Kinds of Aspects Are There?

There’s an endless variety of aspects, but no matter what they’re called they all work pretty much the same way. The main difference is how long they stick around before going away.

Character Aspects

These aspects are on your character sheet, such as your high concept and trouble. They describe personality traits, important details about your past, relationships you have with others, important items or titles you possess, problems you’re dealing with or goals you’re working toward, or reputations and obligations you carry. These aspects only change under very unusual circumstances; most never will.

Examples: Captain of the Skyship Nimbus; On the Run From the Knights of the Circle;Attention to Detail; I Must Protect My Brother

Situation Aspects

These aspects describe the surroundings that the action is taking place in. This includes aspects you create or discover using the create an advantage action. A situation aspect usually vanishes at the end of the scene it was part of, or when someone takes some action that would change or get rid of it. Essentially, they last only as long as the situational element they represent lasts.

Examples: On Fire; Bright Sunlight; Crowd of Angry People; Knocked to the Ground

To get rid of a situation aspect, you can attempt an overcome action to eliminate it, provided you can think of a way your character could accomplish it—dump a bucket of water on the Raging Fire, use evasive maneuvers to escape the enemy fighter that’s On Your Tail. An opponent may use a Defend action to try to preserve the aspect, if they can describe how they do it.

Consequences

These aspects represent injuries or other lasting trauma that happen when you get hit by attacks. They go away slowly, as described in Ouch! Damage, Stress, and Consequences.

Examples: Sprained Ankle; Fear of Spiders; Concussion; Debilitating Self-Doubt

Boosts

A boost is a temporary aspect that you get to use once (see “What Do You Do With Aspects?” next), then it vanishes. Unused boosts vanish when the scene they were created in is over or when the advantage they represent no longer exists. These represent very brief and fleeting advantages you get in conflicts with others.

Examples: In My Sights; Distracted; Unstable Footing; Rock in His Boot

What Do You Do With Aspects?

There are three big things you can do with aspects: invoke aspects, compel aspects, and use aspects to establish facts.

Invoking Aspects

You invoke an aspect to give yourself a bonus or make things a bit harder for your opponent. You can invoke any aspect that you a) know about, and b) can explain how you use it to your advantage—including aspects on other characters or on the situation. Normally, invoking an aspect costs you a fate point—hand one of your fate points to the GM. To invoke an aspect, you need to describe how that aspect helps you in your current situation.

What does invoking the aspect get you? Choose one of the following effects:

• Add a +2 bonus to your total. This costs a fate point.
• Reroll the dice. This option is best if you rolled really lousy (usually a −3 or −4 showing on the dice). This costs a fate point.
• Confront an opponent with the aspect. You use this option when your opponent is trying something and you think an existing aspect would make it harder for them. For instance, an alien thug wants to draw his blaster pistol, but he’s Buried in Debris; you spend a fate point to invoke that aspect, and now your opponent’s level of difficulty is increased by +2.
• Help an ally with the aspect. Use this option when a friend could use some help and you think an existing aspect would make it easier for them. You spend a fate point to invoke the aspect, and now your friend gets a +2 on their roll.

Important: You can only invoke any aspect once on a given dice roll; you can’t spend a stack of fate points on one aspect and get a huge bonus from it. However, you can invoke several different aspects on the same roll.

If you’re invoking an aspect to add a bonus or reroll your dice, wait until after you’ve rolled to do it. No sense spending a fate point if you don’t need to!

Free invocations: Sometimes you can invoke an aspect for free, without paying a fate point. If you create or discover an aspect through the create an advantage action, the first invocation on it (by you or an ally) is free (if you succeeded with style, you get two freebies). If you cause a consequence through an attack, you or an ally can invoke it once for free. A boost is a special kind of aspect that grants one free invocation, then it vanishes.

Compelling Aspects

If you’re in a situation where having or being around a certain aspect means your character’s life is more dramatic or complicated, anyone can compel the aspect. You can even compel it on yourself—that’s called a self-compel. Compels are the most common way for players to earn more fate points.

There are two types of compels.

Establishing Facts

The final thing that aspects can do is establish facts in the game. You don’t have to spend any fate points, roll dice, or anything to make this happen—just by virtue of having the aspect Ruddy Duck’s Pilot, you’ve established that your character is a pilot and that you fly a plane named the Ruddy Duck. Having the aspect Mortal Enemy: The Red Ninjas establishes that the setting has an organization called the Red Ninjas and that they’re after you for some reason. If you take the aspect Sorcerer of the Mysterious Circle, you not only establish that there’s a group of sorcerers called the Mysterious Circle, but that magic exists in the setting and that you can perform it.

When you establish facts of the setting this way, make sure you do it in cooperation with other players. If most people want to play in a setting without magic, you shouldn’t unilaterally bring magic into it through an aspect. Make sure that the facts you establish through your aspects make the game fun for everyone.

Composing Good Aspects

When you need to think of a good aspect (we’re mainly talking about character and situation aspects here), think about two things:

• How the aspect might help you—when you’d invoke it.
• How it might hurt you—when it would be compelled against you.

Obviously, your trouble aspect is supposed to cause problems—and thereby make your character’s life more interesting and get you fate points—so it’s okay if that one’s a little more one-dimensional, but other character and situation aspects should be double-edged.

Stunts

Stunts are tricks, maneuvers, or techniques your character has that change how an approach works for your character. Generally this means you get a bonus in certain situations, but sometimes it gives you some other ability or characteristic. A stunt can also reflect specialized, high-quality, or exotic equipment that your character has access to that gives them a frequent edge over other characters.

There’s no definitive list of stunts that you pick from; much like aspects, everyone composes their own stunts. There are two basic templates to guide you in composing your stunts, so you do have something to work from.

The first type of stunt gives you a +2 bonus when you use a certain approach in a certain situation. Use this template:

Because I [describe some way that you are exceptional, have a cool bit of gear, or are otherwise awesome], I get a +2 when I [pick one: Carefully, Cleverly, Flashily, Forcefully, Quickly, Sneakily][pick one: attack, defend, create advantages, overcome] when [describe a circumstance].

Sometimes, if the circumstance is especially restrictive, you can apply the stunt to both the create an advantage action and the overcome action.

The second type of stunt lets you make something true, do something cool, or otherwise ignore the usual rules in some way. Use this template:

Because I [describe some way that you are exceptional, have a cool bit of gear, or are otherwise awesome], once per game session I can [describe something cool you can do].

These templates exist to give you an idea of how stunts should be constructed, but don’t feel constrained to follow them exactly if you have a good idea. If you’d like to read more about the construction of stunts, see Skills and Stunts in Fate Core.

Getting Better at Doing Stuff: Character Advancement

People change. Your skills sharpen as you practice them. Your life experiences accumulate and shape your personality. Adventures from Another World reflects that with character advancement, which allows you to change your aspects, add or change stunts, and raise your approach bonuses. You do this when your character reaches a milestone.

Milestones

Stories in TV shows, comic books, movies, and even video games usually continue from episode to episode, season to season. It took Frodo three big books to take the Ring to the fiery mountain. It took Aang three seasons to defeat the Fire Lord. You get the idea. AAW can tell those kinds of stories; you play many game sessions in a row using the same characters—this is often called a campaign—and the story builds on itself. But within these long stories, there are shorter story arcs, like single episodes of a TV show or single issues of a comic, where shorter stories are told and wrapped up. AAW can do that too, even within a longer campaign.

In AAW, we call those wrap-ups milestones—whether they’re small ones for short stories, or really big ones at the end of many sessions of play. AAW recognizes three types of milestones, and each one allows you to change your character in certain ways.

Minor Milestones

A minor milestone usually occurs at the end of a session of play, or when one piece of a story has been resolved. Rather than making your character more powerful, this kind of milestone is more about changing your character, about adjusting in response to whatever’s going on in the story if you need to. Sometimes it won’t really make sense to take advantage of a minor milestone, but you always have the opportunity in case you need to.

After a minor milestone, you can choose to do one (and only one) of the following:

• Switch the ratings of any two approaches.
• Rename one aspect that isn’t your high concept.
• Exchange one stunt for a different stunt.
• Choose a new stunt (and adjust your refresh, if you already have three stunts).

Also, if you have a moderate consequence, check to see if it’s been around for two sessions. If so, you can clear it.

Significant Milestones

A significant milestone usually occurs at the end of a scenario or the conclusion of a big plot event (or, when in doubt, at the end of every two or three sessions). Unlike minor milestones, which are primarily about change, significant milestones are about learning new things—dealing with problems and challenges has made your character generally more capable at what they do.

In addition to the benefit of a minor milestone, you also gain both of the following:

• If you have a severe consequence that’s been around for at least two sessions, you can clear it.
• Raise the bonus of one approach by one.

Major Milestones

Major milestones should only occur when something happens in the campaign that shakes it up a lot—the end of a big story arc, the final defeat of a main NPC villain, or any other large-scale change that reverberates around your game world.

These milestones are about gaining more power. The challenges of yesterday simply aren’t sufficient to threaten these characters anymore, and the threats of tomorrow will need to be more adept, organized, and determined to stand against them.

Achieving a major milestone confers the benefits of a significant milestone and a minor milestone. In addition, you may do all of the following:

• Take an additional point of refresh, which you may immediately use to purchase a stunt if you wish.
• Rename your character’s high concept (optional).

Being the GM

The GM has many responsibilities, such as presenting the conflict to the players, controlling NPCs, and helping everyone apply the rules to the situation in the game.

Let’s talk about the GM’s jobs.

Help Build Campaigns

A campaign is a series of games you play with the same characters, where the story builds on what happened in earlier sessions. All the players should collaborate with the GM to plan how the campaign will work. Usually this is a conversation among all of you to decide what sort of heroes you want to play, what sort of world you live in, and what sorts of bad guys you’ll have. Talk about how serious you want the game to be and how long you want it to last.

Build Scenarios and Run Game Sessions

A scenario is one short story arc, the sort of thing you might see wrapped up in one or two episodes of an adventure television show, even if it’s a smaller part of a bigger story. Usually you can wrap up a scenario in one to three game sessions, assuming you play for three or four hours at a time. But what is a scenario, and how do you build one?

Scenarios

A scenario needs two things: A bad guy with a goal, and a reason the PCs can’t ignore it.

Bad guy with a goal: You’ve probably figured this out already. The campaign’s main opposition, or one of his allies, is probably your bad guy.

Something the PCs can’t ignore: Now you have to give the PCs a reason to care. Make sure the bad guy’s goal is up in the PCs’ faces, where they need to do something about it or bad things will happen to them, or to people or things they value.

Running Game Sessions

Now that your bad guy is doing something the PCs will pay attention to, it’s time to start them off. Sometimes the best way to do that, especially for the first session of a new story arc, is to put them right in the action. Once the PCs know why they should care about what’s going on, you just get out of the way and let them take care of it.

That said, there are a bunch of tasks the GM needs to perform to run the session:

• Run scenes: A session is made up of individual scenes. Decide where the scene begins, who’s there, and what’s going on. Decide when all the interesting things have played out and the scene’s over.
• Adjudicate the rules: When some question comes up about how to apply the rules, you get final say.
• Set difficulties: You decide how difficult tasks should be.
• Play the NPCs: Each player controls their own character, but you control all the rest, including the bad guys.
• Keep things moving: If the players don’t know what to do next, it’s your job to give them a nudge. Never let things get too bogged down in indecision or because they don’t have enough information—do something to shake things up.
• Make sure everyone has a chance to be awesome: Your goal isn’t to defeat the players, but to challenge them. Make sure every PC gets a chance to be the star once in a while, from the big bad warrior to the little sneaky thief.

Setting Difficulty Levels

Bad Guys

When you make a bad guy, you can stat them out exactly like the PCs, with approaches, aspects, stress, and consequences. You should do this for important or recurring bad guys who are intended to give the PCs some real difficulties, but you shouldn’t need more than one or two of these in a scenario.

Mooks: Other bad guys are mooks—unnamed thugs or monsters or goons that are there to make the PCs’ day a little more difficult, but they’re designed to be more or less easily swept aside, especially by powerful PCs. Here’s how you create their stats:

1. Make a list of what this mook is skilled at. They get a +2 to all rolls dealing with these things.
2. Make a list of what this mook is bad at. They get a −2 to all rolls dealing with these things.
3. Everything else gets a +0 when rolled.
4. Give the mook an aspect or two to reinforce what they’re good and bad at, or if they have a particular strength or vulnerability. It’s okay if a mook’s aspects are really simple.
5. Mooks have zero, one, or two boxes in their stress track, depending on how tough you imagine them to be.
6. Mooks can’t take consequences. If they run out of stress boxes (or don’t have any), the next hit takes them down.

Groups of Mooks: If you have a lot of low-level bad guys facing the PCs, you can make your job easier by treating them as a group—or maybe a few groups. Instead of tracking a dozen bad guys, you track three groups of four bad guys each. Each of these groups acts like a single character and has a set of stats just like a single mook would:

1. Choose a couple of things they’re skilled at. You might designate “ganging up” as one of the things the group is good at.
2. Choose a couple of things they’re not so good at.
3. Give them an aspect.
4. Give them one stress box for every two individuals in the group.

Fate Core has a way of handling this, called mobs (see the “Creating the Opposition” section of the Running the Game chapter in Fate Core). Feel free to use that option if you prefer. Note that it may lead to very strong mobs, unless you start with extremely weak mooks—if you want to give your PCs a serious challenge, that could be one way to do it.

Example Characters

Here are four sample characters that you can use as-is or use as inspiration for your own characters.