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A bit less than 2 weeks now (as of posting this)!  A Far Off Land: RPG in Two Worlds for Fate (and stretch goals for PbtA / Apocalypse World engine).

Embrace your dual nature and become one of the shapeshifting Fated! Adventure in the two worlds, and engage in the intrigue of the Eldritch Courts & Fated Factions

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/8614065/a-far-off-land-a-fate-rpg-in-two-worlds

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This is a REALLY cool take on Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf (Cerberus style!)

Little Red Riding Hood.

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Dust Pan Games is a blog for RPGs (table-top roleplaying games). Recently I had the opportunity to be interviewed on the blog.  You can check out the interview here, and enjoy the rest of the blog as well.

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Rolling Boxcars is a very neat TableTop RPG blog I recently discovered, and, I’m going to be interviewed on it soon about A Far Off Land: An RPG in two worlds for Fate and the Kickstarter which is presently underway for it.  So check it out!  Of course, I will post the interview when it is up.

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Dragon Age 2 was not my favorite, but, there were some elements of it that were well done, and this art of Sebastian is beautiful.

Dragon Age Knight Errant #5 for Dark Horse

Ayyy, who remembers Sebastian from DA2? Yellow Dafodil’s are actually a metaphor for Chivalry. The kiss however also comes with thorns~

Another bittersweet conclusion! This is the last cover for Knight Errant’s five issue series. All five issues are out now so check it out if you haven’t already. Thanks as always to AD Dave Marshall!

I always enjoy making these, I’ll cross my fingers for more DA art. Hopefully this isn’t the end! 

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Hatters Court member by Tanyaporn Sangsnit, for the RPG A Far Off Land.  A Far Off Land is now on Kickstarter.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/8614065/a-far-off-land-a-fate-rpg-in-two-worlds

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Why choose to use the Fate Core for A Far Off Land RPG multiverse setting?   Here’s the merits of the Fate roleplaying game and why it works so well. A Far Off Land is being Kickstarted now!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/8614065/a-far-off-land-a-fate-rpg-in-two-worlds

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Inspired originally by the Six Viziers system for the Fate RPG by Evil Hat, here’s a rough draft of a Fate supplement for Leaves of Chiaroscuro or the setting of your choice, focusing on dragon-themed characters.

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Two otherworldly relics for Leaves of Chiaroscuro, or the Fate RPG setting of your choice.

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A sleeping Hal, male emerald toucanet

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The cover for my Fate RPG setting Leaves of Chiaroscuro: Intrigue & Exploration in a Strange & Wondrous Renaissance.  Check it out!

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A picture of my male emerald toucanet Hal (top right) while he was still in his juvenile plumage.   On the left is my pair of cockatiels (Indiana and Cinnamon)

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LoC & a Far off Land

Earlier this year I published my first book, an RPG setting for Fate, called Leaves of Chiaroscuro: Intrigue & Exploration in a Strange and Wondrous Renaissance.  While it is presently available in PDF form, I should have a print proof arriving soonish, I’m crossing my fingers and hoping I don’t need to revise and order another proof.

I’m working on a few additional RPG books.

A Far Off Land is being co-authored by Jacob Possin, and presently going through playtesting.  The game is modern urban fantasy which draws from a variety of folklore (from Norse to Celtic to Japanese) and public domain fiction such as Alice in Wonderland. It involves two interconnected realities: the modern world in which humanity lives, and the mythic realm of demons, fairies and other creatures.  Player characters are the demi-god like Fated, whose dark secret is that they are not quite what they believe themselves to be.  A variety of factions are central to gameplay, with each faction having its own vision for the future of the two worlds.

Finally, I’m partway through a small supplement for Leaves of Chiaroscuro (though the intent is for it to be useful with other settings as well), which focuses on lacerta, and other dragon-themed characters.  It includes a variant of Fate’s Six Viziers system, and will be available for free as a PDF.

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Fate Points: for More than Winning

I’ve been running a game of Fate for around a year with a group now. However, we’re all really more familiar with traditional RPGs, having grown up mainly on D&D (or in my case a lot of Rifts). 

Fate is one of those games that is in my mind somewhere between a traditional RPG and a storytelling game, and is thus, really easy to approach as a traditional RPG.  But, in doing so, you miss a bit of what makes Fate, well, Fate.  And what might that be? Well, it’s the more strongly narrative side of how to use Fate points and aspects. You can, for instance, spend a Fate point, and invoke an aspect (can be your character’s or an aspect in the environment) and declare a story detail.  It remains unclear to me precisely how much narrative power the authors of Fate intended to grant with this (most likely it wasn’t meant to be too precise), but I like to encourage players to get descriptive and begin narrating a scene before I pick it up and run with it.  Thus, for instance, if a cave they are exploring has “strange creatures dwelling within” a player could spend a Fate point, invoke that aspect, and start narrating what manner of strange creature they encounter and set off a scene involving it.  Of course, I would allow them to also do a sort of compel and gain a Fate point if they are using this aspect to start an encounter with a creature that would particularly complicate things for them.

However, a lot of players aren’t used to dealing with this sort of narrative power, and they are probably a lot more used to spending points to make it more likely they succeed at dice rolls... which means that using Fate points in the above-mentioned way, risks simply becoming forgotten.  If your players really do just prefer things this way that is fine, but, some encouragement to make use of Fate points and aspects in a narrative manner can result in great fun with the right group, and they may just need a little push.

How do you do this?  Some groups may just need aspects and Fate points explained better,  but otherwise a “training wheels” type rule may be best.  Try this: for a session or two, let them use the Fate points they begin play with only for narrative purposes, like self-compels, compelling other character’s aspects, or declaring a story detail.  My experience is this helps take their minds off the idea that they need to save up those points so they can get bonuses or reroll just in order to win at things. Then, allow them to use whatever Fate points they earn in game for any of the purposes they’d ordinarily be allowed to (invoking aspects to gain bonuses and rerolls for instance).  It may help to use two separate colors for the “all-purpose” Fate points and starter-narrative-only Fate points.

After that session or two ditch the rule and let them do what they will unless it seems to be something that would be helpful or fun for your player group for longer term.

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The Obligatory Intro

This blog is my unfocused space on Tumblr for me to “spew forth” my random art pieces, updates whatever I’m working on, RPG related topics and other misc. stuff out onto the internet like a mother bird with terrible aim attempting to feed her feeble young chicks.  Enjoy!

-Megan Bennett-Burks