A Game of F.A.I.T.

[Terminal]

Over the past year and a half, I've been working on a tabletop/chatroom adventure game. My big problem with the more popular ones currently available such as D&D is that they either restrict your character, restrict your personal abilities, and really overall simply restrict your freedom. In D&D, if you want to be an effective barbarian, you had better kiss wisdom, intellect and charisma goodbye. Because everyone knows, it’s impossible to both be strong and have a modicum of intelligence, just like it’s impossible to be a spellcaster and also be good at hitting things. That would just be silly. And god forbid you actually try to convince anyone of anything using simple logic without rolling for diplomacy. This may be a bit of an exaggeration on my part, and things may be different now, but that is essentially the big turn-off when it comes to D&D for me. There is an irrevocable choice between having a character with personality and/or distinctiveness versus making a character who is actually good at anything.

So I made F.A.I.T. It's a game about player freedom. To put it simply, you can:

1. Be anything. God, Death, Reality itself? Sure. Sentient Laundry Hamper? Can do. Alligator that can breathe exploding bricks? Childs play. A Quantum Uncertainty Dinosaur? Wilco, just don't look in any mirrors. Samurais, Demons, Accountants, Janitors, Merchants, Aliens, Robots, Inanimate Objects, Abstract Transient Constructs, Eldritch Entities Beyond the Ken of Man, Philosophical Bombs, Time Travelers, Statues, Monkies - Your character can be anything you want it to be, right from the start of the game.

2. Do anything. Literally talk people to death. Leap tall buildings in a single bound (and then go splat against the ground). Teleport. Bend reality to your will. Paint people pink by wiggling your ears. Flip coins so that they always land on the side you want. Summon creatures to do your bidding. Banish others to another plane of existence. Travel through time and space. Really, we aren't picky here.

3. Go anywhere. Most games will generate a very basic and limited world for you to play around in. F.A.I.T. generates 'iterations' - clusters of multiverses. If you have the means, you can go anywhere, and nothing will stop you. The game accounts for every possible genre and setting imaginable. True, you start out in one particular area, but nothing is stopping you from just flying to another continent or planet. (Aside from gravity, atmospheric reentry, lack of oxygen, gamma exposure, etcetera - but in F.A.I.T., there are ways around all of those).

Now the game does have rules. What game doesn't? When it comes to character creation, we work by the premise: Everyone has to start somewhere. All characters are in similar straights at the start of every game - any distinction is caused by their accumulation of skills, powers and personalities. You can implement stat changes within your character as part of what they are, but nominally you can be anything and look like anything and it will not impact gameplay beyond flavor. So yes, you can play as a god. You can throw lightning bolts and fly and grant boons or curse foolish mortals. It's just that, at the very start of the game, you'll be a very puny god. You'll probably spend some time working yourself up to where you want to be. The same applies to other things like eldritch creatures, powered armor superheroes, potted plants and bearsharks. All entities, at the start of the game, regardless of form, will be able to walk, talk, and interact with the world around them by default (although you can elect to make them incapable of one or all of these things as well).

Similarly, you can start the game with the ability to do anything you would like...to a certain extent. You want to be able to punch a hole in the universe? A'right, we can do that. Chances are, it's going to be a very small hole, or a very big hole that closes up very quickly. Or it just might be that punching a hole in the universe doesn't really do all that much. As the game progresses, you can expand upon and improve your punching skills to make punching a hole in the universe more effective. Again, everyone has to start somewhere. You can do anything you want, but you're probably going to have to work on your technique.

That said, when selecting powers and skills for your character, do not worry about the mechanics. I have those covered, and I will contact you in order to fine tune the specifics of what you want. If you put down 'Aura of Healing' as a skill, I'll probably ask you how large you want the aura to be, how long you want it to last, and how powerful you want the healing effect to be, and whether or not you want the healing effect to be a flat boost or a sort of regenerative effect, and whether you want it to cure status conditions and so on and so forth. The rule of thumb here is that less is more. The less complex an effect, the more powerful it will be. Please keep in mind this is at the start of the game. Chances are, you'll be able to improve that aura of healing to have unlimited range and be capable of curing cancer and aids.

Here is what a character sheet for F.A.I.T. looks like:

Name: The name of your character, or at least what other people call them.

Eye Color-
Age-
Gender-
Appearance-
Number of Appendages-
Number of Heads-
Height-
Quantum Height-
Existential Status-
You Get the Idea-
Just put down anything noteworthy about the character here-

Skills are passive effects that are always active. Sapience, Sentient, Intellect and overall Personality are all on the house, they are whatever you want to be, so don't put down 'super genius' here. If you want your character to be a super genius, then just have them act like super geniuses. Similarly, don't put down things like persuasiveness. Your character is exactly as persuasive as you have them be through their attempts at negotiation and rousing speeches. Skills in F.A.I.T. are things like regeneration, mind reading, perception (their ability to see or sense things), the ability to fly, the ability to cast magic, or being bullet proof.

Your skill can be anything you want within that context. But you only get one to start the game with. During the game proper, you'll be able to either upgrade skills to be more effective, or can invest in new skills. If you really want more than one skill at the outset of the game, relax, we have you covered - check the section on leveling up. Each character starts the game with a free level, and one of them lets you either upgrade a skill or get a new one.

Don't actually worry about the mechanics of your skill, I'll have that covered. Chances are you'll be hearing from me, asking you about the specifics and fine tuning of this.

F.A.I.T. covers every genre and ever setting possible, and so combat is a bit of an inevitability. No game of F.A.I.T. is necessarily combat oriented unless you want it to be, but regardless of what you are normally doing, you still need a basic, default attack in case you ever need to use it. Your basic attack modifies weaponry that you happen to be using, so you should assume you are unarmed while designing your basic attack.

This can be as simple to hitting something as hard as you can to executing a complicated martial art takedown to projecting a bolt of fire to creating illusory duplicates of yourself. Your basic attack is not necessarily even in an attack, in that sense. Please note, all characters, by default, have the ability to hit stuff for a basic amount of damage, and will retain the ability to do so even after creating a basic attack here.

Basic attacks are very limited at the start of the game, so I will probably contact you to fine-tune it in order to make it work.

Abilities are powerful effects that typically need to be recharged before they can be used again. They are nominally used for combat, but think outside the box here. An ability could be the power to instantly hack into anything electronic, to activate a stealth effect, increase your powers of perception, etcetera. You start the game with one ability, unless your free level lets you have two.

As with skills, do not worry about the actual mechanics - I've got you covered. Like with skills, I'll probably be contacting you in order to fine tune your ability.

A character's special is essentially their ultimate power. Specials are excruciatingly powerful effects with painfully long recharge times or specific conditions. Having your character explode like a nuclear warhead would be a Special. Resurrecting the dead is probably a special. Rendering yourself invincible is feasible using a special. Like Abilities, Specials are nominally used for combat, but they do not have to be. Think outside the box. Surprise me. Specials still have limits on them, so yes, I will probably be contacting you so we can fine tune exactly what you want. You start the game with one special, although there is a free level that can let you either improve a special or make a second one.

All characters get three free items at the start of the game. These items can be anything and do anything, as long as they are items. Wanting a 'dinosaur shaped room' is not an item. Wanting a 'cloud that poisons stuff' is not an item. A bottle containing poisonous gas is an item. Everything here needs to have some kind of physical presence that you can haul around. Transient Constructs need not apply unless they have a three dimensional handle I can grip.

Do not worry about selecting clothing counting as an item - if you don't opt for any, you'll start the game with some default clothing to preserve modesty. You can indicate what you want these to be as well if you have already selected your three free items. Just be warned, these clothes will not do anything fancy. They'll just be clothes.

All characters start the game with a TOKEN. A TOKEN is a significant item from that character's past, or perhaps something they just happen to be really fond of. You can describe what this token looks like, but it is essentially nonfunctional. There have been occasions when I have made exceptions and allowed a character's TOKEN to act as one of their three free items, in which case you should note that 'This item is also character's TOKEN.'

Finally, all characters start the game with 6 units of currency, which falls into three categories.

Rural - Currency used in local towns, villages and rural areas due to their uniqueness and omnipresence.

Minted - Currency used in large cities or developed areas due to its rarity and use in industry as a useful metal of many properties.

Tech - Currency used in advanced or futuristic societies. Credit would count as Tech currency.

Which currency you choose has an impact on your starting area. If every player picks rural currency, chances are you'll start out in an ancient, bygone era. If everyone picks tech currency, you may wind up on a space station. Minted currency is indicative of the 1800s or thereabouts. A mixture of tech and minted currency results in a relatively modern environment. Minted and rural will get you a medieval sort of landscape. Rural and Tech will land you in an apocalyptic scenario. An even mixture of all currency types will land you in a high fantasy setting. Choose carefully.

In F.A.I.T., characters grow more powerful by gaining levels in one of six categories. You get to pick one free level at the start of the game. These categories are:

Body: Start the game with extra health, energy and sanity (sanity is an indicator of your ability to discern reality from fantasy, and has no impact whatsoever upon personality. When this drops, the narration starts distorting). You can either pick just one of those, or two that are both a little less than if you had just picked them by themselves.

Matter: Gives you a little extra energy to start with, and lets you either improve your basic attack or make a second one.

Mind: You can either improve an existing skill or create a new one, but not both.

Life: Start the game with extra energy, sanity or...something else. Life allows you to improve a stat which is hidden from the players, and serves a mysterious function that is ultimately unknowable. Eldritch entities and the like make good use of it. You can elect to either increase your energy and the ineffable, or your sanity and the ineffable. If you want to increase your energy and sanity, take a free level in Body instead.

Spirit: You can either improve an existing ability or create a new one, but not both.

Truth: You can either improve an existing special or create a new one, but not both.

Once you've selected your free level, specify what you want out of it.

As a note, all entities start the game with the same stats, barring variations due to their selections. The default is:

2 HP - How much of a beating you can take.
1 Energy - A mixture of physical and inner strength. Used for heavy lifting and spellcasting.
3 Sanity - Determines an entity's ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality. This score has no bearing on a character's personality or behavior. When Sanity starts dropping, narration starts becoming distorted for that character.

A few things you may want to know before designing your stuff:
LUCK DOES NOT FACTOR INTO GAMEPLAY. You do not need dice, random number generators or coins to do anything in F.A.I.T. All you need is a pen and pad. Possibly not even that. Don’t take that as a sign that things can’t happen by chance. Think of it as a sort of action=>consequence system. You can perform an infinite number of actions, each of which has a contextually specific reaction. The minute details of your performance changes what occurs.

F.A.I.T. abides by a few convenient video game rules. At normal difficulty, you have unlimited inventory capacity. After a fight, your health and energy is fully restored barring certain status effects. Damage taken outside of fights is more permanent, although it will still heal over time. Time itself operates on a vague scale of measure, the units of which consists of actions, travel time and speech. On higher difficulties, these convenient rules are turned off. Finally, spellcasting uses energy, and comes in generalized areas of specialization. Picking a specific area of spellcasting automatically grants you a bonus to energy so you can actually cast your spells. This does not necessarily mean spellcasters are physically strong - it could mean that they are magically augmenting their strength.

The game started out as a text adventure, gradually evolved into a chatroom RP, and is now conceivably advanced enough to function as a legitimate tabletop RP. It still retains a few holdovers from ye olden days however – the OP for the OOC thread will include a MAIN MENU, containing the contents of…the main menu of F.A.I.T.

New Game
Load Game
Tutorial

How well what you see is described. (-1 to 1) [.5]

How well what you hear is described. (-1 to 1) [.5]

How well what you smell is described. (-1 to 1) [.5]

How well what you taste is described. (-1 to 1) [.5]

How well what you feel is described. (-1 to 1) [.5]

Sorted from Easiest to Hardest: Invincible, Deity, Demigod, Mortal, Violent, Murderous, Psychopathic, Genocidal, Geocidal, Omnicidal, Wendigo, F.A.I.T.ed [Murderous]

Classic/Stylized

How realistically is violence depicted? (-1 to 1) [.5] How much blood is there? (-1 to 1) [.5] Are weapons present? Y/N

Are controlled substances present? Y/N Are they depicted in various lights, or as singularly good/bad? B/N/G Do they have numerous, beneficial effects as well as drawbacks? Y/N

Is SEX, FORNICATION, INTERCOURSE, LUVS present? Y/N Is/are Rape and/or other forms of sexual assault and/or trauma present? Y/N Is Pregnancy and Childbirth present? Y/N Is domestic abuse present? Y/N Is slavery present? Y/N

Is the game scary? (Well, that's subjective, but the scale is -1 to 1) [.5]

How complex can the plot and topics covered by the game become? (-1 to 1) [1]

How closely does the game mirror reality? (-1 to 1) [.3]

Cosmic Irony: ON/OFF Metacognitive Irony: ON/OFF Luck: ON/OFF Fate: ON/OFF Chance ON/OFF Running Jokes: ON/OFF

Who is the Narrator? Aiden, Ontia, Poe, Terminal, Tome, Other

Describe the desired addition, subtraction, modification or alteration.

File I – Empty
File II – Empty
File III – Empty
File IV – Empty
File V – Empty
File VI – Empty
File VII – Empty
File VIII – Empty
File IX – Empty
File X – Empty
File XI – Empty
File XII – Locked
Delete a File
Manipulate a File
Link Files

Reset All Codes

–

Input Language.

Code Menu
Salvage Mode
Boss Rush
Arena
Legendary Mode

As to how posting will work: The RP will nominally be taking place in-thread, although a lot of collaborative work is probably going to be involved between everybody. As the narrator, it will be my job to describe the setting and the appearances and actions of NPCs, and so for the sake of clarity and space it may be more efficient to combine posts. I would like to share http://sync.in/ with all of you. It’s a collaborative text document/chat room that allows for realtime writing and editing by multiple authors. I find it to be indispensable when doing collaborative work.

Also of note: While combat may or may not be a frequent thing, it is still liable to occur in any given game. The way fights operate in F.A.I.T. gives lots of leeway towards the player in terms of reacting to enemies and strategizing – and is horrible when it comes to posting, since it would involve potentially hundreds of small, one sentence or paragraph posts describing system messages and actions. As such, all fights will have to take place in realtime, preferably in a chat such as IRC (although I am open to alternatives), and then edited at the conclusion to look nice and neat for posting.

Finally: F.A.I.T. games take a long time to complete. Most groups seem to naturally engage in sessions that chew up three to four hours of time, sometimes even longer. Each game file usually consists of chapters, and a single chapter can typically take anywhere from weeks (assuming one session a week) to months to finish. And that’s with people meeting together on IRC. I expect the pace to be much more languid here on a forum, so please do not join unless you are absolutely committed for a long haul, although I am welcome and accepting of criticism and feedback from people who might not be able to participate.

Here's an easy copy and paste schema for a F.A.I.T. character sheet:

[B]Name:[/B]
[B]Details:[/B]
[B]Skills:[/B]
[B]Attacks:[/B]
[B]Abilities:[/B]
[B]Specials:[/B]
[B]Items:[/B]
[B]Level:[/B]

[Xartarin]

Do you want profiles in the interest check or the OOC?

[Terminal]

Let's save profiles for the OOC if we get that far. Right now, just decide on what sort of character you would like.

[Gado]

My curiosity has been pinched. Interested.

[Bantling Bee]

I'm quite interested. My main concern is how much time you'd want for this. I'm not anticipating that being an issue for a while, but I'm starting grad school in the fall and would like to know how much of a time commitment per day or per week you're expecting.

[Terminal]

The main problem with time is that F.A.I.T. is essentially a game at its base. We can pause it, and any given challenge might wait for every character to respond - but if we use a one-post-at-a-time format, very simply, the game will never get anywhere. It will require very active collaborative action.

I suppose the main question is to how exactly people might want to do this. The way it was done prior to now, F.A.I.T. was hosted in realtime chat, and people got together on occasion to play through sessions whenever their schedules allowed. If we did that, it would be a simple matter of everyone coming in at the same time of the week and then hammering out a session, which could then be edited and posted. Sessions, as previously stated, usually chew up three to four hours of time - so the bare minimum then would be to clear out that much time a week for the game. On the other hand, since we will be using http://sync.in/ , it is entirely possible we could instead have people come and go, altering a single text document one at a time until we have something long enough to post. That would require coming in much more frequently in order to stay on top of events, although it would also mean you would not have to clear three to four hours from your schedule.

[Bantling Bee]

I'd be ok with that. The issue is that we'd also have to take the possibility of varying time zones into consideration.

[Terminal]

The OOC thread is up! Begin working on your character profiles after reading through it.

[Chyoko]

So how exactly would things happen in F.A.I.T ? You would control what happened to the characters? I mean it sounds interesting, but there is a reason for dice and things. I just don't get how this would play out without dice (or whatever) could you elaborate?

[Blimm]

So very interested.