WotA Strategy Game Recap Pt 1: Rethinking Magic

WotA Strategy Game

I created a java program to help model the long term strategy in Wrath of the Autarch. It basically abstracts a session of play (one season of game time) into a few clicks that only take a couple minutes. It does this by treating characters very abstractly, with only a rank that says how good they are, and a major and minor focus which correspond to the four mini-games in WotA. Missions have one difficulty number, which is compared to the rank of the heroes to see how well they do. Resources, regions, and developments and such are treated fairly closely to how they are in the game.

I might blog more about it some other time (the program is online where the rules live), but I'm hoping it helps me examine whether or not all the mission types are worth doing, how resources can be gathered and managed, whether some developments are wildly overpriced, as well as just figuring out how the game feels as a whole. I've found quite a few areas to think about, and I'll slowly incorporate the changes back into the model and see how they feel. First up is magic.

Current Magic Rules in WotA

Magic in WotA comes from the land, from the wild, untamed areas of the realm. This is similar to the theme of Birthright, as well as coming from Arthurian myth (and probably many fantasy works). Using magic is always risky, particularly the release of powerful magic. The risk comes in the form of backlash, which is damage done when magical power is released (usually to the land from which it's drawn). These two foundational ideas aren't going to change.

Currently in the rules, spellcasters slowly accumulate mana each season they remain on a mana-rich region. This mana is then released when casting a spell. This concept isn't bad thematically, but it's really fiddly - particularly tracking when a sorcerer is on this or that region, and how much mana they get. Already in playtests it's something we constantly forget to do.

It also greatly penalizes sorcerers, because they spend all their time getting mana from regions, rather than training or going on missions.

Bound Regions and Starting Mana

Instead of having mana fluctuate between seasons, spending some here, gaining it there, I'm going to have each spellcaster start bound to a region. This region they're bound to forms a big part of their identity. In fact, I think it will be a mandatory aspect that each sorcerer has - such as Sorcerer of the Obsidian Wood. The players can work out what this means, what is the temperament of the land to which your bound? Is it calm and tranquil or wild and chaotic? That will help the players and GM decide when it's appropriate to invoke or compel the aspect.

At the start of each session, sorcerers get starting mana equal to one-half their Channeling skill times the mana value of the region.

For instance, Kara has a Channeling skill of 3.  If she's bound to the Obsidian Wood, which has a mana value of 3, she'll start every mission with 4 mana (3*3 = 9, 9/2 = 4).

This is much easier to track, because skills don't change very frequently, and neither will the mana value of a region. It also creates a nice range of mana for design reasons, because mana will generally range from 0-10, with 15 being an absolute maximum if the Stronghold is heavy into the arcane arts through heavy development research.

It is possible for a caster to switch regions, but I'm thinking it will take at least a season of doing nothing. If the land forms that big a part of their identity, changing a bound region is probably like forsaking a loved one.

Spell Power Ranges

I'll probably keep the "base magic effect" idea that's already in WotA. That is, a hero may spend one mana to transform their Spellcraft skill into an effect related to the sorcery they know. So, spending a point of mana when casting the Secret of Fire would allow a spellcaster to roll Spellcraft instead of Marksmanship to attack something in combat, etc.

Extra mana spent on the spell would function like fate points, either adding +2 or allowing a re-roll.

Besides that base effect, though (Apprentice level magic), there are additional spell effects cenetered around three bands of power roughly corresponding to spending 5 (Initiate), 10 (Journeyman), or 15 (Keeper) mana points.

The details of the effects would depend on the particular spell, but they would be exponentially better than using the mana points as simple fate points. For instance, spending 15 mana on a spell would do things like raise an army of the dead, blow apart castles, or sway the will of a civilization. That level of power is the pinnacle of a campaign.

Each of these levels of power is accessed through Spellcraft skill stunts.

Backlash

The general procedure for casting a spell works a little like Dresden Files RPG, with one pretty big difference: spells always succeed.

• First, the spellcaster spends mana to cast a spell, rolling their Spellcraft skill to determine the overall effect. The effect depends on the spell and the amount of mana spent.
• Next, a Channeling skill vs. mana spent check is made, with any difference below the target number taken as backlash. Most commonly, each point of backlash means one resource from the caster's home region is gone. The land is dying - and it's your fault!

This is pretty harsh, because there's almost always going to be a chance of backlash, no matter how good the caster becomes. In the case of huge mana spends, like 15, it's pretty likely the whole region will be destroyed and turned into a wasteland.

I might allow the caster to absorb some of the backlash as mental stress - maybe taking a consequence to lower the backlash by one. That might be a good Channeling stunt?

As I mentioned at the start, though, magic is risky, and I don't want any combination of stunts or abilities to remove that risk. Just lower it.

Developments and Artifacts

These changes are going to wreak havoc on the Arcane developments I have, because many of them are built from the previous method of gaining and using mana. I've re-thought them as follows. Oh, and a word about the following stunts: I've been using d6-d6 rather than 4dF (the four fate dice) for my WotA games lately, and many stunts and developments rely on that fact.

• Mana Forge - The land gains one extra mana.
• Advanced Mana Forge - No longer exists
• Improved Channeling - Roll d8-d6 for backlash skill checks. (Add one if using fate dice)
• Advanced Channeling - Roll d10 - d6 for backlash skill checks. (Add two if using fate dice)
• Expert Channeling - Roll d12 - d6 for backlash skill checks. (Add three if using fate dice)
• Improved Casting - Roll d8-d6 for all spell effects related to rolling Spellcraft.

• Advanced Casting - Roll d10 - d6 for all spell effects related to rolling Spellcraft.
• Expert Casting - Roll d12 - d6 for all spell effects related to rolling Spellcraft.
• Mages Guild - Every character gains one Spellcraft stunt that they have the prerequisites for, or may become an Initiate in a secret even if they don't have the correct prerequisites.
• Thedda's Palimpsest (artifact from Burgan Vale) - Every region controlled by the Stronghold has one extra mana for the purposes of channeling spellpower (even regions with no mana may be treated as having one).
• Artificer - Unchanged.
• Battle Mages - Unchanged.

Since regions have 0-3 mana, this puts the far upper limit of spellpower available at about 15. If the region had 3 mana to start with, along with a mana forge, and the Stronghold has retrieved Thedda's Palimpsest, the region will grant 5 mana for the purpose of casting spells.  With a Channeling skill of 6 (high, but possible by mid-game), this is 15 mana to start each session.

Getting to the point where spellcasters start each mission with 15 mana requires a massive dedication to the Arcane tech tree, forming the backbone of the whole Stronghold strategy. It's definitely a risky, but potentially powerful, strategy.

Neutral Regions with Mana

Another area that I've really noticed in playing the strategy game is that some of the neutral regions really aren't that appealing in terms of targets for conquest missions. Part of this is because too many of them are a mish-mash of resources, without much thought being given to how they fit into various Stronghold strategies.

I'm thinking of really restricting regions with a mana value of 3 to Dusk's Ayrie (where the great wyrm Arankh makes his home) and probably one of Burgan Vale's home regions.

That makes both of those bigger targets for the Stronghold that wants to go the magic route. Of course, attacking Burgan Vale seems unlikely since they would be the best ally to a magic-centered Stronghold.

Retroactive Compels

One of the things that I really like about Cortex+ is that there exists a mechanism for players to easily gain plot points (story points or fate points or whatever you wish to call them) by adjusting their dice pools prior to rolling if some trait (aspect) applies in a way that makes life difficult.

In my experience both playing and running in Fate games, GMs almost universally have trouble keeping the Fate point economy moving enough on their own, and players usually don't overcome the table inertia to subtly maneuver for compels.  Certainly, familiarity with the characters helps, as does practice on the part of the GM, but I still find myself not doing it well when I run traditional Fate games even though I'm consciously looking for opportunities to do so.

In Wrath of the Autarch, I remedied this by allowing players to get a Fate point when they failed a roll during the narrative phase, and then used an aspect to color the nature of the narration.  If the aspect involved a relationship with another player, both players could get a Fate point.

This worked really well to bring the downside of aspects into play quite a bit more, because failing a roll is a such an easily remembered concrete trigger.  It also worked really well to springboard into the next dilemma, failing forward to the next problem.

In WotA, during the narrative phase, players have quite a bit of narrative control over the developing story, more than in Fate Core, but I don't see any reason this couldn't be used in a similar fashion for standard Fate, although I've yet to do so.

There is an economy of rolls in the narrative phase of WotA that doesn't exist in Fate Core, so it might have to be constrained a little (particularly for subsystems like the Conflict rules which have lots of rolling), but I still think it could work in general.

The benefits of something like this are twofold: a way for players to easily get Fate points without GM oversight as well as a method to make failure a little more rich by bringing in new problems related to a character's aspects (failing forward).

Autarch Strategy in WotA

I've blogged in the past about strategy from the perspective of the players running the Stronghold.  This post concerns the Autarch strategy in Wrath of the Autarch (what the Autarch player does to win).  Previously, I had developed a system where the Autarch would gain access to various threats based on the year of the campaign.  Basically, for every year of the campaign, the Autarch gained access to more powerful threats of various sorts (Warfare, Diplomacy, Infiltration, and Skirmish).

However, because the Autarch gained access to every sort of threat, there really wasn't any strategy on the part of the Autarch player - just choose the threat type that couldn't be defended.  It also wasn't that fun to be the Stronghold players, because investing in defense in one area just left another area exposed.

The further I get in design, I also have a better vision for what this game is all about.  Wrath of the Autarch is a competitive strategy role-playing game.  While there is a GM of sorts, there is no GM fiat, and the GM/Autarch player is trying to win.  In such a game, it's far more interesting if there are strategies for both the Stronghold players as well as the Autarch player (I may shy away from using the term GM in the book - not sure).  So, I came up with the following.

Threat Pools

The Autarch player allocates points into a set of four threat pools in order to harm the Stronghold in various ways.  There is one pool for each mini-game in WotA (Warfare, Diplomacy, Infiltration, and Skirmish).  Threats have various requirements in terms of threat pool levels, and not surprisingly the mini-game used in that threat is the same as the pool name.

Rather than have the Autarch player secretly track all of these pools, however, I use a method of revealing hidden information that I first saw in War of the Ring: the Autarch player only allocates points into pools when executing a particular threat or when forced to by the Stronghold players (via an Infiltration mission or something similar).

Note that the pools are not expended when a threat is chosen, rather they represent requirements for more powerful threat.  Maybe pools is the wrong word here?  Instead, the number of threats are restricted by current year (each year may only have a number of threats equal to 1/2 the current year) as well as by type (the same threat may not be used more than once a year).

Example

For example, here are some Autarch threats, along with requirements of different types:

Propaganda Campaign (Infiltration)
  Requirement  7:  -1 stability
  Requirement 12: -2 stability
  Requirement 17: -3 stability

Military Strike (Warfare)
  Requirement   9: Standard infantry, archers, and cavalry.
  Requirement 14: Advanced infantry, archers, and cavalry.
  Requirement 17: Elite infantry, archers, cavalry, and catapults.
  Requirement 21: Elite infantry, archers, cavalry, and cannons.

Turn Faction Against Stronghold (Diplomacy)
  Requirement  6:  -1 Disposition
  Requirement 11: -2 Disposition
  Requirement 16: -3 Disposition

Let's say it's the end of the Winter of the second year (8th season), and the Autarch player has not been forced to declare where points are allocated to threat pools.  In that case, during the declare threats phase (end of season) - the Autarch player may either choose to launch a Propaganda Campaign or to Turn Faction Against Stronghold, since both of those have options which require eight or fewer points.

If the Autarch player decides to Turn Faction Against Stronghold, they would be forced to allocate pools as follows:

Infiltration: 0
Warfare: 0
Skirmish: 0
Diplomacy: 6

This is because the Turn Faction Against Stronghold threat requires a Diplomacy Threat pool of at least six.  The Autarch player would also have two points left over.  Now the Stronghold players would know that the Autarch is going to use Diplomacy to bother them, so they better strengthen their relationships with allies!

Continuing with this example, let's fast forward to the Spring of the fourth year (13th season).  Assume the Autarch has the same pools as above, as well as seven points that haven't been allocated.  Five of them could be put into Diplomacy, gaining access to a better Turn Faction Against Stronghold threat, or the Propaganda Campaign could be used, putting seven into Infiltration.  Finally, in two seasons, a military option could be chosen, if the Autarch is comfortable waiting.  The Autarch decides to wait - preferring the flexibility of a future threat to acting now.

However, in the Summer of the fourth year (14 seasons), the Stronghold players decide to Infiltrate the Autarch in order to figure out future plans.  They succeed, and choose as the success condition to force the Autarch player to allocate the eight points which aren't allocated!

The Autarch player decides on:

Infiltration: 0
Warfare: 8
Skirmish: 0
Diplomacy: 6

So, the players know that the Autarch is changing gears, supplementing Diplomacy with naked aggression in the form of military attack!  And they only have one season to prepare!

Strategy

While this method of choosing threats will require tracking four more attributes on the Faction sheet, it makes for a far more interesting game in terms of acting and reacting  to different threats.  The Autarch player has a tension between acting earlier, giving away strategies, and acting later, while keeping options open.  Although, waiting too long will force the Stronghold players' hands, making an Infiltration mission more and more worthwhile, in order to determine what dark intentions the Autarch has in mind.

Sadly, it's going to take some more strategy game testing in order to get these values roughly balanced, but initial sentiment was pretty lukewarm regarding the way Autarch threats were previously handled, and this way will hopefully fix the biggest concerns (essentially, that there was no way to defend against what the Autarch was up to since they could do everything well).

The Wrath of the Autarch - Endgame

Another part of the game that I'm adding in is a "final Autarch threat" - the victor of which wins the game.  The motivation for this is largely to function as a timer.  I'm calling this threat, appropriately enough, The Wrath of the Autarch.

It will be triggered in two ways: when the Autarch's stability is low enough (down to one or less), or when a certain amount of time has elapsed (the Spring of year nine).  The key point is that the Autarch's power will grow significantly over the eight years, such that it greatly behooves the players to force this threat earlier rather than later.  This threat would probably be handled using Skirmish, with the Autarch unleashing a full arsenal of horrible onto the important people of the Stronghold.

I think adding in a narrative reason for this would be fitting (some long term ritual she's a part of, in order to gain power).

Designing Tabletop Strategy RPGs

Wrath of the Autarch is, for lack of any better terms, a tabletop strategy role-playing game.  Or, alternatively, maybe a tabletop 4X RPG is a good descriptor.  Designing such an uncommon beast has proven very difficult, and I'm now aware of why I couldn't find many such games in the first place.  The difficulty comes from merging competition with long time scales.

When initially designing WotA, I looked at many kingdom building RPGs, like Birthright.  However, I quickly realized those games weren't as useful to me as a designer, because they largely don't address long term strategy.  Rather, the kingdom is more of a framing mechanic for the narrative.

The most useful game that I've read is Houses of the Blooded, since it has competition and long term strategy.  Sadly (to me), competitive RPGs are rare enough (Contenders being one of my favorites), but competitive strategy RPGs are basically non-existent, with Houses of the Blooded being the only one I know of.  If you're reading this and know of another one, please let me know!  The big difference between Houses of the Blooded and Wrath of the Autarch is that, instead of the many vs. many PvP as in Houses, WotA has many vs. one (the Autarch) PvP.

The Incompatibility of GM Fiat and Competition

The first, and most immediate way, in which competition makes RPG design very difficult is it necessitates a certain rules framework in which all the players can operate within.  Rather than the traditional RPG design, where the GM is a facilitator to a story, the GM is instead another competitor.  This is easier at a local tactical level - after all, D&D combat in virtually every edition is a competition between the players and the GM, but it gets much harder when that competition is featured at the strategic level.  Put another way, the biggest tool in the RPG toolbox, GM fiat, is now verboten.

I handled this by providing a mission currency for the players (see the previous post), as well as a threat investment structure for the Autarch player (which I'll discuss some other time).  But, the key point is that strategy RPGs can't have a global GM fiat.  This may seem obvious, but the point is certainly worth mentioning, as it becomes readily apparent just how difficult design becomes when that is removed.

Uncertainty of Victory / Winning From Behind

Other design difficulties come from the mixture of strategy and competition, such as maintaining a level of uncertainty (or not) until the completion of the game.  That is, in a long-term strategy RPG, it's best to try to avoid the derivative state where one side or the other knows the game is over, yet it is quite some time before it actually becomes so.

One way to avoid this in games is to decouple the victory condition from the power source.  Otherwise, as you get further behind - you lose any ability to catch up.  I think another method is perhaps to have a few different options for victory, some of them being more unlikely (but perhaps more final) options.  The Hail Mary play as it were.  Note that many computer strategy games don't do this - but it's a little easier to say "Good Game" and move on earlier than it would be in an RPG, where there are narrative considerations as well.

My strategic playtests have revealed that I was guilty of this problem.  In this first place, stability - the measure of stability in your Stronghold, was both a way to build developments (and hence get power) and was also a win condition.  I decided that population is the way to build developments, with stability being a win condition.  All factions (the Stronghold, the Autarch, the five minor factions) are measured by these two metrics.

I'm still working out some Hail Mary victory conditions.  One of which might be assassinating the Autarch, which is no small feat.  I don't have a good option for the GM, but it might be the alternative: showing up with the Autarch somewhere, and trying to force the issue.  This has to be done with care, though, because a grand strategic advantage shouldn't be easily trumped by a long shot move.  Rather, such missions will at least serve to formally end the campaign when one side realizes it's most likely over.  It's more narratively interesting to go out in a blaze of glory than slowly die a thousand cuts over another four or five sessions of play.

Time Scales

Another difficulty of the genre is handling the time scales that a strategy game needs.  The important people from the kingdom are the lens through which the narrative is told, but this must necessarily be abstract in some measure, otherwise too much time is spent on narrowly focused concerns without moving the narrative forward.

In this, there are some good examples in existing RPGs.  The classic Pendragon accomplishes this by only focusing on the very important considerations for the year, not dealing with adventuring minutae.  This is also the tactic that HotB employs.  Birthright is slightly different, and uses both long term moves (kingdom level actions) as well as 2nd Edition D&D style adventures, intermixed.

I chose to employ actions at the level of the season (like HotB), such that each season the narrative progresses.  However, something like this must be done so that the kingdom itself grows.  It's possible to become even more abstract, where players don't role-play characters anymore, but rather narrate the actions of empires.

Winning!

I could write a great deal more about this topic, but I wanted to try to impress upon any other designers of tabletop RPGs the unique challenges present when competition is part of an RPG at the strategic level.  It turns out there is much to learn from boardgames (naturally - since Civilization was first a boardgame) and videogames, although there are challenges in adapting the form into a game where players assume the roles of important characters in the narrative (most notably time scale becomes an issue).  As well, there are difficulties when looking at kingdom building RPGs and making them strategic (most notably the limiting of GM fiat).

Missions in Wrath of the Autarch

Under advice from people smarter than I, I have been playing through the longer term strategy in Wrath of the Autarch, trying to get it humming along.  This takes the form of having a player handle the seasonal details of the Stronghold (building developments, rolling for threats), and then abstracting out the actual missions.  For lack of any better resolution system, I just give a ballpark result, based on what I think would (or should) happen.

Because the player running the Autarch is trying to defeat the players running the Stronghold, it is important for the players running the Stronghold to have some understanding of what options are available and why they would take them.  Unfortunately, the text at this point isn't all that helpful - so this article is the first of a few which summarizes the strategies present in the game.  Hopefully this will serve to crystallize my own understanding of the design, but it will also help players who are going through the strategy game understand their options.

The building blocks of the campaign are missions.  Each season, a few heroes from the Stronghold may undertake one such mission.  Choosing missions carefully is the backbone of any strategy.  Winning!

• Conquest - Conquest missions allow the Stronghold to acquire a neutral region, from a list of available neutral regions.  Only one neutral region may be acquired each year (although the Cartography development grants two regions a year).
• Why do it? Because regions are the lifeblood for resources, and resources are used for many different things.  Almost any strategy is going to require a couple neutral regions.
• Mini-game - All mini-games are used, although most of the time Skirmish is necessary.
• Trade - Set-up a trade deal with one of the five neutral factions.
• Why do it? Successful trade improves disposition with the faction, and a high enough disposition means the faction becomes your ally.  Furthermore, trade helps build developments quicker (the type of development depends on the type of faction), as well as giving access to certain quests for artifacts.
• Mini-game - Diplomacy.
• Espionage - Steal secrets about a development from a faction.
• Why do it? Makes building a particular development much easier.  In a few cases, developments provide a different benefit than build points (such as leverage against the faction in an upcoming Trade, or military advantages).
• Mini-game - Infiltration
• Sabotage - Destroy a development within a faction.
• Why do it? The biggest benefit is usually a stability hit for the target faction.  If stability drops enough, the faction is no longer around - in the case of the Autarch, that's the victory condition!  In addition, a few developments provide other benefits, like neutralizing military advantages.
• Mini-game - Infiltration
• Military - Attack a region that a faction controls.
• Why do it? To steal the resources a faction has, and lower their stability and population in the process.  To do this mission, the Stronghold really needs to be committed to a solid Military strategy, supplemented by many developments.
• Mini-game - Warfare
• Assassination - Take out the leader of an opposing faction.
• Why do it? The stability of the target faction will most likely drop (sometimes by a lot if it's an influential leader).  Furthermore, getting rid of leaders can render a faction weak in a particular area (such as killing a military leader).
• Mini-game - Infiltration
• Quest - Gain a powerful artifact.
• Why do it?  It's hard to gain access to quests, since it requires an allied faction.  Once one becomes available, it's usually worthwhile to grab it, since it can be the capstone of a particular long term strategy.
• Mini-game - All mini-games, although Skirmish is mainly used.
• Threats - Threats are all the bad things that happen in regions, with factions, and from the Autarch.

Fortex+ (Looking Deeper into Alternative Fate Dice Distributions)

After hearing some gripes from players in my WotA group about Fate dice, I've been interested in exploring the pros and cons of various alternatives.  I'm particularly interested in the following features:

• No re-rolls.  This is in an attempt to place all the tension at the moment of the roll itself, rather than a negotiation afterward.  I'm also not a huge fan of the re-roll option in Fate - it's sort of another hoop to jump through.
• Player driven compels.  One thing I like about Cortex+ is the simplicity of player driven compels, where there is a mechanism for players to generate their own currency (fate points, plot points, etc).  I'm not against GM-driven compels, but I *really* like a mechanism for players to bring in currency without the GM's guidance.  The way I handled that in WotA was just to let players take a Fate point anytime they could narrate how an aspect they had caused problems on a failed roll.

Anyway, I was interested in exploring the d6 - d6 distribution for Fate, and then extending that to rolling a set of dice, taking the highest rolled, along with rolling a set of dice, and subtracting the lowest rolled.

• Start with d6 - d6.
• Spend a Fate point to:
• Step up a die in the first pool, or add a new d6 to the pool.  For instance, with two fate points, you could roll d10 - d6 (incrementing d6 to d8, then to d10).  Or you could roll 3d6 (taking the highest) - d6.
• Add a d6 to the second pool, taking the lowest of the results.  So, with two fate points, you could roll 2d6 (taking the highest) - 2d6 (taking the lowest).
• Rolling d4 - d6 counts as a compel, granting a Fate point.  Of course, an aspect is needed for this, and it must make narrative sense.

This system does fulfill the no re-rolls and player driven compels features.  However, it also compromises much of the player agency that Fate provides.  Anyway, it was interesting to explore the probabilities of such a system.

The first metric to look at is expected value.  For expected value, the best way to use Fate points is just to bump the first dice up.  Adding extra dice doesn't help expected value as much.  In the last entries below, the parentheses indicate rolling a set of dice and taking the highest (if before the subtraction) or the lowest (if after).  As can be seen from expected values, a Fate point in this system is worth much less than in regular Fate (it's roughly +1 instead of +2).

• d6 - d6 : 0
• d8 - d6: +1
• d10 - d6: +2
• d12 - d6: +3.0
• d12 - (d6, d6): +3.97
• (d6, d12) - (d6, d6): +4.46

That said, expected value is only one way to look at probability.  It doesn't take into account the distribution of results.  For that, rolling a set of dice and taking the highest naturally makes the lowest results even less likely, while simultaneously making the highest results less likely (or impossible).  For instance, the graph at right shows cumulative probability density functions for when three Fate points are available.  In that case, the first dice can be bumped up three times from a d6 to a d12, or two extra dice could be added to the first pool (taking the highest) and one to the last pool (taking the lowest).  Thus, if you really need to get above a two, more than you care about rolling really high, it's better to go the pool route.  Because rolling a -5, -4, or -3 is very unlikely.

So, there are some real trade-offs in this approach, and risk can be involved.  Interestingly, if the pools are removed and traditional Fate re-rolls are used with the stepped up dice (d8 - d6, etc), it's worth a re-roll if the expected value or less is rolled.  So, if a +2 is rolled on d10 - d6, it merits a re-roll.  This is another possibility that could be interesting: allow re-rolls, but the first dice must be stepped up and locked down before any re-rolls take place.

Anyway, after thinking about how this might work in WotA, I think I'm going to stick with the standard Fate model.  However, I am considering using d6 - d6 for Fate rolls and allowing certain Stronghold developments to bump up the first dice.  There's something very visceral about rolling d12 - d6 and nailing a +11.  But I would keep Fate points the same (add +2 or allow a re-roll).

WotA Playtesting During Origins

So, I got in a number of playtests of Wrath of the Autarch during Origins.  Weirdly, they were all of the Infiltration mini-game, probably because it has an element of finality to it that the other mini-games don't.

Anyway, I don't have any huge revelations or overhauls (probably a good thing), but I did think of some minor changes both during play and afterward.

• Use spatial maps for Infiltration.  This isn't required, but it does make it fun.  The only issue is that the default mode is that any zone can be reached from any zone, and that's not always true when you bring in a map.  Have to think if that will make it too hard.
• For casting spells in the narrative scene, the first mana spent should just fuel the spell (and not also act as a fate point).  It's good enough to use Spellcraft for a power.
• Use compels to add new obstacles related to the players aspects.  I did this a lot to great effect - need to make sure it's spelled out clearly as an option.
• Limit the narrative phase to three rounds, instead of four.  Four was a little too long, and that needs to be as quick as possible.  Luck could really sham the players occasionally, but as it stands now I think it's a little too easy.
• Need to make sure there are a good variety of outcomes for Infiltration missions on the strategic game, particularly for things like assassination.  I'm guessing assassination could already be covered as just a way to sabotage certain developments, but this needs to be spelled out.

Other thoughts, outside of that, revolved mostly around trade missions and the overall strategic game.  I've simplified trade a little, but I may need to go further.

I have some other thoughts on what I'm going to do with the document going forward, but I'll save those.  For this week, I think I'll add in those tweaks, and maybe work to completely finish the Autarch chapter.  That will give me a good template for all the other factions.