Fantasy Craft Lite?

[saiyanslayer]

Hello Everyone,

I've been running a few games and found that the rules, despite being quite awesome, are bogging the game down.  I haven't found any rules for a lite version of Fantasy Craft, so I'd like to ask everyone here what do they recommend doing to reduce time on rules?  I have a few ideas but I'd like some feedback before I risk causing some issues within the game:

• Automated damage rolls, or make eveything except special characters a mook
• Stress and Subdual damage no longer require rolls but have HP totals.  For example, 3 HP for one level of stress, 7 for two, 12 for three, 18 for four, 25 to knock out
• Make fire, electrical, cold, etc damage types all just do damage (dangerous, I know)
• Limiting feat choices to prevent huge collection of options
• Limited to only 2-3 abilities from your Race and specialty options
• List of contacts for the PCs

[tfwfh]

This is just a guess, but based on your list of things, it seems like the problem you're having is how often your group needs to stop and look things up.  If that's the case, rather than getting rid of a bunch of rules and options, I suggest printing or writing out some reminders for yourselves.  There's a number of handy resources in the downloads section of the site.  I especially recommend the condition cards.

If that's not the case though, then I suppose I have some other suggestions.  As far as tracking damage to standard characters, yeah that's a pain.  There's been some discussion lately in that regard here on the forums.  Instead of rolling their save, you could just have them take 10 on it.  Or instead of bothering with a save at all, you could just decide how many hits you want them to take before they drop.  You could do the same taking 10 thing with stress and subdual.

It would certainly be reasonable to have some prepared contacts for the players to use, rather than letting them build their own.

I don't recommend restricting feat choices though.  The breadth of feats available, and their relative awesomeness is one of the best parts of the game, imo.  If looking up what feats do is taking too long, just write it down and keep it with the character sheets.  Same with origins.

As far as the various damage types go, you could simplify them if you want.  What I would suggest instead is to have a few themed sessions where everything does just 1 or 2 kinds of damage.  That way you only have to look it up once, the first time something hits in a session.  Then the rest of the session is just kind of practice for that damage type.  After 2 or 3 sessions like that, everyone will be pretty familiar with the way the damage types work.

[Medwyn]

There is quite a bit of stuff to learn I have to agree with tfwfh that the main problem can be the learning curve.  Short sheets make it easier and then it is in the hands of the players. But lets look at some of your points.

• Automated damage rolls, or make eveything except special characters a mook

The only dice I roll at the table as a GC is damage dealt to players. All NPC's take 12 for anything including damage saves. Much easier to keep track of a number than to roll. Also this gives all the rolling duties to players. In fact players also use an active defense where they roll defense instead of having a static number.

• Stress and Subdual damage no longer require rolls but have HP totals.  For example, 3 HP for one level of stress, 7 for two, 12 for three, 18 for four, 25 to knock out

You should check out Spycraft 2.0 for what was done with stress/subdual here.
Standard NPC's just take Stress/Subdual and I count it towards their damage save.
Special NPC's I again just let them take 12 on the required saving throw and note when the fail. So only players worry about making extra dice rolls here.
Maybe it is just my player's but it doesn't come up very often.

• Make fire, electrical, cold, etc damage types all just do damage (dangerous, I know)

I have a short sheet with the damage types listed out when a player has a different damage type it is up to them to tell me about other effects and it soon falls into a rhythm.
You can always cut out some of the secondary effects if you like or even rely on Action Dice to promote secondary effects.
Fire hits you, spend AD you now on Fire!

• Limiting feat choices to prevent huge collection of options
• Limited to only 2-3 abilities from your Race and specialty options

Limiting feat choice is a valid option, just be careful of where you make the cut.
Most of the time players will have one idea and will try to map it out with feat choices.
But the big problem can be dealt with by front-loading character creation. Have players think about where their character might go and then you'll see what feats might come up. Make short sheets for the feats. If you can attach it to the player's character sheet.
I would stay away from limiting Race/Talent/Specialties. They are all balanced against one another at 7 points and by choosing only some of the abilities you will find some options are just more powerful than others. Again a write them out for the player's then they are there ready to go.

• List of contacts for the PCs

Do this.
I also pre roll treasure and fully write out all NPC abilities next to the stat block so I know what is coming up. I also don't allow 'Magic Shops' and unless players have the ability to craft magic items this cuts down on some clutter. Pre rolled prizes make things easier too.

If you are wanting to reduce some of the options you would be better off removing Race/Talents/Specialties, Classes (Base, Expert & Master), and feats (see note above) at character generation.
Since it seems most of the issues revolve around combat aspects you could also shorten the weapons/armour list. By having just dagger, shortsword and longsword you remove some of the options to help you streamline things again.  Another place to remove extra options is with magic, remove spells you don't want or drop magic classes, also check out eh campaign qualities.   Less options at the start less stuff to bog down during game.

[saiyanslayer]

Thanks guy.  I like the subdual/stress adds to the damage save and the 'take 12' option.  I also like the idea of requiring an AD to activate secondary effects from specific damage types.   I think I'll see what players want to make then guide them in their feat choices.

[Blankbeard]

A while back when I was looking for a way to not have to keep track of damage for standard characters I came up with this system.  It approximates the standard system but isn't identical.  Math available upon request but it's pretty dull.

Find the NPC's Resilience bonus (for stress and subdual) or Health bonus (for everything else). 

If an attack does less than half the bonus, the attack does scratches or bruises but does no lasting harm.

If it does half the bonus, that's one mark.  Full bonus is two marks, bonus and a half is 3 marks and so on.

4 marks fails a damage save.   That's it.  I write the NPC's name with their Res and Health bonuses, number the squad size going across and number down the number of saves the NPC can fail.  I usually use the 4 marks to make 2 X's so I can quickly see who's dead and who's not.   I can keep 8 or more squads of NPC's on a standard sheet of US notebook paper.

[tfwfh]

That's handy.  I will be trying that, next time I have a chance.

[ludomastro]

A while back when I was looking for a way to not have to keep track of damage for standard characters I came up with this system.  It approximates the standard system but isn't identical.  Math available upon request but it's pretty dull.

After 10 minutes of algebra and coming up with a completely different rule set, I would like to see the math, please.

[Blankbeard]

A while back when I was looking for a way to not have to keep track of damage for standard characters I came up with this system.  It approximates the standard system but isn't identical.  Math available upon request but it's pretty dull.

After 10 minutes of algebra and coming up with a completely different rule set, I would like to see the math, please.

Ok, remember I said it was approximately like the standard system.

An NPC fails a damage save when 1/2(Damage)+10 > Roll + Bonus.  If you plug Roll = 20 into that equality you get the autofail level.  A 10 gives you the 50% fail level.  Solving for the autofail level gives you Damage > 2*Bonus +20.  The 50% fail level is Damage > 2*Bonus

I chose to base the numbers on the 50% level.  I'll justify that in a minute, but not with math.  I chose to have 4 marks as that is physically and mentally easy to keep track of as a pair of X's, an asterisk, or whatever method you use.  That meant each mark was 2*Bonus/4  or 1/2*Bonus.  That's a number that's easy to calculate and it's low enough that even small damage sources are relevant across most of the TL/Grade landscape.

I used 50% lethality for 2 reasons.  In the standard system NPC's make a save every time they take damage and thus most will end up failing long before they reach autofail levels and it produced a mark of a flat 1/2 the bonus which lets the whole bit be described in one sentence.  "NPC's fail a damage save after 4 hits of at least half their damage save bonus."

If the party's damage output is very low, they may have trouble with the high Healths at high TL's.  In this case the easy solution would be to tailor the value of the mark to something they can handle and add on a level of tough.  Most parties shouldn't need this though.

If I've made any big errors here, let's move the discussion to License to Improvise so we don't hijack this thread.