FantasyCraft – Social Mechanics, Gear, Skills, & Holdings

[Azgulor]

I’ve seen some preliminary posts about Crafty’s new FantasyCraft game and I’m liking what I’ve read thus far. The preview also looks promising. However, most of the discussion thus far has centered on races, classes, & NPCs. Since I already own Spycraft 2.0, I never really doubted that Crafty-Games could do those things well.

However, I’d like to get some opinions on other, less traditional aspects of FantasyCraft, specifically:

Social Mechanics – I see this alluded to quite a bit. Is this strictly done via the revised skills & the Lifestyle rules? How do FC’s social mechanics make it different from your standard OGL game?

Lifestyle – how does Panache and Prudence work? Can it handle the rise and fall of PC fortunes or does it always assume an escalating scale?

Gear – Silver standard, less complex than SC 2.0. What does that mean compared to other OGL games?

Skills – Too consolidated? For example, in SC 2.0, I didn’t like that if you could do First Aid, you could effectively do Surgery as well.

Holdings – This one has me very intrigued. I’ve got 3rd-party OGL material for ruling a manor/town/nation but they don’t really apply to businesses, guilds, academies, universities, churches, etc. Does this finally provide easy-to-integrate mechanics for this?

Thanks!

[mach1.9pants]

From the Crafty games forum: http://www.crafty-games.com/forum/in...p?topic=3116.0

Disposition is very important, as well as character Appearance. Interestingly enough, Charisma in this system doesn't always mean good appearance, Panache has this built into it.
Disposition is a modifier for all social skills used concerning the NPC that are emotionally-driven, (ranges from -25 to +25) so Intimidate is an example of what wouldn't be affected. Some races are "reviled", which gives a penalty to Disposition and makes it harder to play social characters. (Example: most Ogres)
For every disparity between character's Appearances, the more attractive character receives a +1 bonus on Cha-based checks against the other. Appearance is modified by Panache, Species, Class abilities, Feats, etc.
As far as social skills go, you have Bluff, Disguise, Haggle, Impress, Intimidate, (to a lesser extent) Investigate, Resolve (to resist influence), Sense Motive and (to a lesser extent) Tactics. That's almost half of the skills in the game that have at least one social function.

Prudence is the savings rate for the character. Zero prudence is 15% savings, and the rest is spent on booze, carousing and late fees for rent. Higher Prudence characters will definitely notice it in the long run, but guess what pays off right now...
Panache is your "living it up" attribute. You like nice clothes and always have a little cash to compulsively buy things. This gives you a (modest) amount of starting cash and increases Appearance with higher ranks.

Psion got this one comprehensively.

Total of 21 skills, including Spellcasting, to which only Mages initially have access. This may be too few in a game where everyone's Intelligence is very high, but the rules for Team checks make it so that the lowest or highest bonus is used, dependent on context. Also consider that one skill's user may go unconscious, co-operative checks, etc.
As for Medicine, yes it's the same skill, but there's an ocean of difference in the DC's for First Aid and Surgery. (DC 20 v. DC 40) I understand that IRL there are differences between EMT's and surgeons, but this doesn't bust verisimilitude IMO in most historical eras.

You can build varying sizes, and the typically holding can hold a certain number of guests based on size. Improvements in Security, Rooms, Assistants and Craftsmen. The rules could allow you to have characters make Downtime Income checks for the character, bonuses on Research checks, increased Threat range on Impress checks, etc. It's left open so that new types of rooms could be created, according to taste.