Psion
Adventurer
Just thought I'd share the love of a little game that's been making the rounds in my group and at game days. Enjoy!
(FYI, this review was previously posted at RPG.net)
Overview
Spirit of the Century is a role-playing game of “Pulp” action by Evil Hat Productions. It's written by Rob Donoghue, Fred Hicks, and Leonard Balsera. The system is descended from the FATE system, which in turn is based on the well heeled FUDGE system by Stephan O'Sullivan. The book is distributed under the OGL, but again owing to using FUDGE material, not any D20 book.
A First Look
Spirit of the Century is available in print form (hard or softcover) or pdf format. The print and electronic format can be had at Indie Press Revolution; the electronic version is also available at Your Games Now and RPGnow/DriveThruRPG.
The book is 420 pages (counting ads.) The print format is a 6 x 9 inch book, which in part explains the large page count.
Both cover and interior are illustrated by Christian N. St. Pierre. The cover has the now-famous “gorilla flying a biplane”, as well as selected sample characters from the book. The interior art is black-and-white.
Contents and Organization
The book is organized into these chapters:
The book makes moderate use of sidebars, typically short tables.
The skill list is one of the central organizing tenets of the book. As the above chapter summaries show, multiple chapters are organized around the skill list.
Overview of the game
I won't dwell too deeply on specifics of the mechanics, as my experience with the game came about late enough that there have already been many reviews.
There are three pillars to the Spirit of the Century game as I see it: skills, stunts, and aspects.
Spirit of the Century is an instance of the FATE 3.0 system, which is in turn largely based on FUDGE. Like FUDGE, it rates skills in terms of a “ladder”. The “ladder” is a ranking system that uses a description paired with a number, like “-2 (terrible)” and “+8 (legendary)”. This is used for skill rankings as well as results. Results are obtained by rolling 4 “fudge dice” (d6es labeled with 2 “-” faces, 2 “+” faces, and 2 blank faces) and adding the result to the skill it is based on. The idea many players online have is that you would describe both skill and result with the adjective, but I find in reality that most of my players use the number.
There are 28 skills in the game. There are no separate “attributes” or “ability scores” that define a character, though many of the skills in SotC might be attributes in another game. For example, many of the tasks that might be assigned to a “strength” ability score in a game (like lifting and moving things) fall under Might in SotC. However, lacking a special stunt (see below), your Might need not pertain directly to how potent you are in unarmed combat (which is covered by Fists) or armed combat (which is covered by Weapons).
Characters in SotC have a “skill pyramid” which defines what skills they are good at. One skill starts at the best rating, Superb (+5), two at Great (+4), three at Good (+3), four at Fair (+2), and five at Average (+1). The remainder are considered to be Mediocre (+0). This creates characters with a few strong suits, but a broad lower level of competence. This supports a team play dynamic at the expense of simulating some of the more broadly competent heroes of the pulp action novels that the game draws on for inspiration.
Stunts are very much like feats in D&D and similar mechanic in that they add specific benefits. Such benefits are often benefits to specific skills in specific circumstances (such as Trick Shot, which gives a bonus to guns when attacking objects), use skills in the place of other skills (such as Grease the Wheels, which lets a character use Resources in the place of Leadership by way of bribery), overcome certain limitations, or give the benefit of objects or companions.
Finally, there are aspects. Whereas skills and stunts are defined in the book (though creating stunts is encouraged), aspects are more freeform, much like Over the Edge, Hero Wars/Hero Quest, and Risus. A SotC character starts with 10 aspects, but aspects can apply to different things than characters. Locations, scenes, objects, and so forth, can all have aspects.
Aspects are used in two major ways: they can be invoked. When invoked, the player has an option to either reroll or add +2 to a roll. When an aspect is compelled, it limits the players actions or causes some other complication. If your aspect is “hot tempered”, the GM can have the PC react in an unfortunate way at a crucial moment. If your aspect is “really big”, the GM might decide that rope bridge collapses under you.
Fate points are the final part of the aspect formula. Characters receive 10 fate points to start. Without aspects, they can be spent to give you a straight +1 to a roll. Invoking an aspect costs 1 fate point, and gives you the better “+2 or reroll” benefit described above. When one of your aspects is compelled, you have a choice. If you accept the compel, you gain a fate point that you can use later. If you want to ignore it, you have to spend a fate point.
One other important element of chargen—and really, the element that excited me about the game—was the phase based generation system. Each player defines their character background in five phases. The first 3 phases are the characters background, what they did during the Great War, and finally, what their pulp novel is. A player is asked to come up with a few sentences for each, and gets defines 2 of their aspects per phase.
For the fourth phase, the GM has players jot their novel down on an index card, and collects the cards and redistributes them about the table (trading cards if you get your own). Each player then adds a few sentences to the novel about how their character's guest starring role in the novel (again, adding two aspects.) The cards are passed and the process repeated for a fifth phase. So at the end of the phase generation, each character has 10 aspects and a one novel with 2 guests that they have connections with.
Play experiences and impressions
I got on the Spirit of the Century train a little late. I had some interest in it because I tinkered with FUDGE some time ago, but always found it a bit too incomplete for general use. I took a look at FATE, which was more playable out of the box. I eventually ended up buying Spirit of the Century and trying it with my group. I also played a session of it at one ENWorld DC Gameday, and ran one at the next Gameday.
For reference, I'm from a pretty “traditional” gaming background. I've played D&D since first edition, as well as Traveller (and MegaTraveller), Champions/HERO, DC Heroes, Marvel Superheroes, Ars Magica, Vampire, Over the Edge (didn't like it), various D20 variants and a variety of homebrew and small press games. The rest of my group are also fairly traditional, but differ from me in that they are fans of Savage Worlds; I am not.
Using chargen, the group came up with:
In play, invoking aspects seems relatively balanced to me. You get a bevy of them, enough that you can usually find one to apply several times during the game. In essence, the fate point is the real mechanical part behind aspects; aspects just bribe a cool event description out of the players in the process. My biggest concern with some invoked aspects is that players find one or two they find easy to apply and use it until it's not quite as interesting anymore.
What I did find to be more of an actual problem is compellable aspects. I often found that some players had fewer compellable aspects than I could think of good ways to exploit during the game. I got better at this the more games I ran, but I am finding the best way to deal with this is to get the player to think harder about making aspects compellable.
In my home game, Monica Peabody was a prime example. She had several aspects that could be invoked in similar situations (like respectable and social butterfly, as well as family estate and silver spoon.) I tried to work with the player to convert her aspects to more compellable ones.
One strength of aspects I didn't see before I had a chance to play is that they help make up for the more abstract nature of the game when adding “representational simulation” to the game. That is, though the game doesn't distinguish between things like accuracy and brute strength, you can add aspects that apply differently in situations in order to get these sorts of concepts across.
In play, aspects are very demanding. Sometimes you have to think really hard about how to bring an aspect to bear on a situation. Much like the situation with compels, shrewd selection of aspects can help here. Both selecting and using compels is an activity that benefits from some experience. Fortunately, the chapter on character advancement recommends allowing players to swap out or add aspects as a form of advancement, and my players seem to be getting more into the hang of it.
Two important elements of the game that I really like that I haven't addressed before are maneuvers and declarations.
The list of skills that typically apply in a fight is somewhat short. However, declaration is a mechanic that allows characters with a variety of skills to influence the game by applying aspects to the setting. One example out of the book was that of using Academics skill to decide that a tribe of natives the characters have just met respect strength. In the gameday game I ran, one player used Art to decide that symbols on a sculpture in the forbidden city depicted a triggering mechanism for a trap. Once such aspects are created, the first use of the aspect is free. This gives knowledge based characters a bigger way to contribute than they are typically afforded in RPGs, and are consistent with works with a “pulp feel.”
Maneuvers are similar to aspects in that they let you apply aspects to scenes or people on the fly. These tend to be more in line with special maneuvers you might find in a less abstract game, like “aim” or “taunt” or the like. Though many skills cannot be used directly in combat, this gives players an opportunity to contribute without making combat monkeys. I like this element a lot, but honestly, it's one that I do see players struggle with the most.
For the last DC gameday, I ran a scenario based on the classic AD&D adventure Dwellers of the Forbidden City. I ran the same scenario for my home group. I'm used to scenarios run by different groups to turn out different, but this case was much more than any such experience I have had prior to this, mainly due to the declarations and aspects. One group sneaked on to a cult-infested steamer on the way to equatorial South America and used Contacting skill to create a connection with local merchants, constables, and governors, while another group beat up the crew of the steamer, used investigation and academics to discover the destination, and used resources to make their own way.
One consistent issue I have had with running Spirit of the Century games is that character generation pretty reliably takes about 2 hours if you use the full sequence, which doesn't fit comfortably in a 4 hour convention or gameday slot. A big part of this is the phase based background generation. Unfortunately, this is a great tool to give players a handle on their character as well as to give the GM some ideas for the campaign, and I hate to forego it. I am tinkering with a technique (and have heard similar recommendation from the authors in a recent podcast) whereby pre-generated character has stunts, skills, and perhaps the first 2 or 3 phases done, but players get to flesh out the last few aspects and novel appearances.
One final issue that I have heard of and experienced. Minions are handled easily in SotC, but conflicts with full villains tend to be drawn out a bit. This is because the game uses a stress track that you must fill before you can inflict consequences (another type of aspect) on a villain and eventually defeat them. As it stands, the stress track seems too long. I am experimenting with an option where minor villains use a shorter stress track.
Conclusions
Spirit of the Century is a fun game that really does benefit from a bit of experience in the game. Aspects, declarations, and maneuvers are not complicated concepts, but they do take some getting used to and can be creatively demanding.
One thing I really adore about the game is that, between the five phase character generation sequence, aspects, maneuvers, and declarations, it really taps into the creativity of the players. This makes it a breeze to GM, especially on short notice. In more traditional games, the GM is often the star of the show. If the GM has insufficient prep time, inspiration, or in other ways is not having a great day, the game often suffers. But I have finished Spirit of the Century Games and had players extolling how much fun they have had, even in games where I did not feel I was “hitting on all cylinders”. I think this happens because the GM taps into the player's creativity when shaping the game, and playing to the things they want to see.
Some more traditional GMs may be somewhat wary when I speak of mechanics that give players additional authority, because some games that do this seem to do so out of some fear the GM is out to screw the players and seek to shackle the GM. Spirit of the Century is not that game. Spirit of the Century still relies on GM adjudication in bringing the game about, and the GM is still empowered; I often say “no” to using aspects in contexts where I feel like they player could be cooler, would give a player too much of the spotlight, or would clash with developing story elements. The GM just gets the additional benefit of a system that mines ideas from the players. In short, Spirit of the Century loves the GM.
(FYI, this review was previously posted at RPG.net)
Overview
Spirit of the Century is a role-playing game of “Pulp” action by Evil Hat Productions. It's written by Rob Donoghue, Fred Hicks, and Leonard Balsera. The system is descended from the FATE system, which in turn is based on the well heeled FUDGE system by Stephan O'Sullivan. The book is distributed under the OGL, but again owing to using FUDGE material, not any D20 book.
A First Look
Spirit of the Century is available in print form (hard or softcover) or pdf format. The print and electronic format can be had at Indie Press Revolution; the electronic version is also available at Your Games Now and RPGnow/DriveThruRPG.
The book is 420 pages (counting ads.) The print format is a 6 x 9 inch book, which in part explains the large page count.
Both cover and interior are illustrated by Christian N. St. Pierre. The cover has the now-famous “gorilla flying a biplane”, as well as selected sample characters from the book. The interior art is black-and-white.
Contents and Organization
The book is organized into these chapters:
- Background - An introduction to the conventions used in the book, including the general “feel” of pulp and some specifics about the Century Club setting used as a general backdrop of the game.
- The Basics - Spells out the core conventions and resolution mechanics of the system.
- Character Creation - Er, how to create characters.
- Aspects - Rules specific to the creation and use of aspects, one of the central driving mechanics of Spirit of the Century.
- How to do things - Rules for resolving actions and conflicts.
- Skills - A listing of the 29 skills that (along with aspects and stunts) make up characters in the game, specific benefits or activities of each skill, along with general rules on assessment and declaration that are referred to by some of the specific skill descriptions.
- Stunts - A listing of the stunts characters can select. Each stunt is associated with a skill; this chapter is sorted by skill.
- Gadgets and Gizmos - How to handle, you guessed it, Gadgets and Gizmos! In addition to rules on fantastic devices or artifacts a character might own, it has economy of the era and a short enumeration of items and services you might purchase.
- Running the Game - Rules guidance from the GM's perspective, principally with regard to adjudicating a variety of actions listed earlier in the book. Like the skill and stunt chapters, much of this chapter is organized by skill.
- Tips and Tricks - Less rulesy GM advice, primarily concerned with conceiving and running adventures, with some techniques for running longer games.
- The Nether Agenda - A sample adventure.
- Secrets of the Century - A more in-depth overview of the setting of the game, including real events and political setup of the time as well as the fictional Century Club, what they are, and who their enemies are.
- Quick Pick Stunt Packages - A quick listing of stunts (again organized by skill) that can help point players at the “right stunts” to realize a particular concept.
- Bibliography
- Sample NPCs - Bit of a misnomer; some of these are blatantly PCs.
- Index
The book makes moderate use of sidebars, typically short tables.
The skill list is one of the central organizing tenets of the book. As the above chapter summaries show, multiple chapters are organized around the skill list.
Overview of the game
I won't dwell too deeply on specifics of the mechanics, as my experience with the game came about late enough that there have already been many reviews.
There are three pillars to the Spirit of the Century game as I see it: skills, stunts, and aspects.
Spirit of the Century is an instance of the FATE 3.0 system, which is in turn largely based on FUDGE. Like FUDGE, it rates skills in terms of a “ladder”. The “ladder” is a ranking system that uses a description paired with a number, like “-2 (terrible)” and “+8 (legendary)”. This is used for skill rankings as well as results. Results are obtained by rolling 4 “fudge dice” (d6es labeled with 2 “-” faces, 2 “+” faces, and 2 blank faces) and adding the result to the skill it is based on. The idea many players online have is that you would describe both skill and result with the adjective, but I find in reality that most of my players use the number.
There are 28 skills in the game. There are no separate “attributes” or “ability scores” that define a character, though many of the skills in SotC might be attributes in another game. For example, many of the tasks that might be assigned to a “strength” ability score in a game (like lifting and moving things) fall under Might in SotC. However, lacking a special stunt (see below), your Might need not pertain directly to how potent you are in unarmed combat (which is covered by Fists) or armed combat (which is covered by Weapons).
Characters in SotC have a “skill pyramid” which defines what skills they are good at. One skill starts at the best rating, Superb (+5), two at Great (+4), three at Good (+3), four at Fair (+2), and five at Average (+1). The remainder are considered to be Mediocre (+0). This creates characters with a few strong suits, but a broad lower level of competence. This supports a team play dynamic at the expense of simulating some of the more broadly competent heroes of the pulp action novels that the game draws on for inspiration.
Stunts are very much like feats in D&D and similar mechanic in that they add specific benefits. Such benefits are often benefits to specific skills in specific circumstances (such as Trick Shot, which gives a bonus to guns when attacking objects), use skills in the place of other skills (such as Grease the Wheels, which lets a character use Resources in the place of Leadership by way of bribery), overcome certain limitations, or give the benefit of objects or companions.
Finally, there are aspects. Whereas skills and stunts are defined in the book (though creating stunts is encouraged), aspects are more freeform, much like Over the Edge, Hero Wars/Hero Quest, and Risus. A SotC character starts with 10 aspects, but aspects can apply to different things than characters. Locations, scenes, objects, and so forth, can all have aspects.
Aspects are used in two major ways: they can be invoked. When invoked, the player has an option to either reroll or add +2 to a roll. When an aspect is compelled, it limits the players actions or causes some other complication. If your aspect is “hot tempered”, the GM can have the PC react in an unfortunate way at a crucial moment. If your aspect is “really big”, the GM might decide that rope bridge collapses under you.
Fate points are the final part of the aspect formula. Characters receive 10 fate points to start. Without aspects, they can be spent to give you a straight +1 to a roll. Invoking an aspect costs 1 fate point, and gives you the better “+2 or reroll” benefit described above. When one of your aspects is compelled, you have a choice. If you accept the compel, you gain a fate point that you can use later. If you want to ignore it, you have to spend a fate point.
One other important element of chargen—and really, the element that excited me about the game—was the phase based generation system. Each player defines their character background in five phases. The first 3 phases are the characters background, what they did during the Great War, and finally, what their pulp novel is. A player is asked to come up with a few sentences for each, and gets defines 2 of their aspects per phase.
For the fourth phase, the GM has players jot their novel down on an index card, and collects the cards and redistributes them about the table (trading cards if you get your own). Each player then adds a few sentences to the novel about how their character's guest starring role in the novel (again, adding two aspects.) The cards are passed and the process repeated for a fifth phase. So at the end of the phase generation, each character has 10 aspects and a one novel with 2 guests that they have connections with.
Play experiences and impressions
I got on the Spirit of the Century train a little late. I had some interest in it because I tinkered with FUDGE some time ago, but always found it a bit too incomplete for general use. I took a look at FATE, which was more playable out of the box. I eventually ended up buying Spirit of the Century and trying it with my group. I also played a session of it at one ENWorld DC Gameday, and ran one at the next Gameday.
For reference, I'm from a pretty “traditional” gaming background. I've played D&D since first edition, as well as Traveller (and MegaTraveller), Champions/HERO, DC Heroes, Marvel Superheroes, Ars Magica, Vampire, Over the Edge (didn't like it), various D20 variants and a variety of homebrew and small press games. The rest of my group are also fairly traditional, but differ from me in that they are fans of Savage Worlds; I am not.
Using chargen, the group came up with:
- Frank Hondo, “mountain of a man” (main skills: Might, Resolve, and Endurance, with a “personable guy” angle from a decent Rapport and appropriate aspects.)
- “Buffalo” Nichols, two-fisted investigator and pilot. (main skills: Investigation, Fists, Pilot)
- Monica Peabody, er... sort of like a girl Richie Rich. (main skills: Resources, Contacting, Rapport)
- Kitty Kate Spade, gentle-lady burglar. (main skills: Burglary, Stealth, Sleight of Hand)
- Delia Huth, rogue Catholic schoolgirl and student of the mysteries. (main skills: Mysteries, Science, Alertness)
- Hwong Hwei (yeah...), student of the mysteries with a spirit companion and magic sword. (main skills: Weapons, Mysteries)
In play, invoking aspects seems relatively balanced to me. You get a bevy of them, enough that you can usually find one to apply several times during the game. In essence, the fate point is the real mechanical part behind aspects; aspects just bribe a cool event description out of the players in the process. My biggest concern with some invoked aspects is that players find one or two they find easy to apply and use it until it's not quite as interesting anymore.
What I did find to be more of an actual problem is compellable aspects. I often found that some players had fewer compellable aspects than I could think of good ways to exploit during the game. I got better at this the more games I ran, but I am finding the best way to deal with this is to get the player to think harder about making aspects compellable.
In my home game, Monica Peabody was a prime example. She had several aspects that could be invoked in similar situations (like respectable and social butterfly, as well as family estate and silver spoon.) I tried to work with the player to convert her aspects to more compellable ones.
One strength of aspects I didn't see before I had a chance to play is that they help make up for the more abstract nature of the game when adding “representational simulation” to the game. That is, though the game doesn't distinguish between things like accuracy and brute strength, you can add aspects that apply differently in situations in order to get these sorts of concepts across.
In play, aspects are very demanding. Sometimes you have to think really hard about how to bring an aspect to bear on a situation. Much like the situation with compels, shrewd selection of aspects can help here. Both selecting and using compels is an activity that benefits from some experience. Fortunately, the chapter on character advancement recommends allowing players to swap out or add aspects as a form of advancement, and my players seem to be getting more into the hang of it.
Two important elements of the game that I really like that I haven't addressed before are maneuvers and declarations.
The list of skills that typically apply in a fight is somewhat short. However, declaration is a mechanic that allows characters with a variety of skills to influence the game by applying aspects to the setting. One example out of the book was that of using Academics skill to decide that a tribe of natives the characters have just met respect strength. In the gameday game I ran, one player used Art to decide that symbols on a sculpture in the forbidden city depicted a triggering mechanism for a trap. Once such aspects are created, the first use of the aspect is free. This gives knowledge based characters a bigger way to contribute than they are typically afforded in RPGs, and are consistent with works with a “pulp feel.”
Maneuvers are similar to aspects in that they let you apply aspects to scenes or people on the fly. These tend to be more in line with special maneuvers you might find in a less abstract game, like “aim” or “taunt” or the like. Though many skills cannot be used directly in combat, this gives players an opportunity to contribute without making combat monkeys. I like this element a lot, but honestly, it's one that I do see players struggle with the most.
For the last DC gameday, I ran a scenario based on the classic AD&D adventure Dwellers of the Forbidden City. I ran the same scenario for my home group. I'm used to scenarios run by different groups to turn out different, but this case was much more than any such experience I have had prior to this, mainly due to the declarations and aspects. One group sneaked on to a cult-infested steamer on the way to equatorial South America and used Contacting skill to create a connection with local merchants, constables, and governors, while another group beat up the crew of the steamer, used investigation and academics to discover the destination, and used resources to make their own way.
One consistent issue I have had with running Spirit of the Century games is that character generation pretty reliably takes about 2 hours if you use the full sequence, which doesn't fit comfortably in a 4 hour convention or gameday slot. A big part of this is the phase based background generation. Unfortunately, this is a great tool to give players a handle on their character as well as to give the GM some ideas for the campaign, and I hate to forego it. I am tinkering with a technique (and have heard similar recommendation from the authors in a recent podcast) whereby pre-generated character has stunts, skills, and perhaps the first 2 or 3 phases done, but players get to flesh out the last few aspects and novel appearances.
One final issue that I have heard of and experienced. Minions are handled easily in SotC, but conflicts with full villains tend to be drawn out a bit. This is because the game uses a stress track that you must fill before you can inflict consequences (another type of aspect) on a villain and eventually defeat them. As it stands, the stress track seems too long. I am experimenting with an option where minor villains use a shorter stress track.
Conclusions
Spirit of the Century is a fun game that really does benefit from a bit of experience in the game. Aspects, declarations, and maneuvers are not complicated concepts, but they do take some getting used to and can be creatively demanding.
One thing I really adore about the game is that, between the five phase character generation sequence, aspects, maneuvers, and declarations, it really taps into the creativity of the players. This makes it a breeze to GM, especially on short notice. In more traditional games, the GM is often the star of the show. If the GM has insufficient prep time, inspiration, or in other ways is not having a great day, the game often suffers. But I have finished Spirit of the Century Games and had players extolling how much fun they have had, even in games where I did not feel I was “hitting on all cylinders”. I think this happens because the GM taps into the player's creativity when shaping the game, and playing to the things they want to see.
Some more traditional GMs may be somewhat wary when I speak of mechanics that give players additional authority, because some games that do this seem to do so out of some fear the GM is out to screw the players and seek to shackle the GM. Spirit of the Century is not that game. Spirit of the Century still relies on GM adjudication in bringing the game about, and the GM is still empowered; I often say “no” to using aspects in contexts where I feel like they player could be cooler, would give a player too much of the spotlight, or would clash with developing story elements. The GM just gets the additional benefit of a system that mines ideas from the players. In short, Spirit of the Century loves the GM.
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Thanks for reviewing this game here (and at RPGNet). I'm always wary about buying Indie games when they are reviewed by friends, acquaintances, or associates of the publisher -- which is where a screaming, large, majority of overtly positive Indie RPG reviews seem to come from (unfortunately it took me a long while and several hundred wasted dollars to catch on). Seeing somebody who I'm reasonably certain has no ties to SotC (or to the game's creators, the community in which the game was created, etc) reviewing it has finally sold me on the game.
