Fates and Benefits also March 12th

Fate Points and Bennies

(Unabridged Post from my Gaming Blog)

In Savage Worlds you can be awarded a Benny by the GM(or by other players in some alternate rules).  This makes Benny rules kind of liquid, as you simply get them when someone judges what you do merits it.  This makes them flexible.  If the GM wants more action, he'll reward the players for being more proactive in things.  If the GM wants clever resolutions to problems, he'll start rewarding that.  It is kind of like Dog Treats.  Some people do not like this non-codified giving of bennies because someone can become a "favorite", or you can encourage bad behavior.  You can easily get the "try to be the funniest person" benny race, or the "reward for using bennies in a situation" benny.  You use bennies to re-roll dice that do not fall in your favor.  You get a second chance to dodge a bullet, or a second shot of adrenaline in combat so you can do heroic things.

Fate Points are earned by a player putting their character through hardship.  To get a Fate Point you have to invoke a negative aspect of your character, and fail at some task or ability.  It forces you to think of real disadvantages of your character.  If you choose a disadvantage that rarely comes up(pineapple allergy), then you're going to find it hard to come by Fate Points.  Fate Points are sort of your "dream powers" if you go by the idea that Fate is sort of a group of lucid dreamers trying to make a story together.  You can use them for mundane things like adding +'s to your roles or -'s to other's rolls, but the real power is when you take narrative control of a situation.  You can create a rainstorm so that bad guys on the roof of a train have a hard time staying on.  You can make an enemy's gun jam, or put car keys in the sun-visor so you don't have to hotwire a car.

So that's the differences.  There are some more, but this is enough of an explanation to get you started.  Bennies are more free for the awarding, but are more rule tied to their usage.  Fate Points are very codified in how you attain them, but the use of them is very free form.  Both are really cool additions to the old gaming formula, and even though I'm pretty much the GM of games I play, I love anything that takes control away from me, and gives the players the ability to affect the world.

March 12th

Some video game news, Costume Quest is getting a sequel.  If you have not played the game, its a short little RPG about kids fighting monsters on Halloween.  When you go to fight, your dinky home made costumes become super kickass, powerful versions of themselves to fight the monsters with.  Its made by Double Fine, the creators of Brutal Legend, Psyconauts and a few other really cool and quirky games.  Its fun, give the original a shot, its usually really cheap.

Watched Kick-ass 2 last night with my girlfriend.  I have to say, after all its said and done, if you liked the first one you will probably like this one.  It is worth watching.  The new director does not have the style or skill of Mathew Vaughn, but he does a good enough job.  The movie is much like the first one, it sets up this silly idea and does it real campy, and then proceeds to destroy it with violence.  My only complaint is that the movie seemed to have more movie execs looking over its shoulder.  It is violent, sure, but it loses some of its balls.  Its not less violent... let's just say you don't get your heart ripped out like it feels like its getting ready to do early on.  If this was made like the first one... there would have been a ton more "innocent" super heroes dying in horribly bad ways.  Anyways, you like the first one?  Watch the second.