Some (all?) of you are no doubt aware of the Dresden Files RPG and how it has some very cool ideas in it for running games in general. Some of you may be familiar with the “Rewards Cards” from the RPGA for use in their living campaigns, of which Living Forgotten Realms (LFR) is the current flagship campaign. Now rewards cards offer two benefits, 1 might be the ability to use something not normally in the campaign, but the other is always some sort of bonus (+1 usually) you can use to help another player out.
So what do these two things have to do with each other? Well the answer is Aspects.
What am I talking about?
In the Dresden Files RPG (DFRPG) a key element of the game is the use of Aspects, they are a little like alignment in DnD but way more useful to everyone at the table. They interact with another element of the rules system DFRPG uses called a Fate Point, these are a pool you can spend to achieve or avoid certain effects as the game goes on. Now I don’t want to import the whole Aspect and Fate Point system into a 4E game, but I do like the ideas they hold for character development and the fun concepts they introduce.
More about Aspects.
Characters in DFRPG have two major aspects then a few minor ones. The major ones are really hard to change once the game is started, they are key defining things about your character. The others are easier to change, but they are more of an “expansion” of your character, a “filling in the details” kind of thing that is also tied to a game mechanic to make the useful.
Now the key two are called a “High Concept” and a “Trouble”. Your high concept is the major defining thing of your character, it might link a number of things together or be focused on one thing. Your trouble is something that your character has to struggle with, a conflict they have to resolve over and over.
I’m going to avoid the Dresden Files character examples for explaining this and instead turn to more well known characters, specifically Han Solo. The examples I give here are by no way absolute but they give you an idea.
Han Solo – High Concept: Captain of the Fastest Smuggling Ship in the Galaxy Trouble: Hutt Bounty on My Head
These become recurring themes for Han, and much of his drama revolves around these two ideas, other things come up of course (Even I Get Boarded Sometimes, Never Tell Me the Odds), but much of his story can be tied to either the Falcon or the Bounty.
So why do I care?
The answer to this is a little more complicated. Yet it starts with the section of each character sheet labeled Alignment. Alignment in 4E has undoubtedly faded into the background of characters and the game in general. I’m not thinking about removing alignment and replacing it with Aspects (ok maybe I am), I’m actually thinking more about taking the three main aspects of a DnD character and binding them into something that is more clearly tied to story and drama than the purely crunchy elements of Race, Class and Alignment.
High Concept for 4E
Firstly I think having a “high concept” is a good way of establishing a hook for your character. An easy example is one of my characters, Faustine. She is a Human, Assassin (Night Stalker), who is Unaligned. Just telling you those three things doesn’t really say much about her character for role play purposes, but t gives you plenty of mechanical information. Having a High Concept of “Assassin in Search of Virtue” tells you a lot more about her, in particular it starts to hint at why she is “Unaligned”. A person in search of virtue is not lost in evil, and they are also clearly not good so we get a glimpse into her character this way, and a better understanding of what her alignment means.
In DRFRPG a High Concept can be a number of things, and the book gives many examples, but in DnD I would suggest that a characters high concept should relate to their alignment at least, and possibly one or both of their class and race. The reason for placing such emphasis on alignment is to hammer out more about why your character has that alignment, and what about it makes it the right one for your character.
For example “To Protect and Serve in the Name of Bahamut” gives clear ideas about why a Paladin of Bahamut might be lawful good, and even why they are a paladin! At the same time a character who has “To Bring Justice to All” has a very different look even if they are also a Paladin of Bahamut. Now there are points where these two characters can disagree and come into conflict without one of them suddenly having to not be lawful good anymore, and this creates (hopefully) creates drama and exciting stories.
Trouble in 4E
Troubles are things that should speak to the character’s background and future. Things like the temptation of power, being wanted by an evil cult, having your family/true love held hostage by malign forces and so on, are all possible sources of trouble. Troubles are not things that happen all the time, and they are not always bad things, after all you are still adventuring and so have learnt things from your past experiences with your troubles.
Looking at Faustine again her trouble could relate to a number of things, and depending on how the campaign is to go will depend on what is most important to her in a campaign, the simplest way is “Escaped The Guild With The Values of Evil”. This hits both things, one she escaped form someone and they might come looking for her if the DM wants, and the other is her life experience in the past is unquestionably evil, and she is happy to point out to others that proclaim they are doing “good” that their actions are evil “from a certain point of view”.
So how do you use this stuff?
This is where those Rewards Cards come into it. There are 3 major effects on rewards cards, firstly there are the ones that let you re-roll an at-will attack, then there is the one that lets you turn a failed skill roll into a 10 roll (ie you rolled a 6 for a 16 total but that failed, turn it into a 10 and see if that succeeds), and the ever popular remove a save ends stun or daze effect when it is applied to you. I’ve put these in the rough order of their strength of effect on the game in my experience.
So here is how it I suggest making it work.
- Every player should start with 1 re-roll per session. They can activate their High Concept to spend that re-roll.
- The character can spend an Action Point to gain a re-roll if their High Concept applies.
- If the character’s Trouble applies the character can spend their re-roll to gain a +2 to a roll they just made.
- If the character’s Trouble applies the DM can offer them an extra re-roll to make the character act according to their Trouble. This may result in the current action failing, or it might make it succeed but have other long term effects.
- If the character doesn’t want the extra re-roll for the DM using their Trouble, they can give up a re-roll they already have to stop avoid that activation of their Trouble.
Wait… what?
In DFRPG one of the things that happens with Aspects is they can be compelled. The DM can say “your Spider Irises frighten the Baron” (yes I have a character with Spider Irises, gained as a quest “reward”), this is called “compelling”. The DM then offers me an extra re-roll and I get to decide how my character will act with that information. Maybe I leave the room, and do not get what I wanted (immediate consequence) but preserve my reputation, or maybe I use this to get what I want now but make an enemy of the Baron (long term effect). Both have effects on the story and drama of what is unfolding.
Of course sometimes you just need things to go smoothly and for your trouble to not get in the way right now, so you can buy the activation off. In DFRPG there are ways for the DM to up the anty on that, but in an effort to try and keep things relatively simple (and trust me a lot of the DFRPG is devoted to explaining all of this) I suggest just leaving things as they are outlined above.
Conclusion
Obviously the more familiar you are with DFRPG the more you can do with this idea, but the basics outlined above should hopefully provide even those who are unfamiliar with DFRPG and its underlying FATE system an interesting mechanic that helps make the role-play matter more through the game.
One of the things that those with more ambition might wish to consider is having more aspects (characters start with 5 other than the High and Trouble in DFRPG), and giving more re-rolls to characters according to their tier, or giving options other than re-rolls and so on (including auto-successes).
The key focus in looking at the idea though is to add more RP hooks to a character, and make those RP hooks matter through your games so that the motivations of the characters and their trials and tribulations matter more to your game as a whole.