Castle Acre

Ken Hite, on the Ken and Robin Talk about Stuff podcast, suggests that when looking to develop something for your game background, that you start with Earth. I agree - I’ve done this a few times by setting scenes in somewhere I know, and it makes the scene much easier to GM.

My advice, if you want to do this, is to try and visit the place you’re going to use. I don’t create many overall backgrounds, but I do use locations in my games, and it always helps to have a good picture in mind.

Castle Acre map taken from interpretation board

Castle Acre Castle

I’ve not used Castle Acre yet, but the next time I need a fortified village/local stronghold in a fantasy/medieval game, I will base it on Castle Acre in Norfolk.

The castle (more of a fortified manor, but still) was built by William de Warenne, who was granted lands following the Norman conquest in 1066. By 1200 he had constructed a grand castle with significant earthworks.

Castle Acre Priory

Once the castle was established, William sought security in the afterlife and founded a monastery alongside his castle. This became one of over 30 Cluniac priories in England, and was probably chosen thanks to his wife’s family connections.

The priory was home to 30 or so monks and continued until 1537 during Henry VIII’s Suppression of the Monasteries.

Fortified Village

Between the castle and the priory, the village itself was protected by walls and earthworks. (A magnificent bailey gate remains in the village that you can still drive through today.)

Links

• English Heritage: Castle Acre Castle
• Plan of the Castle
• English Heritage: Castle Acre Priory
• Plan of the Priory

Fate Accelerated with the family

Last week I ran The Crasta Demon, my Fate Accelerated fantasy scenario, with my daughter, brother, cousins and nephews. It was a real family affair, and they thoroughly enjoyed it. The last battle, against the demon itself was spectacular. The players set loads of traps and created numerous advantages that they stacked and ended up finishing off the demon in just two rounds.

Given that only one of my nephews has much rpg experience, they all took to Fate Accelerated really well. They didn't have a problem with the approaches, and I know that a couple of them (who have played D&D once or twice) appreciated its simplicity. So hurrah for Fate Accelerated!

While the game went well overall, there were a few things that I want to change.

The “easy” battle

The first encounter is supposed to be a simple battle against some goblins to show everyone how combat works. (That’s fairly traditional in a convention one-shot - you put in a simple battle at the start as a demonstration of how the game system works.) In this case, I had a mob of goblins that split into groups of three goblins each for each player.

The main problem is that I used the mob and teamwork rules from Fate Core, and while I gave normal goblins have +2 Fighting, as a mob the two extra goblins make that +4. I had a string of good rolls, which made the goblins much tougher than they should have been.

(When I first set this up, I didn’t roll for NPCs, but instead assumed that they rolled +0 each time. That sped up combat, not only because I wasn’t rolling dice, but also because the goblins never went above +4 and were fairly easy to beat.)

I also forgot to use the concede rules - it would have been shorter had the goblins run away when it’s clear that they’re losing.

Changes:

• Remove the Mob/Teamwork rules, so Goblins will just attack on +2.
• Try and remember to use the concede rules.
• Change “Goblins” to “Razorlins” (as I’ve never been comfortable with goblins - it’s not a standard fantasy world).

Forceful in battle

The other thing I did that prolonged the fight is that I suggested that if the players weren’t using Forceful, then they inflicted one shift less in battle. So of course with most players using their “main” approach in battle (“I quickly/cleverly/flashily attack…”) that meant they were doing slightly less damage, so the goblins weren’t falling as quickly.

This wasn’t a problem in the final battle - by that point the players had got the hang of creating advantages, so they did that to give the Forceful character the best chance to attack and he was rolling at +13 or so.

I did wonder if characters should be allowed to inflict damage in a fight with any approach other than Forceful, but the view from the Google+ FAE community is not to go down this route. And thinking about Legolas and Gimli (in the Lord of the Rings movies at least), Legloas is Quick (and possibly flashy) while Gimli is Forceful - but they’re both equally lethal.

I think there’s still a risk of players trying to constantly use their best approach, but I must remember to ask “what are you doing” and then figure out which approach is right. The downside of that is that in a general melee, that can be draining on everyone as it means being constantly inventive rather than just rolling to hit.

The other advantage of using approaches other than Forceful is that it allows players to be awesome, and who doesn’t like that?

Cowardly is a terrible Trouble aspect

Finally, Megan chose “cowardly” for her trouble aspect (it was one of three that I had put on the pregenerated character). I gave her a Fate token for running away during the first fight, but she (rightly) pointed out that “cowardly” is boring. So we changed it for the second session, and I’m changing it on the character sheet.

The (updated) files for running The Crasta Demon are here.