Disheartened but back on track!

After looking at the rules for Starblazer Adventures I have become a little discouraged, it does everything I wanted a Ministry game to do... very well... only in space rather than Steampunk Earth. It put me off more than a little. However I am NOT going to let this get me down, if nothing else I can write up Ministry as a free fan add on and I can focus on Wind Riders

However I have had some new inspiration that may save the "publishable" nature of the product. One involves a more Positivist way of looking at FATE's dice system. Instead of doing like Starblazer and having a +d6 and a -d6 or using those annoying Fudge Dice I've just flipped the whole thing over.

Roll 2d6, add relevant numbers. So far it seems to be working okay but it'll need some play testing. I prefer systems with more addition than subtraction and having Subtraction be a key part of the base Die Roll just rubs me the wrong way.

I think I also want to rework the Skills a little to make the characters feel more "Ministry" than they did before.

Lastly I came up with the Achievements or Daring Deeds! system, a cool little method of advancement that's great for longer term play. No info on that though, gotta protect some ideas afterall.

Mechanic Setback 1

Well it looks like I'm going to need to rebuild my core mechanic. Initially I had hoped to do something interesting by assigning different skill levels to different die types, Level 0 = 1d4, Level 1 = 1d6, Level 2 = 1d8 up to Level 5 = 1d20. Unfortunately this system has proven a bit of a bust, the high probability that I initially wanted proves to be more of a problem than an asset. This occured when I actually played the game with the 5 Daring Point pool that was to be the norm. I ended up burning through all 5 of those daring points in a fairly standard combat with 4 goons and while I do want these exchanges to be dangerous I want them to be more weighted on the side of the players.

So anyways, my cat doth protest to my typing over my attention giving so I'm signing off for now. Later everyone.

Why FATE? (Part 1?)

So I thought I'd go into my reasons for deciding upon the FATE 3.0 System as the primary engine for my game. As with many FATE converts, the story starts with Spirit of the Century.

For those unaware, Spirit of the Century is a great little RPG based around Pulp Heroes in the 1920's and 30's. While some might think that Spirit would be a perfect product as is to use for Ministry, I just got the wrong sort of vibe from it. Spirit is very pulpy, heroes win, villains lose, nobody dies etc. It doesn't really capture the feeling of Desperate, Skin of your teeth Adventure that I loved from the D20 Sessions, that sort of Gritty-but-Cinematic vibe you get from an Indiana Jones film, the Bourne Movies or the more recent James Bond pictures.

So why feel such devotion to the system? Even when it doesn't do what you want? Why not stick with D20? Well the reasoning behind that is fairly simple, for one thing FATE is a free OGL system like D20, so I can modify it, use it and sell it as I see fit. But there's another more concrete reason, that reason is Aspects.

Aspects are a system by which the Players can create their own Multifaceted Special Abilities. These can be anything from Special Talents to a particular element from that PC's backstory that can be called on to grant an advantage in battle. They scream character and narrative while providing a cool mechanical edge to the game, easily one of the best ideas in Roleplaying.

I did need to make some changes though, for one thing FATE as presented in SotC uses specialized dice that don't provide a very fun Random Factor to the game, so that had to change. I exchanged it for a scaling Dice System, using a different type of Die from the standard Dice Set to represent a different level of skill. Here's my quick break down.

Master = d12
Expert = d10
Journeyman = d8
Novice = d6
Amateur = d4

It gave things a nice broad feel without cranking the numbers up way to high.

Daring feats of game design begin here!

Welcome to The Ministry of Secrets Blog, this is where I Peter Steckley, bored Office Administrator by Day, Intrepid Edwardian Adventurer by Night will be sharing my experiences creating my first real Roleplaying Game, The Ministry of Secrets.

The Ministry of Secrets was spawned several years ago when I ran a rather interesting campaign based around Espionage, High Adventure and Low Key Steampunk set in an Alternate History England circa 1910. Even though it only ran for about 6 Sessions it remains to this day one of my best run adventures and one of my most compelling setting creations, hence why it was one of my first choices when creating an entirely custom Roleplaying Game for use with it.

The basis of the system is not wholly original, I'm using the framework of the FATE 3.0 Open Game License system as utilized in brilliant works such as John Wicks "Houses of the Blooded" and Evil Hat Productions "Spirit of the Century". I've switched a lot of stuff around but we'll get to that later.

I'm going to be writing about as much of the design process as feels right for the time being, if I ever get it to the point of being publishable I'll be sure to share my experiences with that as well.

Anyway, ciao for now my non existant readership!

... To Be Continued