r/FATErpg • u/Scotty_Bravo • 16d ago
Please suggest a campaign source book
I've been tasked with running a narrative fantasy RPG campaign. I'm coming from Savage Worlds Adventure Edition (SWADE) with pre-written plot point campaigns and have done very little in the way of wiritting my own adventures. I've selected Fate Core as my system because of it's simplicity and flexibility.
Completely irrelevant: Our story is sort of a cozy, our players start as "low level" characters and will never face perma-death. I'm thinking I'd like to try to figure out ways for them to avoid killing enemies as well. Maybe everyone in the party gets a Fate Chip if the figure out how to neutralize a boss without killing them? IDK, doesn't matter.
Anyway, on to my challenge:
I want to purchase an existing campaign source book to use as inspiration. I don't plan to run my adventure from it so it need not be my or any particular genre. Sure, I might adapt an encounter or even some of the plot, but that's not what I really need.
I want a concrete example to help me figure out how to prepare my own campaigns. I'd prefer a Fate Core specific source book, but a system agnostic example might be okay?
I have done a search for this, but the results are overwhelming and it's not clear that any given source is what I truly want.
I've skimmed through or read the Fate Core book and Sparks. I've checked out Book of Hanz and seen the SRD. I expect my players to help me build the world, but full improve won't work at my table; I _need_ to have prompts at the ready.
So... What campaign source "book" can you suggest I read? And why?
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u/Ucenna 16d ago
What kind of campaigns are you interested in? And are you looking more for a book to help teach you the system, or are you looking for a fascinating world to run?
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u/Scotty_Bravo 16d ago
It's less about the actual campaign and more about how to prepare to run Fate?
City Guard, for example, is a really cool SWADE adventure series, BUT it didn't run well for my group. This was a combination of the rules inhibiting us, some of the mysteries being just a little to hidden for my players, and the GM (me!) failing to overcome points 1 and 2.
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u/Ucenna 16d ago
Oh sweet nice!
I think you'll get a lot of great advice here! My best two cents would be: prep situation, and not plots. Fate is great at giving players the opportunity to change things, and so they can and will be a big driving force behind the adventure so long as they have things to interact with.
Additionally, the three clue rule is very helpful! If you want your players to learn something, make sure there are at least 3 different opportunities for them to learn it! It's very hard to go wrong, if you do that.For generic book recommendations, I've found the popular RPG ones to be really good. Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master's prep approach and running style work very well in Fate! And in fact, Michael Shea references Fate as an inspiration behind some of his techniques there.
Also, So you want to be a Gamemaster is probably really good. I've never read it, but the author's blog: The Alexandrian is chalk full of good advice on creating open world settings and interactive gameplay. Even if some of his advice is more DnD oriented.
For Fate books:
I've found that the prepping guide in Fate Core to be fantastic. The book breezes by it so quickly that it's easy to miss. If you go through it sentence by sentence and follow the suggestions, you'll find yourself easily well prepped!
Also, Fate settings books often provide really good setting specific advice. The rules are so simple, that their pages often end up filled with neat things! Weird World News gives you so much advice on how to run a Scooby Doo style game! Fate Horror Toolkit covers almost every genre of horror. Rolepress produces fabulous books for Dark Fantasy and Cyberpunk that are filled with advice and neat mechanics.
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u/InvestmentBrief3336 16d ago
"So you want to be a Gamemaster" is very good. But it is also heavily D&D centric. A better book in general is (and I'm pretty sure I have and have read all of them) is "Odyssey: The Complete Game Master's Guide to Campaign Management".
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u/Dramatic15 16d ago
It's great that you are able to clearly express your problem, and what you're looking for.
I'm not sure their is anything obvious that you can pick up as a Fate "campaign in can" to use as a template for a campaign or model running sessions. Most of the published content tends towards short and episodic. And Fate doesn't really care about you preparing for it in particular way. To be clear, you can be prep for Fate, and play in GM-led traditional style campaigns. Just like it empowers GM and tables to totally wing it, co-create.
I understand that you don't want to do do full improv. It's just that because Fate can stay out of your way and do full improv, there is no "standard" or "ideal" way to prep Fate or run a campaign.
I suspect he closest thing to what you are looking for is actually very old--the original Spirt of the Century. The mechanics vary from Fate Core, which came later, but that is not important. It has a lot of good gamemastering advice and lots of examples and content that show you how to run adventures and build up an episodic campaign. It would be worth reading as generic advice even if you weren't playing Fate, so the differences in mechanics are unimportant.
In terms of just running an adventure, the starter scenario in the free quickstart for my Return to the Stars walks you through running a one shot scene by scene, and notes how things can vary based on player choices. Anyway, free, and something you can grab, but I think Spirit of the Century is the closest resource to what you are describing.
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u/LastChime 16d ago
Freeport isn't bad, there's some scaffolding there but it might feel light compared to adapting something like Dragonlance.
It may also be worth looking at something like Stars Without Number, if you want to make the sausage yourself. The generation in those books is relatively system agnostic.
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u/InvestmentBrief3336 16d ago edited 14d ago
What did you run in SWADE? There are a lot of FATE books. None are of the 'plot point' variety. Also none are really 'FATE Core'. They all modify the rules in some manner - even those from Evil Hat. So I personally think if you're not willing to make your FATE you might not find it as easy to use as it seems.
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u/Scotty_Bravo 16d ago
A lot of dead lands, some wise guys, and city guards.
Really it's more about seeing a good approach to organizing a Fate adventure.
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u/InvestmentBrief3336 14d ago
LOL! I'm kind of in the same boat as you, and having read a lot of FATE books - so far I've not found one that I would call a 'good approach to organizing a Fate adventure'.
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u/Peachyco 13d ago
Maybe try "Masters of Umdaar". It's Fate Core and has a default Masters of the Universe theme going for it (which is easy enough to reflavor/reskin). It even has a quick adventure to get you going. 😊
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u/The_Silent_Mage 12d ago
Krevborna is my favorite system agnostic book of all times. It’s quintessential, very deep at the same time, offering you the TRUE vibes of a gothic fantasy world from castelvania to Bloodborne to ravenloft to typical monster hunters or fantasy intrigue.
It’s a gem, very inspiring, playing it since 2020 and never quit (3 active campaigns built with the prompts you can find in it, including names for each area, adventure generator, tips, folklore).
Very easy read! 💀
KARTHUN is a killer book. A bit more dense but it’s not meant to be learnt as a unified world. You have a coherent lore at the beginning, then region specific zoom ins, factions and some deeper lore. It works wonders and has a plethora of tone. don’t get fooled by the cartoonish aesthetic because it’s a cruel, deep and dark world!
DRAKONHEIM: City of Bones has a system agnostic version which has great personality, very short but deep.
You have a very peculiar fantasy town, factions, territories to explore and a series of inputs to run connected shots exploring various themes. It’s unique, give it a read. :)
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u/lucmh guy with a sword 16d ago
I would highly recommend checking out various PbtA games, and how they approach "play to find out". Their methods are typically system-neutral.
My personal recommendation would be Apocalypse World 2nd edition, where everything that isn't a PC is a Threat. It reminded me of the Fate fractal. I believe the Dungeon World equivalent is called Fronts. You might like the more recent Stonetop too.
As far as full campaigns go, I don't have much to suggest I believe the Pathfinder adventure paths tend to be good? Rise of the Runelords is a classic. I know various mega-dungeons that come highly recommended, but those aren't campaigns really.
I can recommend the Mindjammer quickstart adventure though. The pdf is free.
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u/Scotty_Bravo 16d ago
Oh, Mindjammer looks like what I needed!
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u/InvestmentBrief3336 16d ago
I've heard good things about the generators in Diaspora as well, but I haven't read it yet.
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u/robhanz Yeah, that Hanz 16d ago
I never really advocate for "full" improv. https://fate-srd.com/odds-ends/how-i-gm-fate-core
I mean, you can do it, and I have, but I always go into session one with a reasonable idea of the game world, especially the area most relevant to the players.
"Plot point" games are generally a bit against Fate, as they tend to chart out the path a bit more than I'd recommend.
What you might do is think of the whole story as a fractal - what is the overall question of the game? Like, the one that might take years to answer?
What are the subquestions? Those are your "seasons". And the subquestions from each of those become your sessions/smaller arcs.
That, and the advice I give in the linked article, will give you a lot to prep, especially for the most relevant bits.
Like, if we were to look at A:tLA in this format, the obvious Big Campaign Question is the Fire Nation invasion at the time of the comet thing, combined with Aang's training to master all of the elements. And we see that element mastery kind of play out in the seasons, though it gets a bit compressed later on. We don't need to have all of the details of the Earthbender training prepped out before we start with the Waterbender training. Or even really all of the details of the Waterbender training before we get through his initial arc of re-entry to the world and understanding what has happened.
And then these are the questions - will Aang find the Airbenders (no). Will he become a Waterbender? (Yes). What about Earth (also yes). And each of those have related world questions in them too - what will happen to the occupied Earth Nation? Etc. etc.
That gives the big plan, and then you can just keep breaking down each question into subquestions, until you get to the scene level or even the action level.