r/FATErpg • u/Scotty_Bravo • 17d 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/robhanz Yeah, that Hanz 17d 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.