Okay, characters don’t get better over time. That is fine with me. We did some suggestions in the book for character advancement and they felt flat to me when we played. I suggest we ditch ’em.
You don’t change your character, you change the world.
After every game (or after each arc, if you don’t finish a pulp novel’s worth of adventure per session), you see who spent the most Fate Points in the course of play. That player gets to add an aspect to the world or change the wording of an existing aspect
This means that world aspects will quickly add up. But only a few are used in each game. At the beginning of each game, each player (GM included) can choose one world aspect that is in play in order to avoid ten world aspects just kind of falling on top of one another in a clutter.
World Aspects can be anything that is inspired from the game’s play, from anti-vigilante laws in Gotham to flying cars become affordable to Gorilla City’s first ambassador greets U.S. president. They work just like aspects.
Pulp characters do not change but dammit, at the gaming table, they should change the world.
So, here’s how I’d picture it working.
You have been playing for a while, a dozen adventures, a dozen different aspects.
Let’s say they are:
Flying cars
Ape City Embassy in NYC
Tyrian Deathlord Spies are EVERYWHERE!
Dracula’s Children want revenge
Cthulhu is no longer dreaming
Century Club has the Queen’s ear
The Hellfire Club controls the U.S. Government
Colonized Mars
Rocket-Packs for every Boy Scout
Vigilante-ism illegal in U.S.
Americans love science heroes!
Zeppelin City draws the finest scientists in the world
Okay, when you start play, you do not play with every single one of those Aspects in play. That’d be nuts.
Let’s say you are playing with four people, three PC’s and a GM. Each player (GM INCLUDED) chooses an aspect to go with the adventure. Hopefully, the players know the pitch.
The aspects might or might not play into the adventure but they are there to be tagged and such if it comes up.
So I tell the players, they will be playing Zombie Kong and the Lightning Zombies attack New York City.
They choose:
Dracula’s Children want revenge
Rocket-Packs for every Boy Scout
Ape City Embassy in NYC
Americans love science heroes!
See, they didn’t pick Vigilanteism Illegal in U.S., so it won’t be an issue in this game. Sure, it still exists but the cops look the other way, especially as Zombie Kong is rampaging through their city, on his way to the Empire State Building during a thunderstorm that could make him nigh invulnerable, plus, the guy who plays the Shadow-inspired character couldn’t make it that week.
Also, I’d want the players to be able to zone in on an Aspect and ask that it be the center of an adventure, resolving it somehow.
Githyanki Diaspora 
Fucking cool. Does the GM spend Fate points? Like, can he add or change things?
Eeeee-interest point, G-man
Huh.
That is a great fucking point.
My first instinct is -no- but that feels wrong.
The GM doesn’t work from a fixed economy of Fate Points and operates with a stable of characters, it doesn’t seem fair.
I dunno.
Re: Eeeee-interest point, G-man
I was just thinking that if I were the GM and I were playing, I’d want to be throwing shit down that the players would be hot to change, you know?
“Zombies everywhere!”
“Oh no you didn’t!”
Re: Eeeee-interest point, G-man
Maybe instead of picking from the menu, the GM is the only player who can actually make up an Aspect and the adventure is entirely about either doing away with it or changing it over the course of the session.
Hmmmm.
Neat stuff, Bret.
Re: Eeeee-interest point, G-man
Maybe instead of picking from the menu, the GM is the only player who can actually make up an Aspect and the adventure is entirely about either doing away with it or changing it over the course of the session.
Hmmmm.
Neat stuff, Bret.
Re: Eeeee-interest point, G-man
Maybe instead of picking from the menu, the GM is the only player who can actually make up an Aspect and the adventure is entirely about either doing away with it or changing it over the course of the session.
Hmmmm.
Neat stuff, Bret.
Re: Eeeee-interest point, G-man
I was just thinking that if I were the GM and I were playing, I’d want to be throwing shit down that the players would be hot to change, you know?
“Zombies everywhere!”
“Oh no you didn’t!”
Re: Eeeee-interest point, G-man
Maybe instead of picking from the menu, the GM is the only player who can actually make up an Aspect and the adventure is entirely about either doing away with it or changing it over the course of the session.
Hmmmm.
Neat stuff, Bret.
Fucking AWESOME.
I steal this for my New Horizons game.
Fucking AWESOME.
I steal this for my New Horizons game.
Fucking AWESOME.
I steal this for my New Horizons game.
New Horizons
I tried to kind of write it down in concrete terms over here on the RPG.net thread.
Let me know how it goes.
Yeah, this has New Horizons written all over it.
Because if you start with all these aspects, you’ve got America’s Best Comics the RPG (but hey, eye heart ABC)