It’s not dead! I’ve been chugging along making my game, now titled Silly Elf Game: FAE for Fundamentals, Advanced, Expert. Ideally FAE for short, though apparently a Fate Supplement stole that. So what are some broad strokes things that have changed?
(Note: All text shown is working text for an Alpha version of the book. Don’t take it too seriously and some of it is very similar to it’s inspirations. This will change with time.)
Format
The book is now A5, to mimic a more novel like style. If you haven’t seen it since layout and production began it was originally A4. It is split into 3 (4 really) books. Fundamentals, which introduces the most bare bones concepts and gets you off and playing ASAP with an adventure. Advanced, which allows for greater character progression and focuses on learning more about the world itself, allowing the players to become Scholars and Magicians plumbing the depths of reality and history to learn more about the world. The final book is expert, which covers those traditional “high level concepts”, like warfare, running kingdoms, travelling the world, etc. With a final version that just mushes the 3 books into one, but also reorganises the text so everything that is similar is adjacent instead of spread around for easy learning. It’s a reference manual, basically, and has most of the teaching words cut out. Wanting to make a world that is interesting and worth playing in (and embracing play worlds not games), I’ve put a lot of work in making the setting come forward in a big way, as well as taking a lot of notes from “FKR Games” (in so much as any game is FKR). More on this later.
Romantic Fantasy
FAE is a Romantic Fantasy game in every sense of the word. As the text here says. From “Romance” meaning King Arthur, chivalric knights, and a mythic age to modern classics like Spirited Away. Combat rules continue to be pared down and de-centred, magic is made “more magical” (more on this later). The world and nature take centre stage a long side stories featuring women and traditionally “women’s” ways of handling problems. So look forward for less violence and more love and care. This is largely in service of FAE as a “Cosy Game” the very popular genre of today.
Built for Learning
To me, the primary design goal of an RPG book is Pedagogical.. or educational I suppose. It should teach people how to play or at least how to get started playing since the hobby and any way you play a game is so open it’s hard to say anything. This means the book is a bit longer than I would like (looking at about 30-50 pages per book), but it should be a great starting point. If you already know how to play RPGs it should be a very light read, or you can jump right into the terse language of the rules reference book.
Grey Box
Inspired by “black box” FKR play, the game is a “Grey box” where most of the mechanics are hidden from players. Players are welcome to read the mechanics but it’s mostly not needed. They are pretty light and flexible. Procedures however are given to players. This is just so that everyone can be on the same page about how large tasks are broken down, though as always procedures remain an optional part of the game. If you can run it without them, please do, but targetting learners I think procedures give a great starting point to begin playing games. Training wheels, if you will.
Low Impact
The rules are simple and inspired by 24XX, with some heavy modification. The tag system I was using to make weapons and clothing is now more ubiquitous and can allow for special bonuses. It half replaces the Talent (called Abilities, previously) system and combines with what is essentially the FLoK “Renown” system to get a lighter but more concrete version of my old Talents from the original. Most of the “rules” in the book will be optional procedures and methods, outside of that I’ve really tried to pare things down to just enough to get you going on a Romantic Fantasy Adventure.
Simple In Fiction Advancement
The primary method of character advancement is now gear. There are still jobs, but they are most important in determining the starting for your character. Beyond that it’s mostly items of some kind or another, more and better gear, transport, horses, world advancement (building new towns, improving existing towns), improved weapons can deal more damage, improved armour can take more, etc. You can still improve skills by training in downtime (and using them in game), level up your character’s renown to gain extra Hearts (HP), and learn new skills, as well as gain new talents from your feats and the stories told about you. Speaking of a sort of magic of stories…
Magical Magic
Gone is the magician from the base classes. It has been move (along with Scholar) to Advanced. In its place are universal and simple forms of magic, such as oaths, curses, stories (the source of talents, usually), and songs. As the books advance more complex magic is given to players, mostly involving the creation of LotR inspired Magic Items(but never homework like wizard algebra). Magic is an important part of any character but tends to be “low magic” in that very little magic in the game is flashy in a traditional D&D/Harry Potter/etc way. It is instead quiet, spiritual, and deeply rooted in the fantasy world.
Conclusion
Ok, so that’s a lot of giant promises, the good news is most of them are already done and just need to be put into layout, those that remain have strong drafts ready to be edited and play-tested privately before making it into a public alpha. Speaking of, public alpha, that’s the next goal. I can’t promise how long it will be. I’ve been through it this year far with just one thing after another, but I am feeling pretty confident that it’ll be before the end of summer (barring FFXIV consuming my entire life… 😐 ).
Anyway, thanks for reading, and hope you look forward to checking out my game in the (nearish) future.
Fae Errant 
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