I posted a sample move for “Masks: a New Generation” and was told “I wanna do more stuff like this in Fabula Ultima”. So I rambled through some ideas on how to structure side-quests and Active Time Events in FabU. Here’s a cleaned-up version of that talk:
Construction
You can build events by laying out an assortment of “cards” - the core mechanics of your target game, the essentials of your player characters, and so on. In Masks, this includes the five Labels, the five Conditions PCs can take, the concept of Influence, and so on. You arrange these cards into a selection of choices, plus consequences for success or failure, and you hang some fictional narrative off them.
In FabU, the cards you have to work with include the core attributes (MIG, DEX, INS, WLP), the various classes the PCs have, damage, treasure, clocks, and so on. Let’s build a sample moment with these:
The PCs are visiting a town called Drellin’s Ferry. They want to build influence with the locals, make money, or otherwise pass the time until their ship arrives. The GM starts a 4-clock and lets the PCs progress it with options like:
- helping dockworkers move boxes (MIG+MIG)
- untangling a bunch of rope for sailors to reuse (DEX+DEX)
- navigating the labyrinthine markets around the harbor (INS+INS)
- haggling or negotiating with people (WLP+WLP)
The payout might be framed as treasure: you get a certain amount of zenit on a 10+, maybe a rare item on a 13+.
Challenges
There’s two challenges when offering side-quests or side moments.
In the Final Fantasy XIV MMORPG, there’s a concept of “MSQ”: the Main Story Quest. The MSQ tells the larger overarching story of the game. The player can engage in many other kinds of quests, but it’s MSQ where nations rise and fall, dragons invade the major cities, major villains scheme and are brought low, and so on.
If dragons are attacking the city, why would you stop to pet every kitten? This is the first challenge: offering side-quests in ways that don’t undermine the urgency of the larger situation.
A very meta-game option is to simply set a clock that will let MSQ progress. “The geologists you need to talk to are out of town, fill this 4-clock with sidequests”. A more in-fiction version is to offer them as vignettes or flashbacks. “While you are hunting for the geologists, you run into this situation…” Final Fantasy IX is very good about telling such stories through Active Time Events. The players get to see cutaways or flashbacks to characters outside of the main party, or to see the main party members in their quieter moments.
The second challenge is distinguishing hooks from flavor. Did the GM tell the players about how the town’s beloved church bell fell in the river because it’s something interesting that happened here (and is tied to the current MSQ, investigating all the weird earthquakes in the region), or is recovering the church bell a sidequest that the GM would like the players to pursue?
JRPGs can simply signal the player (!) when a quest is on offer. The GM can likewise just say “this is a sidequest you can do”. And the players can ask about a detail they want to pursue, that the GM hadn’t initially regarded as a hook. If the GM feels they’re pressuring their players into taking on sidequests they’re only lukewarm about, they can instead signal or sweeten the sidequest by telegraphing a reward: “sunken church bell, 500z reward for recovery”.
Payout
“Payout” means both success and failure.
Unlike Masks, Fabula Ultima doesn’t have “rearrange your labels”, “take a Condition”, or other transient punishment mechanisms. There’s basically damage, clocks, and Fabula point rewards.
One option for failure is to harken back to FabU’s inspiration, Ryuutama, and do some kind of gear-degradation system. For example, the characters spend all day walking in search of something, and failed a check to find it. The GM might start a 6-clock: “worn-out shoes”. The GM could advance that clock on travel checks, and let the PCs erase clock segments through repair work, zenit expenditure, and so on.
Success, likewise, can probably come down to “treasure” (zenit or rare items) or “clock progress”. Rewards at the 10, 13, and 16 tiers can be additive (you make zenit on 10+, you also get an item on 13+), or they might be of different types (you get the item on 13+, but you impress an NPC on 10+ and get a favor you can cash in later).