What's the cap on FPs? Are the FPs you roll at chargen the limit you can have, or can you earn more? I think it's crappy that a character might start with 1 FP, need to burn it, then be at a loss. I was thinking that you could earn a higher limit, but then I started wondering what the cap was, if any.

I do not know of an actual cap for fate points.

They are hard to get but I sometimes give them out when a character or characters just barely survive an encounter or scene by using good RP or if it was just by extreme luck.

BlacKat

I don't think there is a cap on the number of Fatepoints, but it is generally speaking very hard to get more of them. A GM might decide to award a character (or the whole group) a fatepoint as a reward for doing something that would be completely outstanding in the eyes of the imperium. Stopping a tyranid hivefleet, revealing a plot for sectorwide rebellion or defeating a greater deamon.

The difference in fatepoints between the different homeworld origins is a pretty large factor, much bigger than most of the differences in wounds, starting skills or stats. However, this is a game where the characters are supposed to die and be replaced, and since fatepoints do work as a sort of "extra life" players whose characters are running out will face a nasty upphill battle and probably gets to make a new character soon enough.

I can't see why there's a difference between the worlds. Game balance? Why would the Emperor smile on the Void more than his own worlds? I looked at the charts and thought, "Why do Feral Worlders get screwed? It doesn't make sense". The dice alone decide enough, IMO. I'm thinking of doing it this way, for everyone: 1-3=1 FP, 4-6=2 FPs, 7-9=3 FPs and 10 gives 4. They're ALL heros and just because you're a barbarian from Bumfuck-9, doesn't mean you should get screwed.

Mellon said:

I disagree. No RPG should be geared toward PC-death and the story suffers greatly if you're whacking the PCs all of the time. They can't be invulnerable, to be sure, but they aren't "supposed to die and be replaced". The PCs are supposed to be heros and the focus of the story, so I don't mind them getting FPs in order to fulfill their destinies. I have great players so they'll see FPs both IC and OOC as a blessing, one from me the other from the God-Emperor!

I regard this game a bit more like the classic Call of Cthulhu. The ever increasing insanity and corruption points, the nasty enemies, the very deadly combatrules etc. All that adds upp to a case where it is likely that only a few (if any) of the original members of the party survive until the end of a major campaign. Of course this is very much subject to the GMs and players intentions with the game, and what sort of story and world they want to enact. In both the group where I play and the one where I GM we try to imagine a very nasty fanatical noir world where people are replaceable and the best thing you can hope for is to have your death be meaningful and of use to the imperium. One could suspect this sort of stories would lead to players being detatched to their characters, but I've not found that to be the case. On the countrary, a character that survives until the end of the major campaign actually feels like she/he is loosing out compared to the ones that got a heroic death or went evil and now figures as our primary opponent in the next campaign.

Life is cheap in the 40k universe, at least as I like to play it.

THAT I agree with! I like the players to succeed, but it can't feel cheap. That's a difficult skill to master. We make very involved characters and I generally run solo-games, so I can't just whack them often. I reward good roleplaying over bad luck with dice, but not to the point of immunity.

TalkingMuffin said:

It's not at all for game balance. Fearl worlders are a far cry from the emperor, not like those pious not half naked folks on the imperial worlds who worship him properly. Most of those heathens are about a hair's breath from heresy with how they worship He on Terra anyhow. And the Voiders, well, they spend all their bloody time out in the void and more time then anyone in the warp. They's touched by the weird, each and every one of them.... weird luck.

As for the poor sods from Bumfuck-9, yea, they are indeed all screwed just for being from there. Heck, anyone who goes there gets screwed. You ever wonder why it's called Bumfuck-9? ;-)

But seriously, your game, run it how you see it. There are no hard and fast rules regarding Fate Points. They are the ultimate arbitration of what kind of game you and your group wishes to run. If you want gritty doom and gloom, then hardly hand out any fate points at all. If you want something a bit more high-octane and heroic, toss them out like they were hard candy from your grandma's purse.

I go for the gritty doom and gloom (even if our game is more of a dark comedy with Cronenburg meets twin peaks) and only hand them out if a character dose something truly selfless and dangerous in the name of their master or the Emperor and survives it without burning any fate points. This has, so far, only happened once (they are a cowardly pragmatic lot) when the groups Inquisitor was cut down by snipper fire from about 800m out. They saw him get sliced in half and fall, slowly dying on the landing pad to their tower.

As I was describing the agonizing horrible death their Inquisitor was suffering and getting ready to lay down a few deathbed clues, what should the adept do but decide to run out under snipper fire! The little bastard had sprint, and managed to make it to the fallen inquisitor in under a round, dodging the shot that came in at him even at a penalty, fishes out one of his only two viles of supper miracle cure-all (slightly heretical and was given to them to help there characters out two stories ago, but they couldn't bring themselves to waist such precious stuff just to heal up their busted legs, cracked ribs, organs that had to be sewn back in...) serum of which he has the last two samples, doses the Inquisitor up (while just being missed by another shot... it was a sad day for that snipper and my rolling), doses him with some heavy stims, picks up his upper body, and dashs back to cover while dodging two more shots (not as fast with half an Inquisitor) that would have been the end of him or one of his fate points if they had hit. All that, coming out of left field at me as this player has a tendency of locking her characters up in rooms with guns pointed at the doors at the slightest creepy gonna eat you sounds being heard.

Ya, she got a fate point for her adept for that.

I just don't think that where you're from should dictate how Fate views you, that's all. Rolling for variable FPs? Fine, but as the mantle of acolyte's a nigh-holy calling of "selflessness", all should have the same chance.

Tangent: Do Metallicans suffer from the same "I need tech and ceilings!" as other hivers? If not, that's silly.

Personally I just figured that the Feral Worlders just ended up have to use some FP to survive the harsh conditions before they started working with the Inquisition. It is not an easy life

Tangent: Do Metallicans suffer from the same "I need tech and ceilings!" as other hivers? If not, that's silly.

They do. The specific homeworlds explicitly spell out which features of the original ones are replaced.

Otherwise, yes, fate points are somewhat balanced with the rest of the package, specifically, with the wounds. Feral worlders have three more wounds than voiders. That can last them quite a while since lost wounds are the most common cause of burning fate.

Further, fate points can be awarded every once in a while (I'd guesstimate at about once every three or four adventures). So just like the Voider and the Feral both getting Sound Constitution will make the relative wound difference smaller, they'll also both get more fate points over time.

Good points. One thing I totally love about these forums is how cool people are and that we can disagree without being assholes to each other.