This is Day 2 of a five-day series of posts about Lost Fools of Atlantis that I’ll be releasing weekly on Wednesday.
Each post examines an aspect of the game or introduces new rules.Lost Fools uses the Balance Engine, which I designed to be easily adaptable to other settings and the foundation for future games.
Want to know how to quickly adapt the system?
Fundamental Elements
These are areas that you look at and come up with your own definitions, to reflect what you are setting out to achieve.
Origins are the characters’ upbringings. You can use it for national identities or species. They are sort of stereotypes, but the methods you create do not have to be picked up and advanced by the players.
“Covers” in Lost Fools may be Professions, Careers or even Jobs, in other settings.
Power Levels. Consider your starting point as far as power goes. For example, I was quite happy to have Avatars in Lost Fools start at Power Level 0 as regular people in both their Origin and Cover class, even though the game moves into Superspy/Superhuman/Occult very quickly. The obvious one is for games that are set or touch in the supernatural or comic book superpowered genres, power level starts at one, if not only career, but also origin.
Defined Methods. As explained on Day One System Matters, having a chapter on defined methods lets your players quickly understand your game or setting. The list of defined methods is almost a list of things that your players, via their Avatars, can do in your fictional setting. Defined methods are also where you put your magic, superhuman and supernatural powers. Carefully define the scope. Resist the urge to create subsystems in the details of the methods.
The World(s). These are the areas of the setting that your game may take place in.
Friends and Foes. This is a list of pre-made GMCs. See Misfits and Malcontents in Lost Fools.
Optional Elements
These elements you may decide not to use in your Hack, since they move focus away slightly from the player characters or simply because they are simply things you don’t need.
Factions. These are organisations that the player characters can be members of and have a stake in their success. As characters grow, the power of their factions grows. It’s all part of the great game of politics and power that is playing out in the setting.
Movements. This is what the masses are doing, I almost named them “Popular Movements”.
Licensing Hacks?
At the current time I’m not doing any sort of open licensing for the Balance Engine. But if you are interested in releasing your Hack commercially, get in touch and I’ll quickly work something out. My email is newt@d101games.com.
If you are doing it for free, just put in the following text
[Name of Hack] uses the Balance Engine system as found in Lost Fools of Atlantis by D101 Games (https://d101games.com/lost-fools-of-atlantis).
If you want to use the Balance Engine logo, please contact me and again I’ll work something out with you.
Next Wednesday, the final day, Why Five is the Magic number.
Has this post piqued your interest in Lost Fools of Atlantis?
