Design: Fabula Imperialis Playtest 1

"In the grim darkness of the 41st Millennium there is only war."
So recently I’ve been trying to hack the 40k role playing games into something less heinous. For those not in the know let me just say that whilst their system is at least functional and makes sense, it tends to be maths heavy, uses a d100 system that is a bit too easy to distort and break by stacking multiple bonuses and is just generally quite clunky to use as a GM.

My hack, which I’ve dubbed ‘Fabula’ until a better name comes along, has two objectives. To make the game accessible to new players and to make it simpler to run for GMs. For that part it does seem at least that this initial playtest, in which my group played Bounty Hunters of various stripes playing one of a group of archetypes, achieved this goal.

The only really useful note from the session was that often characters, with the exception of the Wyrd (an unbound psychic), seemed to repeat the same actions largely because they didn’t have any ‘powers’ or really the gear to help them make more dynamic choices.
That’s an issue I think I’ll have to track, the temptation is to immediately go out and try and fix stuff, but I want at least another test session or two to see where the real faults are.

The one real fault that we can definitely see is the Wyrd, who managed to be both the most dynamic (mechanically) character and the most overpowered with a Telekinetic push that also did damage if the target struck something. The damage was a bit to much so I think we’ll adjust that down for future sessions.

This session we tested basic combat, cover, psychic powers, Fate Points, the Boomstick and Aim & Fire rules and Space Combat which, I am proud to say, was simple and quick and kind of reminded me of the Millennium Falcon escaping the Death Star.
Next session I definitely want to get the party to try Sustained Fire (my coverall replacement for the somewhat confusing Semi-Auto/Full-Auto rules) and Overwatch.
But for now I shall rest atop my laurels and await the next session, more info (and maybe some rules) in a fortnight.

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