FC Alternate Rules

Here is just a list of ideas Joe is toying with in terms of Hacking Fate Core to better fit the group.

Milestones
Minor Milestones usually occur at the end of a session of play, or whenever one significant piece of a story is resolved. A minor milestone allows the characters to evolve in response to the story that’s been unfolding before them.

When a minor milestone occurs, you may choose one of the following:
 * Switch the rank values of any two skills, or replace one Average skill with one that isn't on your sheet
 * Change any single Stunt for another Stunt.
 * Purchase Stunts or Powers, provided you have the refresh to do so.
 * Rename one Aspect.
 * Elect to gain 1 Character Point that you can spend on several things detailed elsewhere.  These may be spent in the same milestone in which they are earned.

Signifigant Milestones usually occur at the conclusion of a scenario or major plotline (or once every two or three sessions). Signifigant milestones are about advances of experience, as the characters have learned new things in dealing with problems and challenges.

When a signifigant milestone occurs, our character gets all of the following:
 * One additional skill rank.
 * One of the benefits of a minor milestone.

Major Milestones should only occur when something has happened in the campaign that shakes it up a lot -- either when a few scenarios have concluded, or a long, large-scale plotline wraps up. When these happen, the characters jump up a scale of power.

When a major milestone occurs, your character gets all of the following:
 * You can "clear out" an extreme consequence slot, allowing it to be used again.
 * An additional point of Refresh.
 * New stunts and/or powers.
 * All the benefits of a signifigant milestone.

Character Points
Character points are earned at every minor milestone. These can be spent in several different ways, be it raising a skill, or purchasing a new stunt, and even upping your total Refresh just to name a few.
 * Skill points may be purchased with character points by paying a number of banked points equal to the cost of the next rank.  This cannot be used to purchase a skill if it will unbalance the pyramid.  You may spend Character Points in the same Milestone that you have earned them.
 * Example: Shane has 5 character points banked and wants to raise a skill.  He chooses to raise his Stealth from a Fair (+2) to a Good (+3).  This will cost him three points of the 5 total he has, leaving him with 2 to either continue to hold onto, or spend on other choices.


 * Purchasing a new stunt has a flat cost of 7 character points.
 * Purchasing an additional point of Refresh has a flat cost of 10 Character Points.
 * Purchasing an additional box for your Wealth Stress track has a cost depending upon the box you are purchasing at the time*.
 * *This option may not be available in all settings or games.

Assets or Resources
The importance of money in a game depends greatly upon its genre. Fate Core suggests a Resources skill, but for genres in which the acquisition of wealth is often a prime motivator, such as Shadowrun, Nova Praxis, or the classic dungeon-crawling fantasy game, we will need something more flexible.

Wealth as Stress

One alternative is introducing a new stress track — Wealth. When spend coin on a service or item,  or when you attempt something that would be made easier by the liberal application of cash, you can check a Wealth stress box for a bonus to your roll.


 * For example, if you’re haggling over the price of a hover-speeder using Rapport—or Provoke, if you’re being a real jerk about it—and you fail your roll, you could check a Wealth stress box to pay too much for it. Or perhaps you’re planning a heist and fail your Burglary roll? Check a Wealth stress box to get—or have gotten—the expensive gear you need to pull it off. Can’t find the assassin you’re looking for with Contacts? Maybe checking a Wealth stress box will improve your informants’ memories. And so on.

In other words, it’s succeeding at a serious cost, where that cost is literally a cost.

Purchasing items

When purchasing items, goods, or services, you will check the cost against your currently unmarked boxes of Wealth. If the cost of the item is beneath your current wealth, you can purchase it without issue and your Wealth Stress does not take a hit (use common sense here). If the cost is equal to your current available Wealth Stress, you would tick off the highest box you currently have available and receive the item. If the cost is higher than that of your current unmarked stress boxes, you cannot afford the item. This does not mean that you are unable to procure the item, only that you do not have enough to pay for the item in fluid currency.


 * For example, say you are looking to upgrade your current weapon, as the dagger you have just isn't cutting it anymore.  You've shopped around a bit, and have found a nice smith who's got this sword you've fallen in love with.  Lucky for you, the city guard just paid you for your services in dealing with those goblins in the sewers, so your purse is flush with coin and you've topped off your Wealth Stress to it's current maximum of 3.  This also happens to be exactly how much the sword costs, so ticking off the 3 on your stress track, you purchase the sword and go on about your merry way with boxes 1 and 2 still available to cover any other expenses until the next payday.

Starting Wealth

This will vary depending on the game—are the PCs professionals with steady work, or are they living sword-hand-to-mouth?—but starting off with a base of two Wealth stress boxes seems a happy medium. PCs get +1 stress box for each aspect they have at character creation that relates to how well off they are, to a maximum of +3 stress boxes. Conversely, PC's get a -1 stress box for each aspect that they have at character creation that relates to how poor or destitute they are to a minimum of 0.
 * For example, if your character has the starting aspect Heir to the Drake Family Fortune, then you would begin play with the 2 standard stress boxes for Wealth, plus the additional box for having an aspect that references being very well off.

Gaining Wealth

Wealth stress doesn’t go away on its own. Instead, you can only clear a checked box when you gain more loot—gold, credits, barter, or whatever else works for your game. Acquiring a parcel of Wealth lets you clear any number of stress boxes whose total values don’t exceed the parcel’s value. If you have one or more checked boxes of a value greater than that of the Wealth parcel you’ve received, do nothing to the boxes that exceed the parcel’s value—it’s not enough Wealth to make a difference to you. For example, if you acquire 3 Wealth, you can clear your first, second, or third stress box, if any one of them is checked, or both your first and second stress boxes—but not your fourth, if you’re lucky enough to have one.

The only way to add stress boxes is at a milestone, by spending character points*, or swapping out an existing aspect for a wealth-oriented one.