Quote from: RPGPundit;460496This was a central point of my critique of the game in my review.

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Did you have the same take on Starblazer Adventures? Just curious.

Quote from: RPGPundit;460496This was a central point of my critique of the game in my review.

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Along those lines...what IS too big for a "pick-up game"? I've seen people complain that ICONS is too big for a pick-up game, which seems a tad excessive to me.

Quote from: Tommy Brownell;460557Along those lines...what IS too big for a "pick-up game"? I've seen people complain that ICONS is too big for a pick-up game, which seems a tad excessive to me.

If the book's too heavy to pick up!  Zzing!

Quote from: Tommy Brownell;460557Along those lines...what IS too big for a "pick-up game"? I've seen people complain that ICONS is too big for a pick-up game, which seems a tad excessive to me.

One rule of thumb I use: if character generation takes up an entire session by itself, this game is too big for a pick-up game.

Spirit of the Century has guidelines for on-the-fly character generation.

The only problem with this is that you pretty much have to understand Aspects and the Skill Pyramid in order to use it properly.

So it could be used quite easily for a pickup game, IF everyone knows how to play already and has already created a couple of characters the regular way. Otherwise it will be even more confusing for people new to the system.

And one could always use pre-created characters for a pick up game, but I feel FATE loses something valuable when doing this. Specifically, the creativity of the players being able to shine through in creating their own PCs and being able to pick Aspects and Skill allotments that appeal to what they really want to play.

Quote from: PaladinCA;460554Did you have the same take on Starblazer Adventures? Just curious.

No, because Starblazer Adventures did not try to claim it was a "pick up game".

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Quote from: misterguignol;460642One rule of thumb I use: if character generation takes up an entire session by itself, this game is too big for a pick-up game.

That's a pretty good guideline...and one which should immediately disqualify ICONS.

As for the thread in general, I discovered that ICONS has helped me wrap my ahead around FATE after reviewing Agents of SWING over on my blog. I'm not kinda regretting not getting the Legends of Anglerre PDF when it was on sale at the beginning of the year.

Quote from: RPGPundit;460867No, because Starblazer Adventures did not try to claim it was a "pick up game".

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Fair enough.

Again, I think Spirit can indeed be a "pick up game," but only when experienced people sit down at a table to play it.

Quote from: Tommy Brownell;460892That's a pretty good guideline...and one which should immediately disqualify ICONS.

Um... no.

I played an ICONS game at last gameday. We made characters at the table. Start to finish.

My 7 and 10 year old girls make ICONS characters for fun.

It's pretty simple and straightforward.

Quote from: PaladinCA;460895Again, I think Spirit can indeed be a "pick up game," but only when experienced people sit down at a table to play it.

Precisely. If you have characters, it takes very little prep to get rolling.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;460925Um... no.

I played an ICONS game at last gameday. We made characters at the table. Start to finish.

My 7 and 10 year old girls make ICONS characters for fun.

It's pretty simple and straightforward.

Sorry, I meant that it should disqualify ICONS from being "too big for a pick-up game".

overrated RPG that introduces a few neat ideas but is, imo, an unintuitive, lumbering, beast of a system pretending to be 'rules light' in many of its incarnations - although some variations do get it better than others.

FATE is, at its core, a very simple RPG that a lot of writers want to make more complex for whatever reason; sometimes succeeding at keeping it good, other times not so much.

ICONS is, to me, a great example of how to customize FATE perfectly for a particular genre.

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You aren't kidding. I really want to like Anglerre, but it's just way too much rules info. Trying to read through all the aspects stuff just puts me to sleep.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;460925My 7 and 10 year old girls make ICONS characters for fun.

If you feel like sharing a couple of character sheets that would be cool