First impressions on Fate Core

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by hari

(. . .) Put in terms of Gamist Theory (or whatever it's called), I think Fate is the ultimate for narrativist gamers.

I get your point, but let me say that I'm basically against the GNS theory, which is fallacious to me in too many points and leads to artificial systematization between different role playing games, and by the way, let's not forget that GURPS is extremelly suitable for "narrative games" since it's not only focused into physics, but into a lot of different things like society, mental traits and even religion: different traits, skills, advantages and disadvantages cover a lot of ground, and GURPS characters are much more than just their "physical and mental attributes (IQ) + Basic Lift".

What I mean is that a GURPS character isn't just a "physical entity" (check combat, injury & fatigue rules), but also a psychological entity (look at mental advantages and disadvantages, quirks), a social entity (check the social engineering sourcebook) and even a spiritual entity (power investiture, disciplines of faith, blessed, GURPS Religion) --I mean, it depends on if you want to address these aspects in your games: for instance, some people could claim that GURPS Dungeon Fantasy characters aren't quite psychological nor social entities, albeit the same doesn't apply to GURPS itself which is open to many possibilities.

But don't get me wrong . . . as I said I completely get what you mean by mentioning that about Fate and the narrativist approach :) and to me it's clear that GURPS and Fate have very different dynamics.

Originally Posted by hari

(. . .) Another thing I've wanted to do is to level the playing field on weapons, making the differences between them only differences in flavor, thereby encouraging people to use weapons they think are cool over weapons that are most effective.

I agree with this. Also, besides letting you to "follow the flavor path", Fate encourages using "your own sense or realism" (p.210), which many times is a good/better approach, specially after we being GURPS game masters with an understanding on how weapons and armors "should work". Whichever is more convincing and exciting to you and your players, I guess.

Also, in the Fate Extras Chapter (p.291) there is a "cool" boxed text with guidelines about Weapons and Aspects in line with what you are saying here, which I like very much (it is: "A Last Note on Weapons and Armor"), only that few days ago they released a new revision of this particular chapter and now I'm not sure if they are going to include such boxed text anymore. I'd like to see it there in the final version, but who knows.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by hari

Put in terms of Gamist Theory (or whatever it's called), I think Fate is the ultimate for narrativist gamers.

My experience is that it is actually adapted for Gamist players, in that it reduces all the things that Narrativists like to do by narrative feel to the management of tokens. It is a gamist game designed to gamise narration the way typical gamist games gamise simulation.

[hari]

I personally prefer aspects over disadvantages as a way of modelling mental problems (or other disadvantages or whatever). Disadvantages are a one time bonus that then have to be remembered. Negative aspects continue to help players, and continue to come into play naturally, so the players can get fate points back. That, and it makes sense from a storytelling perspective. Luck goes up, luck goes down.

Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned that whole GNS theory thing. Whatever. I should just say that I like the way that Fate puts a lot more power in the players hands, has system elements in place to constantly encourage everyone to turn the game into one big exercise in storytelling, and even has a little crunch to help the GM make sense of changes in the over all story and world.

[hari]

As for weapons, I really shouldn't be talking too much about it as I still haven't looked into it all that much. I just realized that it would be really easy to make all weapons essentially the same crunch wise.

[PK]

Originally Posted by Brett

My experience is that it is actually adapted for Gamist players, in that it reduces all the things that Narrativists like to do by narrative feel to the management of tokens. It is a gamist game designed to gamise narration the way typical gamist games gamise simulation.

Excellent summation. It's a weird system in how it turns things that are normally narrated into an actual game-mechanical effect. It's actually weird (but not in a bad way) how much the system focuses on game mechanics, in its attempt to give the players almost as much control over the game as the GM.

I'm looking forward to running this Burn Notice game -- I just need to make the players "unlearn" some of the things they're used to from playing Dresden Files (which uses the older edition of Fate).

[thudthwacker]

Originally Posted by PK

I'm looking forward to running this Burn Notice game -- I just need to make the players "unlearn" some of the things they're used to from playing Dresden Files (which uses the older edition of Fate).

I really like your Burn Notice additions -- especially the Body Count rules. Makes for a really great complication in the planning/execution of *any* mission. Winning isn't enough -- you need to win *and* you need to expend a lot of effort *hiding* that win from anyone who might take an (unfortunate) interest.

[Vaevictis Asmadi]

I played Tekumel with a version of Fate this February at a convention -- I think Fate 2?

I found it very different from any game I've played before and for me that was awkward. I think the concept of Fate points and Aspects is awesome, but my play experience with the system was negative.

I don't think I can fairly say I dislike the system from playing it just once, but I consistently felt like the system enforced character incompetence at everything. A character is only allowed to have a decent skill level at one single ability, and pretty much sucks at everything else. For our game we had one 4, two 3, three 2, and four 1 abilities, and only with the top ability could I succeed on more than half of rolls without throwing 2-3 Fate points on a single roll. It was very frustrating.

Other players did tell the GM afterwards that they felt like every NPC in the game was more powerful than every PC, so maybe it was just that GM, but to me it felt like I was playing a 50-point character in a game world designed to require 150-point characters (in GURPS terms). I spent a great deal of time standing around waiting for stuff to happen, hoping for an opportunity to do something easily, since nearly every roll felt penalized.

I also found the Fate points to be of less help than I had expected. Spending just one seemed to have little effect.

But this may just be me. Fate is an extremely different style of game from anything I've played before, and I may have been approaching it all wrong. Or I'm just too literal-minded for this system. Or the GM was way too punitive. (I don't want to think it's because I'm a power gamer or poor sport.)

I think the Ability pyramid is a bad idea, though. Only letting a character be good at one single thing isn't great for building a well-rounded character, even if you do get 5 Aspects on top. I don't like that social position, basic world-knowledge, everything has to be an ability. This wouldn't be such a problem if the difference between ability ranks wasn't so large.

(For my character, supposedly a sorcerer-mage, I think sword/fight/attack was my 4. Everything else, including basic stuff like "I am a member of X clan", "I am a sorcerer", "I am a priest of X god" was barely usable.)


However, I am interested in this system, and I really want to know whether my experience was due to the system or the GM or my playing. Can anyone more familiar with the system weigh in on what I'm describing here?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

I don't think I can fairly say I dislike the system from playing it just once, but I consistently felt like the system enforced character incompetence at everything. A character is only allowed to have a decent skill level at one single ability, and pretty much sucks at everything else. For our game we had one 4, two 3, three 2, and four 1 abilities, and only with the top ability could I succeed on more than half of rolls without throwing 2-3 Fate points on a single roll. It was very frustrating.

Sounds like the GM was setting task difficulties too high, and also making your characters low powered (the normal pyramid starts at 5, not 4). In general a +1 is supposed to be routine competence and +2 is decently skilled. Fate has a bit of an issue with difficulty escalation, which I'd probably house rule if I were running the game (I'd probably change it from 'a fate point gives +1 to a roll, tagging an aspect gives +2' to 'a fate point increases a - to a 0, or a 0 to a +, tagging an aspect changes a die to a +'), but someone with a 4/3,3/2,2,2/1,1,1,1 pyramid shouldn't feel incompetent.

[PK]

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

I consistently felt like the system enforced character incompetence at everything. A character is only allowed to have a decent skill level at one single ability, and pretty much sucks at everything else. For our game we had one 4, two 3, three 2, and four 1 abilities, and only with the top ability could I succeed on more than half of rolls without throwing 2-3 Fate points on a single roll. It was very frustrating.

Oh geez. Okay, that isn't the system, that's your GM, because that's the exact opposite of how Fate Core is supposed to run (and how it's been, in my experience).

That +4 skill (your "key skill") is supposed to make you awesome at what you do. The +2 and +3 ones are supposed to be the stuff you're "merely" really good at. And the +1s are your backup skills. Even the skills you don't have (your +0 ones) don't suffer special penalties, so you should be able to succeed with them about 1/3 of the time for modest tasks -- just not for genuinely challenging ones.

Most difficulties should be in the +1 to +2 range. So if you have a skill at +2 or +3, you'll be succeeding most of the time. Your +4 skill should be able to Succeed With Style at most casual challenges. These difficulties ramp up for serious fights at the end, but that's when you're expected to blow fate points and create lots of advantages so you can stack those +2s.

I also found the Fate points to be of less help than I had expected. Spending just one seemed to have little effect.

When you're up against a difficulty of +1 or +2, an extra +2 is huge. But if your GM is giving you routine difficulties of +4 or +5, I can see why that +2 would seem weak. Again, it sounds like your GM needs to reread the rules and guidelines for opposition.

[Vaevictis Asmadi]

Well I'm relieved to know it wasn't inherent to the system, or me playing badly.

Also, off-topic: RPK isn't RPK anymore!? My world is caving in.