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Old 07-23-2015, 01:55 PM   #11
vicky_molokh
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Default Re: FATE RPG: Impressions, analysis, merits and flaws thereof etc.

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Mostly the former. It's not per se wrong that multiple aspects can be applied to the same roll, but having full effect for each of them gets silly fast.
OTOH, IIRC it's the way to go if one wants to booby-trap a building and destroy an enemy in a single big boom, right? And skill is damage, so getting in excess of a +10 success is needed to do enough damage to guarantee it, right?
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Old 07-23-2015, 02:33 PM   #12
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Default Re: FATE RPG: Impressions, analysis, merits and flaws thereof etc.

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OTOH, IIRC it's the way to go if one wants to booby-trap a building and destroy an enemy in a single big boom, right? And skill is damage, so getting in excess of a +10 success is needed to do enough damage to guarantee it, right?
Nah, one-shotting someone requires beating their defense by 15+ (they take three consequences for -2, -4, and -6, and they have stress as well; only if all of those things run out are they actually Out). However, there's no real reason for it to be possible for major characters (3 consequences) to be one-shotted without them choosing to accept it.
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Old 07-23-2015, 02:46 PM   #13
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Default Re: FATE RPG: Impressions, analysis, merits and flaws thereof etc.

I heard lots of good word about Fate, so got Fate Core, the toolkit, a number of different works based on it, and decided I'd give running it a shot.

I knew up front that it was fiddlier than I liked--it has more for me to track during play than I typically do with Savage Worlds for example, what with players constantly creating new temporary aspects or boosts. Plus there's the fact that each player has five aspects on top of their skills.

I knew that the Fate point economy might annoy me, because I have issues with the fact that something that is supposedly "always true" is only true to the point that it gives no bonuses what-so-ever unless you spend a Fate point to invoke it.

What I found, instead, is that in actual play I really rather hated it. The Fate point economy was totally frustrating, as players couldn't play to their strengths without Fate points, and instead were constantly going "what can I do to screw things up so I can get a Fate point."

Tracking all the constantly changing temporary aspects and various consequences was a giant pain in the butt. In my normal GMing, I just allow situations to develop, and if a player can figure out a way to use it to his advantage, I allow it, with some bonus. I don't require meta-currency to do it, just ingenuity. Fate requires both, and the constant need to generate Fate points became a nuisance. Not to mention the constant need to "authorize" the use of their own aspects with Fate points.

It's clear that most of my players and I don't have the right mindset for Fate. I'm thinking I may still try running some more of that campaign, to see if more time helps smooth out the "I'm out of Fate points, what can I screw up?" nature of things.

What I did not mind at all, was the players working together to stack free invokes of created aspects to get big results on actions against opponents. I'd not seen so much cooperation between my players in any other game, so that was really great.

So, there's my thinking on it. I think if players aren't already of the type that will self-promote their negative aspects to gain Fate points, it's going to be a real stumbling block for them.

Oh, also: the constant brain churn for the GM trying to think of how to let people "fail forward" or how they can "succeed at a cost," oh my, that's not easy for me either. And all the collaboration and getting group consensus, another issue for my group, which often disagrees even about what their larger scale goals even are.
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Old 07-23-2015, 04:01 PM   #14
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Default Re: FATE RPG: Impressions, analysis, merits and flaws thereof etc.

I really enjoy FATE, but in my experience it requires a lot more cohesion among the gaming group than many groups actually have. When everyone sits down and makes characters and chooses Aspects together and that largely defines what the game will be about and contain - the absence of a player can send things off the rails pretty easily. Adding a new player to an existing campaign is HARD, because it will likely require small adjustments to EVERY character (and reciprocally, the new player may be unprepared for the amount of say existing players require in her or his character design). Player versus player in FATE...tends to go extremely badly for everyone. FATE makes a great game for good players, far more collaborative than other systems...but I couldn't run it with my existing troupe, because several of them have too erratic a work schedule. My existing troupe also enjoys a bit of pvp now and then, and different enough interests that our gaming choices involve diplomacy and compromise. In my experience, gamers who grew up on Dungeons and Dragons, then came through White Wolf and Hero and GURPS really aren't used to the level of cooperation necessary to make FATE work.
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Old 07-23-2015, 04:05 PM   #15
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Default Re: FATE RPG: Impressions, analysis, merits and flaws thereof etc.

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I really enjoy FATE, but in my experience it requires a lot more cohesion among the gaming group than many groups actually have.
But you know, a lot of the gaming groups I put together are that cohesive already, without the special mechanics to support it, necessarily. The players in my Buffyverse campaign made very effective use of the drama points system, but I'm getting just as good cohesion in my current GURPS campaign, which doesn't really use the cinematic stuff at all.
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Old 07-24-2015, 04:48 AM   #16
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Default Re: FATE RPG: Impressions, analysis, merits and flaws thereof etc.

I'm a huge fan of Fate, initially because I've had nothing but good times in convention games using it, then later because they keep aggressively producing great-looking physical book after book for my shelves, and lastly because Evil Hat is one of the very, very few companies that seems to take customer service as seriously as SJG does.

I've come to realize, though, that I'm much more of a fan of the philosophy of the game than the actual mechanics as presented. I do like the dice mechanics and aspects, but everything else seems unnecessarily fiddly, and (as mentioned upthread) I particularly dislike the constant back and forth of the Fate Point economy (which, I know, is what many others actually like about it).

I've incorporated some of the Fate style into my games by putting a little more emphasis on story, encouraging party cohesion, streamlining combat to be a bit more 'fuzzy', etc. But those are all things I've always been able to do with GURPS anyway, so for me reading Fate books and playing Fate convention games is just a way to get enthused for the GURPS I run.

The only exception might be using tokens (glass beads) for "Story Points," but that's really just giving a physical representation to mechanics that have always been there.

In my local experience, the release of Fate and all the fun games it's brought to our community has been extremely positive, but for me personally it's more about the "vibe" than the game itself.

(Not trying to turn this thread back into a system comparison, GURPS is just the game that I run). I've talked a bit about how I've incorporated the Fate mojo into our home games elsewhere:

GURPS and Fate: Two Sides of the Same Coin
Fate Points in GURPS
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Old 07-25-2015, 11:29 AM   #17
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Default Re: FATE RPG: Impressions, analysis, merits and flaws thereof etc.

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I knew that the Fate point economy might annoy me, because I have issues with the fact that something that is supposedly "always true" is only true to the point that it gives no bonuses what-so-ever unless you spend a Fate point to invoke it.
I haven't played Fate yet, but I am with you on this. For readers that might not know what we are talking about: many things are modeled in Fate by a class of traits called Aspects (character traits, but also properties of the physical setting or anything else). Someone can spend fate points to invoke that Aspect to their advantage (the get +2 on their roll), or can gain fate points for having the aspect compelled against them (something bad happens to them). Otherwise, the aspect has no mechanical effect. Sure, the property is there: if a book is On Fire!, you cannot hold it in your hand. But if no one is exchanging fate points, this fact has no mechanical effect.

I find the whole fate points economy interesting, and I can live with the "meta" aspect that goes with it (for instance, the fact that it is players, not characters, that invoke or compel an aspect). But this complete relativization of mechanics to the narrative currency feels strange. It makes sense in the context of the system, but I am less than comfortable with it.
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Old 07-26-2015, 01:27 AM   #18
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Default Re: FATE RPG: Impressions, analysis, merits and flaws thereof etc.

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Originally Posted by kracht View Post
I find the whole fate points economy interesting, and I can live with the "meta" aspect that goes with it (for instance, the fact that it is players, not characters, that invoke or compel an aspect). But this complete relativization of mechanics to the narrative currency feels strange. It makes sense in the context of the system, but I am less than comfortable with it.
Regarding the Fate Point Economy:
I personally don't find it too mind-screwy as a concept on its own - I've seen it done in Warhammer, GURPS, WoD etc. to some extent.
My first concern about the FP Economy is that the less system-oriented players will find it confusing and/or difficult to manage. It's a bit paradoxical that a lighter system like FATE can be a greater difficulty in play than GURPS, but that's mostly because in GURPS stuff 'just works', and most PC actions map to player choices directly.

Of all things FP-Economic, the Conceding mechanic is weirdest for me. Anyone willing to share comments, thoughts and experiences regarding it?
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Old 07-26-2015, 07:43 AM   #19
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Default Re: FATE RPG: Impressions, analysis, merits and flaws thereof etc.

Fate points are a narrative control currency spent by players, in contrast to a kind of power pool for the characters employed by the characters themselves (like FP or ER). Their purpose is to allocate spotlight time and allow a group to share the author control that normally belongs to just one person.

Spending Fate points isn't a matter of making aspects true or not true (Armin's complaint, and kracht's); that's a simulationist view, as though Fate points were mana points the characters use to cast spells. But Fate is narrative. Fate points don't make things true or untrue in the world; that'st he simulationist concern. They make aspects relevant or irrelevant to the story at hand. Players get rewarded, with more success in scenes and more Fate points, for creating aspects which other people in the group find interesting and relevant, and using them in entertaining ways.

With that mindset, I see conceding as a way to encourage the common dramatic structure where the heroes fail a few times before getting it all together for the climactic fight against the Big Bad. The post-hack-n-slash tradition of attachment to lovingly detailed characters has brought with it a notion that PCs don't die, that they always win. Losing a fight is uncommon; "success at a cost" instead of failure is a slogan. It's hard to lose this subconcious feel that the PCs are always victorious, unless you really do play a death-is-cheap game (in which case you tend to lose the character backgrounds and attachments, and turn the toons back into expendable wargame counters).

Conceding rewards players that agree to a more dramatic arc including early reversals by bribing them with Fate points, while also shielding them from the most harsh consequences to their characters for losing. It's not going to be that bad. Players that concede get more Fate points, which means they're going to shine even more, later, and have the ability to make a comeback from their temporary setback.

The mechanism also helps ensure a measure of character success and the appearance of having power to influence the world. I'm sure everyone's had the experience of die rolls letting them or their party down at a crucial moment, making the characters seem like incompetent boobs rather than heroes. Failing due to Concession at least gives you some recompense. Your karma -- or should I say fate? -- will reward you for that earlier setback.

And at its simplest, Conceding is simply a survival clause. Everyone's probably also had the experience where a fight goes badly or the GM miscalculated, and it turns into a TPK. Sometimes players will fight to the death anyway, but often enough they manage to conceive of surrender as an option, whereupon the GM improvises something along the lines of having them taken prisoner and then tries to think up a continuation of the story (arrange an escape, sell the PCs as gladitorial slaves, etc) The Concession mechanic can be seen as a formalization of this mechanism. The TPK is an important inflection point in the story, and since Fate is a narrative system, arbitrating of how the story bends at that point is part of the game mechanics.
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Old 07-26-2015, 07:57 AM   #20
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Default Re: FATE RPG: Impressions, analysis, merits and flaws thereof etc.

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a lighter system like FATE
I think this is an oft-repeated selling point that doesn't bear up under scrutiny. It would appear to me that both the players AND the GM are going to constantly be putting down and using situational aspects on the table - which means they have to be invented on the spot. Fate Core might be light - and it is crunch-light - but it also looks to the GM and players to do a lot of work via the Fate System Toolkit if they want to get the most out of a campaign. I believe Kromm has played/plays in a Fate campaign, and his comment in my interview with him a few years back was that Fate is quite a handful:

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So that's the big advantage there. Then you get this small thing like FATE which is the other system I know about. I'd say "FATE" actually has about as much complexity as GURPS. A lot of people would argue with me on that. But I don't think I would step back from that argument, I don't think I would step down. Because there’s a surprising amount of stuff you have to pick at "FATE." And those traits fall into a surprising number of bins.

Yeah, it's true, there's not necessarily a set of campaigns. There's not necessarily attributes. There's not necessarily this interdependence of scores on other scores.

But there are all these different types of things. Each one is a different dramatic role. There's quite a few possibilities in cases where some of them are completely player defined. GURPS has some player defined abilities but they fall into narrower boxes. Not so like "FATE." "FATE" you can literally define something, you create out of the blue, whole cloth. You have to debate with the GM what it does, what it's capable of doing.

FATE also does not have the Pathfinder-style ability to let you just jump in and know what's going on. Again, like GURPS you have to set up a campaign, decide what your genre and expectations are, what's going to be on the skill list. What kinds of things you want people to have, how many Stunts you want people to have, or whatever. There's that.

FATE is strong in the sense that it's branded for dramatic play. Which for an awful lot of players is much more important than mechanistic play. GURPS is very mechanistic, it's very realism‑based. It may not be a realistic game, you finally throw in the superheroes, and the talking snake‑man, and the telepathic powers. But initially it's based on realistic roots.

FATE doesn't come from there. FATE comes from dramatically appropriate roots which is a very different origin. Players who are very quantitative thinkers, very interested in the realism, the real world, these people love GURPS. They don't necessarily like FATE and vice versa.

People who like drama, who very much want their game to be like what they saw on the screen or in their book, are not going to like very much a system which restricts them based on what's physically plausible, as opposed to what's dramatically plausible. FATE does that much better.
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