How to give fatigue points more meaning?

[tanksoldier]

. but if you have that then your 6 hours a night 'adventure' schedule isn't going to do anything at all to make FP a concern.

.. and if you’re a robot no sleep at all is ok. What’s your point?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by tanksoldier

.. and if you’re a robot no sleep at all is ok. What’s your point?

That the same person is advancing 'PCs should be short on sleep, and thus on FP' and 'PCs can easily buy an Advantage that prevents them from being short on sleep', at the same time.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Something like 10-15% of the population have at least two levels of Less Sleep.

And probably that many need more sleep. Most of my life I was a "long sleeper". Subsisting on just eight hours meant noticeable problems for me.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

And probably that many need more sleep.

Likely, as it's a bell curve. But the studies I was looking at were just measuring cognitive impairment due to sleep less than 8 hours, and didn't present results on the higher range. One level would be even more common (which is why you often see the range cited as "7-9 hours", rather than "8 hours").

The point was merely that regularly getting by on 6 hours isn't an especially rare ability, much less cinematic. Just about anyone should know at least one person that can do just fine that way.

Another interesting point from the study was that people that think they aren't impaired, and who don't feel tired, often actually are. You can't always tell when you're suffering from missed sleep.

[AlexanderHowl]

But lost sleep is just one FP hazard. In general, we assume that PCs make up any deficits between adventures and during downtimes. It is up to the GM to pace the game so that FP budgeting means something.

In many of my games, characters do not get a full eight hours and run two hours short every day of the mission. The characters who purchase Less Sleep have an edge during the missions, which is why most players tend to purchase two levels of Less Sleep after character creation. That does not prevent them from losing FP to other hazards, but it does reduce the inconvenience of being on watch.

I think that a lot of groups tend to ignore the FP rules because of the paperwork, but it is appropriate for low fantasy or borderline realistic games because it makes things gritty without massive casualties. When you ask the watch rotation for a five person group, it really does matter who is on watch and their current FP. I have often had teams robbed when one of their members fell asleep on watch, which allows for further adventures.

[johndallman]

I'm finding I need to buy it for a junior engineering officer in a space navy game. In a day, you're on watch for eight hours, need four hours for meals, hygiene and minimal socialising, and a few hours for study. When you're also trying to invent a new piece of equipment, even one hour's less sleep a day becomes valuable.

[Kelly Pedersen]

I asked Kromm about the effects of low FP on encumbrance - I figured I'd post his reply here, for extra clarity.

Originally Posted by Kromm

No, in accord with "This does not affect ST-based quantities, such as HP and damage." The idea is to avoid the annoying recalculation of values that depend on the character and their gear, whether that's direct (ST affects damage affects sword damage) or indirect (ST affects BL, which is matched to encumbrance and modifies Dodge and Move). At half ST, you're just less likely to resist knockback, win Contests involving ST, and otherwise do well with things that use the ST score itself rather than something figured from it. The encumbrance effects are fudged into the associated halving of Move and Dodge.

Afflictions are intended to serve some purpose in combat – so yes, those do affect damage and BL, as annoying as that can get. That's more or less what Temporary Attribute Penalties (p. B421) is getting at. Neither damage nor BL is a true secondary characteristic, so neither is exempt from an Affliction. Ruling otherwise would render weakness-producing effects in combat more-or-less meaningless.

Just remember that "injury" (lost HP), "fatigue" (lost FP), and "afflictions" (direct ill effects, including attribute reductions) are three different categories of things. No one includes the others. Thus, it's possible for these to work differently without being grossly inconsistent.

So, the tl;dr version, I was wrong about low FP affecting your encumbrance - that effect is basically already factored into the reduced Move and Dodge, and recalculating it in play is too much of a hassle.

However, encumbrance generally doesn't count as a "derived value" of ST, and reducing ST in other ways (like Afflicting a ST penalty) does have the logical consequences of making stuff the target is carrying more encumbering.

[Flyndaran]

Even when I'm nearly falling over from lack of sleep or fatigue, I can still carry nearly my normal weight. Nowhere near 50% loss of strength. So I wouldn't say avoiding such a recalculation is just for ease of play.

[AlexanderHowl]

BL is a ST-based quality, and ST-based qualities are specifically not impacted by low FP. Since BL is a quadratic expression of ST, halving ST would would quarter BL, which would mean that a character with medium encumbrance would immediately be above Extra-Heavy Encumbrance. Since real soldiers march at a set pace until they collapse from exhaustion, quartering BL due to low FP would be an unrealistic rule.

[Tomsdad]

It effects Knock back?

(In reference to Kromm's response)