Intentionally giving people metagame abilities.

[Username17]

All Oberoni Fallacying aside, the fact is that Fate games fall apart all the time, even if yours in particular don't. And the failure points they run into are interesting, not just from a theoretical standpoint but from a practical one as well.

Here are the failure points in Fate that I have identified/heard of/seen:

• Attention Whores - since one player gets the benefit (Fate Points) for their character screwing up, you can get into a lock down situation where an attention whore player ends up collecting an ass tonne of Fate Points for getting the whole team captured and then everyone has to sit down and wait for that player to get around to rescuing them again because they are the only player with enough Fate Points to do that.
• Wall Flowers - if you don't speak up, you don't tend to get Fate points. Which means it's hard to spend them too. While the incentives run towards getting really involved, some players genuinely need turns and explicit options/powers to get them to do that. Those players will not have fun playing Fate or anything like it.
• Favoritism - like all rules light games, the difference in effectiveness between a player whose ideas get approved and a player whose ideas do not is night and day. Favoritism is always a problem in every game, but in games with less hard and fast success benchmarks, the effects are magnified.

Those things really can just tear the game in half, because it is explicitly not resilient to those kinds of strains.

And tactically, the game's handling of tactical situations is bad. Darkness, cover, treacherous footing... the Fate economy does not handle those things well. Period. If you are looking for a robust and interesting tactical game, Fate is not that game and you should keep looking. It is also not good for "serious" stories. People recharge their primary in-game resource through self deprecating low comedy. If the mood you are looking for is "grim horror" or "tense excitement" then Fate is not that game. It can do Indiana Jones because comic pratfalls can and should happen at any time. But it's not good for Noire because comic pratfalls will happen at any time, and that seriously ruins Sam Spade's idiom.

That being said, Fate handles some things very well:

• The Newbie - The game is very abstract, and the answer to "does this work?" is almost always "yes." This means that the uncertain player sitting down at the table who hasn't read the rules and maybe hasn't played an RPG before can get right in and have a great time. They can move the story forward and save the day - all without really knowing what the available abilities are or do.
  
  The Drama Queen - You know the guy, he insists on making a character who has some bizarre flaw and doesn't have any of the "typical" abilities of characters in his nominal role. It's more "dramatic" or some shit. And in most games, this guy comes off as an asshole millstone around the neck of the rest of the party. But in Fate, having a bunch of bizarre traits and even strictly negative traits is totally fine. The Fate economy ensures that your ability to accomplish things is in now way ultimately impeded by having a bunch of negative or off-the-wall traits.
  
  The Rules Encyclopedia - The player who has read the entire game and all the supplements three times through has basically no advantage, since the ability activations are off-the-cuff and the available options are free form. This means that veterans don't feel obligated to puppet other players through chargen and don't necessarily dominate the action.

Those are all things to be proud of. And Fate is definitely a technological advance in gaming. But it's not a panacea. I won't hold my breath until it generates a tactical minigame that is interesting and robust, because that will likely never happen. I wouldn't seriously consider it as an engine to go fight trolls in caves and forests with. But I would strongly consider it as the engine for a Wild West game.

-Username17

[angelfromanotherpin]

Frank, I'm curious, why would you go to Fate for Wild West adventure?

My experience of FAT3 is that its action sequences are both long and boring. A PC-level character seriously requires approximately seven (and absolutely no fewer than four) successful attacks to bring them down, and virtually none of a beating sticks between fights. The result is a hideous padded sumo, which combines with the minimal tactical considerations to produce prolonged scenes which have to be carried entirely by player-generated cool descriptions, because the mechanics sabotage any sense of dramatic tension.

The combat system seems designed to not have classic quick-draw showdowns between named characters be possible, and deeply undercuts the genre advantage of getting the drop on someone.

[Josh_Kablack]

Likewise, the FATE cheese Frank suggests, while obvious, does not actually occur, or occur very much. Instead, players use the mechanics for their intended purpose, which is make story happen.

If I was going to read your response, I would ask you what in particular is so special about FATE in that regards? Is there a particular clarity of writing that makes intent clearer than other games? Does it include useful advice about game group composition that makes people more likely to participate in interactive storytelling than in-game reenactment of out of character differences?

[TheWorid]

Where do FATE points come from? Well, suppose that earlier, Gnick and company attended a seance hosted by Madam Bealowsky. In order to advance the exposition, the referee may decide that Gnick" is "just psychic enough" to channel the spirit of the recently deceased "Maureen DuBois." The referee pays Gnick's player a FATE point, and takes control Gnick for purposes of exposition.

When did giving up character agency become a good thing, ever?

Aspects also allow for a fast, elegant game that does not require long enormous enumerations of conditions and penalties. Scenes can have Aspects like Dark, or On Fire, goons may be Over-confident, or Fed Up With The Boss, and the exact game mechanical consequence is defined collaboratively, in game, by players willing to spend FATE on a specific consequence.]

Aspects also create the insane situation wherein darkness isn't dark if you don't spend points to make it so. And where studying for a test is a worse idea than partying the night before, because you just got a FATE point for compelling your Drunken Idiot aspect.

Rather than minimizing the effect of metagaming as most games try (and generally fail) to do, FATE enshrines metagaming as the highest good by forcing pretty much everything to loop back to the FATE point economy. That's not even getting into how FATE books are bricks, and contain unusual juxtaposition of simplistic rules (great swathes of the books could be replaced with "just wing it") and complex ones (such as the stunt system) that prevent them from being, as SotC says, "Pickup" games.

FATE has some good ideas in it, but no amount of shilling is going to make it as good as you say it is.

[Mask_De_H]

Man, this thread is like having the girl of your dreams fart in your face: a sobering reminder that nothing is perfect.

I agree with TheWorld and Frank; there are a lot of things FATE just doesn't do well. As a counterpoint though, in examples certain scene Aspects like "Darkness" are constantly tagged/invoked for bonuses or penalties. Giving heavy aspects like that scene Stunts would probably go a ways to getting a more tactically heavy game. Also, the pratfalls necessary to generate Fate points are mutable; Diaspora tends to favor giving out Compels only for abject, non-comedic failure.

@Angel: Were you playing with pre-errata SotC? Because yeah, they cocked up the Wound box system hardcore there. Later games follow the "fill in up to the wound number" system, making fights end in a few rounds at best unless either party is fighting to full consequences.

There is no good damn reason for FATE books to be as large as they are though. 386 pages precludes you from being a rules-light system. Speaking of which: FATE 3.0 doesn't seem to know whether it wants to be crunchy or not. The basic mechanics encourage winging it and narrative causality winning the day, then they give you a bunch of premade Stunts and oddly granular skills; not to mention the disconnect between "I can disguise myself as an NPC" and "I get +2 when I'm researching yer mum".

[Username17]

Frank, I'm curious, why would you go to Fate for Wild West adventure?

In a Wild West adventure, battles are pretty much declared actions that are then done with rather than tactical affairs. So I would then simply do them that way. Fate3's action resolution system is functional and I would feel fine in replacing entire "battles" with exactly that. You'd declare your intention to have and win the gunfight, and then you'd spend Fate Points and roll the dice and move on with your life.

Because yeah, actually doing Fate3 Combats is only slightly more entertaining than snorting lines of table salt. I don't want to do it.

But Fate3 does have genuine mechanics that encourage people to get involved and move the story forward. That's important and interesting - and quite valuable in a Western where players can too easily find themselves sidelined and listless.

There is no good damn reason for FATE books to be as large as they are though.

Word. The crunchier Fate games try to be, the shittier they get. After hacking my way through Dresden Files, the first words out of my mouth were "What the Fuck?!" There is nothing they had to say that they couldn't have said in 50 pages. To the extent that there were crunchy bits at all, that was actually a bad thing. The entire refresh economy was bad for the game, hands down. Four hundred and two pages. Why?

-Username17

[Orion]

World, what do you have against the GM using the PC for exposition?

I mean, in the game I'm currently running, I *wrote* several of the PCs, because the characters weren't sure what they wanted to do and I wanted the PCs to share a backstory.

[Orion]

World, what do you have against the GM using the PC for exposition?

I mean, in the game I'm currently running, I *wrote* several of the PCs, because the characters weren't sure what they wanted to do and I wanted the PCs to share a backstory.

[TheWorid]

World, what do you have against the GM using the PC for exposition?

I mean, in the game I'm currently running, I *wrote* several of the PCs, because the characters weren't sure what they wanted to do and I wanted the PCs to share a backstory.

Using PCs for exposition isn't inherently bad. However, taking direct control of a PC is something which, while sometimes unavoidable (such as with mind control effects), is to be avoided whenever possible because a player's character is their one point of contact with the game world. Without that interface, they're not playing a game, they're watching other people play a game.

If you want to have PCs used for exposition, it's probably better to inform the appropriate player "Hey, as a result of your background, you know X" and let them tell the rest, or something along those lines. You can use the method Smeelbo suggested, and it work out fine, but that's a case-by-case basis, depending on how your players feel about temporarily losing control of their characters, not a brilliant technique to be spammed all the time.

Edit: By the way, it's "Worid", not "World". The misspelling is intentional.

[Mask_De_H]

Frank, I'm curious, why would you go to Fate for Wild West adventure?

In a Wild West adventure, battles are pretty much declared actions that are then done with rather than tactical affairs. So I would then simply do them that way. Fate3's action resolution system is functional and I would feel fine in replacing entire "battles" with exactly that. You'd declare your intention to have and win the gunfight, and then you'd spend Fate Points and roll the dice and move on with your life.

Because yeah, actually doing Fate3 Combats is only slightly more entertaining than snorting lines of table salt. I don't want to do it.

But Fate3 does have genuine mechanics that encourage people to get involved and move the story forward. That's important and interesting - and quite valuable in a Western where players can too easily find themselves sidelined and listless.

That's actually a good idea, just making fights into multiple stage opposed tests. You can keep the tracks, just shorten them dramatically and make them hit counters instead of wound counters.

There is no good damn reason for FATE books to be as large as they are though.

Word. The crunchier Fate games try to be, the shittier they get. After hacking my way through Dresden Files, the first words out of my mouth were "What the Fuck?!" There is nothing they had to say that they couldn't have said in 50 pages. To the extent that there were crunchy bits at all, that was actually a bad thing. The entire refresh economy was bad for the game, hands down. Four hundred and two pages. Why?

-Username17

This came up in the Avatar game thread; the entire DFRPG crunch setup outside of how magic worked was a shitload of fuck. And the craziest thing is that it seems to be far and away the most popular one; power of marketing I guess.

[Crissa]

If it were fifty or three hundred pages on adjudications or table examples in story context, sure. But ability tables? What?

-Crissa

[Korwin]

This came up in the Avatar game thread; the entire DFRPG crunch setup outside of how magic worked was a shitload of fuck. And the craziest thing is that it seems to be far and away the most popular one; power of marketing I guess.

More a case of existing fans who buy anything Dresden Files related.

Like me.
I still like it, but I'll use Houserules when I finally begin to play.
(And would like to see the HR of others, so I can steal them)

The other problem with FATE based games, is IMHO availability*.
(For RPG's I want a dead tree book.)

* Can I order it on Amazon Germany

I ordered the Cubicle 7 books (Starblazer, Mindjammer, Legends of Anglerre), but
Diaspora is out of print?
Spirit of the Fist?
Mystic Heros?

[RiotGearEpsilon]

It is also not good for "serious" stories. People recharge their primary in-game resource through self deprecating low comedy. If the mood you are looking for is "grim horror" or "tense excitement" then Fate is not that game. It can do Indiana Jones because comic pratfalls can and should happen at any time. But it's not good for Noire because comic pratfalls will happen at any time, and that seriously ruins Sam Spade's idiom.

-Username17

I think all of your criticisms are extremely accurate except possibly for this one, which is only conditionally accurate.

Let's bust out the Spirit of the Century SRD for reference here:

1.8.2 Earning New Fate Points

Players earn fate points when their aspects create problems for them. When this occurs, it’s said that the aspect compels the character. When the player ends up in a situation where his compelled aspect suggests a problematic course of action, the GM should offer the player a choice: He can spend a fate point to ignore the aspect, or he can act in accordance with the aspect and earn a fate point. Sometimes, the GM may also simply award a fate point to a player without explanation, indicating that an aspect is going to complicate an upcoming situation. Players can refuse that point and spend one of their own to avoid the complication, but it’s not a good idea, as that probably means the GM will use things that aren’t tied to you.

<Example>

This isn’t just the GM’s show; players can trigger compels as well either by explicitly indicating that an aspect may be complicating things, or by playing to their aspects from the get-go and reminding the GM after the fact that they already behaved as if compelled. The GM isn’t always obligated to agree that a compel is appropriate, but it’s important that players participate here. See the Aspects chapter on page XX for a more detailed treatment of compels.

The default way people are going to regain Fate points is with low comedy because that's the easiest way allowed by the rules as written. However, while that's coded in to Spirit of the Century, because that's how most players are going to try to play silly pulp gaming anyway, there's nothing stopping you from saying that silly or out-of-tone compels flat out don't work in a given game. In this way the incentive to move outside the tone of the game is removed.

[cthulhu]

Even then, you can used the ability in question to gain metagame knowledge:

Player: Can I be the noble?
GM: No.
Player: Ah, then he's important. Look out for the noble, guys.

All it does it create headaches for both the GM and the players with little benefit.

Forcing the player to burn the attempt which you can then return when you say know puts an end to this if the number of uses is limited.

[TheFlatline]

The default way people are going to regain Fate points is with low comedy because that's the easiest way allowed by the rules as written. However, while that's coded in to Spirit of the Century, because that's how most players are going to try to play silly pulp gaming anyway, there's nothing stopping you from saying that silly or out-of-tone compels flat out don't work in a given game. In this way the incentive to move outside the tone of the game is removed.

Seems like a solution to this problem would be relatively simple.

Regaining a fate point using an Aspect would require the PC to either further or at least develop the plot/setting. Derailing it by busting out with 3 Stooges in almost any genre would fizzle your attempt.

So in a noir game, having the aspect of, say "alcoholic" might let you activate and go have a kegger and run through the streets naked, but that wouldn't develop the story or the setting at all, and thus the fate point wouldn't be awarded. However, if you activated it and came to the crime scene drunk as a skunk, missing obvious evidence so that another PC or NPC might have to help you, that might develop the "plot". If you come in reeking of bourbon and it pisses off the detective in charge and makes him hostile towards you because he's a prohibitionist, that's developing the setting and would award you with a fate point.

[Mask_De_H]

This came up in the Avatar game thread; the entire DFRPG crunch setup outside of how magic worked was a shitload of fuck. And the craziest thing is that it seems to be far and away the most popular one; power of marketing I guess.

More a case of existing fans who buy anything Dresden Files related.

Like me.
I still like it, but I'll use Houserules when I finally begin to play.
(And would like to see the HR of others, so I can steal them)

The other problem with FATE based games, is IMHO availability*.
(For RPG's I want a dead tree book.)

* Can I order it on Amazon Germany

I ordered the Cubicle 7 books (Starblazer, Mindjammer, Legends of Anglerre), but
Diaspora is out of print?
Spirit of the Fist?
Mystic Heros?

Those last two are homebrew games broseph.

[Smeelbo]

My experience of FAT3 is that its action sequences are both long and boring. A PC-level character seriously requires approximately seven (and absolutely no fewer than four) successful attacks to bring them down, and virtually none of a beating sticks between fights. The result is a hideous padded sumo

Regard "padded sumo" in FATE, as written Spirit of the Century does suffer from this, but FATE has evolved a lot since then. For example, in Diaspora, characters have fewer stress boxes, attacks deal their their shifts in stress, and consequences absorb much less stress. Even so, the majority of opposition is minions, which fold easily, and most non-minion NPCs will concede rather than take a consequence. Few NPCs are the equal of PCs.

If I was going to read your response, I would ask you what in particular is so special about FATE in that regards? Is there a particular clarity of writing that makes intent clearer than other games? Does it include useful advice about game group composition that makes people more likely to participate in interactive storytelling than in-game reenactment of out of character differences?

Look at a copy of Spirit of the Century or StarBlazer Adventures, and you'll find that more than a third of the pages are devoted to specific advice on how to create adventures that engage all the players. The skills and aspects on each character sheet serve to communicate to the referee what kind of scenes they are looking to participate in.

When did giving up character agency become a good thing, ever?

When it's convenient to have a character share knowledge in game, for example. Rather than having the referee tell the player, and have the player tell the rest of the group, why not just do the exposition, and earn a FATE point as a bonus.

Also, in order to make a disadvantageous aspect cost the character. If "Gnick" is a "Sucker for Pretty Face," the referee can pay him a FATE to "compell" him to believe "Poor Nancy" that this is all a horrible mistake. Compells make for more interesting story telling than simple penalties, and when the player wrote "Sucker for a Pretty Face" on their character sheet, they were asking the referee for certain kinds of situations to come up in play.

Aspects also create the insane situation wherein darkness isn't dark if you don't spend points to make it so.

Not quite. First, the idea is that generally, aspects affect all characters equally, unless FATE points are spent. So if everyone is in darkness, the idea is that mostly, it equals out. But second, yes, there are situational modifiers in FATE, including darkness. With Diaspora's table authority, the table can simply agree how darkness affects certain skill checks, or leave it to the use of FATE.

And where studying for a test is a worse idea than partying the night before, because you just got a FATE point for compelling your Drunken Idiot aspect.

On the contrary, he could make a manuever to add an aspect, "Well Prepared For The Test," and get a free tag of the aspect without spending a FATE point.

Just because players can do something stupid or contradictory, doesn't mean that they in practice will. There's a tremendous amount of flexibility in FATE, and the fact that it is trivially abuseable doesn't mean that it's not a useful tool.

There is no good damn reason for FATE books to be as large as they are though. 386 pages precludes you from being a rules-light system.

Sigh, yes, most FATE implementations have been way too long. But I've found in practice that I only need a fraction of the material, the core engine, to make things roll. Diaspora is a much needed cure: very elegant, easy to read, easy to carry (I always carry it in my pack), and a good exposition of the core FATE engine.

In practice, I've found the thick games, Spirit of the Century and Starblazer Adventures, not as bad in practice as their page count would imply. By focusing on the core FATE engine, specificly skills and aspects, I've been able to get a lot of play done. Diaspora does a great job of boiling Stunts down to few types of effects, and that works well in practice. All the FATE games I've played have been very amenable to a brief discussion of aspects, skills, and FATE, along with a couple sample character sheets, followed by character generation and play. I've run it with complete strangers, and complete noobs, and it's only failed me once.

I've not had time to absorb The Dresden Files yet.

However, taking direct control of a PC is something which, while sometimes unavoidable (such as with mind control effects), is to be avoided whenever possible because a player's character is their one point of contact with the game world. Without that interface, they're not playing a game, they're watching other people play a game.

Compells usually are quick one-offs. Usually, a character is compelled not to act ("It couldn't possibly be Nancy"), or to otherwise fail some check. The player chooses their character's aspects, and so should have a pretty good idea what to expect. They are literally asking for it, in fact.

That's actually a good idea, just making fights into multiple stage opposed tests. You can keep the tracks, just shorten them dramatically and make them hit counters instead of wound counters.

This is what Diaspora does, essentially. Disaspora is not out of print, but available on-demand, and supposedly soon through Indie Revolution Press.

Smeelbo

[Korwin]

I ordered the Cubicle 7 books (Starblazer, Mindjammer, Legends of Anglerre), but
Diaspora is out of print?
Spirit of the Fist?
Mystic Heros?

Those last two are homebrew games broseph.

Ups
So what other FATE-Games are available on Amazon? (preferable amazon.de)

Should note, that I dont plan on getting SotC (wrong genre for me), should I reconsider? (I know there is an SRD for it.)

Hmm, should do some research myself...

After a little browsing on drivethrurpg, found:
The Fate of Inglemia - Fate 3.0 Edition
Agents of SWING: Preview/The Art of PAIN
Limitless Horizons

Good or Bad?

[RiotGearEpsilon]

So in a noir game, having the aspect of, say "alcoholic" might let you activate and go have a kegger and run through the streets naked, but that wouldn't develop the story or the setting at all, and thus the fate point wouldn't be awarded. However, if you activated it and came to the crime scene drunk as a skunk, missing obvious evidence so that another PC or NPC might have to help you, that might develop the "plot". If you come in reeking of bourbon and it pisses off the detective in charge and makes him hostile towards you because he's a prohibitionist, that's developing the setting and would award you with a fate point.

Bingo. It's all about lining up the stimulus with the response.

[Mask_De_H]

That's actually a good idea, just making fights into multiple stage opposed tests. You can keep the tracks, just shorten them dramatically and make them hit counters instead of wound counters.

This is what Diaspora does, essentially. Disaspora is not out of print, but available on-demand, and supposedly soon through Indie Revolution Press.

Sorry about that, I didn't explain it better. You're right with the 1/2/4 consequence thing, but what I meant with my hit counter was more like winning rounds in a fighting game or Rock Paper Scissors. Opposed Tests would go First to 2 or 3, and extra Spin would add Aspects to the world or your opponent, so the better you roll, the more narrative causality you get.

I totally agree that, outside of how fiddly Diaspora gets with Skills, it is probably the best version of FATE 3.0 currently conceived.

[Prak]

So, I was thinking gaming stuff while working (I'm a dishwasher... I'll take anything to occupy my mind), and it occurred to me that this could be a handy way to deal with the Foil ability of Tome Fighters. thoughts?

[icyshadowlord]

Sounds like a clever idea, except that you could go into more detail and wait for the smarter people to give their thoughts on this as well
(I'm not up for giving an analysis here since I'm running on four hours of sleep right now...)

[Prak]

Basically, instead of the player having to say how his character foiled the opponent's action, he takes a very small control of the narrative and narrates why the action failed. So it's not always "I throw sand in my opponent's face" or "I punch him in the nose just as he starts casting (and yet deal no damage)" but, rather, can be "The sun was in my opponent's eyes," or "the enemy cleric's faith wavers just a moment, wasting his spell at a critical point."

[RobbyPants]

Basically, instead of the player having to say how his character foiled the opponent's action, he takes a very small control of the narrative and narrates why the action failed. So it's not always "I throw sand in my opponent's face" or "I punch him in the nose just as he starts casting (and yet deal no damage)" but, rather, can be "The sun was in my opponent's eyes," or "the enemy cleric's faith wavers just a moment, wasting his spell at a critical point."

The concept is interesting, but it seems weird that only fighters get that sort of narrative control.

[Kaelik]

Basically, instead of the player having to say how his character foiled the opponent's action, he takes a very small control of the narrative and narrates why the action failed. So it's not always "I throw sand in my opponent's face" or "I punch him in the nose just as he starts casting (and yet deal no damage)" but, rather, can be "The sun was in my opponent's eyes," or "the enemy cleric's faith wavers just a moment, wasting his spell at a critical point."

Fuck you asshole, you don't get to declare that my cleric's faith wavered.