Thanks all. In re the second challenge:
1. most scenes or combats were resolved in a handful of rolls. This felt very unsatisfying;
2. all the rolls seemed very flat. Also, since being cool required a Fate Chip, no one felt very effective (e.g, telepathy guy couldn't forcibly read minds) since people ran out of Fate Chips quickly. Even when they got their fate chip, their +2 felt very flat (also, that was basically the mechanic for everything, nothing felt very flavorful or immersive.

e.g., I want to use my "Strongest Man" aspect to punch him through a wall?
- Spend a Fate Chip to get +2, else for some reason you're not strong in this scene
e.g., I want to use my "Cyclopean Eyes" aspect to drill a hole in that murderous robot
- Spend a Fat Chip to use your eye beams to get a +2 (which feels exactly like the Strongest Man guy), or else for some reason your eye beams aren't very effective in this scene

I'm sure this was just us not playing it right.

The other challenge I had was that if people can spend a Fate Chip to declare anything to be true (rarely happened since people horded their Fate Chip), I'm not a great enough GM to push forward a workable story. The rules as written say limiting declarations is some sort of group consensus, but in this case my vote actually counts a bit more (you'd think) because I'm not good enough to continue to make the story and exciting after the players say "we find all of the villian's plans and weaknesses in this desk drawer." I'm sure YOU can come up with the next great scene on the fly, but I'm not sure I can. I'd love to say "no, that's not possible" but that's violating the rules.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;809196Thanks all. In re the second challenge:
1. most scenes or combats were resolved in a handful of rolls. This felt very unsatisfying;
2. all the rolls seemed very flat. Also, since being cool required a Fate Chip, no one felt very effective (e.g, telepathy guy couldn't forcibly read minds) since people ran out of Fate Chips quickly. Even when they got their fate chip, their +2 felt very flat (also, that was basically the mechanic for everything, nothing felt very flavorful or immersive.

e.g., I want to use my "Strongest Man" aspect to punch him through a wall?
- Spend a Fate Chip to get +2, else for some reason you're not strong in this scene


e.g., I want to use my "Cyclopean Eyes" aspect to drill a hole in that murderous robot
- Spend a Fat Chip to use your eye beams to get a +2 (which feels exactly like the Strongest Man guy), or else for some reason your eye beams aren't very effective in this scene

I'm sure this was just us not playing it right.

First of again the skill mechanics and dice of Fate are bland. High roll wins with a minimum result required, the degree of success determines how effective it is.

As for your specific, yeah you did the Strongest Man and Cyclopean Eyes wrong from a mechanical stand point. The strongest man should have been able to punch through walls with Fight, and the Cyclopean Eyes dude should have been able to do the same with Shoot. This is a benefit of their corresponding aspect which would not been available to a normal fighter or a guy with a gun.

The Fate Point should be for situation above and beyond what even they can could normally do. And for the players to dramatically increase the odds of success in a particular moment in the campaign.

Lets say you have two characters, one is the world's greatest gunfighter, and the other has cyclopean eyes. Both have +4 Shoot Skill. Now the Cyclopean eyes guy has some advantages over the gun fighter and vice versa. But when it comes to target they both can effect they both have exactly the same effect and odds mechanically.

It not so different than from Champions/Hero System or GURPS In Champions a Gun can do a 2d6 Ranged Killing Attack, or Laser Beam eyes can do 2d6 Ranged killing attack. And not every Nth detail is expressed in the power building rules. Some of it will fall back to rulings on what a gun is and what having laser beam eyes mean.

Hero System and Gurps tries to cover as much of the details of a ability it can within the mechanics.

Fate approach is just to define what needed and leave the rest to rulings or narrative description.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;809197The other challenge I had was that if people can spend a Fate Chip to declare anything to be true (rarely happened since people horded their Fate Chip), I'm not a great enough GM to push forward a workable story. The rules as written say limiting declarations is some sort of group consensus, but in this case my vote actually counts a bit more (you'd think) because I'm not good enough to continue to make the story and exciting after the players say "we find all of the villian's plans and weaknesses in this desk drawer." I'm sure YOU can come up with the next great scene on the fly, but I'm not sure I can. I'd love to say "no, that's not possible" but that's violating the rules.

Fuck the rules in this regard. Collaborative world building only works for certain groups at certain times in certain moods. Just resume being a traditional GM and allow the players to suggest details.

And keep in mind that in terms of mechanics Fate Points grant a +2 bonus or a reroll. I know the book is filled with example of players making up shit during the campaign. It up to you how much of that to allow. Just start out running the campaign traditionally and reserve fate points for the bonuses and activating really powerful effects.

This has all been super helpful. I initially received similar advice on the Fate Google+ group, and then it sort of got hostile.

Is there anything wrong with running it as a more traditional game where I get to setup some parameters for the world and veto things (or at least yes-and them). I don't like confrontation at all. When my player says "I'd like to declare that the big bad can easily be resolved with McGuffin X" that I can say No without having to have a consensus discussion even if the only reason I'm saying no (or yes-anding) is because I'm not the best GM in the world and I cant think of a way to make the session work otherwise.

Not specific to Fate, which I've never played or even read, but many game systems have powers that can be abused by wiley players. Such abuse can cause havoc in a game and if you, the GM don't want such havoc it is up to you to stop the abuse. Time travel, precognition, mind reading, mind control are all good examples of easily abused powers. If you don't want a PC to read the villain's mind and learning all his plans, secrets and resources on day one, then disallow that somehow. Make up whatever you need to stop the abuse.

These Fate Points sound abusive to me, particularly if everyone has them. If my players called out that they wanted to find all the secret plans in a desk drawer I'd probably say no. But then again it depends on when in the campaign that happens. On day one? No. Near the end when the plans are already in motion and the PCs need a hint on where to go next? Okay.

It's a matter of live-and-learn. I had a player design a 100 point GURPS character which was ridiculous. He put a bunch of points into Wealth and became the richest guy in the kingdom if not the continent. He then declared that he would spend a fraction of his money on buying a bunch of magical gear, whatever he could find wherever he could find it (this would have been day one of the campaign.) Logically what he attempted to do would work and was permissible. But that would have created havoc in the game and I disallowed it. I heard a story of a Hero Fantasy PC who had a massive amount of Presence. He became a cult priest and could walk into any town and village and win over 90% of the people to his faith, the other 10% were either killed or banished as unbelievers. That sounds pretty abusive to me.

In one game which I ran the PCs were able to wipe out a force of several hundred cavalry troops just because their horses were a little bit faster than what the trooper's had. The PCs had a better bow too so they just kept their distance and mowed down the troops with missile fire. It took a while but they won with no losses. In a convention game I ran the writer let a Wand of Fireballs drop into he PCs hands. When they encountered an army unit of 2000 orcs it was intended for the PCs to stealth around them. Nope. A single character walked up to the orcs with the wand and wiped out the whole unit with no injury to himself.

You gotta be careful about what you include and what you allow.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;809197I'd love to say "no, that's not possible" but that's violating the rules.

The GM vetoing a suggestion is not against the rules.

However, the book says to talk things out and come to a consensus and mutual understanding.  So when you veto something, you could just tell your players why you're vetoing it.

Like: "I have something else planned for that." "That would make things harder for me." "It may be fun for you, but that would hinder my fun." etc.

Get them to understand that suggesting things that blind side you makes things harder and less fun for you.  If they are normal people, that will stop them.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;809196I want to use my "Strongest Man" aspect to punch him through a wall?
- Spend a Fate Chip to get +2, else for some reason you're not strong in this scene

It has already been covered that you were doing this wrong. You don't need to spend Fps to be your Aspects.

Also, the strength level of the "Strongest Man" will vary wildly from campaign to campaign.

In more realistic campaign, the worlds strongest man is a pretty burly weightlifter type, but wouldn't be able to "punch someone through a wall".

In a cinematic campaign like a 90's Schwarzenegger movie, the world's strongest man probably could punch someone through into the next room.

And in a supers campaign, the world's strongest man would be able to punch you "through the Earth".

_________________

Be very careful about allowing a character to have a superlative Aspect like that.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;809197The other challenge I had was that if people can spend a Fate Chip to declare anything to be true (rarely happened since people horded their Fate Chip), I'm not a great enough GM to push forward a workable story. The rules as written say limiting declarations is some sort of group consensus, but in this case my vote actually counts a bit more (you'd think) because I'm not good enough to continue to make the story and exciting after the players say "we find all of the villian's plans and weaknesses in this desk drawer." I'm sure YOU can come up with the next great scene on the fly, but I'm not sure I can. I'd love to say "no, that's not possible" but that's violating the rules.

It's more constrained than you seem to think, and you explicitly have veto as the GM:

Quote from: Fate Core p13You should try to justify your story details by relating them to your aspects. GMs, you have the right to veto any suggestions that seem out of scope or ask the player to revise them, especially if the rest of the group isn't buying into it.

I doubt your players have an aspect such as "Always finds incriminating stuff in desks" or if they do maybe it should have been rejected at character creation or at least planned for!

Keep in mind that these kinds of things should be used to enhance the story, rather than circumvent it. This is one of the features of Fate that some people see as 'story gaming'. The PC obviously wants to go straight to the hidden base and deactivate the doomsday device with the key (and map) he handily found. But as a player this would suck - the game would be over.  So whilst this kind of declaration seems like something a character would want the player shouldn't actually want it or be given it. If you do give them this sort of thing, they will feel fantastic for 5 minutes then sit around for the rest of the session with no adventure to go on!

In terms of more responsive GMing, that is a very useful skill to have when GMing Fate, so you will undoubtedly find that you get better at this as you play more. My advice would be to plan less and endeavour to wing more between key points in the adventure. One of the benefits of Fate is that NPCs and challenges are very quick to whip up once you are comfortable with the system. An NPC might only need one or two defining skills to be useful or they might be a mook  with just a very basic quality rating. A challenge might have a level of competency you need to be achieving to make progress and what is, in effect, a stress track of its own.

One of the useful things about Fate is the expectation that everyone is adding to the narrative all the time. So the effort of creation is not all on you as the GM. If the PCs walk into a room and you basically describe it as an office the players can start to make assumptions (it probably has a desk) and go with that. Or they might ask you if it has a certain feature. E.g. does the phone have last number redial? You can turn those questions back on the player: "you tell me". Let them add a small feature to the scene without spending a Fate point. Just keep in mind (and discuss this explicitly with your players outside of the game) that these details should add colour or complications, not provide instant answers or unreasonable short cuts. Keep in mind your right as the GM to say no to player suggestions.

Just focus on having a good time and going with the flow. Minimise your pre-planning so you don't feel the pressure of keeping to those plans. Use the player's aspect to help shape the adventure and talk with your players about how this is a new type of GMing for you so they work with you rather than inadvertently making your GMing more difficult.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;809234Is there anything wrong with running it as a more traditional game where I get to setup some parameters for the world and veto things (or at least yes-and them). I don't like confrontation at all. When my player says "I'd like to declare that the big bad can easily be resolved with McGuffin X" that I can say No without having to have a consensus discussion even if the only reason I'm saying no (or yes-anding) is because I'm not the best GM in the world and I cant think of a way to make the session work otherwise.

Well there is some amount of being assertive involved. But the least confrontational way of going about it is explain that the point of the campaign is for the players to experience your setting as their characters. That because it like a virtual reality they won't have all the information all the time. That there some amount of trust that you are doing things fairly. So when you say no there is a reason for it as in doesn't exist in the reality of the setting.

With my advice comes some caveats. First off you need to understand that the players are utterly dependent on you about the world they are in. If you don't mention it, it doesn't exist from their point of view. So you got to make sure that anything important they would know or notices get mention.

Outside of personal issues doing the above poorly is one primary cause of campaign failing. The other is that the campaign simply is not interesting.

But done well, the players will trust you as being fair in what you do and don't trust you.

One piece of advice I give on this issues is be generous, everybody including myself generally judges the obviousness of information wrong at first. Sometime you have to kick up up how obvious a piece of information is a level or two before the players get in the way you are expecting.

By expecting, I mean in the way a person would if they were actually in that situation.

This point was hammered into me running multiple boffer LARP events and trying to put out clues for the players to solve.

So you build up the trust in your refereeing which will limit the number of confrontations you will have.

Another tip that goes along with this is be generous about what could be in a site. If a player is looking for a glass of milk either say that the glass of milk is there or assign some generous chances of it being there. Like roll a -1 or higher on the Fate dice.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;809196e.g., I want to use my "Strongest Man" aspect to punch him through a wall?
- Spend a Fate Chip to get +2, else for some reason you're not strong in this scene
e.g., I want to use my "Cyclopean Eyes" aspect to drill a hole in that murderous robot
- Spend a Fat Chip to use your eye beams to get a +2 (which feels exactly like the Strongest Man guy), or else for some reason your eye beams aren't very effective in this scene

One thing I'd bring up is the difference between "not being strong" and not succeeding.

If they have the Aspect "Strongest Man" and they are rolling, there are several options:
1) They roll without spending and fail
2) They roll without spending and succeed
3) They spend a FP and fail
4) They spend a FP and succeed

In every case here, the character should come across as very strong. The difference is in what happens.

There are lots of reasons why someone can both be strong, and also not succeed. For example, they try to force a door, and the door handle tears off in their hands. Or they try to throw a pack of equipment over a wall, and it goes past the grounds and through a window into the building.

It should also be noted that 'Strongest Man' has a problem in that it attempts to make an end run around an existing quality, Physique (I think).

Aspects should either focus or flavor existing stuff, or talk about stuff outside existing skills.


(Note that I'm not a Fate expert or anything, so sprinkle sodium liberally)

Quote from: Will;809365It should also be noted that 'Strongest Man' has a problem in that it attempts to make an end run around an existing quality, Physique (I think).

My take (and there are many takes) is that a character with "The Strongest Man" and a low Physique would mean that they are strong but not good at SOLVING PROBLEMS with their strength.

If they try to break down the kind of door that the GM determines they need to roll for, the handle might break off in their hand, or whatever.

Although I would try to steer a player away from things like that for no other reason than because I don't want to have to keep trying to interpret it all the time.

There are lots of people who claim to be the world's strongest man, but that doesn't make it so! The important thing is - what does the player see this as, and what does the GM (or group) see it as. Maybe they are some kind of PT Barnum - style fraud?

If they want to literally be the world's strongest man then naturally they need a high skill like Physique to back that up. And maybe even then they might just be "World's Strongest Man - 1998 grand winner".

When starting out with Fate, it pays to keep in mind there are no internal checks and balances to stop inappropriate combinations of skills and aspects. The table needs to police these things jointly. In that regard it is very similar to generic systems like HERO.

Enlightened's take has legs, too.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;808998This is not a criticism of Fate Core, but probably my GM skill level and/or rule misunderstanding. I've run sessions of Fate before, and they've never gone well. Here's some of the things we've encountered:

1. the sessions FLY by, not in a fun way, but things happen so quickly there's no sense of immersion and we end up completing things within an hour;

2. player's don't really feel much like the character they've created, since their cool aspects or stunts only work when they have Fate Points, and it's hard to generate enough compels so that you can always use your powers;

Besides just "accepting this" as how Fate works, what am I doing wrong!

Fate Core sounds like a shitty version of FATE.  FATE works pretty well if you take out the idea of fate points being usable by players to change external reality (and obviously, if I read this right, the idea in Fate Core that some kind of "consensus" of the GM needing player permission for things) is removed.

I would also suggest dropping Stunts.  They're not bad as such, but I find that they over-complicate things.

For me, ICONS is the best version of Fate I've seen.  But Starblazer or Mindjammer work pretty well too (again, if I ran them again, I'd get rid of stunts).