This 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!
At the risk of sounding like a grumpy grognard, I think that the issues that you're having with Fate are problems baked in to the Fate system, and that you would be better served moving to something closer to a traditional RPG. If you give some ideas about the kind of games you'd like to run, I'd be more than happy to recommend some games/game systems that might do a better job of suiting the playstyle of you and your group than Fate.
First off get rid of any idea that Fate is somehow special or different than other RPGs. It is not. The core of it is a lite rules engine coupled with a lite set of mechanics to describes the nuts and bolts of a setting.
Everything you do with D&D you do in Fate. Or better yet everything you do in GURPS you do in Fate. The implication of this means that you need to setup a good tabletop campaign first and worry about how to implement in Fate second.
Now the advantage of Fate is that it is very flexible when it comes to implementing a given campaigns. It has a few set of mechanics that can be used to detail people and things.
If your campaign would suck in D&D, Traveller or any other system then it will suck in Fate. So again focus on creating a fun and interesting campaign.
First all of you need to define the setting in which the adventures will take place. Fate doesn't replace this work. What the designers of fate recommends (on page 20) is to focus on the people rather than the technical details of the setting. But Fate can handle both through the use of the Fate Fractal where anything can be defined as just another Fate character.
Aspects are like what other system call gifts, flaws, advantages, disadvantages, etc. It is a lot more free form and balance outside of what make sense for the campaign doesn't really matter.
Aspects can serve as a prerequisite for Extras like magic and psionics.
Remember Aspects can be all benefit, all trouble, or something in-between. Ideally you want a few aspects that have complication that will cause troubles because this will earn the player fate points to spend on his character.
Then there are Skill which work pretty much like any other RPGs. Their design tends to be on the lite side.
Stunts are specialized aspects of skills that give a better bang when used but only pertain to a narrow set of circumstances. Many Extras involve the granting of special stunts.
The trick to using all this is learning to how to pigeon hole the various parts of your campaign.
For example you are running a dungeon fantasy campaign and decide there are only six skills set to the traditional D&D six (Str, Int, Wis, etc). A magic missile is a specialized stunt of the Intelligence skill and can only be used by a character who took the aspect of a magic-user. Conversely a Cure Wounds spell can only be used by a character who took the aspect of Cleric. And the magic-user and cleric aspect have various complications i.e. troubles as well as benefits. Obviously for a cleric there is the matter of his religion. A magic-user might have social issues with the campaign's society, or rival mages always hunting him for his magic.
Anyway the Fate Core and even more lite Fate Accelerated have a lot of good advice on the individual parts of the Fate. Where they fail is that they lose themselves in story gaming and the narrative advice when setting up a campaign.
Like I said at the beginning of the post, it is imperative you setup a good campaign first and then implement it fate second. Unlike many traditional RPGs Fate simply does not have enough mechanical detail to hold players interest if the campaign is boring. You have to have a decent campaign to run a decent fate game.
Thanks. My group and I enjoy crunch-medium games, like Savage Worlds and World of Darkness.
The challenge we have is that to be your character (e.g., you're a master swordsman (aspect) or you have a cool power (stunt), you need Fate chips. You don't get very many, it's hard to come up with enough compels so you have a steady stream, so frequently your character (at least when I run/play) ends up in situations where they AREN'T your character - you can't be a great swordsman or be able to fly (in a way that affects the scene) because you don't have a fate chip to activate your Aspect/Stunt/Power.
Again, not a criticism, just thinking that we're not doing it right.
We didn't have these problems in Dresden Files, because you pick a template and set of powers that you always have. My magic user could always use magic even if he didn't have a Fate Chip, and the Werewolf that had enhanced toughness always was extra tough.
Quote from: PencilBoy99;809012We didn't have these problems in Dresden Files, because you pick a template and set of powers that you always have. My magic user could always use magic even if he didn't have a Fate Chip, and the Werewolf that had enhanced toughness always was extra tough.
That your solution.
Note on page 12 the definition of Fate Points is
QuoteYou can spend fate points to invoke an aspect, to declare a story detail, or to activate certain powerful stunts.
It sounds like you are rating those stunts too powerful thus requiring a Fate Point to activate. The Fate System Toolkit is freely avaliable so look through that for idea on how to structure your stunts and extras.
http://www.faterpg.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/FST-SRD-CC.html
Reread page 92 of Fate Core on Balancing Stunt Utility. Note in the side bar they recommend Fate Points are used to balance VERY POWERFUL stunts. What very powerful? That depends on your campaign.
Or what happen in my games with Fate, you are not being generous enough. By generous I mean if the players walk into an area of magical darkness and filled with traps. They get a fate point right then and there. Or you rolled on a random table they encountered a city patrol while trying to rob a house. They get a fate point.
Compel means that an aspect of the campaign provides complications. Now obviously they are not going get a fate point for the campaign's equivalent of stubbing your toe. But it doesn't have to HIGH DRAMA (note the caps) either.
In short I realized that I should be handing out fate point every time a situation comes up that works against the players. The more trouble I cause for them in my campaign the more fate points I will be handing out.
Pretend that D&D is a Fate Game.
1) The players would get a Fate Point for encountering a Trap. They would get a consequence for failing to deactivate the trap.
2) The players would get a Fate Point for a hostile random monster encounter. Although it is random, it is I made it part of the rules of the campaign that there will be random encounters in certain locales. So when I roll, it is the same thing as a compel and hence the players get a fate point for their characters.
3) A player has Drunkenness as an aspect. Encounters a room full of beer and drinks it all up. They would get a fate point for roleplaying their aspect in a negative way. They would suffer stress or consequences as a result so ultimately it could led to severe consequences if they get a fight before sobering up.
I am sorry for being vague on the following. While I did run Fate it was only for a handful of times a year ago.
Fate mechanics amounts to a handful of mechanics surrounding the four actions of Overcome, Creating a Advantage, Attack, Defend. Everything is made up shit. And boring shit as rules goes.
What makes Fate exciting is that it has just enough structure allow a campaign to come to life beyond "let's pretend." However is it is also utterly dependent on the referee to make the dry die rolls and modifiers exciting.
In short you best bet to get a grip on this part of Fate is to read Matt Finich's Old School Primer. Because one thing that OD&D and Fate share is the fact both rely on Rulings not rules. Something you will read about in the opening chapter of the Fate System Toolkit.
If I ran Fate again, I would make up a cheat sheet of the bare bone rules shorn of all the story game and narrative verbiage. I would then take my Majestic Wilderlands, the Third Imperium, Harn, or whatever and then figure out how to apply details to fate as Aspects, Skills, Stunts, and Extras.
And that would be the mechanics I used. It is possible, if you have the time, to go very detailed like in Dresdan File, or better yet Legend of Angleterre/Starblazer Adventures. Or go very lite like in Fate Accelerated.
Quote from: PencilBoy99;809012The challenge we have is that to be your character (e.g., you're a master swordsman (aspect) or you have a cool power (stunt), you need Fate chips.
you can't be a great swordsman or be able to fly (in a way that affects the scene) because you don't have a fate chip to activate your Aspect/Stunt/Power.
I've been running exclusively Fate Core for the past year or more, and I have never once seen any character in any of my games take a Stunt that requires a Fate Point to activate.
There are Stunts that require FP to use, but I have yet to see a player ever take one. Even after a year of play.
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On the topic of Aspects requiring FPs,
THEY DON'T!They require FP to get a +2 or a re-roll, but they don't require anything to "use".
They way Aspects are used in the overwhelming vast majority of the time is to
ALLOW ACTIONS AND ROLLS.Having a certain Aspect will allow you to attempt things you otherwise couldn't. When a player says what they want to try, the GM will mentally look over who that character is by remembering their Aspects and judge whether or not such a thing is even possible FOR THAT CHARACTER.
Scenerio 1GM: The werewolf runs off howling into the dark underbrush of the tangled forest.
Player1: I want to track it.
GM: (Remembers that the character is a "Keen-eyed Wood Elf") OK. Beat a +2.
Scenerio 2GM: The werewolf runs off howling into the dark underbrush of the tangled forest.
Player2: I want to track it.
GM: Um, come again there, Sparky? How in the exact fuck are you planning on doing that? All your Aspects are about being a city-born martial artist. I think tracking, in the forest, at night, is a bit out of your league.
And that sort of "allowing actions and rolls" usage of Aspects (how they are used 95% of the time) doesn't cost anything.
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So two different characters with two different sets of Aspects coming up to the same challenge, and one gets told "beat a +2" and the other gets told "No, I don't think so." based entirely on what Aspects they have. And with no exchange of Fate Points.
One of the concepts in Fate Core is that "aspects are always true". If you have an aspect of "world's greatest swordsman" then you are still the greatest swordsman whether you spend a Fate point or not. The thing to keep in mind is that aspects only make the difference between success and failure some of the time. This is just the same as with "traditional games" too, just handled in a different way.
As an example, in a game of GURPS you might shoot at an enemy. You are a distance away, and that has a range penalty associated with it but neither you nor the GM has internalised the range chart, so you would have to look it up. I bet one of you would say, "let's roll and then we'll look up the penalty if it will make a difference." If you roll a critical hit, there is no need to check; same as if you roll a crit miss. If you roll way lower than your target number (even without crit-ing) you may not bother looking things up either. Same as if you roll higher than your unmodified skill; you've missed whatever the penalty is.
Fate is the same, but the mechanism for deciding is different. You are duelling, have a skill of +4 and the aspect "world's greatest swordsman". You roll a +0 on your fate dice and are up against a person with a +5 combat stat (a giant, perhaps...). +4 skill by itself is not enough to beat this opponent. Being +4 and "the worlds greatest swordsman" might be enough to beat them, however. The difference is, rather than the GM deciding, or a chart deciding, you the player get to decide whether your aspect makes the difference or not. The fate point economy is a balancing mechanism which stops players always making the call in their own favour.
The upshot of this is that you are always an amazing swordsman but that is only the deciding factor some of the time.
In terms of dull combat, this is the same as any other relatively light RPG. Look at B/X DnD or something similar. The mechanics themselves don't provide much flavour; you have to add it yourself. Otherwise combat rapidly reduces to "I swing, I miss" and so on. It it incumbent on the GM and player to describe an interesting engagement between combatants. If there is a difference between Fate and older games it is that older games might put the narration duties on the GM alone (or not address it) where as Fate explicitly shares the narration between all players round the table.
This sharing of narration requires a mental shift for players in my experience, and groups can struggle with this when playing Fate for the first time. If you think this is a factor in your group's case it might be worth talking about explicitly between games to get everyone on the same page. I find the approach is more easily accepted by groups with lots of players who also GM. If your players rarely GM themselves they may need to develop a new set of playing skills.
You are far from alone with have trouble playing or running FATE.
Like any system, some systems work better for some groups than others. Tagging aspects is great for some players, not for others. Chat with your players and decide whether its more fun to keep with FATE or whether they would prefer to try something else.
After my experience with FATE, I wouldn't touch it again even with someone else's dick tied to a stick. Even Estar's dick strapped to a classic 10 foot pole would not be enough! :)
Quote from: dbm;809036Being +4 and "the worlds greatest swordsman" might be enough to beat them, however.
The difference is, rather than the GM deciding, or a chart deciding, you the player get to decide whether your aspect makes the difference or not.
In my games, it's often me GM deciding, for example, when I think, "Hmm, you're
The World's Greatest Swordsman, so yeah, you just beat the guards, hands down, no roll. How do you want to leave them, dead or unconscious?"
But, of course, in the main, you are exactly right.
It's hard to know what to say given I don't know your players or what is going on round your table. Also there are so many ways to approach Fate that even advice is tricky. I think a few poster here have already provided solid response to the Aspects issue so I'll give the other one a shot.
Quote from: PencilBoy99;8089981. 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;
That is an interesting criticism. Fate does play fast, but not necessarily that fast! Nor have I have heard speed of play being associated with lack of immersion though I can almost see that.
I will venture a theory here. Old school games generally encourage players to act smart and efficiently. Acting stupid often get's you killed and is generally discouraged. This both reflects what happens in real life and is pretty much the mindset of most games, roleplaying or not.
With Fate it's bit like the game is saying "Go on, do that stupid thing. I know you want to. Trust me, it'll be fun!". That is because Fate is more of a fiction emulator than reality simulator and in genre fiction is quite common for the protagonists to make poor choices because that is dramatically more interesting.
So to some extent the pacing of the Fate expects players to embrace complications and not necessarily take the more direct, route to success. Is that what is perhaps what is missing?
Other than that, if you are keen to stick with Fate, you might want to shop around and see which variant suits you best. Just because Core is the newest iteration it doesn't mean it's the right version for your group. I personally quite like Bulldogs!, it think it's a very accessible flavour of Fate.
Just jumping over from the FUDGE thread.
Since FUDGE plays something like FATE without the Aspects, could you just run FUDGE, and not deal with the compels and such? As i understand it, you basically hand out a handful of Fudge points or Luck, and when they get used, they get used. They're not tied to anything but the player's willingness to use them, and the GM's call on whether they can be used.
Alternately, could you use fewer aspects, but give a blanket bonus whenever they came into play? I suppose that would be OP, though, because a +2 bonus in FATE is big.
Thanks all.
I just got a great explanation, that if your aspect says you have a cool power, it just LETS YOU DO STUFF without Fate Chips. It's always true. So that means.
If my aspect is "Crazy Telepathic", then I can use Rapport to read people's minds. It might fail, there might be some big dice contest, but I can still do it. No one else (w/out an aspect like this) can do it.
This was one of my mistakes, I think.
Quote from: PencilBoy99;809065If my aspect is "Crazy Telepathic", then I can use Rapport to read people's minds. It might fail, there might be some big dice contest, but I can still do it. No one else (w/out an aspect like this) can do it.
Keep in mind the effectiveness is the important bit - a person with the ability to read minds would be no more effective than a person who is an expert in body language, assuming both have Rapport +x. The aspect defines contextual stuff which may or may not matter, and if it does matter significantly then you might ask for the player to pay with a Fate point at that time (or reward them with a Fate point if it worth a complication - what happens if they are in a zone of "telepathic static" for example?)
Edited for typo
Quote from: dbm;809066Keep in mind the effective is the important bit - a person with the ability to read minds would be no more effective than a person who is an expert in body language, assuming both have Rapport +x. The aspect defines contextual stuff which may or may not matter, and if it does matter significantly then you might ask for the player to pay with a Fate point at that time (or reward them with a Fate point if it worth a complication - what happens if they are in a zone of "telepathic static" for example?)
That true to a point in that situations the two could use their rapport would differ. For example a telepath facing an individual wearing a psionic shield helm would face a lot of difficulty with using the rapport skill which would not effect the person skill in body language. And the reverse is true is both folks were in total darkness.
Which why it is important to define the setting of the campaign first for Fate. Because the setting will define the aspects available and the benefits (and troubles) they confer.
Quote from: estar;809090Which why it is important to define the setting of the campaign first for Fate. Because the setting will define the aspects available and the benefits (and troubles) they confer.
Indeed, and aspects are a fantastically compact way of capturing these, as long as the group discusses them and agrees.
Fate core talks about campaign aspects, and proposes them for setting the focus and tone of the campaign as a whole.
In an early Fate Core discussion over on TBP people were discussing how they would do Dune using Fate Core and suggesting all sorts of complex rules for lasers and shields (two of the defining factors of Arakis as you undoubtedly know). My suggestion was just to have a campaign aspect of "Lasers and Shields" to remind people of the campaign concept (the best way to model genre is just to have the players to agree to the genre conventions if you can, in my opinion) and that could be tagged or compelled in borderline cases where needed.
Which is not to say that you shouldn't have complex rules to model genre or mechanics if you want that to be a major feature of your campaign.
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".
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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).
Quote from: RPGPundit;811039Fate 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.
The thread, which you don't seem to have read, debunks every part of that as not being how Fate Core works.
The consensus thing is no more than in any other game, and the book explicitly gives the last word on all things to the GM.
I've made the offer before, and I'll do it again, to run an online Fate game for anyone curious.
Quote from: robiswrong;811120I've made the offer before, and I'll do it again, to run an online Fate game for anyone curious.
YES YES YES!
Also, there's a quote someone found for me buried in the Fate core book that essentially says that as GM you do have the final say, so this was just a misreading on my part.
I did not read the above mentioned thread. Thanks!
Ill also look into ICONS, since a lot of people have recommended it.
Can someone give us a rundown on the good elements of ICONS?
How workable does it seem for non-supers games?
Quote from: Will;811197Can someone give us a rundown on the good elements of ICONS?
How workable does it seem for non-supers games?
There was a bit of a scuffle back in the day about ICONS not really being a Fate game, or some such. In the end, the author said it's Fate "inspired" but not really "Fate" per se.
Here's a thread (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?516993-What-is-in-a-FATE-game-Specifically-ICONS) from when it first came out that gives a run down on both the rules of the game and on the "It's Fate! No, it's not!" argument.
Hmm. Seems less up my alley.
I love Aspects, but increasingly feel Fate points don't thrill me.
Quote from: Will;811222Hmm. Seems less up my alley.
I love Aspects, but increasingly feel Fate points don't thrill me.
I'm going to be running a Fate Core game for PencilBoy99. You're welcome to join in, and maybe get a different perspective. Or maybe not, and solidify your opinion. Up to you.
Quote from: robiswrong;811237I'm going to be running a Fate Core game for PencilBoy99. You're welcome to join in, and maybe get a different perspective. Or maybe not, and solidify your opinion. Up to you.
Yay.
No time, but thanks for the offer!
Quote from: Will;811197Can someone give us a rundown on the good elements of ICONS?
How workable does it seem for non-supers games?
ICONS is the best game I've ever seen for running supers. The only one that I've run that really worked well at feeling like the genre.
As far as how it would work for non-supers game, I think it depends. It could probably do pulp or high fantasy pretty well, if you replaced the Powers with other special abilities.
It turns out I've been a complete dufus.
See Playing Fate the Traditional Way (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?747766-Playing-Fate-the-traditional-way-or-who-I-learned-to-listen-to-the-group)
Apparently it runs just fine if you do it the way I've been bitching you can't do it. :-)