Still seems like more of a critique of the players than the game. The GM, and the group as a whole, are supposed to determine if and how an aspect applies to a given situation. But, yes if you want to improve your roll an invoke gives you a +2 or a reroll. So, if your a Badass Warrior, you'll be pretty good in a fight, provided you have FP you're willing to spend. of course, if your oponent is a Dirty Fighter, hes going to be tricky to take down. Not sure how that is railroady. Seems like the opposite if railroady to me.

Quote from: Noclue;694967Still seems like more of a critique of the players than the game. The GM, and the group as a whole, are supposed to determine if and how an aspect applies to a given situation. But, yes if you want to improve your roll an invoke gives you a +2 or a reroll. So, if your a Badass Warrior, you'll be pretty good in a fight, provided you have FP you're willing to spend. of course, if your oponent is a Dirty Fighter, hes going to be tricky to take down. Not sure how that is railroady. Seems like the opposite if railroady to me.

I can see that. I used the term loosely to mean "pushing a particular agenda or result by any means necessary."

As the thread has evolved it is certainly a play issue rather than a system issue (analysis has been appreciated).

Quote from: Phillip;694855I had a look at FATE years ago, mainly because I thought it might be easier to digest than straight Fudge. I found the treatment of Aspects and Fate points not appealing.

At the most basic level, Aspects (if memory serves) are a formalization of such sundry notes one might make as that a character is a Knight of the Bungie, in fine amor with Queen Nell, suffering crotch rot from a dalliance with Baron Flamm's daughter, and so on.

Problems arise, I think, from making of the like an abstract resource management sub-game as opposed to letting them arise and pass away naturally in play.

Fate points present a similar problem, compounded by their relation to Aspects, and brought to the pitch of "narrativist" muddling with invocation to declare a fact about the world.

If you can spend a Fate Point to ignore your crotch rot, it isn't really crotch rot.

JG

Quote from: James Gillen;694989If you can spend a Fate Point to ignore your crotch rot, it isn't really crotch rot.

In FATE, you are more likely to spend a Fate Point to get your crotch rot to give a +2 to combat.

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;694091The upshot of this is virtually all player rolls are bumped, re-rolled or adjusted to avoid failure at all costs. This leads to a not too surprising result. The games played so far have lacked any sense of danger or consequence.

Finally, someone is talking about this.  Thank you.  I had a feeling this goes on just by reading the die mechanic.

Quote from: estar;694117Well if you don't like Fate there is always Fudge.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;695015Finally, someone is talking about this.  Thank you.  I had a feeling this goes on just by reading the die mechanic.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

More on this from you I think!

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;695015Finally, someone is talking about this.  Thank you.  I had a feeling this goes on just by reading the die mechanic.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

I think this comes down to how situations are framed and GM enforcement of game pacing.

My experience with a group, I'm guesstimating that 30% of the rolls are simply the roll + skill.  Around 50% get one or two aspects pulled in, from the sheet or the environment. The rest are stunts and doing session or arc wrap up actions - big boss fight or defusing a bomb, etc.

BTW, If ithe crotch rot is something somewhat serious then it's a consequence.

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;694962Now because one player REALLY wants to win he pays a Fate Point to reroll, and on that reroll spends another point to bump the result via an applicable Aspect.

So if two players really got honked off at one another, they could keep escalating to and fro with fate points until the one with the fewest points loses, or is it a one off?

Quote from: The Traveller;695049So if two players really got honked off at one another, they could keep escalating to and fro with fate points until the one with the fewest points loses, or is it a one off?

Each would have to have a lot of applicable aspects on their sheet to have game play go down that way. And if the characters look like that on paper then something is wrong.

Let's assume that the PCs can do that, things change once someone takes a consequence - a penalty to rolls.

Edit:

The latest Fate SRD:
http://fate-srd.com

Quote from: Phillip;694856A compel is a decision to set aside the dice and focus on the dictates of drama instead. When a character is compelled by an aspect, he gains a fate point.

While that one way to look at it. The other way is the GURPS point of view. You get rewarded for roleplaying your disadvantages. Rather in Fate you get rewarded for roleplaying a character with self-imposed disadvantage. Self-imposed in that you choose the aspect at character creation.

I just ran a Fate one-off. I used an adventure created for the Majestic Wilderlands and the character were created with a quasi medieval fantasy world in mind.

QuoteRufus
--------------------------
Aspect
High Concept: Bounty Hunter
Failed Merchant left debt
Ladies Man
Big Spender
Bruiser

Skills
+4 Fight
+4 Fight
+3 Athletics~ Physique
+2 Contacts ~ Investigate~ Notice
+1 Empathy  ~ Rapport    ~ Stealth~ Will

Stunts
Because I'm tough as nails I get a +2 advantage when fighting with my sword

Because I have a Magic ring goblins tend to trust me.

QuoteRaymond
--------------------------
Aspects
Wizard College Dropout
I can do that if I wanted to I just don't Care
I think I can figure this out.
Never without a Map
This is just like that game I played when I was young

Skills
Will +4
Lore +3 Fight +3
Stealth +2 Athletics +2 Deceive +2
Contacts Empathy Notice Provoke +1

Stunts
Because I have an elven cloak, I get a +2 when I gain an advantage by hiding
when I'm in a natural environment

Because I accidentally summoned something, once per game I can teleport to a place of the creatures choosing.

My impression is that for a one off adventure Fate is mediocre. Those who have read my Scourge of Demon Wolf know that while I have opportunities for combat and treasure the adventure itself revolves round roleplaying with NPCs and this was no exception.

It involved the rescue of a kidnapped Baron's daughter by a coven of warlocks. Involves the party entering the warlocks three level cliff side dwelling. Inside there are slaves, visiting orc chieftain, a pair of summoned captive demons, a talking dragon skull, the warlocks, and a bunch of captured children.

The magic system was basically using the Lore skills to perform one of the four basic Fate actions with the condition that anything beyond a single target or a single area would be very difficult to accomplish. Other than the I encouraged the mage character to make up his spells.

Combat was relatively quick one of the faster method of resolving combat I have used. The make up your own spells didn't get out of hand. The use of aspects and stunts was constrained by the pool of fate points. For this game the characters had 3 fate points.

Unfortunately there wasn't a lot of opportunities to earn fate points. In the post game discussion it was agree that we could have tried but it would been forced and probably some thing that was silly and very improbable.

We all felt that Fate was better suited for a regular campaign than a one off adventure. That if we to use Fate 'as is' we would flesh out a lot of things especially the magic system. As it was it felt like to much like metagaming. We plan to look at Legend of Angleterre and see how that holds up.

We all liked the use of Fudge Dice and how it added on top of a skill. How opposed rolls were handled. I mention that I am in the midst of making a rule system using Fudge as the foundation.  We also talked about the Fate jargon that littered the rule book.

Clearly, how the Fate point economy performs will depend on how the GM sets up situations.

There may be an inherent contradiction -- not necessarily insurmountable, but a thorny problem -- in trying to design a drama-centric rules set while retaining the traditional RPG player-character identification.

In an RPG, one tends naturally to deploy powerful resources (such as are Fate points) to the end of creating outcomes regarded as desirable from the character's POV. Those are not necessarily the most dramatically interesting ones.

The trick of giving players incentives to go against that interest is by its nature more of a challenge than if the players' objectives are explicitly tied to the goals of drama without a conflicting interest in the goals of a given figure.

Quote from: estar;695059While that one way to look at it. The other way is the GURPS point of view. You get rewarded for roleplaying your disadvantages. Rather in Fate you get rewarded for roleplaying a character with self-imposed disadvantage. Self-imposed in that you choose the aspect at character creation.

Except compels aren't a disadvantage taking effect. They are the aspect being given front and center focus in a not-necessarily-good fashion. There's a huge difference. Plus in Fate Core, in particular, compels aren't the subject of die rolls or modifiers - they just happen.

An example is a character that has the aspect Knight of the Round Table. That's not a self-imposed disadvantage - but it's very easily compelled.

Compel: "Because you are a Knight of the Round Table, it makes sense that you can't remain anonymous in the tavern and someone recognizes you. Damn your luck."

Compel: "Because you are a Knight of the Round Table, it makes sense that you would stop to stop some brigands from robbing that noblewoman and be late for your audience with the king. Damn your luck."

Quote from: estar;695068Unfortunately there wasn't a lot of opportunities to earn fate points. In the post game discussion it was agree that we could have tried but it would been forced and probably some thing that was silly and very improbable.

To be fair, that's really the GM's job. Players can definitely propose self compels, but if they didn't have any opportunity to earn FP that's all on the GM.

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;694091Firstly Aspects. This is the second time we have used a Fate derived system and the second time that Aspects are used simply as a way of tacking bonuses onto dice rolls, or justifying players re-rolling within the 'Fate Point Economy'. There is scant evidence to show that the Aspects system supports any Roleplaying as I wish to engage with it, and a wealth of evidence to show that Aspects and Fate Points are a mask drawn over "Special Snowflake" decisions that cannot be seen to ever fail.

Fate Core may offer a key to part of your problem. Aspects are always true. That means that aspects, beyond die rolls and bonuses, act as permission or justification (or lack thereof) for things to happen. A character who is Hog-Tied can't run away. No invocation is necessary for this. Now, if you want to put additional focus on the character being hog-tied, you can certainly compel the aspect to prevent them from doing something. In that case, the character gets a Fate Point - because you have just limited their ability to act and they are agreeing it makes things better/more exciting/etc.

QuoteThe Fate Point Economy fails without incredibly tight management. The idea (drawn out from my reading of the Dresden Files system books) that players are compelled to take negative consequences to an action and earn Fate Points for later use in the game (thus allowing them to 'pull through against all odds') fails to address the large amount of points (and therefore the large amount of re-rolls and narrative 'ret-conning') floating round the table. The upshot of this is virtually all player rolls are bumped, re-rolled or adjusted to avoid failure at all costs. This leads to a not too surprising result. The games played so far have lacked any sense of danger or consequence.

There is never a sense of loss, urgency, danger or threat. Aspects can be pulled out for each roll 'at-will' giving the players a constant edge over anything that is thrown at them. An analogy might be "A group of 1st level D&D characters set loose with a Bag-of-Holding packed full of Relics and Artifacts". This leaves me feeling that the games I have played thus far using a Fate-system to power them hark back to D&D gaming I did when I was 13. The style of game that naive 'wet behind the ears' newbs might engage with that has every character maxed out on amazing, game and world breaking magical items laying waste to anything in their path.

If the players are avoiding failure at all costs, I'd say there is a disconnect about what they should be aiming for. Characters in Fate fail all the time. If you look at fiction, those characters fail all the time too. The idea of aspects isn't to stack up bonuses to not fail, it's to make sure that the players are putting the focus on the elements they think are important.

And part of this is that the entire group has to be in agreement about what aspects mean, which ones can be invoked, and how they can be used. At the very least, the player and the GM need to be in agreement. Someone who is able to apply any aspect they have to any situation they get in either has some very poorly defined aspects or the GM is being exceptionally lenient. Again, the goal isn't to try to shoehorn as many aspects as possible into a roll.

QuoteNow, perhaps I do not have my finger on the pulse of contemporary gaming and this is an emergent play style that has become encoded in hobby products over the last  decade or so? Or perhaps there is value in the Fate system and my experiences so far have been coloured in a negative fashion, due to the lack of GM authority over player decisions and player use of Aspects, Fate Points and other 'boons' available whilst sat at the gaming table?

I'd say the latter, because it sounds like the group is trying to play Fate more like D&D - and it's not D&D. Fate, for better or worse, IME does not work well with highly competitive players who try to "play for keeps". It works for groups that are interested in crafting interesting stories featuring their characters. Not "always winning" stories or "how my character is totally awesome" stories. Interesting stories, with successes and failures. But it's not something that people necessarily grok on to immediately, and it's not a system that works for everybody.

QuoteOr perhaps the Fate systems play into this idea that no one must ever fail, everyone is special and that we must all get a medal and a hug at the end of a gaming session? It's not for me, and because of my experiences I can see how others are quite critical of the system.

I've never seen any Fate game that is predicated on nobody failing or every character being special. Most of them are built around the idea that the characters are doing interesting things and are competent.

You may want to take a look at Fate Core, because it has a lot of clarifications and some minor tweaks that address a lot of this. From Success at a Cost to the four basic actions and four outcomes, plus a ton of advice on aspects and group dynamics, it might help make it click if Fate is something you can work with or not.