I can't find, but what are the restrictions if any, on using Fate if you want to self publish?

Well, the OGL license info is available at the end of the SotC SRD:

http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html

The short answer is that you just need to publish the open gaming license on any FATE products you use. Make sure that the stuff you are using is actually FATE, and not a specific part of some other game that uses FATE. Dresden Files is FATE, but while the portions of it that are FATE are open content, the portions of it that are licensed from Jim Butcher are "product identity" and you can't use them without getting permission. There are portions of the game that link the two that are owned by Evil Hat.

Bottom line: you can use the FATE system and add anything you want so long as you include the license. But that doesn't mean you can use the stuff other people added to their FATE releases.

-Frank

This license mentions WotC. I don't understand that.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;467362This license mentions WotC. I don't understand that.

This is because Ryan Dancey is a genius and the folks who made FUDGE and FATE don't know any lawyers.

3e D&D dropped the whole "Open Gaming License" deal on the world with d20. And that came with a license that has all the legalese needed to make your game's intellectual property actually work like that. Which is to say that people can go off on their own and make their own stuff that references your material (thereby giving you free advertising), but you can retain control over any characters or stories or iconic thingies you want. Which if you're making an RPG, is basically what you want to happen.

The thing is, Fred Hicks is to the best of my knowledge not a lawyer. So if he wants his thing to work like the OGL (and he does, because it is awesome), his choice is to write some legal gobbledegook and hope it works out, or copy-pasta the whole OGL and cross his fingers. He did the latter, which among other things means that his OGL now gives free publicity and undeserved credit to WotC. Exactly what Ryan Dancey said was going to happen in the nineties.

-Frank

I am in two minds:

I have a very cool (at least I think so) idea for a setting that i've had for a while. I keep coming back to it after toying with other ideas I just can' tmake work. I'd really like to see it as a pdf that i can sell for a couple of £ (literally, i'm not completely stupid). As I work on it I find myself thinking do i need to spend time creating my own rules, or can i just use someone else's? I don't see the point reinventing the wheel and beating people over the head with a system they aren't used to, but then I absolutely think games should have rules in keeping with the setting and not some copy/paste generic blah. I'm also not a lawyer.

The question of should you use FATE is a separate one. Characters in FATE behave basically like characters in Game of Thrones. Characters bumble through the plot being held back at every turn by their prejudices and limitations to win or lose in a sudden and often unexpected turn of events. It's a harm reduction system, in which players basically get to state what happens as a result of any action, and the actual rolls determine how often the player is expected to mandate good or bad results for their own character.

So for example: Spiderman is jumping across a chasm, which may well call for a roll. But Peter Parker's player has already determined that he will barely catch himself on the other end and dramatically pull himself up. If the roll comes up very well, he can activate negative traits like "is a teenager" or "written by JMS" to gain FATE Points. In that case, the player can skip the bit where he gets harassed by triple-J (which would otherwise refill his Fate Points). On the other hand, if he rolls poorly, he'll need to spend FATE on it to activate some positive traits like "Spider Strength" or "Web Powers" to not miss the jump. And the results of that are that he needs to recover more FATE points later in the adventure so he needs to not only sit through the Triple-J tirade, he also needs to have his trustworthiness called into question by Mary Jane or Aunt May.

It works for a very story-flow-centric cooperative storytelling experience. If you get super concerned about mechanics being "associated", then this is not for you.

The real question is: what do you want the system to do for you? Different systems shine in different ways and have different things they focus on and have different things that they are good at.

-Frank

I agree with your general idea that it isn't always necessary to reinvent the wheel.

Fate isn't the only free to use/OGL option.  Fate is powerful and it's strong following can't hurt, but if it doesn't there fit there is Fudge, D6 and of course D20 itself.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;467370
So for example: Spiderman is jumping across a chasm, which may well call for a roll. But Peter Parker's [iplayer[/i] has already determined that he will barely catch himself on the other end and dramatically pull himself up.

Why the bold highlight?

Because of an incomplete understanding of FATE.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;467401Why the bold highlight?

Because I wanted to stress the underlying deterministic nature of spending FATE points.

Or did you mean the extra part you bolded? In FATE, the GM can call for a die roll at a major decision point. But because the player can modify the roll by spending or receiving FATE points, the die roll actually serves as a randomizer of the number of FATE points the player has, rather than a randomizer of success or failure on that particular action.

So from a player perspective, if you declare a dangerous sounding action it generates tension - because you don't know how many FATE points you'll have afterward. But there is no particular fear of the roll resulting in the action being other than as you described it. The tension in die rolls is all in he fact that as a player you don't know how many FATE points you'll have when it is over.

-Frank

Quote from: FrankTrollman;467403Because I wanted to stress the underlying deterministic nature of spending FATE points.

Or did you mean the extra part you bolded? In FATE, the GM can call for a die roll at a major decision point. But because the player can modify the roll by spending or receiving FATE points, the die roll actually serves as a randomizer of the number of FATE points the player has, rather than a randomizer of success or failure on that particular action.

So from a player perspective, if you declare a dangerous sounding action it generates tension - because you don't know how many FATE points you'll have afterward. But there is no particular fear of the roll resulting in the action being other than as you described it. The tension in die rolls is all in he fact that as a player you don't know how many FATE points you'll have when it is over.

-Frank

I meant the original bolded part about 'already determined'. I don't know how anything else got put into bold, something weird happened with the quotes.

The main thing discouraging me from doing something with FATE is that in reading through the rules I kept thinking of ways one of my playtesters would cause me serious headfuck with them!

Quote from: FrankTrollman;467370The question of should you use FATE is a separate one. Characters in FATE behave basically like characters in Game of Thrones. Characters bumble through the plot being held back at every turn by their prejudices and limitations to win or lose in a sudden and often unexpected turn of events. It's a harm reduction system, in which players basically get to state what happens as a result of any action, and the actual rolls determine how often the player is expected to mandate good or bad results for their own character.

So for example: Spiderman is jumping across a chasm, which may well call for a roll. But Peter Parker's player has already determined that he will barely catch himself on the other end and dramatically pull himself up. If the roll comes up very well, he can activate negative traits like "is a teenager" or "written by JMS" to gain FATE Points. In that case, the player can skip the bit where he gets harassed by triple-J (which would otherwise refill his Fate Points). On the other hand, if he rolls poorly, he'll need to spend FATE on it to activate some positive traits like "Spider Strength" or "Web Powers" to not miss the jump. And the results of that are that he needs to recover more FATE points later in the adventure so he needs to not only sit through the Triple-J tirade, he also needs to have his trustworthiness called into question by Mary Jane or Aunt May.

But if the player rolls a -5, not even Tagging two Aspects at once (is that even legal?) will save Spidey's ass. So I feel there is some (admittedly, not huge) margin for failure, at least if you use 1d6-1d6 (4dF is a different story).

Quote from: FrankTrollman;467370It works for a very story-flow-centric cooperative storytelling experience. If you get super concerned about mechanics being "associated", then this is not for you.

Based on my own experience with FATE 3.0, this is spot on.

I don't know whether my ideas are, or require, or would benefit, from a story-flow- centric experience.

It does require a pulpy/cinematic ruleset - ie characters that can, to coin a phrase, take a licking and keep on ticking (almost the way The Spirit can), as well as have access to the means to perform stunts of a relatively low level (ie not straight up superpowers), as well as a system able to handle gadgets.