Quote from: FunTyrant;467553In order to gain Fate points, he has to have his negative Aspects work against him in a scene. He wants to go meet Mary Jane on a date, but the GM decides that JJJ wants him to go cover some media even. The GM is compelling his "Freelancer for the Bugle" Aspect to make Pete miss his date. If Peter takes the Fate point, then he has to play out the scene where he blows off MJ, but he gets a point for it. Otherwise, he has to pay out a point of his own, but pissing off JJJ will probably have repercussions anyway.

While that is unquestionably how Fate works I always find these kind of weak.

1. There is a disparity between the reward and price. The reward, a Fate point, has clearly defined worth - namely a +2 or a reroll. The price, an argument with MJ, is totally vague. Surely if it's just an uncomfortable 10 minutes it's not worth 1/2 a Fate point at most. On the other hand if it spells the end of the relationship it should be a lot more than 1 Fate Point.

2. I don't like the idea of having to prejudge the outcome of Peter and MJ's spat. Let's say for instance that Spidey blows MJ off and there is no Compel. When Peter and MJ next meet there is likely to be tension. It might end badly for Peter, but who's to say that Peter might not be able to talk his way out of it. Or maybe blowing MJ off was actually a good thing for the relationship and now she doesn't take him so much for granted.

Finding out what the outcome of the spat make roleplaying interesting. But if the player has already received a Fate Point you now have to ensure that it ends badly for Peter because that is part of the Compel mechanic.

What I think I would rather see is for the Compel a more mechanically explicit effect in line with the mechanical reward it offers. For instance blowing off the date with MJ result in Peter being distracted (say -2) during the next scene, essentially treating it as a Consequence or a temporary Aspect which opponents can tag.

Compels are the big problem for me with FATE games. I just don't compel, and let the players self-compel if they want FATE Points. Works great for me.

-clash

Ryan Macklin had an alternate reading on compels that I quite liked, and I am mostly in Clash's camp on them. I wrote about it here.

I think a lot of people read Fate Points as a currency, when in fact, they are intended as ritual. For instance, if you play Call of Cthulhu, your PC is likely to end up dead or insane. All Fate characters are bound to a similar fate (zing!). By playing Fate, you agree to be jerked around, and by taking the Aspect "Freelancer for the Bugle" you are agreeing to be jerked around in that specific fashion.

Quote from: Brad J. Murray;467565Ryan Macklin had an alternate reading on compels that I quite liked, and I am mostly in Clash's camp on them. I wrote about it here.

Yes I had read that blog - I think I may have read almost everything written about Compels at one point or another :-)

For it doesn't really solve my issue. As GM I will send after the Wolverine style mutant whatever makes sense to me in the context of the adventure - it might be a couple of asthmatic goons armed with clubs or a army of Sentinel robots. And if not's tied to a Compel it's all good, it doesn't have to be fair, the whole point is to find out what happens next. If a Compel is involved I'd feel constrained. An unfair challenge like a score of Sentinels becomes a Fate Point tax, make the encounter too easy and it's become a soft Compel.

The player is also constraint. If he's been paid a Fate Point, can he just turn tail and run or try to talk his way out of it?

Not to mention, going back to the original example in the blog, so the goons hunting Wolverine get bazookas, what about the other player characters hanging with Wolverine. Do they get Fate Points too or do the goons simple not use their bazookas on the rest?

Quote from: Brad J. Murray;467565Ryan Macklin had an alternate reading on compels that I quite liked, and I am mostly in Clash's camp on them. I wrote about it here.

Yeah - it was very interesting, and it's the only way I could see compels working for me.

-clash

Okay, now that I'm back from dinner and full of teriyaki chicken, I can chime in for those who care. Also, I apologize in advance for my rambly style.

Quote from: Soylent Green;4675571. There is a disparity between the reward and price. The reward, a Fate point, has clearly defined worth - namely a +2 or a reroll. The price, an argument with MJ, is totally vague. Surely if it's just an uncomfortable 10 minutes it's not worth 1/2 a Fate point at most. On the other hand if it spells the end of the relationship it should be a lot more than 1 Fate Point.

It's not that different from, say, White Wolf or GURPS or Hero or any other game where you can buy a "dependent" NPC to get a few points at character creation. The reward is set (X extra points to make your character), but the price (your NPC causing issues) is very vague and at the whim of the GM.
I'd actually say getting Fate points during play is a "fixed" value and a better deal than some extra points at chargen, because a few points at character creation doesn't really matter as much after a character's been around for a while. If Spidey got, say, 10 extra build points for MJ, but was in a long campaign and had to deal with her being a problem of one sort or another 30 times, then he didn't really get a good return on his investment. Likewise, if she only shows up once in a long campaign, then she's just free points. If Peter has the aspect "Dating Mary Jane", then every time that comes into play he gets one fate point. It's a fixed value; how often that comes up is up to the GM and/or the player.

Quote2. I don't like the idea of having to prejudge the outcome of Peter and MJ's spat. Let's say for instance that Spidey blows MJ off and there is no Compel. When Peter and MJ next meet there is likely to be tension. It might end badly for Peter, but who's to say that Peter might not be able to talk his way out of it. Or maybe blowing MJ off was actually a good thing for the relationship and now she doesn't take him so much for granted.

Finding out what the outcome of the spat make roleplaying interesting. But if the player has already received a Fate Point you now have to ensure that it ends badly for Peter because that is part of the Compel mechanic.

It doesn't have to end badly long-term, just the initial (or relatively immediate) outcome needs to be bad. Yeah, Peter blew off MJ, so now she's not going to return his calls or talk to him for a few days (or, to put it in comic terms, the end of the issue or arc). But after she has some time to cool down, she's talking to him again and they're dating again.
To break the example down: When the GM compelled Peter to blow off MJ, the "cost" was that MJ was mad for a couple of days. Anything that happens after that is has nothing (mechanically) to do with the compel.

QuoteWhat I think I would rather see is for the Compel a more mechanically explicit effect in line with the mechanical reward it offers. For instance blowing off the date with MJ result in Peter being distracted (say -2) during the next scene, essentially treating it as a Consequence or a temporary Aspect which opponents can tag.

That's an interesting idea; maybe combining the two would be work: having compels be worth either a chip or a minor consequence. You might want to check out "Consequences as Positive Currency" at Frad Hick's blog for some ideas that might build on what you're saying.

Quote from: pawsplay;467580I think a lot of people read Fate Points as a currency, when in fact, they are intended as ritual. For instance, if you play Call of Cthulhu, your PC is likely to end up dead or insane. All Fate characters are bound to a similar fate (zing!). By playing Fate, you agree to be jerked around, and by taking the Aspect "Freelancer for the Bugle" you are agreeing to be jerked around in that specific fashion.

No more than you're agreeing to be "jerked around" if you were in another game and had "I freelance for the Bugle and JJJ calls me at inopportune moments". In Fate's case, you're getting something for it (like you would in games with "roleplay XP", really. You're playing your character and background as defined, and being rewarded for it.)
And yes, Fate points are a currency.

Quote from: Soylent Green;467582For it doesn't really solve my issue. As GM I will send after the Wolverine style mutant whatever makes sense to me in the context of the adventure - it might be a couple of asthmatic goons armed with clubs or a army of Sentinel robots. And if not's tied to a Compel it's all good, it doesn't have to be fair, the whole point is to find out what happens next. If a Compel is involved I'd feel constrained. An unfair challenge like a score of Sentinels becomes a Fate Point tax, make the encounter too easy and it's become a soft Compel.

Compels shouldn't be tied to "setpiece" fights, really.

QuoteThe player is also constraint. If he's been paid a Fate Point, can he just turn tail and run or try to talk his way out of it?

Yes he can. The compel just sets up the scene.

QuoteNot to mention, going back to the original example in the blog, so the goons hunting Wolverine get bazookas, what about the other player characters hanging with Wolverine. Do they get Fate Points too or do the goons simple not use their bazookas on the rest?

This is why a "fight starting" compel doesn't really work. It's generally a good idea to keep the scope of the compel to the character you're compelling. It's not always possible, of course, but it's a good rule of thumb.



Here's the example I always use to describe compels:
Frankie is sitting in a seedy bar, following a gun runner to see who the guy's contact is. Frankie has the "Lady's Man" aspect because he's a love-em-and-leave-em type.
The GM decides to compel that aspect, so he holds up the fate point and tells him, "As you're keeping a low profile, you see a good-looking woman out of the corner of your eye. She looks kind of familiar...and she looks like she recognizes you too. It's that girl you had a big fling with a few months back and never called again. Guess being a lady's man is about to bite you in the ass..."
At this point, Frankie's player has two options. He can resist the compel and pay out a point of his own; if he does this, the woman doesn't recognize him, or she gets distracted or whatever and Frankie can keep his stealthy stalk on.
If he accepts the compel, however, then the woman does recognize him, stalks over, and starts a big scene in the middle of the bar. Now Frankie has to deal with that, and his target may recognize him and bolt (if they've met), or just leave with Frankie unable to follow him right away.
It should be pointed out that, if the gun runner is the only lead that Frankie has to whatever he needs for things to progess, the runner shouldn't get away clean. Compels should never cause the game to stop in its tracks. Instead of a simple stealthy trail job, now it's a chase scene, or the guy dropped a clue as he rushed out that could cause Frankie to waste time hunting down a new lead if things are time sensitive.

Quote from: FunTyrant;467595No more than you're agreeing to be "jerked around" if you were in another game and had "I freelance for the Bugle and JJJ calls me at inopportune moments". In Fate's case, you're getting something for it (like you would in games with "roleplay XP", really. You're playing your character and background as defined, and being rewarded for it.)
And yes, Fate points are a currency.

They don't have a fixed rate of exchange. I can't decide when my GM will force me to double or nothing. I can gain one by activing an aspect of the story. I can spend them. They are not a currrency; they are a tool for controlling behavior. They are part of the role-playing ritual. They are more "three secret ingredients" than they are like a currency. "Look, I made asparagus ice cream, too! Give me a bonus!"

I'm not saying they are bad, I'm just saying, they have a pretty weak role as a currency.

Quote from: Soylent Green;467582Not to mention, going back to the original example in the blog, so the goons hunting Wolverine get bazookas, what about the other player characters hanging with Wolverine. Do they get Fate Points too or do the goons simple not use their bazookas on the rest?

The Fate Point goes to the Wolverine character because his Aspect brought the awesome into the story, not as a mitigant for getting shot at with bazookas. The GM is saying thank you, not sorry. The other players will have to accept some compels of their own if they want Fate.

I will note here that in my own game (the Starblazer campaign, which is the FATE game I've played so far, and has been going on more than a year already) I very quickly clued into a couple of things.  First, I treat ALL aspects as potentially subject to compels.  One aspect a PC has is a "negative" aspect, that can only be used for compels and never to tag, the others are generally seen as positive but I can at any time oblige someone to face a compel with any of them.

But, and here's the second point, I don't do it very often.  It works a lot better if the compels are not flying all over the place all the time.  Once per PC per session tends to be the usual limit.

Also, in a more general sense of discussion, there's a HUGE difference to me between how compelling works in FATE and how some other systems work where a PC can be "punched in the Girlfriend" as it were.  I've seen other games where basically a PC can choose to redirect damage or gain a momentary bonus at the cost of some FUTURE problem.  These tend to be seriously problematic mechanics.
FATE, on the other hand, is front-loaded.  The option to gain a FATE point or spend one to accept/avoid a compel is presented at the very moment that you would be facing the potential disadvantage.

The difference between the way the two mechanics work is that player-psychology will see them in seriously different lights.  With the "punched in the girlfriend" type mechanic, the Player will often be more than willing to avoid a current problem or gain a current advantage in exchange for some vague future difficulty, because players tend to focus on the short term.
Likewise, because they tend to focus on the short term, concentrating on the problem at hand, the FATE compel mechanic has the opposite effect, players are faced with a real disadvantage/problem NOW, in exchange for the possibility that later they will be able to use that extra FATE point for something useful; also, if they instead wish to avoid set problem, they will have one Fate point less, later.  This makes the player think much more carefully about what his options are.  

Finally, it shouldn't have to be said, but the biggest potential problem is not one of the mechanic, but of the GM, if the GM is willing to give out Fate points cheaply for things that aren't really substantially problematic for the PLAYER (not the character's) interests. If a player is faced with something that the character might not want but that doesn't really inconvenience the player in any real way, he'll always say yes.  When I do a compel, I make sure that the cost is something that the PLAYER will feel.  "MJ will be pissed off at your character" is something that won't have any weight to it if the player doesn't really give a shit about MJ, even if he says his character does.

RPGPundit

Hmm interesting.

Quote from: Soylent Green;4675571. There is a disparity between the reward and price. The reward, a Fate point, has clearly defined worth - namely a +2 or a reroll. The price, an argument with MJ, is totally vague. Surely if it's just an uncomfortable 10 minutes it's not worth 1/2 a Fate point at most. On the other hand if it spells the end of the relationship it should be a lot more than 1 Fate Point.

Well,  a reroll could save a character's life, or be worthless if they go ahead and blow that too?

MJ having a fight with Peter does has a very vague value, but isn't this going to be inevitable if you're trying to put a point value on fuzzy roleplay-esque things ?  

 It doesn't necessarily matter if the breakup was only worth one Fate point - by entering into the compel the player accepted a risk of something bad happening and as long as that's on average worth a Fate point, I wouldn't really see it as a problem.  
I guess the issue is really that the player doesn't know in advance  exactly how much of a mess they're going to get themselves into, for  situations like this - making judging the risk more difficult?

Quote from: Brad J. Murray;467565Ryan Macklin had an alternate reading on compels that I quite liked, and I am mostly in Clash's camp on them. I wrote about it here.

The wolverine example is pretty cool.
This may or may not make sense to anybody else, but I'm seeing a parallel in how this sort of Compel works vs. say subplots in DC Heroes: in that a PC and GM agree on a Subplot (which probably makes the PCs life more difficult) and after resolving it the PC gets Hero Points, which they can use to get bonuses on die rolls. So Compels seem to be like mini-Subplots. The main different I can see being that a subplot didn't have to be based on anything resembling an 'aspect'.

Quote from: FunTyrant;467595It doesn't have to end badly long-term, just the initial (or relatively immediate) outcome needs to be bad. Yeah, Peter blew off MJ, so now she's not going to return his calls or talk to him for a few days (or, to put it in comic terms, the end of the issue or arc). But after she has some time to cool down, she's talking to him again and they're dating again.
To break the example down: When the GM compelled Peter to blow off MJ, the "cost" was that MJ was mad for a couple of days. Anything that happens after that is has nothing (mechanically) to do with the compel.

It may not have to turn out bad in the long run, but the immediate impact is. My point is that you are going to have to roleplay a scene in which the outcome is fixed, or at least heavily influence, by contractual obligation to fulfill the Compel. I don't care for that. If I am going to roleplay a scene, I do want the possible outcomes to be wide open, otherwise it's just like reading a script.

Also, "MJ mad at you for a couple of days" sounds like really soft price.  There is a lot of advice about Compels out there, a lot of contradictory but some of the more authoritative ones always come back to the point that Compels must have teeth. I appreciate how different players react will vary, but for most players I know "MJ mad at me for a couple of days" is just fluff. Which is why I'd rather see it backed by a hard effect of some sort, like a temporary, taggable Aspect such as "The Blues" or "Distracted by personal problems" until things are patched up with MJ.  

As such your later example works well, because the cost the Compel is immediate and the consequences quite significant. I've used similar kind of Compels before.

But it's mostly the notion of roleplaying out a scene in which the outcome has been predetermined by the fact that is has been triggered by a Compel that I object to. That doesn't feel genuine or interesting to me.

QuoteCompels shouldn't be tied to "setpiece" fights, really.

I only raised that in response to the example Halfjack linked to.

Quote from: Soylent Green;467557While that is unquestionably how Fate works I always find these kind of weak.

1. There is a disparity between the reward and price. The reward, a Fate point, has clearly defined worth - namely a +2 or a reroll. The price, an argument with MJ, is totally vague. Surely if it's just an uncomfortable 10 minutes it's not worth 1/2 a Fate point at most. On the other hand if it spells the end of the relationship it should be a lot more than 1 Fate Point.

The first thing that came to my mind was: I don't know anyone that would, in a SHRPG playing someone like Spidey, choose to go and talk to MJ (or Aunt May, or Gwen, or Harry, or any bystander type) without good reason - ie looking for clues or info. There would need to be a reason: such a player would choose to talk to MJ only because it gave them a Fate point somehow. Now maybe that's just me, maybe some people think it fun to just, without compulsion, roleplay a scene with Pete and MJ doing their thing.

Quote from: Soylent Green;467651It may not have to turn out bad in the long run, but the immediate impact is. My point is that you are going to have to roleplay a scene in which the outcome is fixed, or at least heavily influence, by contractual obligation to fulfill the Compel. I don't care for that. If I am going to roleplay a scene, I do want the possible outcomes to be wide open, otherwise it's just like reading a script.

But it's mostly the notion of roleplaying out a scene in which the outcome has been predetermined by the fact that is has been triggered by a Compel that I object to. That doesn't feel genuine or interesting to me.

Okay, I get what you're saying now. Still, just because the outcome (MJ is mad at Peter) is set, how that affects things isn't.
As a side note, if Peter blows off his girlfriend MJ in other RPGs, the outcome (MJ is mad at Peter) is still "preordained", isn't it?

QuoteI only raised that in response to the example Halfjack linked to.

I know, I was agreeing with you. Sorry I wasn't clear on that.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;467655The first thing that came to my mind was: I don't know anyone that would, in a SHRPG playing someone like Spidey, choose to go and talk to MJ (or Aunt May, or Gwen, or Harry, or any bystander type) without good reason - ie looking for clues or info. There would need to be a reason: such a player would choose to talk to MJ only because it gave them a Fate point somehow. Now maybe that's just me, maybe some people think it fun to just, without compulsion, roleplay a scene with Pete and MJ doing their thing.

I think that speaks more to the players than the system, though. I have players who will go talk to their side characters during "downtime", and I've had players who wouldn't use their background bits if you prodded them with a cattle prod.