I like the Fudge legacy of Fate, the ladder, the Fudge dice and attitude.

I like Aspects in their role of character descriptor.

I like that is it a character driven system.

I like that is Margin of Success based system and the interesting things you can do with that.

I dislike the rule bloat. LoA has over 50 pages for skills. Come on!

I dislike the traditional skill Pyramid though it can be fixed.

I dislike the various character generation mini-games or gimmicks.

I like Compels but dislike paying to refuse Compel and I am disappointed in that despite so many versions of Fate the whole area around Compels remains murky feels unfinished to me.

I dislike the emphasis that has been placed on the Fate Point economy in some quarters; nothing wrong with Fate Points going back and forth but should not be the purpose of the game.

Soylent Green, have you had a chance to check out FATE Core?

It has streamlined a few things while giving pretty good advice on how to handle things like equipment. It has also pared back the number of starting character aspects which makes creating characters more straight forward. In the past I'd let players who couldn't come up with all of their aspects to leave slots open to be filled in later. Now that's no longer an issue.

I hear you on LoA. I was hoping that it'd be a strong candidate for my FATE fantasy go-to game but it was just too much.

I've not checked out Core Fate, I'm not really big on kickstarters. I'll probably grab it when it's done.

I don't mind the large number of Aspect found in older version of Fate as it means you can be more relaxed about it. I like the "character generation on the fly option" from SotC and I encourage players to choose Aspects during play. The way I see it if your vested enough in the situation to feel like spending point there is probably an Aspect of your character involved which as player you'd not considered before let written it down yet. Likewise even if a player has a Aspect that isn't getting much use, as longs as it means something to him I'm happy with it.

Quote from: Soylent Green;612836I've not checked out Core Fate, I'm not really big on kickstarters. I'll probably grab it when it's done.

A buck gets you instant access to the draft so it's a pretty good deal.

QuoteI don't mind the large number of Aspect found in older version of Fate as it means you can be more relaxed about it. I like the "character generation on the fly option" from SotC and I encourage players to choose Aspects during play. The way I see it if your vested enough in the situation to feel like spending point there is probably an Aspect of your character involved which as player you'd not considered before let written it down yet. Likewise even if a player has a Aspect that isn't getting much use, as longs as it means something to him I'm happy with it.

In one of our Spirit of the Century/Middle Earth sessions one PC said several times, "Hey, I'm not dumb!" Right on the spot I suggested that become one of his aspects. Everyone laughed including the PC's player and it stuck. Just one of those spontaneous great moments.

Quote from: Eisenmann;612875A buck gets you instant access to the draft so it's a pretty good deal.

And Fred even points out on the Kickstarter page that you can pledge, download the draft, and cancel your pledge.

But, I'd recommend the $10 pledge. For a minimal fee, you get PDF copies of  Core Rules, 3 other rulebooks of the same size, and 8 (I think) settings for FATE.

That's a pretty sweet haul for very little money, any way you slice it.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;612918And Fred even points out on the Kickstarter page that you can pledge, download the draft, and cancel your pledge.

But, I'd recommend the $10 pledge. For a minimal fee, you get PDF copies of  Core Rules, 3 other rulebooks of the same size, and 8 (I think) settings for FATE.

That's a pretty sweet haul for very little money, any way you slice it.

It really is. After pledging a dollar and seeing the draft I went back and upped it to ten.

The thing about FATE is that its absolutely a toolkit; you have to model your version of FATE to the type of emulation that you're trying to accomplish.  Games that do so (Starblazer Adventures and ICONS are two excellent examples) end up being amazing games.  If you don't do this, however, or do it badly, you're going to end up with something mediocre at best.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;613266The thing about FATE is that its absolutely a toolkit; you have to model your version of FATE to the type of emulation that you're trying to accomplish.  Games that do so (Starblazer Adventures and ICONS are two excellent examples) end up being amazing games.  If you don't do this, however, or do it badly, you're going to end up with something mediocre at best.

RPGPundit

Very well said.

Quote from: RPGPundit;613266The thing about FATE is that its absolutely a toolkit; you have to model your version of FATE to the type of emulation that you're trying to accomplish.  Games that do so (Starblazer Adventures and ICONS are two excellent examples) end up being amazing games.  If you don't do this, however, or do it badly, you're going to end up with something mediocre at best.

Most definitely. That's part of its appeal for me. I gotta note though, you don't have to go as big as Starblazer or even ICONS to assemble an effective model for gameplay. I've had some really good experience running Star Wars with Spirit of the Century and Macross with a small subset of Starblazer. Admittedly staying light (with clarity) can take some deliberate effort. Tweaks throughout FATE Core, I think, will help GMs do more with just a thin veneer than with previous variants.

Quote from: Silverlion;612168I'm considering doing a Fate-powered post-apocalyptic game. Since Fate seems capable of doing what I wanted for the setting.

Tell me what you like about Fate? What do you hate about it? What could it use?

Like:

I'll get to naming specific rules in a second and phrase it a bit less mechanically. I like that FATE encourages player buy-in to the setting and encourages more nuanced, believable behavior by characters.

The mechanics that do this are:
1) The setting builders (vary widely from FATE game to FATE game)
2) The wailing point some folks have above: aspects.

Don't like:

Some iterations of FATE, and some FATE backers want to use aspects as a replacement for more concrete mechanics. AFAIAC, they aren't made for that and aren't good at that. Fortunately, FATE games like SBA, Bulldogs, and Diaspora show that the game works really well with concrete mechanics alongside aspects.

Quote from: Eisenmann;613324Most definitely. That's part of its appeal for me. I gotta note though, you don't have to go as big as Starblazer or even ICONS to assemble an effective model for gameplay. I've had some really good experience running Star Wars with Spirit of the Century and Macross with a small subset of Starblazer. Admittedly staying light (with clarity) can take some deliberate effort. Tweaks throughout FATE Core, I think, will help GMs do more with just a thin veneer than with previous variants.

No, you don't need to go as far as that, but you are well-served by looking at games like Starblazer, Anglerre, or ICONS to provide examples of the way you can modify the basic core of FATE for your own game.

RPGPundit

How storygamey is FATE in play?

Quote from: Piestrio;613645How storygamey is FATE in play?

I've found it very abstract and gimmicky. It's a conflict-resolution system (as opposed to more traditional task-resolution) and conflict is resolved using hit point-like Stress Tracks; when you "take a hit" you have the option of taking a negative Aspect called a Consequence instead of ticking a box. Tick all box and you've "lost" (though what "losing" means isn't always clear and is supposed to be determined by the context).

I think it's a storygame. Pundy swears it's not a storygame but he modifies or outright ignores a decent chunk of the rules as written.

I wouldn't say it's a bad game but it's not my cup of tea.

I've got a friend who calls Fate 3 a "tell me how you win" game.

Pretty much as long as you have '+2 tokens' AKA "fate chips" you will win your conflict.

On paper it seems like I should like Fate quite a bit and, in fact, I've used it quite a bit.  But damn, each and ever ytime it really does end up with the players pretty much being able to win every conflict with the sheer amount of fate chips they can bring to bear.

I will say, I like Fate better when I mandate Fate point expenditure *before* a roll (so the dice actually feel like they have some impact as opposed to a simple speed bump) plus I use the D6-D6 method which gives a wider spread.

In some ways, Marvel Heroic Roleplaying is my better version of Fate where 'aspects' actually differ in value (die size) as opposed to everything being worth a +2.

Quote from: Ian Noble;613668On paper it seems like I should like Fate quite a bit and, in fact, I've used it quite a bit.  But damn, each and ever ytime it really does end up with the players pretty much being able to win every conflict with the sheer amount of fate chips they can bring to bear.

If pacing hasn't depleted the PC's Fate points then minions are pretty handy here.