Quote from: The Butcher;613652Pundy swears it's not a storygame but he modifies or outright ignores a decent chunk of the rules as written.

Which is kind of the point of a toolbox system. Hence all the new players who don't understand how to play AD&D or even GURPs.

Quote from: TristramEvans;613861Which is kind of the point of a toolbox system. Hence all the new players who don't understand how to play AD&D or even GURPs.

I've read and played my share of toolbox games, but FATE (at least as presented in SBA) is horribly, horribly written and laid out.

Quote from: The Butcher;613892I've read and played my share of toolbox games, but FATE (at least as presented in SBA) is horribly, horribly written and laid out.

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I suspect that a lot of the core mechanics are assumed by the authors and they've never really broken them down and groked their own creation enough to crystallize it in concrete statements. Hence, the utter lack of such statements when talking about, for example, details of how Compels work.

(To be fair, that's hard to do, for anyone. The quote I most remember, about a mathematician, is "I don't understand this concept well enough to explain it in plain language." That's where Evil Hat is stuck.)

Fred has been complaining (in connection with FATE Core) about having to rewrite the Compel rules again and again. People just don't get it.

It's Evil Hat's fault. They haven't explained it clearly. They need to take a step back, identify which parts of the rules are vague or incomplete, and work on expressing and explaining those parts clearly.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;613908Fred has been complaining (in connection with FATE Core) about having to rewrite the Compel rules again and again. People just don't get it.

It's Evil Hat's fault. They haven't explained it clearly. They need to take a step back, identify which parts of the rules are vague or incomplete, and work on expressing and explaining those parts clearly.

To be fair, it isn't Compels that get me.

I have a hard time with grading Consequences.

I think they should offer a more concise description of the basics, and use lots and lots of examples. Oh, and better editing too, the system's all over the place.

Quote from: The Butcher;613892I've read and played my share of toolbox games, but FATE (at least as presented in SBA) is horribly, horribly written and laid out.

SBA is... not a good presentation of Fate 3.  It's kind of fucking ridiculous, actually, with a phone directory-sized rulebook and super-ugly layout.

If you ever get your hands on Diaspora, you might be pleasantly surprised.  Very concise and layout is great.

Quote from: Ian Noble;613952SBA is... not a good presentation of Fate 3.  It's kind of fucking ridiculous, actually, with a phone directory-sized rulebook and super-ugly layout.

If you ever get your hands on Diaspora, you might be pleasantly surprised.  Very concise and layout is great.

I found Diaspora harder to understand, because of its order of information. I'd recommend Bulldogs! Fate edition myself. Its the most concise version I've seen attached to a published game.

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

The only thing I might really consider story gamey is that some (maybe 20%) compels might have the player making decisions that the PC is not aware of or cannot influence.

A normal compel might be a player whose pc is "always itchin' for a fight" to get in an inconvenient brawl, which is their choice. But a PC with "really big" might have a fragile bridge crumble under them; in that case, the player is making a choice that the PC cannot.

I personally don't consider this a big deal, as it's a much better way to handle disadvantage type mechanisms than traditional point buy mechanisms, which are much more prone to min/maxing, and accordingly much more likely to break my immersion the having to make an occasional choice from an ooc perspective.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;613960The only thing I might really consider story gamey is that some (maybe 20%) compels might have the player making decisions that the PC is not aware of or cannot influence.

A normal compel might be a player whose pc is "always itchin' for a fight" to get in an inconvenient brawl, which is their choice. But a PC with "really big" might have a fragile bridge crumble under them; in that case, the player is making a choice that the PC cannot.

I personally don't consider this a big deal, as it's a much better way to handle disadvantage type mechanisms than traditional point buy mechanisms, which are much more prone to min/maxing, and accordingly much more likely to break my immersion the having to make an occasional choice from an ooc perspective.

Well for me, the general concept of an aspect is something you are willing to have come up--good or ill, so the player made the character who they expect to have those problems.

Quote from: The Butcher;613892I've read and played my share of toolbox games, but FATE (at least as presented in SBA) is horribly, horribly written and laid out.

I agree, as far as the 3rd edition books go. I don't think they explain the system properly for new players (or old-school players), provide way too many options without indicating they are options, and don't really distinguish between standard mechanics and narrative based mechanics.

Of them all, Icons, despite not technically being a FATE product, does the best streamlined presentation of the system. 2nd edition, OTOH, was quite tightly streamlined and well-presented.

Quote from: The Butcher;613892I've read and played my share of toolbox games, but FATE (at least as presented in SBA) is horribly, horribly written and laid out.

Quote from: Ian Noble;613952SBA is... not a good presentation of Fate 3.

Indeed. SotC is a little bit messy, in ways that seem logical but sort of make navigation difficult (skills, then a stunt list sorted by skill, which makes it harder to know at a glance if you spot the word "athletics", you don't know right off if you are looking at stunts or skill uses.) But SBA is more or less taking SotC, adding "space stuff", and then throwing in subsystem after subsystem after subsystem... some more valuable than others (I don't see ever using the plot stress rules, for example.)

Diaspora and Bulldogs are quite a bit cleaner in their presentation.

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

The basic answer is that it depends how you play it.  I think the essence of FATE, its absolute skeleton, isn't storygamey at all.

But a storygamer could certainly take the rules and infuse into them a considerable storygame element; I don't know if this makes the game a decent storygame, but it does usually make it a poor RPG.

Likewise, a regular roleplayer will set up and run FATE in such a way that it will play as a completely regular RPG.   Otherwise, I certainly would never have run two lengthy campaigns with it (so far).

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