I tried to get into FATE circa 2009, when I picked up SBA during its short stint as a RPGnet darling.
I love the aesthetics of the eponymous comic, but the book was a fucking nightmare to read. I remember only grasping some points of the system the system when I finally found and read the Diaspora SRD (close enough).
What turned me off ultimately was the very metagamey nature of the Fate Point economy, Aspects, tags and compels. It all felt very "dissociated" to use Justin Alexander's term.
But a few recent exchanges (of varying civility :D) with a few good RPGsiters made me wonder whether I should give FATE Core and/or Accelerated a new chance. From what I've read, I'm under the impression that the system, or at least it's presentation, has been comprehensively cleaned up.
For someone whose only contact with FATE was SBA, what differences, if any, can I expect from FATE Core and FAE?
QuoteWhat turned me off ultimately was the very metagamey nature of the Fate Point economy, Aspects, tags and compels. It all felt very "dissociated" to use Justin Alexander's term.
All of it still remains in Fate core, except a suggestion that less is more with Aspects - rather than bazillion Aspects, choose a few that you will actually roleplay and that will help the story. So that's a thing to be wary of regarding Fate - if they were a deal breaker before, well, they haven't exactly gone anywhere.
I think it's quite a cool system, except a very abstract and story - focused indeed. It needs players who can handle also abstract forms, such as villains suddenly breaking out of the most clever traps because well, it's Conflict Scene time, rather than a simple smack on the head sneak (though this also depends on a convention I guess - Fate being more fit for the more "epic" conventions). I had one really GREAT game, and one absolutely terrible.
Speaking of Aspects, I think that'd be the biggest difference - from what I heard, earlier Fate games were focused around "Aspects are everything", where now you'd have a suggestion to make such stuff as equipment & companions not Aspects & Stunts, but rather, rules in their own accord, avoiding aspect blot.
It's a neat system, but IME it just didn't work out. It was too "meta" for some of my players, and one individual disliked it enough that I didn't want to mess around with running it. I think, at least, from my experiences, it takes a bit more player buy-in than some other games. If you run it, be prepared for a lot of interruptions and questions, at least at first.
They still have Aspects, Tags, and Compels, the choice of using them is still completely outside the character, a total Dramatic Logic Metagame, so...no.
Play RQ6 instead. :D
I am actually working on a UNFATE system. Basicly uses some elements of fate that I think work fine (aka aspects) while taking away parts that harm traditional play (fate points, tags, and compels).
Example: Berry has Drunken Black Belt Master as a aspect. Berry went to a bar and got involved in a bar fight. He gets a bonus to his combat rolls, but asks the GM how tough are these guys. GM reasons that these guys are pretty much untrained thugs who are picking a fight. Berry asks the GM that if it is possible for him to just succeed anyways since his combat rolls are high, he has the aspect, and they are just untrained thugs. GM agrees and Berry kick their asses without rolling.
Next few nights later Berry is at a bar fight again. This time against one man who is clearly a biker. Berry tries to use the aspect to just kick the biker's ass without rolling. GM disagrees and points out a aspect that biker has which is Secretly a Werewolf. Though the GM does agree that Berry should get a bonus to his combat rolls.
As mentioned, all of those bits are still there in Fate. Though with the smaller Aspects set and some other tunings such as explicit enumeration of what can be done with the system; create advantage, overcome, etc. - the use of Fate points feels more integrated into the game, less loosey-goosey art.
Fate Accelerated is high speed, low drag making it easy to get a game going. Just a few minutes ago, we wrapped up a FAE session running in parallel, in the same setting as our RuneQuest 6 game. Using Fate, we developed the backstory for the RQ6 campaign.
SBA I would think a pretty scary place to start with Fate. There is just much of it and because of it's toolkit approach, it doesn't really go anywhere. Bulldogs! is a lot friendlier.
But the thing to bear in mind with Fate is that you can really customise it to suit your needs. Have a look at what I did with Bounty Hunters of the Atomic Wasteland (link my sig file). You may find in that particular iteration of Fate the metagame elements have been dialled right down.
FAE is a little lighter on the metagame, and the game in general than FATE, less moving gears so to speak. But if you didn't like those things in SBA, they're still around in FATE/FAE.
I love it, for what it is, but its not all there is and the end all be all of games for me either.
Then again I try and make sure things are done in character, you tell me what the character is doing and I'll apply the mechanics as a GM. Even if its slightly metagame to use FATE points, I've been using "patchup" points since MSH and have no problem with that.
There's also a matter of how much you push the more 'metagamey' aspects of Fate. If you're throwing Compels around like crazy, it's going to feel gonzo and metagamey. If you don't, it's going to feel much more rooted.
Personally, I require any invocations to be somehow correlated to the scene. You don't just get to say "I invoke ". You have to say what *actually happens*.
Fate Core is a pretty good place to start with Fate, as is FAE, as both of them are pretty condensed and a bit of cruft from earlier versions is removed.
I'm a pretty big fan, but I"ll also agree that it's not a "be-all, end-all" system. I wouldn't use it for a dungeon crawl, or for highly detailed tactical combat, for starters.
Quote from: Snowman0147;765206I am actually working on a UNFATE system. Basicly uses some elements of fate that I think work fine (aka aspects) while taking away parts that harm traditional play (fate points, tags, and compels).
You know that pretty much describes Fudge.
I been working off and on a Fantasy Fudge/Fate hybrid. This is the latest I have.
http://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/MajesticRealmsRPG_Fudge_Rev%2016.zip
Quote from: estar;765328You know that pretty much describes Fudge.
Well I went further than that.
- I got rid of the skill pyramid and replace them with attributes. Sure you start out at the low end, but it leaves room for growth for the long run.
- Replace boxes with different hp like health tracks. For my games I went for wounds (physical health), heroics (think vitality), and spirit (mental/spiritual health).
- Change how milestones work.
- Added in advantages and disadvantages. I bought some Zombie Dice and used the green dice for advantages, yellow dice for normal fudge rolls, and red dice for disadvantages. So if you ambush some one your gonna roll greens and have higher chance to get +s to your roll. If your wondering I made brains into +, foot prints into 0, and shotgun blasts into -.
Point is it should feel more like a traditional game.
My wife wants to run a FATE game and I have been reluctant because even though I have read a ton about FATE, I can't get my head around aspects and stuff. Maybe I need to see if there are any actual plays available, but I always seem to fall back to, "meh, can't we just use Savage Worlds?"
If anyone has any cool actual play resources, I would appreciate the input!
Quote from: The Butcher;765081I tried to get into FATE circa 2009, when I picked up SBA during its short stint as a RPGnet darling.
I love the aesthetics of the eponymous comic, but the book was a fucking nightmare to read.
SBA is a bit of a nightmare version on Fate in my opinion. Very large, very fiddely, poorly organised. Fate Core improves all those factors without doubt - it's compact, concise and well structured.
QuoteWhat turned me off ultimately was the very metagamey nature of the Fate Point economy, Aspects, tags and compels. It all felt very "dissociated" to use Justin Alexander's term.
For someone whose only contact with FATE was SBA, what differences, if any, can I expect from FATE Core and FAE?
Fate Core has a slight tweaking of the rules, with 'blocking' removed as a mechanism and a more straight forward mechanism implemented instead. Everything is more compact. You generally have less aspects, less stunts and (compared to SBA) less Stress too.
Fate Core is a very elegant system, with guidance on how to easily hack it to meet your specific needs. As others have already commented, there is less reliance on Aspects for all kinds of threats and dangers. There are a couple of companion books (the Worlds of Fate duo) which give fully worked examples. A classic is the game of fire fighting, where the skills list is completely changed to be genre specific and different types of fire fighting challenges are stat-ed up as monsters. The Toolkit book has lots of guidance on building any 'extras' that you need to support your game, be they trading houses, giant robots, magic systems of anything else.
It's a really solid core system in my experience, but you do probably need at least one trial mini campaign to 'get it' and both the players and GM need to adjust. One health warning, however. The game concept is that characters should suffer travails throughout the adventure, with minor failures as well as successes, to provide them with the meta-currency they need to succeed in the final stages of your game. This is the most 'story game' facet of the system in my opinion. If you and your players aren't into that type of narrative structure, Fate probably will probably never be for you.
Has anyone played Fate without the meta constructs? I like the simplicity of the core skill roll mechanic.
But I just don't need to "Create a Complication" Etc,... as a actual meta game mechanics.
Quote from: Snowman0147;765343Well I went further than that.
- I got rid of the skill pyramid and replace them with attributes. Sure you start out at the low end, but it leaves room for growth for the long run.
- Replace boxes with different hp like health tracks. For my games I went for wounds (physical health), heroics (think vitality), and spirit (mental/spiritual health).
- Change how milestones work.
- Added in advantages and disadvantages. I bought some Zombie Dice and used the green dice for advantages, yellow dice for normal fudge rolls, and red dice for disadvantages. So if you ambush some one your gonna roll greens and have higher chance to get +s to your roll. If your wondering I made brains into +, foot prints into 0, and shotgun blasts into -.
Point is it should feel more like a traditional game.
Again all stuff covered in Fudge except they call Advantages Gifts, and Disadvantages Flaws.
Here is are some links the Fudge SRD. I highly recommend the 10th anniversary hard cover.
The Grey Ghost Offical SRD (http://www.fudgerpg.com/fudge-publishing/39-fudge-srd.html?catid=22%3Apublishing-resources)
The above but formatted a lot nicer as a PDF (http://www.sonic.net/~rknop/big/Omar/fudge/FudgeSRD.pdf).
Understand that Fudge is first and foremost a toolkit for constructing a specific RPG. In that aspect it is similar to Fate Core or Fate Accelerated. The main difference is that it is presented as a traditional RPG with traditional options.
The downside of Fudge is that +1 is a big deal compared to other systems. So it takes some careful work to make things work out as you expect between things of different power levels. But on the other hand the way it handles things of different scale is absolutely brilliant. It can be run with a lot of mechanical detail or be run rules lite. It just depends on the options you pick.
Nice touch with the Zombie dice.
Quote from: Bill;765467Has anyone played Fate without the meta constructs? I like the simplicity of the core skill roll mechanic.
But I just don't need to "Create a Complication" Etc,... as a actual meta game mechanics.
Yes I have. As I said earlier without the Fate Economy and all that it is a another variant of Fudge.
I use aspects as a blanket terms that covers advantages, disadvantages, and packages. For example a player who makes his character a member of the city guard of the City State of Invincible Overlord. would put down that as an aspect. It would mean that he has all the in-game privileges and complications that go along with it.
It not much different than writing a character background however I found it to provide a little more structure and I can hand out a list of available aspects for players to pick from if need be.
Note I am ignoring the meta game mechanics in favor handling everything in-game.