Do you like Fate? Why/Why not?
I like the idea of Fate- by merging the characters' stats with the mechanics of storytelling, the players have a stake in the plot and a real connection to the story.
In practice, though, this leads to players taking the least confrontational and most predictable route, even to the point of saying "This isn't worth it, let's go home and end the story there."
>>45705088
>In practice, though, this leads to players taking the least confrontational and most predictable route, even to the point of saying "This isn't worth it, let's go home and end the story there."
Dude, what? I've literally never even heard of that happening in a FATE group until now. That sounds like a problem with your players.
>>45704660
I love Fate.
I hate Fate threads.
Stop this shit already. Ask a real question pertaining to your game or bugger off. This is just repetition.
>>45704660
I don't like it.
Managing an economy of points in order to gain small mechanical bonuses for good roleplaying is far too clunky and time consuming to be the core mechanic of a game.
It also puts an inordinately heavy load on the GM to remember all the players' traits, aspects, stunts and other characteristics, and to find ways to employ them all in order to keep the supply of points flowing.
The company tries to sell it as a great choice for people new to tabletop RPGs, but that's actually not true at all. The character generation process requires that the players and the GM work together to establish setting details and a cast of characters who all know each other through elaborate backstories, something a group of people who have never played an RPG will struggle with.
Finally, I think Fudge dice are stupid. There's no reason for a game system to ever use them. It isn't like they're any simpler to use than real dice, totaling up pluses and minuses is the same thing as totaling up actual numbers.
>>45704660
I like the emphasis Fate places on the story, and the aspect mechanics. It is a little too rules light for me, so I usually add some stuff to the game. The fact that it can cover pretty much any setting is very attractive as well. The dice mechanics feel a little wonky to me, but it is not a dealbreaker.
>>45704660
Too much metagamery.
I think FATE is a great system, even if it doesn't appeal to me. Aspects are an amazing mechanic and it's a very tightly designed system towards its goal, I just tend to prefer a little more mechanical crunch. It's a shame that mostly, rules light and narrative focus go hand in hand. More crunchy systems which retain that same setup and framework can go really interesting places.
Fate was actually my first system, and for a while the only system I really stuck with, but I've grown to dislike it overall.
>Good
+ I actually really like fate dice, and the bell curve centered on whatever flat number's going into it. A lot of people seem to disagree.
+ Small numbers is almost always good.
+ Situational Aspects is a pretty useful concept and it's easy to rip to other systems.
>Bad
- It's good at doing characters that are already pretty competent, but progression is REALLY slow. In my opinion, it's too slow. Sure I could houserule it, but if I have to houserule it then it's a weakness of the system.
- With zero direction, it's hard to come up with good Aspects and Stunts. Difficulty in character creation, for my group, is a colossal turn-off that has created nasty arguments.
- ohhh Fate points. I like the idea, and you can argue all you like that intentionally hampering yourself is good roleplaying. And I don't disagree. But it feels shitty regardless. It can be somewhat mitigated by mainly having the GM do the negative invoking, but it still feels shitty.
- I don't like a single part of the Skill Pyramid concept. It's neither good for simulationism nor gamism. What is even the point?
>Ehhh..
~ Vitals are ... interesting. Neat concept but 1-dmg hits vs 3-dmg hits is only one strike difference to pass through three stresses, and after that they are the same.
~ We all (should) know the story of the blind sniper. I'm not convinced that's an issue, because it still takes teamwork, planning, and a fuckload of Fate points to invoke all those Situational Aspects. The first two are good things to be rewarding. The last worries me because it invites ridiculous characters that stack compels, but I guess maybe it's okay to be bad most of the time and then make The Big One.
>>45705088
You're gonna have to explain how your group collapsed that far, because that sounds ridiculous.
>>45706714
You might like Burning Wheel.
>>45708919
>We all (should) know the story of the blind sniper
What story?
>>45709062
from Google (because I don't want to type it out myself):
http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/26549/how-fate-games-could-go-wrong-and-how-to-prevent-that
>The "blind sniper" problem is that in Fate, it's very easy for a cooperative party to stack multiple temporary aspect bonuses on a situation, then tag them all for a single super-successful roll regardless of innate skill.
>Consider a sniper with a base skill of +0 - "has no idea what he's doing". First he hides on high ground (creating aspect "On a Grassy Knoll"). One of the other players - a tech - has made, and gives him some "Precision Armour Piercing Ammo", with suitable aspect. Then another player jumps into the road to stall the target into "Standing Still for a minute", so the sniper can create advantage by taking an acting to put him "Centred In My Sights".
>Then the sniper free-tags all of those, for a base roll of +8 and a near-certain hit - with fate points to spare if he needs them.
>>45709878
I like when people storytime because they usually exaggerate the story and all that.
Fate is very good for what it does. However, what it does is not what I do.
I like narrative as much as the next guy, but Fate leans too heavily off of crunch for my taste.
>>45709938
It's a real mechanical issue in FATE, which sorta undermines any flexibility or depth in the system. The optimal strategy in all situations is stacking aspects. FATE games try to make up for it one way or another, but it's hard, and I don't think anyone has found a perfect solution yet.
>>45705238
Pff, rude
Fate threads are great places to ask questions!
>>45708919
Bruv, Fate is a narrative toolkit. Houserule everything. I'm working a setting and its own combat rules (which I feel are a little weak in the native system).
>>45710080
Would the easiest way out to be to limit Aspect-burning to like 1/2 per round?
Fate Core is honestly one of my favorite systems. I adore the fate dice's bell curve, I think Aspects are a great way to make characters and encourage role play, the low-numbers reduce a lot of unnecessary bullshit, and the fate point economy is fun in and of itself. >>45708919 did a good job highlighting the cons that I've found as well, but I'd include the way the stress boxes are set up. Why have -1, -2, and -3 boxes that you have to check off individually when you can just have 6 stress boxes?
I used Fate to run a supers game a couple years ago, think I'll give that another shot this summer.
>>45709878
Wait, seriously? Any half-way decent DM would say "I'll tag your Trouble: Blind, you miss, here's your fate point." I agree that the Aid Another option is easy to cheese, like >>45710080
said, but this is a poor example (critiquing the example, not your of course).
>>45710066
>Fate leans too heavily off of crunch for my taste.
...What games are you playing where you feel Fate is too crunchy? I put it on the far rules-light side of the spectrum.
>>45712248
That might work, or lower the bonus provided when you help your buddy on his Fight check. Honestly, I think as a DM you can let your players do this and just make the cost of doing so high enough for them to reconsider.
>>45714648
I think the -1/-2/-3 Stress system is meant to reduce the number of boxes and make your choices more economic when you consider Consequences versus Stress.
>>45705420
I respectfully disagree with your reasoning and this is why.
Down the line:
The current iteration of the Fate Point Economy is fucked, but having points you get to do stuff isn't really clunky. It's a step more complex than a completely narrative system like Munchausen.
The GM isn't supposed to be the sole arbiter of FP: self compelling and spending on succeeding on a task is player side. Stunts are entirely player side. The only thing a GM really needs to watch out for are Troubles and scene aspects. Given how hard the system pushes aspects, however, there is an urge to throw Aspects everywhere, which is hard to manage.
The setting details thing is a problem of all generic systems. The plural of anecdotes is not data, but if you tell new players "hey, we're doing X and you're Y: how do you know each other," you can get something going from my experience. And you seem to be specifically referring to the Dresden Files RPG from this: story connection Aspects are not a consistent part of Fate Core.
The last one I can't help you on, oniifam. Just use 4d6?
>>45714648
When you compare it to things like Munchausen, Heroquest 2e, PbtA games and the like, it is rather crunchy. Fate Core sits at a weird crossroads in that regard. Accelerated is closer to the previously mentioned games, but Aspects and interacting with the FP Economy add overhead.
>>45721017
Nice to see somebody gets it
FATE is not rules light
FATE is a game that has few rules for things most games have many rules for and many rules for things most games have no rules for
>>45704660
Finished my first Fate campaign last week.
Didn't empathize Aspects enough so the most important mechanics of the game were largely ignored.
Also I noticed that one thing I feel it's missing is some additional mechanic for rewarding individual players for active play of their character and having the character push their own goals. Something like Keys or Burning Wheel's Beliefs. Something that actively makes players be the ones that push things forward.
Originally I though that Aspects would do that, but now I don't think so anymore.
>>45710080
Pff, that was solved in Diaspora, and that's like the first third-party Fate game after SotC.
>>45724414
Care to describe how, since I've never heard anybody else make that claim?
>>45724463
Scope. Basically, in Diaspora, you can only tag one Aspect per Scope, such as Character, Gear, Situation, etc. So in the Blind Sniper example, that means either the Grassy Knoll OR the In My Sights OR the Standing Still could reasonably be tagged, as they're all Situation aspects.
>>45724559
That doesn't really fix the problem. The optimal strategy is still to stack aspects, just to vary the scope of each.
>>45722235
That's a perfect description. I might steal that summary, if you don't mind.
>>45714648
>>45717813
Wow. I only JUST realized we've been handling Stress wrong this entire time. I always thought that each box was worth just one point apiece.
Mechanical confusion aside, though, I feel like FATE is a great system for any game with strong genre conventions that doesn't want to get bogged down in lots of fiddly rules. My groups have primarily used it for running anime-inspired campaigns, and it really shines there with how well it weaves character-driven action together with the players' meta-narrative awareness.
The system falters, I think, when you try to do something like running a classic D&D dungeon crawl with it, or really anything else that goes against FATE's emphasis on narrative awareness. Unless you're aiming to run a very self-aware rendition of Keep on the Borderlands, there's probably a better system out there for you.
>>45708919
>- ohhh Fate points. I like the idea, and you can argue all you like that intentionally hampering yourself is good roleplaying. And I don't disagree. But it feels shitty regardless. It can be somewhat mitigated by mainly having the GM do the negative invoking, but it still feels shitty.
I can see someone feeling this way, but I and people in my group don't personally. It is good roleplay, but it also is fun to hamper your character. You don't get interesting stories if the protagonists aren't routinely disadvantaged.
>>45706690
Is this a common perspective? I didn't think it was until I started running Fate games for my normal group, and one person ended up hating it and saying it was a bad roleplaying game, because of the belief that roleplaying == immersion, and anything that removes immersion makes roleplay impossible.
>>45724619
The optimal strategy in most systems is to stack modifiers, that's what gave birth to CharOp. It's endemic to our hobby and I'm not sure why Fate should be any different. At least in Fate, the stacked modifiers must drive from some interaction with the narrative, rather than from a superior selection of benefits governed by system mastery.
>>45724798
But in terms of actual combat experience, it means that FATE combat has no real tactical depth or decision making involved, which is why that benefit stacking being a mostly unchanging gameplay strategy is an issue.
>>45724619
Players "gaming" the system is part of literally every RPG. One can't hold that against FATE unless they're willing to indict DnD or WoD or anything.
>>45724947
No tactical depth or decision making isn't how I'd describe the games I've played. Maybe my players just aren't powergamers or something, but honestly the blind sniper "problem" seems mostly invented. Like a hypothetical issue that /could/ happen, but in practice doesn't.
>>45721017
>The current iteration of the Fate Point Economy is fucked,
What's fucked about it?
>>45724947
Have you read Diaspora? It handles that pretty well, I think.
>>45724974
In other games, optimal strategies at least have some degree of depth or decision making to them, so at least they're engaging and interesting parts of the combat experience. At least, in well designed games. WoD and most D&D fail at that too.
>>45724986
It's a mechanics issue. That doesn't mean it will occur in every game, or even in most games, but that doesn't stop it existing. Some people like to find the most effective solutions to a problem, and if a system so easily bends to a simple solution, that's a flaw.
>>45724947
Even the blind sniper example goes to some lengths to make sure the aspects getting invoked are thematically, situationally and narratively relevant.
>>45704660
>Do you like Fate? Why/Why not?
It teaches newbies the basics and allows me to basically always have fresh players with good attitudes around rather than having to deal with the same grogs who tanked D&D Next's playtest.
I usually prefer to get them on Savage Worlds after that and slowly increase the amount of crunch until they can handle Anima, GURPS Lite and Hackmaster.
After which the transformation is complete....I need to work on sounding less like a supervillain.
>>45725025
The problem is that you're assuming it's a simple solution. The blind sniper example that gets used all the time requires multiple steps, planning, and rolls to go well for everyone to be able to give their invocation to the one taking the shot. And it utterly ignores the possibility of mitigating factors from the environment. The GM gets one Fate point per PC per scene. The situation ignores the possibility that the GM even attempts to challenge the party by using those.
But it also comes down to what the system is trying to do. It's for telling stories through gameplay, first and foremost. The fact that parties can rack up huge bonuses by working together with a good plan isn't a mechanical flaw, it's a selling point.
>>45725136
To add onto this
>Some people like to find the most effective solutions to a problem
That's true of course, but in that case, I would say that people who are looking to find the most efficient game-mechanical solution to a given problem are playing the wrong game.
>>45725180
Fate always seems best for people who enjoy making their characters suffer.
>>45724947
What do you mean no real tactical depth? The blind sniper illustrates a situation where the players used tactics to give themselves a considerable mechanical advantage they wouldn't have if they'd just blindly rushed into combat. I've never fired a real gun before in my life and I suspect even I'd have a fair (not GREAT, but FAIR) chance of making that shot under those circumstances if someone who knew what they were doing talked me through it ahead of time. There's tons of systems out there where giving them any reward for that would require GM fiat.
>>45722235
>FATE is a game that has few rules for things most games have many rules for and many rules for things most games have no rules for
I think 9 times out of 10 this is the real problem people have with Fate. The "meta" complaint almost always comes down to this too, if you actually push to people who make it to explain themselves. Fate's gamy meta bullshit is different from the arguably even gamier and more meta bullshit D&D has trained everyone to think of as normal to the point that they don't even notice it.
Are there any non-FUDGE systems that allow you to invent character traits and abilities from whole cloth instead of picking from a predetermined list? It's what originally drew me to Fate and while it lived up to my expectations I could take or leave most of the rest of the system
>>45727430
Unknown Armies does.
It's 1d100 roll under with four broad stats for strength, agility, intelligence, and charisma/magic, but your skills are almost entirely player chosen minus a few they give you for free.
Do you use the Armour/Weapon Rating rules? Do you use Aspects for some weapons? Or generally, how do you run combat in Fate?
I'm planning on using Fate, likely Strands of Fate, to run a dark fantasy game that deals with themes of corruption and magic powers facilitated by the implementation of aspects.
Does it facilitate this sort of things well? How lethal could Fate become?
>>45730517
Fate is not very lethal, because the players always have the option to lose the encounter, have a drawback, but survive, maybe even more than that, AND get a bunch of fate points on top.
Corruption+magic is nothing from the core book, but then again almost nothing is. Pretty sure I've heard of a system where such a thing works.
I can already imagine a system with a corruption stress track and very few corruption consequences, which may force a player to take Extreme corruption consequences from time to time
>>45730650
System Toolkit had pretty corruptive magic system in it.
>>45730650
>Fate is not very lethal, because the players always have the option to lose the encounter, have a drawback, but survive, maybe even more than that, AND get a bunch of fate points on top.
I already had this sort of thing implemented into the world. It's far more likely you're going to become corrupted and become a demon than just die.
>>45730785
That… is not exactly how Fate is generally intended, but it can work with Fate pretty well. Since it is more of a framework, you will have to work out/steal some rules (like how magic works) yourself in any case.
>>45730960
Doesn't Fate have stunts or something like it for magic?
That's how I intended it to work anyways, aspects tied to a particular trait that lets them work magic. The kind of trait depending on the things they can possibly do.
>>45704660
I enjoy it, although it kind of breaks down if you put Aspects under too close a microscope and some of the more extreme narrative gimmicks go a little far for my tastes (like the wealth skill).
Particularly I enjoy that the most mechanically optimal thing to do requires your character to have weaknesses that you actually make efforts to play up, rather than avoid at all costs. It's one of the few games that'd make a min-maxer a good dramatic roleplayer regardless of whether they do funny voices.
It also works great at mimicking traditional media, so it's a great option for playing a game set in whatever movie or book you've read recently.
Fate dice fitting a strong bell curve is nice, skill pyramid is close enough to realistic for my taste, and the character creation process is probably one of the best I've seen for character driven games.
The rest I'm sort of so-so about, like stunts or whatever.
>>45731671
I actually disliked the fate dice bell curve. Most of your outcome is dictated by the skill and whether you burn a fate point to invoke an aspect. Most of the time I felt like rolling didn't matter.
When I first read about Fate in Spirit of the Century, I was pumped. Then I played a few sessions of a Fate Core post-apoc game.. it didn't live up to my expectations. Might have been because of the newbie DM wanting to use it to run dungeon crawls. We did one chase scene that worked really well though, way better than any D&D or WoD chase system.
>>45704660
Seemed cool at first, but FATE is a total waste of time. It seems to be a game that GM's love (and buy stuff for) and players fucking hate. It went from "how does this work" to "this isn't very fun" in my group REAL quick and we were done forever.
what the actual fuck
Of course the optimal strategy is to make numbers go up.
That is the optimal strategy in every game.
Fate is just more obvious about tying "numbers go up" to narratively important aspects.
Get out of here with your ridiculous autism.
>>45731733
I don't understand why it has dice at all. It could easily be turned into a diceless game like Chuubo's that uses narration, skills and the expenditure of points to resolve everything
>>45726447
But it's not really, you get a +2 to basically whatever you want and you just keep spending fate points to get more +2's because you will always find an aspect that applies (scene, personal, enemy).
>>45727430
Heroquest, bro. It's the perfect system.
I mean, I'm literally the only person on /tg/ who likes it but whatever
>>45731912
I think it's fine, but it also doesn't have basically anything in there.
It doesn't take a book to come up with a way to make up skills/words, apply numbers to them and figure out a way to use those numbers with a dice to solve conflicts.
>>45731912
If it wasn't Glorantha only....
>>45731733
The philosophy of the designers is that dice are mostly there to determine what happens when the table can't agree about what happens next. They needed something nondeterministic, but only to the slightest degree.
It also turns out that strong bell curves happen to mimic fiction, which happens to mimic reality, so it's a fortuitous choice.
If you want something more wild like a d20 though that's totally understandable.
>>45731792
None of it is narratively important. it focuses wholly on narrative minutiae rather than anything actually narratively interesting. That's the core issue with the 'story' games. There's less description, narration. it's just player A saying "I'll use my "Loves to Fight" aspect again for +2 on my die roll. Here is my poker chip. It's super duper.... meh.
>>45704660
Challenges boil down too "make thick stacks of free evocations, then blow past and crush opponent."
>>45732387
Have you never actually played a storygame, or is the problem that you only play with lazy rollplayers who need the system to do all the work for them?
I don't think the number and sheer range of splats you can get for Fate (and the fact that pretty much all of them are free) gets nearly enough attention as a selling point for the system. I tried to find something I could use to run a Spelljammer-esque campaign, assuming I'd probably have to get one on fantasy naval combat and do my best to adapt it. It turned out there were like three different splats that fit that description without stretching it much at all, one of which was almost literally Spelljammer.
>>45724771
I've heard it more than once myself.
>>45732661
>>45724771
It's a common complaint, albeit one that doesn't make much sense unless you hate the vast majority of other systems out there as well.
I used to really like Fate, but my group started to play Risus + Aspects for pickup games, and it slowly became what we did even outside of pickup games. Later I developed rules tweaks to Risus to make it fit in less wacky settings, and that really made the rest of Fate feel clunky.
Aspects are still brilliant, but I think you still need something less generic to hang them off of.
(Less wacky Risus: instead of Xd6, roll (2+X)d6, keep highest 3.)
>>45727430
Over the Edge, which has a system of picking several traits and defining if you are good or great at them, which determines how many dice you roll for things related to that trait. Traits with paranormal abilities start with less dice than traits that are in the normal human range of ability.
>>45704660
I introduced Fate to a large group of online freeformer RPers who really took to it and created a sizable community around it. Fate itself is only an average system for me - 5/10, will play if put in front of me but would rather play something else.
Turns out it's the right system for freeformers; the simplicity of stacking advantages helps keep the dice from being too complex and they really enjoyed making unique Aspects and Stunts to reflect their characters.
I ditched the "How do you know each other" part of character creation, though. Partly because everybody was adapting already-existing characters to the system and partly because it's my least favorite chunk of character building. The character in my head at creation is going to be nothing like the one that winds up getting played, and all of those Aspects I came up with the other players will get rewritten to suit. So why bother making them in the first place?
>>45724995
Okay, so here's the long and short: you use Fate Points to do cool stuff and you get Fate Points for bad stuff happening to you. Simple enough, right? But there are problems:
Compels are not mechanically defined. Therefore, they can end up affecting the character in wildly different ways depending on the GM or the situation. So you could have your Trusty Pistol compelled by the GM to either jam, explode, or turn into a flaccid horsecock depending on what they feel is appropriate. Now that fits the narrative nature of the game, but it can fuck with the shared narrative created by the group something fierce.
GM compels have no defined number or triggers outside of combat, where it's predicated on the number of PCs+1 (the Fate Point pool for the baddies). This can either a) cause a GM to have no real idea when to compel, stopping the economy dead or b) cause a GM to arbitrarily compel a player, which can feel like bullying or favoritism.
Given the first two, someone with "system mastery" of Fate will start to self-compel. Now bad stuff that happens to a character affects the whole team, unless it's a purely personal issue (which makes it a solo RP session). Either way, it rewards a player for taking spotlight time from the other players, as they don't get the FP for the compel. This is very bad for players who are naturally shy and/or don't have "system mastery", as it makes them narratively and mechanically worse.
Self-compels can be as hard or as soft as you want, and are generally going to be done in a relatively safe place, mechanically. So players can potentially generate a lot of FP off self-compels that are narrative, but not mechanical setbacks. This can lead to low comedy or farcical situations that the Blind Archer problem highlights somewhat. Now, when the players are stocked with points, they can then just throw them at the obstacle, rendering it inconsequential. This is what the Blind Archer problem mechanically demonstrates.
>>45704660
It has some ideas that are pretty cool, but ultimately it actually manages to be far too rules light for me.
Now, it's not that I have a thing against light systems. I don't. But I prefer rules light systems where the rules are still clearly defined.
Rules light, not free form, m'kay?
>>45732633
This is honestly the savviest thing Evil Hat has done: Fate Core requires you to basically make the game yourself, so you get a bunch of people to make games for you, add some system tweaks, then sell them.
>>45735829
The Fate Point Economy basically is too easy to have break down: either there is no flow (lost GM/timid players), an unbalanced flow that actively makes other players worse (a player who is constantly getting compels), or an overflow that makes the game a farce (everyone self-compels).
There is also a problem with expenditure, in which you can spend as many as possible as long as you don't double up on an Aspect. That is the basic reading of the Blind Archer problem again, and Create Advantage making multiple free invocations creates a farce of conflict directly without self-compels.
Finally, you have the Refresh problem, where the designers incorrectly equate a Stunt with a Fate Point, since a Stunt can do what Fate Points can. So they charge you Fate Points for Stunts, one to one. The thing is, you can generate Fate Points in game; Stunts not so much (except in Jadepunk). You also get to keep Fate Points between sessions and a lot of Stunts require FP. So the low Refresh character has a pressing need for Fate Points (meaning more likely to self-compel/hurts more on a loggerhead) and have more actual abilities (since Stunts get to break the rules). This creates the other degenerate form of "system mastery", where having fewer Fate Points to start makes you more important.
>>45726447
>>45722235
I liked it when someone called it "rules-medium", particularly Core.
FAE is just simple enough to live in the realm of "light", but that's after you get past the Aspects.
>>45732709
People metagame so damn hard in every game! May as well embrace the storyline and manipulate it as per game resources/permission.
>>45730247
I don't like having weapons that are "just better" with more potential +'s. My intention is to create separate attacks/defenses with certain items excelling in certain scenario per combination of attack/defense.
>>45735829
Sometimes, you need not even self-compel in order to rack up bonuses which you can then bank for later.
Much of the time, all that is necessary is using observation/knowledge-based skills like Empathy, Investigate, Lore, and Notice to discover (or "discover" via declaration) as many aspects as you can, keep the free invocations around, and then unleash them as necessary.
This is actually addressed as problematic by Ryan Macklin here, in which a solution is also proposed:
http://ryanmacklin.com/2014/10/fate-the-discover-action/
So what does /tg/ think about the most recent World of Adventure, Deep Dark Blue?
Only comment I have from skimming it is that someone didn't do their research about firearms inside submarines. The keep emphasizing how dangerous they are to an absurd degree (even going so far as to right that the game is taking liberties by making them less so than in reality!), that they're absolutely forbidden to ever bring on board and that any firearm shooting inside a "ship" is practically a threat to its entire existence. Everyone inside submarines does kung fu!
Eh, no? A big, fucking no? Even submarines that are never intended to ferry around soldiers have (considerable) security forces, which are heavily armed. You don't leave dozens of nuclear warheads floating around the Pacific with a bunch of fucking pub brawlers for guard.
>b-but how would the enemy board a submarine
Doesn't matter, they're nuclear fucking warheads, you don't take that chance. Modern submarines have armories with hundreds of longarms, dozens of pistols (for the officers) and even shoulder-launched missiles (just in the insanely impossible case the submarine needs to protect itself from aircraft for whatever reason and cannot just dive).
Also, insisting on calling them "ships". Submarines are "boats". Why? Relic from the World Wars. Is it kind of stupid? Yes, but it doesn't look like it'll change soon. A submarine is always a "boat".
It wouldn't have annoyed me so much if the writing hadn't been so smug about it, like someone actually made serious research into it.
>>45736028
That one's real good. I mean, so far I've enjoyed heavy discovering etc in combat. But I'm not sure I will like it as much when our big fat Fate campaign is under way (it is supposed to be te magnum opus of both best GMs in our group, I hope it will be good)
>>45737785
But what happens when you shoot a longarm inside a submarine and it hits the wall? While the boat is a couple kilometres underwater?
>>45739168
It might surprise you, but walls designed to withstand the pressure of a several hundred meter dive (much less several kilometers, as is the case in the game) wouldn't give a plinking shit about it. There's a far higher risk of the bullet ricocheting and hitting someone else.
>>45739168
The same one which can tank hits from torpedoes, several hundred times the size of a bullet, traveling several times faster and packing an enormous explosive payload shaped to penetrate them?
My guess is nothing.
>>45737785
>>45739112
>>45739168
>>45739217
>>45739238
The game runs on the assumption that the players are piloting the underwater version of the Serenity - tiny, ramshackle, and put together with duct tape - not a US navy ballistic missile submarine with hundreds of crack sailors on board giving every instrument meticulous checkups once per ten minutes. The idea is that on such a rustbucket, all the instrumentation is packed so tightly that you're bound to shoot a computer or something if you fire inside the submarine.
This still raises many questions ("why are they sailing in a vessel that clearly has no business being on the water, much less underneath them"), and it does show that whoever wrote the book has never actually been on a submarine (there aren't just random computers littering every wall. Each one has a very specific purpose and function, most of them are on the bridge anyway, and the only think which might be on the "walls" is the screen. Someone just has this mental picture of a submarine filled with glowing screens everywhere and they thought "I bet the walls are made of microchips!"), but it stretches disbelief a bit less far.
On other issues, I'm still pissed off with Evil Hats clumsy attempts at inclusiveness. I will not become more favorable, nor will I eventually learn to cringe less at the thought of genderqueer individuals if you pepper your dialogue examples with "xe". Nor will I feel any extra sympathy for any crew member if your illustrations show every single last one of them as representing at least two minorities, and you never offer any other information about it. I shudder at the thought that these guys consider themselves skilled enough at writing about the subject that they're about to release a book on including the handicapped in your game.
>>45731912
you're not the only one
>>45731965
yes, but designing SENSIBLE resolution methods and control mechanisms is more tricky, and this is the point of this book
also 70% of the rulebook volume aren't actually rules but universal advices for running the narrative - you can even use them for other systems.
>>45731974
It isn't. Second edition goes both in universal and glorantha specific variants. The former actually was published earlier, the Glorantha specific one appeared few years after it.
>>45704660
SJW shit, would never buy, will never play
>>45739452
Seems reasonable
>>45739601
Better give me a free reroll point for roleplaying my character. My aspects are Intelligence and Virtue.
>>45739623
Nope, you only get Fate points when the Aspect screws you over.
>>45714648
>Why have -1, -2, and -3 boxes that you have to check off individually when you can just have 6 stress boxes?
Because you can only check off one stress box per hit.
>>45739371
>also 70% of the rulebook volume aren't actually rules but universal advices for running the narrative - you can even use them for other systems.
The problem there is that it's not really advice I need, want or agree with.
Fate has the same problem as HeroQuest where GM is supposed to make tests easier or harder based on does he want players to succeed or have trouble, based on some theories of narrative tension.
And I don't like that. Too arbitrary and too much narrative power for the GM, it's basically one step removed from GM telling if characters succeed or not.
I prefer system where difficulty is based on some kind of simulationistic assessment, where doing obviously hard stuff is hard. And in those cases the narrative side comes from that GM sets the failure conditions.
So if players are doing something where they have to succeed or the story hits a wall, failure can mean that characters succeed, but with heavy price.
>>45739623
>My aspects are Intelligence and Virtue.
Not in my game you're not. Those aspects are as bland and broad as probably every D&D character you've ever played. Spice 'em up and then we'll talk about Fate points and compels.
>>45735829
>system mastery
This is everything wrong with FATE in a nutshell. After all their crowing about narrative focus and letting the rules get out of the way so the players can enjoy themselves, the game still rewards people primarily for thinking about the way to min/max the action economy.
>>45739623
Better take a compel for getting blown the fuck out ;^)
>>45739936
>So if players are doing something where they have to succeed or the story hits a wall, failure can mean that characters succeed, but with heavy price.
And this is exactly what Fate suggests you do.
>>45739980
>the game still rewards people primarily for thinking about the way to min/max the action economy.
The question then becomes, why would you want to min/max the Fate point economy? It makes the game boring.
>"But I can, so I have to!"
It's the same logic that leads people to think that, say, Mutants and Masterminds is a bad game because the point buy system lets you do broken shit. Sure you can do it, but why would you? It's boring.
>>45731056
>Doesn't Fate have stunts or something like it for magic?
You could have magic work a lot of different ways depending on what you want to accomplish. How do you *want* magic to work?
>>45727430
Marvel Heroic is great for this.
>>45739986
I know, it's part of Fate too, but the advice for how to set difficulty for a task is purely based around "GM does what GM feels like".
>>45740104
But isn't that what a GM already does? I mean, sure, you could have a big table of suggested modifiers and such, or a bunch of common examples, but does that really help? GMs have always seemed plenty arbitrary in games I've played. The important part is to be consistent in your arbitration.
Fate really asks the GM to consider two things. One, how narratively important is this roll? Two, do the PCs need to show off their skills?
>>45739971
>Intelligence and Virtue are bad in FATE games
Holy fucking shit mate you said it, not me!
>>45704660
It is great complement to my beloved GURPS. Whatever is difficult to do in GURPS usually pretty simple in Fate, and via versa. I play both of them.
>>45739936
I feel like you misunderstood it rather badly
You aren't supposed to raise/lower difficulty on a specific task according to previous failures or successes
You are supposed to COME UP with a tasks that will fit into low/high difficulty.
So, it isn't like "the PCs are going to fight the lieutenant of main boss, who is supposed to be a tough guy, but they failed badly last two contests so i make him easier", no.
It is like "The PCs failed badly in last two contests, so instead of just arranging the fight with the lieutenant, i'll throw a band of mooks at them, so they can win and get the feeling of turning the tide... before the REAL fight"
You can be as realistic in your pairing of difficulty with task as you wish, you just do it at reverse - you set the task (or at least, it's technical details) to the difficulty, not the other way as in most rpgs.
Of course, it demands a degree of GMs arbitrary choice over "what is realistic", but don't kid yourself, a common sense of a good DM who wants realism is usually better assesment of realism than rules - even well designed simulationist systems are prone to producing absurd results here and there.
>>45740189
If you REALLY think about it, "GM does what GM feels like" is what every RPG comes down to. Well, not that one Russian RPG with full noob die drops, but every non-shit RPG.
You can clamp down on it as hard as you like, but there will always be space shuttle sized holes in the rules that you can just cruise right through and break the game in half. What stops a 3.PF DM from just having goblins run around with full moves every turn? What stops a GURPS DM from opening up a freak sinkhole and swallowing the PCs whole? You can give them some guidelines and examples, sure, but those are more like training tools than rules.
And if you do restrain the GM from just sort of making stuff that feels cool to them, well, why have a thinking person run the game at all? You could just program up a computer system to do that.
>>45740076
I can't be done without a certain kind of aspect denoting some sort of relationship with a kind of spirit or spirits.
>>45741077
What sorts of things can this magic accomplish? How does it impact or interact with the world around the spirit(s) and the person directing the magic?
>>45741077
The System Toolkint has a long section on how to come up witha magic system for your game, and a bunch of cool examples. I'd strongly recommend checking that out, it's got some great advice and a couple of the examples might even be close to what you're looking for.
>>45740219
Oh no, they're not bad. You'd be able to use Intelligence and Virtue as an aspect quite a lot. You'll have more trouble getting any Fate points from them, though, since they don't really cause you a lot of trouble.
I'm more concerned with the fact that, as aspects, they do very little to tell me about your character other than here's intelligent and has virtue. There's no tie to any other players, NPCs, or the world at large. There's no reason to even bring them up, save for the +2 you're focusing on.
In short, they're boring aspects and you will be bored playing the game.
>>45741187
It can accomplish whatever the spirit in question can. It's a very animist setting, there is a spirit for everything, and by forming relationships with spirits one can get them to work their power over their domain on their behalf. Say you want to burn down a house. Call upon the Salamander, Spirit of Fire, and feed it a sacrifice and command it to burn down the house. This is a generalization of course.
>>45741379
How about Wit of Diogenes, Cunning of Pericles and Virtue at Any Price instead?
>>45741423
That can become too finely granulated for Fate pretty fast. You still have only five character aspects, and it is not really recommended to use all of them for different spirits or what have you. I mean, you CAN have a separate list of spirits you know and have struck bargains with, but that's rather clunky.
Or you can have each player only knowing 1–2 spirits, maybe three.
>>45741589
Have an aspect for bargaining with spirits - Witch-doctor of the Great Swamp, maybe - and then use stunts for individual bargains with specific spirits - Golden Carp's Blessing, for example - that give a bonus to a certain kind of action in a certain circumstance. Then invent a new skill - say, Spiritcalling.
So with Spiritcalling and your magic aspect, you can do minor stuff and just fluff it as minor local spirits, and then with a stunt you can get a bonus to your spirit-calling in certain specific circumstances if you make the appropriate offerings to a given spirit.
>>45741705
That is how it works generally. However spirits can also be bound to the soul, this is where corruption comes in. One gains their power in exchange for their souls becoming more like the spirit in nature.
Binding a Salamander to your soul will make you lazy and irritable, but burn with a great hunger that drives the flames you control.
Likewise with an item that has a Salamander bound within it. A blade coated in an inner flame that eats away at what it strikes.
Binding a spirit to an object or soul is a more permanent thing and not done often or lightly. It can usually be done only once for a soul, but there are exceptions but at risk of being torn apart from within.
>>45739311
Is anyone else sick of having to choose between this sort of ham fisted pandering and ignoring the problem entirely? There are ways to do this well, but you almost never see it with RPG publishers.
>>45740015
You can't mechanically force people to stop being shit players. The harder you try, the worse your system is going to be. One of the big problems with Synnibarr was that it tried to stop homicidal GMs and ended up crippling itself in the process. I hate how 3.PF has warped how we talk about systems. We should not be this obsessed with balance and we shouldn't flip our shit every time someone figures out a way to abuse the system. Every system past a certain level of complexity can be abused. The mark of a good system is that it doesn't incentivize it. Compared to the shit you can do with GURPS if you're really dedicated and the GM allows it, abusing the fate point economy is nothing. But ultimately, neither case matters because playing the game that way is boring. We need to stop judging systems by what the absolute worst players can do and instead judge them on what the average player is likely to do.
>>45741450
Those are just more pretentious ways of saying the exact same thing. You're not making some brilliant criticism of the system, you're just proving that you have no idea how it works. Fate has plenty of real problems, this isn't one of them
>>45741855
These do kinda sound like Consequences (Extreme — or not if temporary)
>>45742090
>Those are just more pretentious ways of saying the exact same thing. You're not making some brilliant criticism of the system, you're just proving that you have no idea how it works. Fate has plenty of real problems, this isn't one of them
I'm not trying to criticize the system at all, I think those are genuinely better aspects that say more about a character than the previous ones. Wit of Diogenes, Cunning of Pericles suggests both intelligence, abut also something about the directions that intelligence takes-- someone with the Cunning of Pericles might be good at statecraft and tactics, for example, but I wouldn't tag it for solving complex puzzles or inventing devices. Likewise, Wit of Diogenes would be great for social banter, but it also offers obvious compels in the form of offending polite society at inopportune times.
Virtue at Any Price is the same. You're honest and upright, sure, but it also suggests a certain rigity. You might be able to resist any bribe or temptation, but you can also be compelled to tell the truth when it would hurt to do so, to honour agreements you wish you could break, all kinds of stuff.
>>45742090
>>45742350
I also like Virtue at Any Price quite a bit.
Virtue on its own as an aspect is pretty weak, but this one give you an Honor Above All kind of compel where you value doing the honorable thing over doing the easy thing. Or perhaps you give your word, but keeping it comes into conflict with the party's goals.
It's basically a paladin code in an aspect! What's not to like?
>>45725180
>>45725136
The most effective solution is to have an actual sniper, rather than go through all that rigamarole. Forest for the trees, people.
>>45737785
Like >>45739311, the game focuses on very small, "mercenary" submarines and the rules are mostly designed to model them. In real life you don't have this kind of thing since submarines are just too expensive to build and maintain for any ragtag bunch of misfits to operate but in Deep Dark Blue, advances in technology have made this possible. Presumably, the "firing a gun inside the submarine will destroy it" rule doesn't apply to large, armored, reinforced, redundant system cramped military submarines. (well, the book does seem to imply that it does since it mentions that firing a gun is suicidal even inside "larger undersea bases", but that's retarded so just ignore it in the name of your players' intelligence. Nothing that was designed to be hit by fucking torpedoes and stay in one piece is going to get catastrophically damaged by a bullet).
>>45743309
You can also mention that, since in this vision of the future submarine operations are far more common, there's been a call to produce more and more efficient types of "soft" ammunition (like hollow-point bullets) and that this is what most underseamen are packing. Extremely deadly against unarmored personnel, negligible chance of damaging anything hard (the bullet would just squash against it, causing superficial damage).
I have a feeling the writers just wanted to have a lot of submarine corridor fistfights, though.
>>45743362
>I have a feeling the writers just wanted to have a lot of submarine corridor fistfights, though.
Well, and who wouldn't. If you can't punch a seaman out at the top of one of those steep ladders while he's coming up out of a hatch and then then ride him down to the deck below, then there's something very wrong with your submarine game.
>>45742350
>Wit of Diogenes, Cunning of Pericles
Better, as it describes a certain philosophical intelligence rather than a fact-based, bookish sort. It's still somewhat vague and difficult to compel.
>Virtue at Any Price
Much better. With these, I like to punch them up a little more by making them character or setting specific. "My ancestors revere virtue at any price" is different than "The Order of St. Michael demands virtue at any price."
>>45743492
There're plenty of occasion in a story in which you might want to punch someone in a submarine without ruling out that shooting inside them is impossible. This is one of those cases where they could've literally done less work and I'd have respected them more. Adding this part (and stressing it so much so many times) just emphasizes how little they know about the subject they purport to.
>>45742712
I really don't understand the blind sniper problem. From a balance perspective, they had to spend quite a lot of resources (at the very least time, effort, and whatever it took to get the special ammo) and potentially place another party member in serious danger in order to get ONE good shot. From a story perspective, there's plenty of ways to prevent the party from succeeding without it being contrived or railroady if killing this one guy would derail everything. From a realism perspective, all of these things would give you a substantial advantage IRL.
If anything it seems like it's an example of the system working really well. There are plenty where planning and tactics don't do shit compared to simply running in blindly and having the best numbers on your side.
>>45743772
I understand it, and I agree with you. If the players are willing to go to that kind of effort just for one shot, why not let them? It's rewarding players for doing what they're supposed to be doing. That still doesn't change the fact that it's much easier to use a character that knows how to handle a gun and stack a couple of aspects on his shot than go through the whole shebang of setting up the impossible.
>>45743542
If you know anything about Diogenes, it's not that hard to compel. Actually, knowing about both Pericles and Diogenes makes this a lot less vague in general, since it goes from "oh, philosophers" to "oh, specific philosophies and aptitudes-- and ineptitudes". But this was just a quick example I came up with because we're not talking about a specific setting. If the game doesn't include Greece, obviously you want want to rewrite this to tie into the setting.
Virtue at Any Price is the same, setting agnostic for the purposes of imageboard discussion.
>>45704660
It's fine for what it is, and I've used it for quick pick-up/one-shot games, but my personal preference tends towards crunchy, mechanics-laden awfulness.
>>45732387
Compared to what, exactly? D&D is literally a miniatures game in any combat scenario.
>>45742090
>Is anyone else sick of having to choose between this sort of ham fisted pandering and ignoring the problem entirely? There are ways to do this well, but you almost never see it with RPG publishers.
One of the reasons I like Apocalypse World. Handles sex, queer shit, and all that stuff without tiptoeing or making a huge deal out of it. The other PbtA games are hit-and-miss in that regard.
>>45704660
I like it. Because it's fun.
We ran two one-shots (ok, one of them extended to three evenings, but still). I enjoyed the hell out of it. The GM was extremely satisfied with challenges (I think that's what they're called, when you have different jobs to fulfil to reach a common goal) and not!chases (I have forgotten the name, I mean the sort of resolution when the PC(s) and antagonists compete for the same goal). He didn't like the fights a lot, while I had a blast and considered it one of the best RPG battles I've had.
Not really. Ascribing traits and aspects to everything feels very meta-gamey to me. You aren't part of a narrative so much as perpetually debating its actual state and trying to force it to your advantage.
Also I don't understand the people calling it a lite game. The rules are complex and abstract, especially at first, until you really read through it and 'get it'. Just because they're not full of tables and modifiers doesn't mean there's no crunch. It's just crunch of a different flavor.
Anyone have good horror-genre techniques?
I'm happy to just spit out some nasty descriptions of things, maybe really rail on the Mental Stress track with the mere vision or presence of creatures/events. Or, perhaps, hang some ominous situation Aspects over the players for easy Compels.
I've seen "devalue the Stress tracks" as well to increase lethality but could I be doing something else?
>>45742094
Consequences seem pertinent. Their severity scaling with the amount of corruption. Perhaps a special Soul track that marks severity and how close one is to demonhood?
I suppose my only other question is mood. How well does Fate convey a sort of bleakness? It's pertinent that this mood comes across both in story and mechanics.
>>45747088
Honesty I feel like Wushu and Dogs in the Vineyard do the "active participation in a narrative" thing far better and easier than Fate.
Fate feels like playing "mother may I" while Dogs and Wushu both do "yes, and..." as their core rule.
>>45732344
>>45731733
Single-die or 2d6 certainly has a better "thrill" factor, yeah.
>>45735024
Care to upload your rules?
>>45742090
>Is anyone else sick of having to choose between this sort of ham fisted pandering and ignoring the problem entirely? There are ways to do this well, but you almost never see it with RPG publishers.
I am. Worse, being a niggerfaggot means people get to accuse me of being self hating if my characters are white and straight. There is no winning with those asshats.
>>45749277
If you want horror in Fate go for as long as possible without using the mechanics, use that time to set the mood and describe the spooky, then when the dice start rolling write down a bunch of sit-aspects with free invokes so whatever's going will lead to stress\consequences.
Remember Fate is easy to cheese, but that's true for both the players and GM. If they do it they shouldn't get mad if you do too.
>>45753656
Do you not get thrilled by probabilities? Rolling a 4 is a special moment.
>>45750138
"yes, and..." is fucking fantastic, but there's no reason you can't use it in Fate or any other system.
I can understand why people get put off by the impression of how the creators\rulebook wants the game to be played, but at the end of the day its really up to you and your table how it goes and the flexibility means you're probably going to find something that works for you.
There's always a lot of armchair RPG theorists who shitfling at Fate, but its always pretty obvious when they do. Sure not all of it works, but (anecdotally) most systems get tweaked at the table, at least Fate is very open to that happening.
>>45742090
The average player breaks the economy in the other way, anon; either by not providing compels (as GM) or not taking compels (as PC).
The only one flipping their shit about discussing system failure points is you.
>>45740015
That's not how this works: in M&M you have to line item veto things because it is possible to make a character that not only is too strong for the game, but too weak. And it's something that can happen completely by accident, depending on the quirks of the system. It's the same with Fate, which trickles down into problems that people actually have when playing the game. The compel conga is not just something a boring minmaxer would do, it's something that anyone who really wants to show off their character's suffering would do. If you have an attention whore player (which story games tend to attract) or a wallflower (which new players can be), the game potentially shits itself. That's a bug that, if we were not raised in an industry that teaches it's consumers mediocrity and rules ignorance, would be patched out post haste.
You *have* to engage these problems because if you ignore them, eventually they will bite you in the ass.
People saying it's light are confusing me. Fate Core is not a rules light game, although you could make a case for Accelerated.
It's lighter than DnD or Rifts, but it's still much heavier than something like Risus, Wushu, any PbtA game, GURPS Lite, etc.
It's a traditional system that then has Aspects overlaid onto it as a way of adding player agency to the narrative - spending a Fate point says, in essence, "This success is important to me."
>>45749556
I've also thought about the Soul track. Probably a good idea.
As for mood… One of the easiest tricks is having "setting aspects" or similar, basically situation aspects that are always there. These can always be tagged for certain events. Basically like the "hive of scum and villainy" aspect in one of the core book examples.
But Fate still has competent and powerful characters.
>>45754384
>but (anecdotally) most systems get tweaked at the table
Fate's pretty clearly built out of a bunch of houserules for Fudge, crafting the system to be more like how one specific group enjoyed playing it.
>>45756758
>But Fate still has competent and powerful characters.
If you want to change that, you have to alter the skill pyramid and how stress and consequences happen.
>>45758580
that's not just "pretty clear", it is literally what happened. It's on the official site.
Is there any source material if I want to play something very Tolkien/LotR-based in FC? Or should I just assume that they players all have at least watched the extende editions and hope it goes fine?
>>45709878
>The party works together and succeeds
In what world is this a problem?
>>45760072
I don't think you'll need a lot of special play material for it. I mean, most of the stuff that happens in the books is rather straight-forward in terms of resolution. the only thing really worth thinking about is magic, and iirc in Tolkien it was basically "lol, it works", so the basic example from the core rule book would work (use a talent, probably Lore, once per scene instead of another talent)
>>45760818
I find the most offensive part of the "Blind Sniper" is that an untrained combatant uses some situational advantages to somehow score a massive blow.
It's not that narratively improbable if maybe 3 players are pinning a target and a 4th is guiding the Blind Sniper's hand, but it's a little unbelievable nonetheless, for someone that is fundamentally untrained/incapable to be accomplishing so much.
>>45762829
So you've got issues with real life too then? Situational advantages making up for skill differences is exactly how things work.
>>45762829
in D&D they have dragons. I find that a little unbelievablei know this is rude and i honestly don't want to offend, i just couldn't resist
>>45762829
Good thing the Blind Sniper is in quotes, because if the character actually was blind, then they wouldn't be able to snipe. UNLESS the character's concept in fact was that they're capable of accurate sniping despite being blind (justification TBD during character creation).
Fate also expects that characters are competent, so unskilled characters very well can snipe regardless of that minor inconvenience - unless it is decided that there's really not enough justification for taking a shot that IRL would be very difficult. I see no problem in a shot that has lots of narrative weight built on it succeeding, and that also expects that all the CAAs succeed so they can be invoked. And the GM seems a-ok with the whole process since he's not actively moving any plot elements to nullify the created aspects, not compelling anyone and not making hostile invokes to increase difficulties of any of the rolls.
And finally, Fate is not a game where players and the GM are actively maneuvering to thwart, frustrate and aggress each other, like for example your average player-killer dungeon adventure.
>>45764311
I also don't see how it's any different from stacking bonuses in any other system. At least in Fate you have to explain why these things would increase your chance of succeeding beyond "the rulebook says so."
And it's not like this is some unstoppable ploy that requires GM fiat or contrived bullshit to prevent. Again, unlike the shit you can pull in many, many other systems.
