Tell Me About the FATE System

[RobShanti]

I'm finally reading my Spirit of the Century core rulebook, which, I understand, uses the "FATE" system, and I'm wondering how well this system works for genres other than pulp. Is pulp the system's sweet spot? How applicable is the system to sword and sorcery, sci-fi or other genres?

 

[Isaac Chalk]

There is Strands of FATE, an indie RPG unisystem using FATE. The writer recently completed a Kickstarter for a sci-fi FATE RPG called Nova Praxis.

In addition, the Dresden Files RPG uses a premutation of FATE, and the Spirit of the Century people are working on their own unisystem called FATE Core. The cover of FATE Core is this awesome.

You have to be pretty awesome to be more awesome than a cybernetic gorilla monk, but damn, lookit that cop! He's just so happy to arrest you.

 

[Shadowsmith]

Spirit of the Century was the first game using FATE 3.

While Strands of FATE is related to FATE 3, it changes a significant amount.

Closer to Spirit of the Century is Bulldogs! which was a Kickstarter project a while ago. Diaspora is another SciFi FATE game.

Awesome Adventures is a streamlined generic FATE game.

Dresden Files is a wonderful FATE game of Urban Fantasy based on the Dresden Files series.

Starblazer Adventures and Legends of Anglerre are both based on British comics. One SciFi the other fantasy.

FATE is a very flexible system. That said, it doesn't handle grim and gritty all that well. Nor would I expect it to handle high power superheroic action.

One thing it does do is reduce randomness. The 4dF roll has a very steep bell curve to it. This is a selling point to me as I prefer some randomness, but find d20 to be too random.

Does that help?

 

[Wednesday Boy]

Since it's a great system for storytelling, I think it would suit any genre.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I'm finally reading my Spirit of the Century core rulebook, which, I understand, uses the "FATE" system, and I'm wondering how well this system works for genres other than pulp. Is pulp the system's sweet spot? How applicable is the system to sword and sorcery, sci-fi or other genres?

FATE doesn't do grit very well (or, arguably, at all). And it only really works (like most narrative games) for settings where who you are is significantly more important than your equipment list. Larger than life - but not reality-rewriting (much) is the sweet spot, but beyond that it's almost genre independent. Sword and sorcery where Conan can grit his teeth and press on in the face of Thulsa Doom by virtue of being Conan works. I don't think the Black Company or high lethality D&D would at all.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

FATE doesn't do grit very well (or, arguably, at all).

FATE is a very flexible system. That said, it doesn't handle grim and gritty all that well.

Out of curiosity, why do you think it doesn't do gritty very well? I haven't played a gritty Fate game but it seems like giving it the appropriate tone and altering the requirements for healing stress and removing consequences would do the trick nicely. I imagine the compel and aspect system would work perfectly for a post-apocolyptic campaign where the characters routinely face difficult decisions of doing the right moral thing and purely surviving.

 

[chaochou]

I'm currently running Diaspora, which uses FATE while evoking the feel of the old sci-fi classic Traveller.

We've taken Firefly as the sort of template for the style of the game - a bunch of free-roaming ne'er-do-wells with characters looking for trouble, revenge, freedom and redemption.

FATE, I think, is best when it puts flawed people in situations where they have to make hard choices. It encourages open worlds, group world-building and collaborative play where authority is shared at the table and the GM has very few secrets.

As such, it handles most genres (although I'm not sure about Lovecraftian horror) but not every playstyle.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Out of curiosity, why do you think it doesn't do gritty very well? I haven't played a gritty Fate game but it seems like giving it the appropriate tone and altering the requirements for healing stress and removing consequences would do the trick nicely. I imagine the compel and aspect system would work perfectly for a post-apocolyptic campaign where the characters routinely face difficult decisions of doing the right moral thing and purely surviving.

Fate (well, any system with aspects and plot points) is in many ways very arbitrary. The big thing an actually gritty world is not is arbitrary - if the GM is being arbitrarly against you it feels as if the GM is being personal in a way a simply harsh rulesset with fifty ways you can get screwed by the dice simply isn't. Further, because of the personal nature of aspects to the character it feels as if the whole thing is tailored to the character - one of the characteristics of a gritty setting is that it doesn't matter. Everyone gets screwed. Fate can do horror well - but it is completely the wrong system for "we are all swimming in the mud".

 

[Wednesday Boy]

Fate (well, any system with aspects and plot points) is in many ways very arbitrary. The big thing an actually gritty world is not is arbitrary - if the GM is being arbitrarly against you it feels as if the GM is being personal in a way a simply harsh rulesset with fifty ways you can get screwed by the dice simply isn't. Further, because of the personal nature of aspects to the character it feels as if the whole thing is tailored to the character - one of the characteristics of a gritty setting is that it doesn't matter. Everyone gets screwed. Fate can do horror well - but it is completely the wrong system for "we are all swimming in the mud".

I see what you're saying. I think the outcome is primarily what makes a campaign feel gritty to me, with the means of implementing the outcome (be it the GM being personal or a harsh ruleset) playing a secondary role. It's an interesting distinction though, thanks for the insight. This makes me eager to play a gritty Fate game to see how I would actually feel.

 

[Umbran]

The big thing an actually gritty world is not is arbitrary

Well, that kind of depends upon your point of view, I think. The gritty world may not be physically arbitrary, but is morally so.

To me, what makes a setting "gritty" is the need for the characters to show resolve and perseverance in the face of a world that doesn't care about them. In a gritty world, crap happens to you. Why? Because. The universe doesn't care enough about you to give you reasons. Reasons would imply justification, which implies some sense of justice, which a gritty world doesn't have.

Ergo, the gritty world is arbitrary, in that it is not following a set of moral rules. Maybe it is following a set of physical rules, but still somehow it still manages to rain on you, personally, just when you're already cold and hungry and have to go 20 miles on foot before you reach the inn...