Hriston
Dungeon Master of Middle-earth (He/him)
I've been interested for a while in playing D&D in a more "indie" Story Now! style, and particularly in using Inspiration to drift things in that direction. I think the resemblance of Inspiration to fate points from Fate is obvious enough, but I've wanted to codify for myelf which parts of the mechanic are analogous. Now, I have no experience playing Fate, and I'm sure I'm about to display my ignorance, but I wanted to share what I've got so far and see if anyone has anything to share in response.
I'm focusing right now on character aspects. In Fate, a character begins with a high concept and five trouble aspects. I think the closest thing to a high concept in D&D is a character's class. You could throw in a lot of other details about a character such as race, background, etc., but I think it's possible to use just a character's class as a high concept.
Trouble aspects are analogous to a character's personal characteristics, i.e. personality traits, ideal, bond, and flaw. There are two types of trouble aspects in Fate: personal struggles and problematic relationships. Looking at the suggested personal characteristics in the PHB, they seem to fit into these two categories by type.
Personality traits and flaws are like personal struggles. They're things that might be hard for the character to control or be tempting to do at the worst possible moment.
Ideals and bonds are more like problematic relationships. The difference in D&D (especially with ideals) is that the relationship is quite often with an idea, rather than with a person or organization, which is how they're defined in Fate.
I'm running a game now where I'm using these "aspects" of the PCs to drive situations, and I'm noticing that some of the personal characteristics from the PHB are a little bit weak as written and that sometimes it's a stretch to come up with the right circumstances for an event-based compel.
I'm sure others have tried similar approaches. What worked/what didn't? And yes, I know, "If you want to play in that style, use a different system, blah, blah, blah," Feedback is appreciated.
I'm focusing right now on character aspects. In Fate, a character begins with a high concept and five trouble aspects. I think the closest thing to a high concept in D&D is a character's class. You could throw in a lot of other details about a character such as race, background, etc., but I think it's possible to use just a character's class as a high concept.
Trouble aspects are analogous to a character's personal characteristics, i.e. personality traits, ideal, bond, and flaw. There are two types of trouble aspects in Fate: personal struggles and problematic relationships. Looking at the suggested personal characteristics in the PHB, they seem to fit into these two categories by type.
Personality traits and flaws are like personal struggles. They're things that might be hard for the character to control or be tempting to do at the worst possible moment.
Ideals and bonds are more like problematic relationships. The difference in D&D (especially with ideals) is that the relationship is quite often with an idea, rather than with a person or organization, which is how they're defined in Fate.
I'm running a game now where I'm using these "aspects" of the PCs to drive situations, and I'm noticing that some of the personal characteristics from the PHB are a little bit weak as written and that sometimes it's a stretch to come up with the right circumstances for an event-based compel.
I'm sure others have tried similar approaches. What worked/what didn't? And yes, I know, "If you want to play in that style, use a different system, blah, blah, blah," Feedback is appreciated.