@Ratskinner: Your complaint about my complaint has two parts, and I'll deal with the easier one first.
Yeah, but it also really has nothing to do with my complaint. As a concept, I don't mind Fate points for example. Nor do I mind the much more interesting mechanically similar concept of Force points in Star Wars D6. It's OK to have a resource that effects the story, and it's even more OK when that resource has an in universe explanation and further is limited enough that the player is motivated to only use it at appropriately dramatic moments.
Yeah, I was referencing the more general complaint. Sorry if that sounded too pointed at you.
So your comparison to D&D alignment is apt. Essentially you are being asked to construct a mini-set of core beliefs and personality traits that will define your character, and unlike alignment you get to define it. All that is apt, as is you noting that if the DM is heavy handed about how he interprets alignment, and uses it to compel the player with the threat of punishment hanging over there head, that is very much the same sort of problem I'm talking about. Many people have had this bad experience with alignment and so want nothing more to do with it, and I totally get that. But the Aspect system actually sets this up as a core quality of the game, and it's not really the compels that bother me (though those could be heavy handed as well) but the whole system. In other words, it's not even primarily the potential loss of agency here, it's that system encourages bad RPing in my opinion.
I'm sure you can imagine I find this quite curious, as my experience with Fate is very different.
I think what the designers wanted was to create a system that rewarded the player for playing his character "in character" and in a dramatic fashion.
No argument.
But what they actually created was a system that rewards playing a character in a simplistic exaggerated fashion.
I would say that depends greatly on the player(s). I have never experienced such a thing.
A good RPer calls on his character traits (even if he gets no reward for doing so) at dramatically appropriate moments. A good FATE player calls on his character aspects as often as possible and for as flimsy of reasons as possible. You are always on the lookout for tagging every action because if you can tag an action, that adjusts the math so much in your favor that if you don't you almost certainly will fail.
I'm thinking that you got auto-corrected from "aspect" to "action" for part of this. Nonetheless, its up to the GM to determine what is an isn't a valid compel or invocation of an aspect. (if you are still thinking in terms of "tagging", you are an iteration or two of Fate behind the times.) That judgement if fundamental to running a game like Fate. Its not optional. If the GM is shirking his duties, of course the game will fail.
Such a player is actually
not a good Fate player. Any more than a D&D player who demands respect for his Paladin while shirking all his responsibilities. Additionally, from a tactical point of view, he will be out of Fate points very quickly, if the GM is on point. In D&D terms, he's going nova on the first room of goblins.
As such, what you typically see in a game of FATE is frantically leveraging the Aspect system for straight forward gamist reasons with the result that FATE's primary aesthetic of play ends up not being Nar, but gamist. People compel, call, tag and so forth primarily for "Step on Up" reasons and aesthetics related to Challenge and Self-Affirmation, and not for reasons pertaining to Story.
It may be that
you typically see this in a game of Fate, but this is a fairly foreign experience for most Fate players. This is often (IME) the result of players who come from D&D and simply don't understand that Fate comes with different play goals.* However, they are also often expecting or playing a "broken" version of Fate (at least its modern incarnation). Some of the common "misses" that fall into this:
1) easy compels - a compel should
hurt, as in modify the story significantly. If you're compelling for any kind of advantage...you're doin' it wrong.
2) the GM being bad at enforcing the
permission part of Fate aspects.
3) easy invocations - invoking an aspect needs to have some narrative justification as to why it applies. Additionally, it should be limited by the expense of a Fate point.
4) trying to do "D&D with Fate". Fate is, IMO, unsuited for a typical dungeoneering game. It looks like it should be, but its not really. Especially true if you're playing with veteran D&D-ers. Even with non-D&D-ers, it gets....weird.
5) too much "free play". We get used to allowing players to "prep" quite a lot, because games like D&D don't have a mechanism for consistently doing so. If you're players are spending a ton of time just rolling "Create Advantage"....you've lost your way. Send in the ninjas. (I mean, that's literally the joke-name of the technique) Personally, if it makes sense in the narrative, I give the players a once-round-the-table "montage". Fate should run like a movie or TV show, not a book.
6) some of the above fall into the broader category of not pushing hard enough...and I don't mean the D&D way of adding more HP/AC whatnot. I mean, pushing deadlines, travel...Fate PCs are fairly competent and the GM can swing at them a lot harder than he's probably used to.
Now, I would note that this is not to say that you shouldn't "stack" a lot of invocations on a single roll. Heavens, no. That is the primary way (mechanically) that a group of PCs tackles a big scene like a boss fight (or similar). If you're doing it right, its very much like the old Claremont era X-men.
I'd also note that its not rare for new Fate GMs to have trouble getting their players to engage in the FP economy at all. (Often they are too used to "taking it easy" on the PCs or "trying to balance an encounter".) This is the exact opposite of what you are describing!
By turning the character into a mechanic that directly relates to success all the time, it turns all the considerations about playing your character into weighing not the character but the need for mechanical success. It's actively undermining its own intentions with the design in the same way that social systems that mimic combat systems in order to make social interaction a pillar of the game are inadvertently undermining the RP that they want to encourage.
If you're GMing it right....a player who plays this way (often with positive-only aspects) should find himself out of Fate points right quick. You only start with 5 or less (usually).
