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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 8158077" data-attributes="member: 87792">In my experience it's partly a misunderstanding of Fate Points, partly a difference between task and challenge resolution, and partly a difference in how precious people are over settings.Fate Points in general cover a lot of abstracts that would be covered in a World of Darkness game by Willpower and whatever the meta-currency of choice in that game was (blood points, quintessence, etc.) This leads people to claim they can do almost anything - which is true but only when given the right aspects to invoke. And the aspects are either part of the character or part of the pre-established fiction in the setting.Task and challenge resolution is a similar situation. In D&D or a task based game a character sheet will have an Athletics of +10 and the rules will use that to say how far someone can jump. In Fate a character may have an Athletics of +4/Great and the rules will say what level of obstacle they can overcome or advantage they can create using that athletics skill. But they do it through interacting with the fiction; you might overcome an obstacle by climbing it - or knocking it down. Can't find a secret door? With a roll of +8 you might be able to kool-aid-man through the wall anyway. (This is probably something that will involve aspects, stunts, and fate points but is more often coming as a player side idea than it would be in D&D)Then there's how precious a certain type of GM is over the setting. First there are meta-skills. Fate has a Contacts skill by default (so, I think does the World of Darkness). Most GMs I've played with let characters with networks of contacts (whether a contacts skill is in the game or not) go at least some way to defining their contacts. Some DMs hate this because it's players creating the NPCs thus giving them control over the fiction. Others ... that's how they did things anyway.Finally there's character creation - and the recent kitchen sink threads. Most of the games under discussion are pretty permissive in what the players can create in chargen, even inventing unique things about their character, and inventing cultures. This, as the recent threads showed, is entirely unacceptable to some DMs who think that that's giving the player control of the fiction when the thing starts and they should have it all but entirely expected by others as background even if it wouldn't be in play. Meanwhile Apocalypse World goes to the other extreme and says the MC is not to come up with anything before session zero and that the entire setting is a collaboration. But when the game actually starts after character creation the players act entirely through their characters. But one of my AW games has taken me by surprise when someone opted to play their Gunlugger as a triple-uzi wielding uplifted chimpanzee. Which certainly wasn't what I was expecting.If it's the type of rules I'm thinking of it's because (i) they have been chosen by the player rather than the GM and (ii) they let the character some things that are harmful to the character without being anti-social enough to sabotage the entire party's chances of success.If a D&D character decides to get drunk just before a battle because their character is an alcoholic then they take a drunkenness debuff. This is bad for them and for the entire party and there's no good reason at all to do it. So D&D characters are social drinkers but almost always sober when they need to be. They aren't alcoholics, they just go carousing when they have the money and time. Anything else is just anti-social and sabotages everyone at the table.If a GURPS character chooses to be an alcoholic then they need to roll to resist binge drinking when in the presence of alcohol but get bonus character points. A GURPS alcoholic generally behaves as if they are on a 12 step program and will not be seen inside a bar. Which ... works. But it's not an alcoholic.A Fate character on the other hand does have rules - but the rules were chosen by the player. A Fate character who's an alcoholic can be compelled (or even request a compel from the GM); the compel will always be something bad, such as the condition drunkenness or waking up the wrong side of town in just their boxers but they get paid a Fate point for it - or they can spend a fate point and refuse. And Fate points are powerful. This means that the night before a big battle you're likely to find a Fate alcoholic asking for "jusht one more drink/fate point. I can hic handle it" and you may even see them drinking from a hip flask in the lull in a battle for "courage"/fate points. This is something that is likely to get your character into trouble both short and long term - but because you got the Fate Points for it it's not an anti-social move that sabotages the whole team.So you are free to play an alcoholic without being a team sabotaging jerk because there are rules constraining your character that you have chosen.</blockquote>

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