Dresden Files/Starblazers/FATE...

[Treebore]

I finally got to play these thanks to the Open Gaming guys at Neon Con, and I have to say even though I have not fallen in love with the FATE system I can now see and understand why I have seen so many who love it on various message boards.

If you are on the "story teller" side of DMing you definitely should check out the FATE system as it is used in Starblazers and Dresden Files. They definitely support and strongly encourage a narrative style of play from both the GM and players. Even if you don't fall in love with the FATE system you will take away some great ideas for whatever RPG you do like to run that will help you make it more of a co operative story telling campaign. All you really need to do is adapt the idea of the Aspects and use of the FATE points. I am pretty confident they can be adapted pretty easily to pretty much any RPG.

Then again, the FATE system itself works pretty darn well, so you might just stick with it.

 

[defendi]

I'm playing Dresden Files now and I love the aspects. I intend to implement them in my next D&D game. My idea is since D&D really doesn't need a lot of impact in the combat system I should run them a little cooler so they don't just walk through every fight. Don't give them as many and try to put them into interesting non-combat situations where they can spend them.

I intend to start every one with one refresh. That will go up 1-2 per tier. I intend to have them also playing the coallition of villains working against them in certain cut scenes, so the rule will be if they try to game that and minimize the villain's effectiveness, then they will gain zero refresh a tier. If they make the villains effective foes and put time pressure on their own heroes, they will get 1 refresh a tier. If they go into full "political villain mode" and start hatching plots to fight for status and other cool villain subplots, they'll get two. They will probably also get a refresh when the party kills the villain they are playing.

Those are currently my thoughts, at any rate.