Experience with FATE?

[Obryn]

My general finding with Fate 2e (the free one on the website) was that it read much better than it played. Everything sounded awesome in concept and was pretty easy to describe, but when it came time to actually make characters and play ... it kinda fell flat. We ran it for two sessions for a pulp horror game with some Cthulhu elements, and it sadly just didn't work out for us. I haven't looked back.

It was a while ago, but among the things I remember...

* Combat was extremely grindy, and I rather wanted it to be fast.
* Aspects are wacky. Broad Aspects are much better than narrow ones in basically every respect, from a mechanical standpoint. (While "Football Player" might be more interesting than "Athlete," the latter has a much broader application.)

There was more than this, but this is what I can come up with off the top of my head.

From what I understand, FATE 3e goes a long way towards fixing the issues I had with the system. I haven't looked, though.

-O

 

[Lackhand]

Aspects are wacky. Broad Aspects are much better than narrow ones in basically every respect, from a mechanical standpoint. (While "Football Player" might be more interesting than "Athlete," the latter has a much broader application.)

Depends how good the GM is at giving you fate points -- Athlete is tougher to compel than Footbal Player which is tougher to compel than Star Quarterback. But yes. They are indeed wacky

From what I understand, FATE 3e goes a long way towards fixing the issues I had with the system. I haven't looked, though.

And it has an online SRD which gives you pretty much the whole game -- SotC SRD

 

[Metus]

That's interesting to hear, Obryn, especially the aspect part. Simply from reading it, I was wondering the same thing about aspects, and skills as well. Why would someone take "Pistols" instead of "Firearms"?

Got a link to this? I am also cautious, but I could give this a read if its free.

Here you go:

FateRPG.Com: Fate: Fantastic Adventures in Tabletop Entertainment (TM)

 

[coyote6]

AFAIK, in FATE 3, the skills are mostly defined, not make-up-your-own. Of course, the GM can change them, but the default isn't that individual characters define their own skills.

(I do have problems with FATE 3/SotC's skills, but that's mostly got to do with the social skills -- I can't quite grok 'em. They seem to overlap in weird ways, and strike me as unnecessarily numerous. But I haven't GMed FATE, just played it at cons, so I think just might not have it clear yet.)

 

[Gralhruk]

That's interesting to hear, Obryn, especially the aspect part. Simply from reading it, I was wondering the same thing about aspects, and skills as well. Why would someone take "Pistols" instead of "Firearms"?

While I don't have much actual play experience with FATE, I think that from a theoretical standpoint the difference is really one of context. "Pistols" vs. "Firearms" isn't really a good example of the sort of specificity they are talking about. "Star Quarterback" vs. "Athlete" is a better example; even better would be "Star Quarterback of the Scarlet Knights".

Providing that sort of context for the aspect implies relationships, equipment, and access to facilities that a more general aspect doesn't have. Sure, "Athlete" grants you bonuses to athletic skill rolls in a whole bunch of situations. "Star Quarterback of the Scarlet Knights" does the same thing, plus it points to specific situations you are really, really good. More importantly it implies relationships with other players, coaches, trainers, cheerleaders, rivalries plus a whole range of other things that could possibly be invoked or compelled. As a result, it comes into play in more interesting ways during the game.

At least, that's my impression.

 

[xortam]

It's out for Christmas and there's a huge amount of support next year with campaigns, adventures, player's guides etc.

Have to put that on the Christmas list for sure - sounds awesome!

Good job on Starblazer Adventures too - I'd definately recommend it to anyone interested in a FATE based game.

 

[Obryn]

That's interesting to hear, Obryn, especially the aspect part. Simply from reading it, I was wondering the same thing about aspects, and skills as well. Why would someone take "Pistols" instead of "Firearms"?

I don't know that you necessarily would. As Lackhand mentioned, there's always the possibility of "compelling" Aspects for Fate Points, but I don't really know how Athlete, Football Player, Pistol Sharpshooter, or (generic) Sharpshooter are easily compelled in most games.

What's more, you can come up with broad and compellable Aspects, and there's little reason not to dump almost everything into them if you see fit, making for (ironically) less-interesting characters. Say, "My dad was my mentor. He taught me everything I know. I think of him often." So I have the Aspect of "Dad". Now I can use my Dad for just about anything I do, and the GM can compel me as well in some situations.

Yes, it can be interesting, but it's mechanically very dull, and gets very repetitive in play.

-O

 

[BlightCrawler]

I'd very much like to hear about anybody's experiences with the FATE system, whether playing Spirit of the Century or just the core FATE rules. If the latter, what kind of genre did you use the rules for? I'm wondering how versatile it is, if you can go from fantasy to survival horror. What are FATE's pros and cons?

Anybody try it out?

I love it. One of my favorite systems. I'm speaking mainly of FATE 2.5 as used in Spirit of the Century, but I've played a bit of 3.0 used in Starblazer Adventures, and am looking forward to picking up Diaspora for some harder SF (also 3.0). The differences between 2.5 and 3.0 are pretty small (aside from the fact that Starblazer uses a completely different dice mechanic instead of the Fudge dice, I don't think that's a Fate 3.0 thing, but it might be)

Starblazer Adventures I've only used for gonzo space opera. SotC I've used for the standard pulp setting as well as a retro-sci-fi game ala Flash Gordon (set in the 1920's vision of 2008).

Aspects are great. As a player, it's a tool for you to inject character into anything you want to do and have a lot of influence in the direction of the story. As a GM it's a tool to entice players to follow a certain path of the story as well as a launching point for new story elements. Fate points turn this give and flow into a great economy and mechanic.

The main downside is that advacement rules are bollocks, at least in SotC. This isn't entirely bad. As in SotC you start off pretty awesome. And gaining power isn't really part of the pulp genre. And there's still room for character change which I find more interesting than escalation in power. Starblazer Adventures is a bit better at this, mainly by having you start out less powerful if you wish.

There's no good fantasy resoruces that I know of (other than some people's conversions) but Chris Birch mentioned the one Cubicle 7 is working on, and I think that's your best bet.

I would also recommend Houses of the Blooded. It's not Fate but it cribbed aspects from Fate and does a lot of interesting other things. It's also a very cool fantasy setting. Plus you can get the nearly 400 page PDF for $5. (Oh scratch that, it's currently on sale for $4!)

What's more, you can come up with broad and compellable Aspects, and there's little reason not to dump almost everything into them if you see fit, making for (ironically) less-interesting characters. Say, "My dad was my mentor. He taught me everything I know. I think of him often." So I have the Aspect of "Dad". Now I can use my Dad for just about anything I do, and the GM can compel me as well in some situations.

That's a good example of a bad aspect!

I'm not sure what you mean about dumping everything into an aspect. Is that a 2.0 thing? Because the more recent editions Aspects have no value. In SotC you need to have 10 aspects when it's all said and done. In Starblazer, it depends on how powerful you are to start, but I believe the range is 4-10 aspects. This forces you to have a more complex character because, yes, going for a small number of bland aspects will, no surprise, result in a boring character. Both books have grat advice on how to make a good or a great Aspect and the difference between the two (and after that recognizing average aspects is pretty easy).

 

[Ktulu]

I read through it at the behest of one of my friends and wasn't really impressed. He really wanted to adopt the aspect system into play for our 4e games, rather than using the action point setup.

After two attempts at using it, I can safely say, I'm not a fan. For one, I feel the aspects end up making your character more restrictive than 2e alignment in D&D did. You spend more time trying to tie things you do to these aspects than you do focusing on the game.

As far as mixing it with 4e; that was a complete nightmare. It either over-boosted the character, giving them too much benefit, or it under developed the use of an action point to the point of ignoring it all together.

YMMV, of course, but it was definitely not an exciting venture into this system, for myself.

Happy gamin'!

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I've been in two FATE Spirit of the Century campaigns. The second used the stuntless variant.

I really liked it. It's simple, and many of the little issues the cropped up were more of a DM thing than a system thing.

The only real problem I had was lack of character development (in terms of stats). I don't know if there's a variant levelling-up system somewhere; I'd be interested in trying that.