Fate Questions

[GameOgre]

I am a long time D&D player. I have actually played many hundreds of rpg's over the last 40 odd years but you get the idea. I'm mostly a strictly Class oriented role player.

I received both Fate Core and Fate Accelerated along with the Freeport Guide for Fate in pdf form a while back and have read them all bit by bit at night before I sleep.

I must say Fate seems very interesting and just reading it had caused me to leave my normal comfort zone role playing game wise and try and look at things from a new direction.

I have some questions that you guys might be able to help me with.

First off there is the advantage thing. I get how to make one(I think) and what it does but if I'm right about that, I have issues with it.

Lets say I and a friend are in a gunfight with a bad guy. I create a advantage (by shooting out the light) on our end of the parking garage of in the dark. Now if more of my friends came up the stairs to join us in the fight, they would have to spend a Fate Point to take advantage of the dark?

I don't get how once you do something in game to take advantage of something it then costs characters to use that advantage(I know about the free uses but there are times that doesn't even last through the scene.

It just seems like to me there can be characters standing right next to each other that use and don't use a advantage that it would make since that everyone would use.

Thanks for any help you guys have to offer.

 

[steenan]

The Create Advantage action gives you one (or two, on success with style) free invokes of the created/discovered aspect. You may pass them to an ally.
In other words, you don't have to pay fate points for the first use or two (or, you can stack the free invoke with paid invoke).
That's what makes the CA action so useful.

Of course, the aspect is still there after free invokes are used up (unless somebody did something in the fiction to remove it).

Also, the darkness aspect can have mechanical effects even without being invoked. Not very powerful, but useful nonetheless. Something like a Fair (2) passive opposition for all attacks and perception-based CA against targets in the darkness.

 

[Umbran]

The Create Advantage action gives you one (or two, on success with style) free invokes of the created/discovered aspect.

In Fate Core:

If you fail, you don't create any advantage
If you tie, you get a boost (a free one-use, short lived situational aspect).
If you succeed, you get the situational aspect, with one free tag.
If you succeed with style, you get the situational aspect, with two free tags.

Lets say I and a friend are in a gunfight with a bad guy. I create a advantage (by shooting out the light) on our end of the parking garage of in the dark. Now if more of my friends came up the stairs to join us in the fight, they would have to spend a Fate Point to take advantage of the dark?

In general, yes. Note that in order to take advantage of the dark, they have to be doing something relevant. That darkness is probably primarily defensive: If they come up and try to hide, they may tag it (if they don't, we can say they leave the door to the stairwell open, and some light spills out giving them away) but if they step out and start shooting at the bad guy, it probably doesn't apply.

I don't get how once you do something in game to take advantage of something it then costs characters to use that advantage(I know about the free uses but there are times that doesn't even last through the scene.

Well, the thing it this - in FATE, the average of what you get from dice is +0. So, the +2 you get from an invoke is pretty big, especially when you realize that they can *stack*.

Consider a party of four PCs against some villain(s). In the first round of a combat, the PCs *all* choose to Create Advantage. All succeed. So, if you weren't paying for it, everyone could likely claim a +8 on *every* attack for the rest of the scene, for free. That's abusive. So, you may get one or two free uses, but then folks have to pay, to avoid the abuse factor.

 

[GameOgre]

It's the D&D player in me that is struggling to like the nature of advantage but your posts are helping. It's true that in a game like D&D where those advantages or disadvantages to the die roll are more permanent but mods seem to matter a lot more in fate so while D&D could award a +2 bonus for something and not have it mean more than a slight bonus, in Fate a +2 bonus is huge.

So I get where the bonus need to be different.

I still struggle with wrapping the fiction around the rules instead of the other way around.

The guy coming up the stairs and into the room with the light spilling out of the doorway behind him placing him in light even if the guy standing three feet away isn't in the light does work and seems even cool. It's just not how I am trained by past rpg's to think of things.

 

[GrahamWills]

An important point is also that the aspects ESTABLISH FACT. By shooting out the light, it does two things:

1) make it possible for the aspect "dark" to be invoked for a mechanical bonus.
2) makes it possible for anything that can be done in the dark to be done.

Do not forget the second point. So, for example, if people are watching the space, it is NOT POSSIBLE to sneak across a well-light open room without being seen (without superpowers). Once it is dark, it becomes POSSIBLE.

Similarly a room on fire is likely to automatically cause people to leave without needing a roll to make them. Since FATE is more narrative than D&D is (except 13th Age), I'd suggest always keeping the narrative in mind before the mechanics.

 

[Umbran]

It's just not how I am trained by past rpg's to think of things.

Yes, many people wind up with that kind of issue with FATE-based games.

You ever watched the Schwarzenegger movie, "Last Action Hero"?

In a traditional RPG, we have a simulation of a world, the game rules enforce the rules of the world, and we put the characters into this simulation. Things happen in the game because that's how the simulated world works. Overall, maybe this will play out like a heroic action story, maybe it'll play out like a tactical simulation, maybe it'll play out like a good game of chess - probably as a bit of an mixture of all these things - depending on the slant the players put on it, and how the mechanics play out. You shoot out the lights, and they then effect *every* die roll. On most of the rolls, though, you would succeed or fail whatever the state of the lights - only a small marking of the time are you rolling close enough to that edge where the bonus matters one way or another. It may have been a wasted effort, and the result not really dramatic or interesting. It is merely a small tactical element.

FATE games are often a bit more like "Last Action Hero" and basically assume that you want play to turn out like a heroic action story, not like a tactical simulation or a game of chess. Your character isn't just in a simulated fantasy world with different physical laws than ours - they are in a world that acts like a fantasy *story*. So, for much of the scene, while we are aware of the darkness, it doesn't really have much impact. When it really matters, when the hero is trying something that really depends on the darkness, we can be far more sure that it will impact the event.

 

[GameOgre]

Questions kinda paused while I await the actual books coming in the mail!

 

[Umbran]

No problem. Speed is not of the essence.

Which books are you waiting for? You can review the FATE Core SRD online, if it helps you clear out some questions.

 

[GameOgre]

Fate Core Hardback and Fate System Toolkit.

I also have the free pdf's but it's hard for me to read pdf's and really get new ideas and stuff. Well it's made harder by the only time I get a chance to read my pdf's is after the wife has fallen asleep with my Nook.

My idea for Fate core is to get used to the new rules and way of doing things by experiencing it will something I'm very comfortable with. I'm just going to run a game (assuming I can actually learn it) with my daughter in law and wife and set it in a fantasy world. Something I can do in my sleep with Pathfinder or any edition of D&D.

Once I have Fate down pat and have run a good campaign of fantasy with it, I want to branch out and go more crazy with it.

Something like each character is a literary character from a book that awakens in a library due to the magical emanations being given off from a ancient magical artifact being temporarily stored at the library. Evil forces will be out to destroy the artifact and free the Efreetti Prince that was imprisoned within the artifact. It will turn out in the end that the Efreettii Prince is good and that the characters are the souls of his ancient protectors long ago killed but still using the artifacts magic to be reborn as the characters in order to protect the Prince.

Or something lol it's just a thought.

 

[GameOgre]

For my Fantasy Game I had thought to use the Fate Freeport Companion as inspiration. I think it might be easier for my players to get it if we used the Strength Dexterity Constitution (aspects) but I'm really not sure.