Grade the Fate/Fate Core System

[Thomas Shey]

I really don't know how to rate this one; how do you rate a game system that seems to be really well designed for a set of needs you don't particularly share while actively putting you off? I tried to run a couple Fate sessions and found it stressful as all get-out, but I can see why there are people who find it the bees knees.

 

[Thomas Shey]

One use is broad competency. This becomes more obvious in Fate Accelerated, that doesn't have skills, as such.

I play in a Fate Accelerated Space: 1889 game. My character has the High Concept: "Former Master Sergeant in Her Majesty's Service." You only get a few stunts, so you can't have one for each thing highly competent military personnel with a ton of experience in the field can do. But with this Aspect, I can get a bonus on anything you'd expect him to be good at - shooting, firing artillery pieces, driving vehicles, survival skills, field tactics and so on.

Another use is access to narrative, which, in Fate, matters, as you have to invoke that narrative to interact with things. My Master Sergeant can't invoke any supernatural narrative, as he's a very mundane character, by design. A "Fire Sorcerer of the 5th Circle" could invoke supernatural explanations for what they do.

Another related thing that an Aspect can get you that a skill or stunt can't is fictional positioning. My character's Trouble aspect is, "'Former' Master Sergeant in Her Majesty's Service" - while he says he is retired, nobody believes him - he is always assumed to be on some mysterious special detached mission or something, which gets him treated kind of like James Bond or something, for good or ill..

They also can be used to represent things that are attached to a character but not, in any meaningful way, in control of the character. Even Stunts don't cover that.

 

[Umbran]

They also can be used to represent things that are attached to a character but not, in any meaningful way, in control of the character. Even Stunts don't cover that.

I am not sure what "attached to, but not, in any meaningful way, in control of" is supposed to refer to. Can you give an example of what you mean?

 

[Thomas Shey]

I am not sure what "attached to, but not, in any meaningful way, in control of" is supposed to refer to. Can you give an example of what you mean?

"Cursed by the Love of a Goddess". This isn't anything the character does, or has any real control over, but on a narrative level it can nudge his life around to one degree or another, often to his deficit. Its entirely something that's all about narrative control, not any control on the level of the character.

You can also see this, of course, on the level of a lot of negative Aspects: "Price on Her Head" or "Weak Immune System" are essentially fodder for the GM and ways to rack up Fate points, but they aren't anything the character chooses to do.

Edit: I realize the problem, I said "in control of the character" rather than "controlled by the character". That was sloppy.

 

[Aldarc]

"Cursed by the Love of a Goddess". This isn't anything the character does, or has any real control over, but on a narrative level it can nudge his life around to one degree or another, often to his deficit. Its entirely something that's all about narrative control, not any control on the level of the character.

You can also see this, of course, on the level of a lot of negative Aspects: "Price on Her Head" or "Weak Immune System" are essentially fodder for the GM and ways to rack up Fate points, but they aren't anything the character chooses to do.

Edit: I realize the problem, I said "in control of the character" rather than "controlled by the character". That was sloppy.

Aspects are more about how the player understands their character and their wants, so yeah, it's outside of the character. Troubles, for example, are meant to be player-selected lightning rods for character complications. Some Troubles, however, can be character-facing: e.g., "I'll get you someday, Dr. Adlerstein!" or "My Brother's Unsolved Murder Makes Me Restless."

 

[Thomas Shey]

Aspects are more about how the player understands their character and their wants, so yeah, it's outside of the character. Troubles, for example, are meant to be player-selected lightning rods for character complications. Some Troubles, however, can be character-facing: e.g., "I'll get you someday, Dr. Adlerstein!" or "My Brother's Unsolved Murder Makes Me Restless."

Sure, I was just giving examples of things that weren't going to be able to be represented with skills or stunts (I think personally, so do your examples, but the ones I gave were very bright-line.)

 

[dbm]

We played a couple of Fate campaigns back when it came out. I like how aspects can attach significance to anything. We were playing a Firefly style game, and when there was a bar fight scene, we added that as an aspect which suddenly opened up opportunities for all the things you would see in a bar fight and also compel to block inappropriate actions (like immediately reaching for weapons…)

On the flip side, aspects seemed very bland to us with everything boiling down to +2.

So, while I personally quite enjoy Fate for its flexibility it left our group cold.

 

[Aldarc]

We played a couple of Fate campaigns back when it came out. I like how aspects can attach significance to anything. We were playing a Firefly style game, and when there was a bar fight scene, we added that as an aspect which suddenly opened up opportunities for all the things you would see in a bar fight and also compel to block inappropriate actions (like immediately reaching for weapons…)

On the flip side, aspects seemed very bland to us with everything boiling down to +2.

So, while I personally quite enjoy Fate for its flexibility it left our group cold.

FYI, there are some versions of Fate that use rated aspects.

 

[Campbell]

I'm not a big fan of FATE (but I adore Cortex). I really dislike FUDGE dice and how strongly their distribution is weighted towards the dice roll have no effect. When coupled with the Fate Point economy makes it almost like players are choosing when to fail and succeed. It takes all the tension out of play for me. I'm also not a really a fan of Compels and the way that shapes a suffer to win meta. I vastly prefer having the Doom pool as a source of tension and having more moment-to-moment tension.

 

[Umbran]

On the flip side, aspects seemed very bland to us with everything boiling down to +2.

Yep. All the tactical choices are up in the narrative, rather than in the mechanics.

 

[dbm]

All the tactical choices are up in the narrative

One of the comments made in my group at the time was that playing Fate was like playing a word game. If you could describe what you wanted, you could get it. It’s not quite that straight forward, and the need for Fate points act as a limit anyway, but still it didn’t work for us.

 

[Tonguez]

One of the comments made in my group at the time was that playing Fate was like playing a word game. If you could describe what you wanted, you could get it. It’s not quite that straight forward, and the need for Fate points act as a limit anyway, but still it didn’t work for us.

Thats probably a good point that Fate and other narrative-first games appeal to those who like to play with words and whose minds shutdown on too much maths. Fates +2 is basic especially when the spread is -4 to +4 but its also a significant bonus on its own. Then of course You can invoke multiple aspects on a single roll, which is the whole point of Create an advantage and its free invokes - if you enjoy weaving aspects into daisy chains you can easily turn a +2 into a +4 or +6 as part of the narrative word salad

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm not a big fan of FATE (but I adore Cortex). I really dislike FUDGE dice and how strongly their distribution is weighted towards the dice roll have no effect. When coupled with the Fate Point economy makes it almost like players are choosing when to fail and succeed. It takes all the tension out of play for me. I'm also not a really a fan of Compels and the way that shapes a suffer to win meta. I vastly prefer having the Doom pool as a source of tension and having more moment-to-moment tension.

Oddly, I found Cortex more appealing than Fate myself, and I'm not entirely sure why. I think its because there's a lot more baked in assumption that at least one of a each category of traits is likely to be involved in everything, so as a GM you're less pushed to decide if anything goes there at all.

 

[Carnun]

Thats probably a good point that Fate and other narrative-first games appeal to those who like to play with words and whose minds shutdown on too much maths. Fates +2 is basic especially when the spread is -4 to +4 but its also a significant bonus on its own. Then of course You can invoke multiple aspects on a single roll, which is the whole point of Create an advantage and its free invokes - if you enjoy weaving aspects into daisy chains you can easily turn a +2 into a +4 or +6 as part of the narrative word salad

"You (Fate) had me in the first half," lol. That success ladder rears its ugly head and ruins the parts I like about Fate (the Aspects and Stunts... or at least their concepts). It's the same kind of treadmill effect you see in D20; bigger numbers, but nothing really changes. I want to experiment with a lite Fate-like system that basically has player-facing rolls that either have advantage or disadvantage (Aspects) and lower difficulties for characters' specialties (Stunts).

 

[Aldarc]

Oddly, I found Cortex more appealing than Fate myself, and I'm not entirely sure why. I think its because there's a lot more baked in assumption that at least one of a each category of traits is likely to be involved in everything, so as a GM you're less pushed to decide if anything goes there at all.

I do enjoy Fate greatly, but I do think that there are some things about how Cortex approaches play differently that are attractive to some players turned off by Fate:

• Distinctions can be stepped down by the player to generate the metacurrency rather than the GM compelling a PC's aspects.
• It's a dice pool system with a fairly easy mechanic of adding two of your choice.
• It's a dice pool system that uses different die types - e.g., d4, d6, d8, d10, d12 - which is great for people who like rolling different dice or using the dice that they may already have for D&D.
• The dice pool mechanic draws from all of a character's traits and qualities.
• The GM rolls opposition to set the difficulty rather than choosing from a value from a ladder.

 

[Kannik]

• The dice pool mechanic draws from all of a character's traits and qualities.

That is what I think makes Cortex really shine over FATE. While Aspects only come into heavy play* when you spend a FATE point, that a Distinction is included in every roll in Cortex means that they have a much greater influence in the story. For example, one character in our Broken Lands campaign is both a "Badlands Techno Ranger" and also an "Elf from the Sunless Sea", the latter of which was not necessarily a happy time for her. So, when tracking someone through old ruinous caverns underground, the feel and importance to the character's story is very different depending which Distinction she includes. With the former, it's a pretty straightforward pull of her skill set, where she's focused and in her element. But if we include the latter, then it's drawing on her history... is it a bit of a surprise to her, where she finds familiarity in the way she begins to move and perceive the area, harkening back to a time long ago? And, does it also become more ominous, where this begins to bring back bad memories of said past? Or are the memories so overwhelming that the player chooses to roll a d4 instead? Rich RP opportunities abound!


* While they are also in play as setting something true in the narrative, I find they still remain mostly in the background unless a FP is spent.

 

[ThrorII]

I WANT to like FATE, but it ends up being too loosey-goosey. I'm not a fan of players having that much narrative control, which can devolve into driving the game off the rails. Also, there is a huge player buy in, in that they must create interesting characters and be willing to loose in order to win.

 

[aramis erak]

Oddly, I found Cortex more appealing than Fate myself, and I'm not entirely sure why. I think its because there's a lot more baked in assumption that at least one of a each category of traits is likely to be involved in everything, so as a GM you're less pushed to decide if anything goes there at all.

Before Cortex Plus, I would have rated it pretty good (B) or rather good (B+). After, it drops to "It's alright" (C) with Fate Core, due to blandness being actually C-, while the two I've done multi-session with (Dresden Files and SOTC) being C+ still.

For Dresden Files, I think Fate is a really good fit... especially for playing white court vampires. Cortex Plus conditions are more reliable than Fate... Fate, they last until cancelled, but cost to use a second or later time. CP, they can be reused, but stacking them requires spends.

The difference in reuse is part of my dropping my view of Fate.

I don't mind fate dice at all,

The ladder makes perfect sense to me. Difficulties being the answer to "What level of expertise is required to do this?" and the roll modifying your skill being "How well am I acting above/below score at the moment?", with the aspects being literally conditional modifiers.

My favorite Fate flavor has scope as a consideration - you can not tag more than one aspect each from character, tool, scene, nor chapter.
Cortex Plus also has scope rules in each version - one from each category, more costs extra.

 

[dbm]

For Dresden Files, I think Fate is a really good fit

Fun fact! Fate was created specifically to run the Dresden files. Fred Hicks is a friend of Jim Butcher. Spirit of the Century was a ‘test bed’ of the system before they went for the primary objective of DFRPG.