ThirdWizard
First Post
Okay, so I'm going to start with compels and get back to the sandbox stuff afterward.
First, you're looking at complels wrong. They don't tell PCs what they can and cannot do. Compels add complications to a character's life. Saying "You can't talk to Dukat yet" is not a complication. Here's a better example.
GM: Okay, you come aboard Terok Nor. Your goal is to find out everything you can about Capt. Maxwell before going down to the planet to catch him.
Lieutenant Graves: Well, let's talk to the station commander first.
GM: I'm compelling you with the [pre-established] situation aspect Everyone's Afraid of Dukat. Wouldn't it just be your luck if none of the Cardassians wanted to bother him? They'd need some "convincing" first, to make it worth their while.
Lieutenant Graves: Ugh... yeah, that makes sense. We've got some latinum, guess we'll go talk to his aide and see how much this is going to cost us. *holds hand out for Fate Point*
GM starts roleplaying meeting with Dukat's aide here.
So, in this situation, the PCs wanted to talk to Dukat, and they get to talk to Dukat, but they're going to have to work for it. By accepting the compel, lets note that it isn't forcing them to pay to get to him. They could try to work their way around the system some other way. The compel is none of the Cardassians will help. Maybe the PCs can instead work with the bajorans, maybe they sneak up on Dukat and try to catch him in a good mood, or something else. But, the compel doesn't say "You can't talk to Dukat." It says "Talking to Dukat is going to involve some work." Maybe it will just slow them down so they have less time with their mission in the future. Or maybe they decide they're in a hurry, they don't have money to spare, and they don't have time to mess with this. So they pay of the compel and spend a Fate Point.
But, most compels aren't going to come from situation or scene aspects. They're going to come from PCs' aspects. So lets talk a bit about PC aspects and picking the right one for the job.
When a PC is choosing an aspect, they should be thinking "How do I want this to complicate my life?" And they're telegraphing this to the GM. They're telling the GM "I want this to go wrong!" and the GM, through reading a PC's aspects, is getting that message. Lets say you have the aspect Mistaken Identity... Again. You're telling the GM that you want people to accidentally mistake you for others. In the Terak Nor example above, it might play out this way.
GM: Okay, you come aboard Terok Nor. Your goal is to find out everything you can about Capt. Maxwell before going down to the planet to catch him.
Lieutenant Graves: Well, let's talk to the station commander first.
GM: You know, wouldn't it just be your luck for Lieutenant Graves to bear a striking resemblance to a bounty hunter that slept with Dukat's favorite bajoran lover last year?
Lieutenant Graves: Everywhere I go, man! Everywhere I go! *holds hand out for Fate Point*
See? The player really likes the idea of his character being mistaken for others so he creates the aspect to go with it, thus giving the GM incentive to use the kind of complications he likes! And he even gets rewarded for it! See, a players aspect isn't just compelling him. In a real sense, you're compelling the GM to do what you want, to create the kind of game that you want to play in. That's what an aspect is for. That's what makes aspects so great.
Here are some examples from actual PCs a game I'm running:
Chronically Misunderstood - The player likes it when NPCs get angry with his character through no fault of his own, and he finds it amusing when an NPC shows up to help the group and ends up thinking he's the enemy. This was used to good effect when a robot, activated by another character in another room, thought he was a raider and attacked him instead of the enemy.
Engineered Chaos - Explosions! Fire! When he starts doing stuff, things tend to go crazy fast. He wants to see big dramatic stuff happen when he starts messing with electronics. And he gets his wish.
More Than A Few White Hairs - He plays an elderly chap, and he wants all the complications that go with that to show up.
The emphasis is, that players in FATE want bad things to happen to their characters. They want those complications. Complications make interesting stories grow. It's what conflict is about. Without the obstacles, then a game isn't that much fun. Aspects are their way of controlling what kind of complications they'll get. And the Fate Point economy is the way of controling the flow of the game, from bad things happening to the PCs overcoming obstacles and being awesome.
And let me add the really big reason why compels are absolutely terrible railroading techniques. You can always pay them off. You can always spend a Fate Point and say "Nuh uh. Not gonna happen" to the GM. A GM who wants to railroad the PCs through compels is going to find players with a hefty sum of Fate Points who can easily buy off every compel in the second half of the session. So, that will never work.
And beyond that Fate, like most indie games I've seen, assumes competence on the part of the GM. And, now lets get back to the sandbox thing. Fate assumes that if you say you're going to run a sandbox game, then you actually want to run a sandbox campaign. It assumes that the GM will actually at least try to do well. There's no coddling here. If the GM wants to run a sandbox and then tries to railroad the game, it isn't the system's fault. It's the GM's fault.
First, you're looking at complels wrong. They don't tell PCs what they can and cannot do. Compels add complications to a character's life. Saying "You can't talk to Dukat yet" is not a complication. Here's a better example.
GM: Okay, you come aboard Terok Nor. Your goal is to find out everything you can about Capt. Maxwell before going down to the planet to catch him.
Lieutenant Graves: Well, let's talk to the station commander first.
GM: I'm compelling you with the [pre-established] situation aspect Everyone's Afraid of Dukat. Wouldn't it just be your luck if none of the Cardassians wanted to bother him? They'd need some "convincing" first, to make it worth their while.
Lieutenant Graves: Ugh... yeah, that makes sense. We've got some latinum, guess we'll go talk to his aide and see how much this is going to cost us. *holds hand out for Fate Point*
GM starts roleplaying meeting with Dukat's aide here.
So, in this situation, the PCs wanted to talk to Dukat, and they get to talk to Dukat, but they're going to have to work for it. By accepting the compel, lets note that it isn't forcing them to pay to get to him. They could try to work their way around the system some other way. The compel is none of the Cardassians will help. Maybe the PCs can instead work with the bajorans, maybe they sneak up on Dukat and try to catch him in a good mood, or something else. But, the compel doesn't say "You can't talk to Dukat." It says "Talking to Dukat is going to involve some work." Maybe it will just slow them down so they have less time with their mission in the future. Or maybe they decide they're in a hurry, they don't have money to spare, and they don't have time to mess with this. So they pay of the compel and spend a Fate Point.
But, most compels aren't going to come from situation or scene aspects. They're going to come from PCs' aspects. So lets talk a bit about PC aspects and picking the right one for the job.
When a PC is choosing an aspect, they should be thinking "How do I want this to complicate my life?" And they're telegraphing this to the GM. They're telling the GM "I want this to go wrong!" and the GM, through reading a PC's aspects, is getting that message. Lets say you have the aspect Mistaken Identity... Again. You're telling the GM that you want people to accidentally mistake you for others. In the Terak Nor example above, it might play out this way.
GM: Okay, you come aboard Terok Nor. Your goal is to find out everything you can about Capt. Maxwell before going down to the planet to catch him.
Lieutenant Graves: Well, let's talk to the station commander first.
GM: You know, wouldn't it just be your luck for Lieutenant Graves to bear a striking resemblance to a bounty hunter that slept with Dukat's favorite bajoran lover last year?
Lieutenant Graves: Everywhere I go, man! Everywhere I go! *holds hand out for Fate Point*
See? The player really likes the idea of his character being mistaken for others so he creates the aspect to go with it, thus giving the GM incentive to use the kind of complications he likes! And he even gets rewarded for it! See, a players aspect isn't just compelling him. In a real sense, you're compelling the GM to do what you want, to create the kind of game that you want to play in. That's what an aspect is for. That's what makes aspects so great.
Here are some examples from actual PCs a game I'm running:
Chronically Misunderstood - The player likes it when NPCs get angry with his character through no fault of his own, and he finds it amusing when an NPC shows up to help the group and ends up thinking he's the enemy. This was used to good effect when a robot, activated by another character in another room, thought he was a raider and attacked him instead of the enemy.
Engineered Chaos - Explosions! Fire! When he starts doing stuff, things tend to go crazy fast. He wants to see big dramatic stuff happen when he starts messing with electronics. And he gets his wish.
More Than A Few White Hairs - He plays an elderly chap, and he wants all the complications that go with that to show up.
The emphasis is, that players in FATE want bad things to happen to their characters. They want those complications. Complications make interesting stories grow. It's what conflict is about. Without the obstacles, then a game isn't that much fun. Aspects are their way of controlling what kind of complications they'll get. And the Fate Point economy is the way of controling the flow of the game, from bad things happening to the PCs overcoming obstacles and being awesome.
And let me add the really big reason why compels are absolutely terrible railroading techniques. You can always pay them off. You can always spend a Fate Point and say "Nuh uh. Not gonna happen" to the GM. A GM who wants to railroad the PCs through compels is going to find players with a hefty sum of Fate Points who can easily buy off every compel in the second half of the session. So, that will never work.
And beyond that Fate, like most indie games I've seen, assumes competence on the part of the GM. And, now lets get back to the sandbox thing. Fate assumes that if you say you're going to run a sandbox game, then you actually want to run a sandbox campaign. It assumes that the GM will actually at least try to do well. There's no coddling here. If the GM wants to run a sandbox and then tries to railroad the game, it isn't the system's fault. It's the GM's fault.
