NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BryonD" data-source="post: 5625465" data-attributes="member: 957">I have not played fate, so forgive me if I'm missing something here.Fate points sounds somewhat similar to action points is a very general sense.I use action points in my games.A part of the conversation is around player control of narrative elements.  And I don't think there is a lot, if any, resistance to that concept if done well.  In my games, as any game, I think, APs can be used for a wide variety of tasks.  It can be as simple as improving the chances of an attack hitting or making a save.  But it can also provide narrative control.  Players tend to ask "Can I swing on a vine to get there if I spend an action point?"  "Can I find this thing I need if I spend and action point?"  Sometime I say no.  It depends.  But I default to yes unless there is a reason to say no.  The concept of narrative control and heroes having "heroic" moments, like in novels and movies, is very much embraced.  But the mechanics that support that need to be both good and unobtrusive.And the fact that APs apply to such a wide variety of things applies to that.  You could read millions of pages of novel reflecting my games and the only pattern you would ever see is that the heroes are a little more likely to get lucky when the chips are down.  And THAT is a story convention that applies.  So, again, the mechanics are a slave to the narrative, not the other way around.  We expect moments of greatness, so we allow a mechanic that produces that result.  And if that convention was not expected, I wouldn't use the mechanic.In 4E we are not talking about a limited resource that applies to a vast range of elements.  We are talking about daily or encounter limited uses of specific actions.  It is completely different.It never occurs to us to go down the pattern line of thought with APs because the pattern isn't there.  And I suspect it is exactly the same as with Fate.But in 4E the thought walks up and slaps us in the face.  When you choose to use a daily or not you are doing exactly that, making a conscious choice that impact not only that moment, but the narrative allowances of other unrelated moments.  The player, and everyone else at the table knows that a choice has been made and the pattern must be complied with.  When you use that daily, you know it is gone for the day.You example works for FATE.  But you were forced to talk about FATE rather than 4E because it does not hold up for 4E.Again, that isn't to say that 4E is a bad game.  There are very real, fun, benefits provided by the 4E system.  But, my point is that if your priority is the same as mine, being inside a story without these patterns or anything else showing themselves, then there are going to be other systems that you will find clearly more satisfactory.</blockquote>

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