But again, to go back to what I said prior, if something exogenous isn't imposing its will upon you (in this case the resolution mechanics) and making your conception of self subordinate to that power in this moment (as happens in real life)...and you're making an active choice to pantomime (or not) the subordination of self to that power...then how are you remotely inhabiting your PC?
So, you're saying that if I'm projecting myself into the character I'm roleplaying, in a manner similar to a novelist (or plausibly an actor, but I'm less familiar with acting and novelist seems more apropos anyway), but I don't have something on my character sheet that describes the character's internal and external conflicts in a way that allows the GM to impose things on my character, that I'm not roleplaying? That would seem to mean that in the 5E campaigns I run, when I tell the players I don't need to see the Traits and such on their sheets--that I think of them as helpful for the players, not the DM--those players aren't roleplaying (when I can see them doing it around the table). I must be misunderstanding something, because that not only seems incorrect, it seems out of character for you.
This is an aspect of these conversations that get extremely difficult and entangled. It is because people claim to want (a) verisimilitude/immersion/PC habitation, (b) they want agency, and (c) they want coherent incentive structures (as you cite directly below, which I'll address in a moment). However, you've got all of the following in a moment where a PC could legitimately have their will (through exogenous forces - social pressures perhaps - interacting with endogenous forces - the endocrine system) become subordinate to another character through mundane interaction:
- complete autonomy (as in your second quoted bit) in this moment which must utterly defeat the actual realities of (a) and (b)
- an incentive structure that completely pushes back against even the pantomiming of becoming mundanely charmed/intimidated/mentally undone
Yeah. It's complicated.
First, my second quoted bit isn't about wanting complete autonomy (as I understand that term). It's about wanting opposition in the fiction to feel as though it's in the fiction. The GM applying a rule to cause my character to do something doesn't feel as though it's coming from the fiction. Heck, I wouldn't even mind if a character in Champions Berserked--I paid for something with that Disadvantage, let's earn those points.
I'm also not (I think pretty clearly) objecting to my character being charmed/intimidated/mentally undone by something in the fiction. I might have moments of humorous grumbling when a game has as its only Fear Effect running in terror--my comment is always: "What about pull the trigger until it clicks?"--but in that specific instance I both understand why the rule is as it is (being frightened and panicky should not be an advantage) and am willing to play within the rules as they are.
This is what I was trying to get at in my prior post. If you're just pantomiming becoming mentally undone (because you want it it "feel like my character" vs what actually happens in real life where when you succumb to something external to your conception of self...that sure as hell isn't something you identify with!...it feels as if you're a stranger to yourself!)...how is that remotely immersive...its literally the opposite of what happens in real life? Further, you're completely discincentivized in doing so (which you cite as a problem directly below). You don't identify this as a system issue?
Yeah. I know about this in my real life. If it's going to be in my pretend life, I need it to be tightly circumscribed; I absolutely do not need or want it to be imposed from outside the fiction.
I've GMed Fate somewhere around 6-10 times, so I'm quite familiar with the machinery and its context, holistically, in the game at large. Further still, I'm very familiar with the tech as it interfaces with other systems.
You're arguing for a misaligned incentive structure here. 2 things:
1) I would like you to address the incentive structure issue I cite directly above (which you don't cite as an issue...particularly how it is at tension with PC habitation/immersion/verisimilitude). I don't know how the two sit alongside each other.
2) With respect, I don't think you either have enough experience with Fate and/or games that have similar tech.
I GMed probably thirty or forty sessions of Spirit of the Century, in a homebrewed setting we worked up using the systems in the Dresden Files RPG, and I GMed and played probably twenty sessions of Mutants and Masterminds 2nd Edition, in which Hero Points are at least something like Fate Points. I'll admit that my personality probably isn't right for Fate, but I am not speaking from ignorance.
How is having a decision imposed on you from outside the fiction immersive? It's not arising naturally from the fiction or the GM wouldn't need to Compel you to put it there. The GM is putting it there because they want to shape the scene or the story that way.
a) You're isolating one aspect of the incentive structure of Compels and the Fate Point Economy and claiming everything is downstream from that. Its not. The reality is, you have three other competing forces that can, and do, push back against that claim (thereby working back upstream toward some equilibrium). (1) Players have a conception of their character that they're interested in testing to possibly realize within the fiction. If you accept every Compel, you're significantly diminishing those prospects (likely to completion). (2) Players have an interest in interesting outcomes and an obligation to the table toward interesting story creation. This will absolutely push back toward accepting every Compel. (3) Players who accept every compel will get themselves into a ridiculous positive feedback loop of trouble...thereby knocking themselves out of scenes routinely...thereby actively limiting their impact on the trajectory of play overall and (1) and (2) above.
So, no, the incentive structures of the game aren't set up such that play isn't the product of this avalanche of "Compel-Acceptance" as you're forecasting it (not to mention the diminishing returns of "swimming in Fate Points" which is the paradigm you're creating here). Its not that way before play and its certainly not that way during play. If your limited play featured that, it had to have been a product of some serious misunderstanding of both the apex play priority of the system and the feedback loops of play by the table participants.
I liked Fate, a lot, more or less right up to the moment when I didn't, at all.
It's possible that there was some misunderstanding of the game at the table, at some level other than rules-understanding. And it's possible that some of my frustration with Fate is shaped by that, as well as what started as a reluctance to Compel the PCs and turned into a refusal to Compel them, because of how I know I'd react to being Compelled.
My feelings on the Fate Point Economy, though, aren't based on its failures in my campaign. It seems to me as though it's too easy to break, either with scarcity or plenitude. I don't really like the interpersonal dynamics of the Compel mechanic, since it's based on the GM proposing it--unlike Hero Points in Mutants and Masterminds, where the Drawbacks and Complications come up in play and thereby generate Hero Points. Because the Fudge dice average so strongly, the only chance you have to exceed your skill level is to spend Fate Points, which makes them too valuable to use to Declare Details, which doesn't seem to make the trade (player gives up some authority over their character; GM give up some authority over the framing) worthwhile.
b) There are endless examples of other systems that have competing incentive structures (like the above) that yield a dynamic play experience (both in decision-points and in the fiction that emerges from gamestate changes). Players aren't constantly trying to fail in BW/TB and DW nor are they constantly trying to put d4 Traits/Relationships (et al) in their dice pools in Dogs nor are they constantly trying to make Action Rolls against Desperate Position in Blades because that is a significant portion of the xp > Advancement paradigm in those games. Success is important to both your conception of your PC and the trajectory of play. But this incentive structure tension creates a cognitive space for players (and attendant level of agency) that is filled with conflict and emotion. "Yeah, I'm going to bring my brother's death into this situation because it emboldens me...but it also makes me reckless as hell....eff it. For Brendon <pulls out Colt revolver>."
I have seen--and played--characters who would do essentially what you have at the end of this paragraph, in games like D&D or COC or Savage Worlds (which IIRC also doesn't have the kinds of metagame incentives you're talking about here). I personally don't see those mechanics as helpful to roleplay, or necessary. Obviously, opinions can and will vary on that.
