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Message: <blockquote data-quote="prabe" data-source="post: 8018609" data-attributes="member: 7016699">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.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.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 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.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.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.</blockquote>

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