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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8018872" data-attributes="member: 42582">There's stuff in here that, it seems to me, would benefit from unpacking.(1) Why is a compel not arising naturally from the fiction? The examples I'm familiar with from the rulebook seem to. For instance, p 14 of Fate Core has Landon's player accepting a compel on the aspect The Manners of a Goat, so that when he dances with a refined guest at the ball, he offends her. This seems very close to a CHA check in 5e D&D to determine the NPC's reaction, except instead of rolling a die and applying a CHA mod, the player elects to auto-fail and takes a Fate point. The example goes on to say that "Amanda [the GM] and Lenny [the player] play a bit to figure out how Landon puts his foot in his mouth". Now I think there's room in both the Fate and the D&D example to talk about when the best time is to invoke the mechanics - when the PC or NPC meet, or somewhere into that roleplay? That will be very dependent on context, but I think there's a case to be made that the Fate GM has gone a couple of sentences too early.But I don't see any issue about it not following from the fiction.(2) You seem to be equating compulsion from outside the character's rational choices with compulsion from outside the fiction. I don't think this is a warranted equation. Landon does not say something offensive to the ball guest because of a compulsion that comes from outside the fiction. (The only RPG I know of that embraces something like that is Over the Edge.) It is because, despite his best efforts and perhaps his best judgement, Landon says rude or offensive things. The GM is playing Landon's inability to help himself. The player is playing Landon's rational agency. And the player - within the game's incentive structures which include the Fate point economy - decides which wins.(3) I'm not sure what you mean when yuou say that your character ended up behaving in arguably suboptimal ways. Are you talking about suboptimal within the fiction ie the character sabotaged his/her own goals? This is what Landon does if Landon's player takes the Fate point; the Fate point economy is intended to make this a richer and more intense aspect of game play. Eg and as@Manbearcat has posted, it makes it costly (ie paying a Fate point) for rational will to triumph over irrational or self-defeating habit or inclination or personality trait. This is a real-world experience of what, in the fiction, is the making of an effort by the character.If you mean suboptimal in the real world, as in, in making those decisions you undermined you own goals as a RPGer, then that seems curious and I don't quite follow.</blockquote>

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