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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8177073" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Though I don't quite follow Aldarc's way of saying it, I have to agree with him that you seem to be looking at only the most superficial similarity and calling that equivalence.Rule 0 isn't, as far as I'm concerned, about inventing new rules. I would even go so far as to say that no application of Rule 0 that anyone has ever actually described to me would qualify as inventing new rules. It is, instead, "Okay well this rule did a dumb thing on this one special occasion, so we'll bend/ignore it just for this one moment, but it still holds in general." Hence why I said earlier that "Rule 0" really isn't--and, IMO, cannot be--a "rule" proper of the system. Because it's not a rule. It's a reminder that this thing we call "gaming" is a social activity, and thus not beholden purely to arbitrary rules on a page. Being a social activity, "gaming" admits dynamic understanding of its own structures. That doesn't mean there can never be (contextually) objective answers; what it means is that that context includes self-reflection and the ability to see the higher purpose which the rules try to pursue but will (by definition!) fail to pursue at least some of the time. It is exactly analogous to the idea that there can be unjust laws, but that the existence of unjust laws does not make the concept of law self-contradictory. Laws exist to serve some purpose, by definition. But, being the product of mortal hands, they cannot be perfect. It is possible for mortal hands to write mortal laws that conflict with the purpose for which they were designed. An otherwise good law which has suddenly run into a particularly rare special case is (one reason) why we have courts--the courts are the Rule 0 of law, so that living, thinking minds can review and provide relief if a law has erred. A law that has an egregiously open flaw may thus be discovered by the application of the courts (the Rule 0 of law), but--and this, again, is perfectly analogous to the RPG rules structure--it is not the place of the courts (Rule 0) to create new law. That's the job of the legislature.It just so happens that, for a D&D-style RPG, the equivalents of judiciary and executive are vested in the DM, and significant but not absolute legislative power is also vested in the DM. (Even for those who advocate "absolute" DM authority etc. whatever you want to call it, recognize that a real and functional group requires keeping the players on board with the DM's house rules and choices, and that genuine sustained pushback from the players is commonly recognized by DMs worthy of the title as a clear sign to back off and re-evaluate.) But this does not mean that the judicial powers and the legislative powers are equivalent just because they are both exercised by the same person and both relate to laws/rules.Given your wink, I assume this means you recognize that there are limits on the appropriate and judicious use of Rule 0?Fate...isn't a kitbasher's system. Kitbasher implies inventing new rules; you don't do that with Fate. You use the one(ish) rule in a consistent and symmetric manner. I don't know it well enough to give an in-depth explanation, but I do know it well enough to say that the two are DEFINITELY different.Since I'm fairly sure you have more knowledge of 4e, consider Page 42. Page 42 was meant to have rules for all possible attack-like and skill-like actions. It offers DCs which are appropriate to actions that should be easy, medium, or hard for a character of a given level, so if you've decided that climbing a glass mountain should be hard for a 14th-level Rogue, you can get an accurate number for what that "means" in-world. There is no need to "kitbash" anything within the realm of attacks or skill-use actions, because Page 42's extensible framework is applicable to all possible uses of either mechanic. Now, you would be right to say that if all you had was Page 42, you might need to kitbash rules for something that wasn't the use of a skill or an attack, but given how broad 4e skills are, it's hard to think of example actions that couldn't, in some way, cash out as some kind of skillful endeavor.Now, take that same concept, but generalize it even further. Fate's aspects are literally "why X person/place/thing is important," its skills are a very nearly comprehensive list of "stuff people can do" (such as "deceive" or "fight"), its stunts are ways to make skills do things they normally don't (backstab is a given example: you can Attack using Stealth, but only if your target can't see you), Compels and Invokes cover effectively all possible forms of having-your-weakness-exploited and finding-an-advantage-from-the-world. The extremely broad four actions (Overcome, Create an Advantage, Attack, and Defend) cover pretty much all possible things you could want to do (since you can Overcome your depression or Create an Advantage through your art or whatever), and the four Outcomes (Fail, Tie, Succeed, and Succeed with Style) cover with reasonable granularity all possible results of an attempted action.I'm just not seeing where the room is to kitbash anything. Fate is literally designed to be the RPG equivalent of "algebraically closed." I don't see where there's room to kitbash any totally new rules. You'd end up just re-building the rules you were already using, or ceasing to play Fate entirely (because you wouldn't have these universal mechanics still being universal anymore.)</blockquote>

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