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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gribble" data-source="post: 7689176" data-attributes="member: 12430">First, I'm not really familiar with Fate, so I can't really comment too much on differences or similarities between the two.But I do think, from reading your post, that perhaps you're not quite playing the system as intended. To start with there are no wasted investigative spends. Either the GM will offer them when available, or if the player asks and there isn't an available clue for that skill (and the GM can't make one of the other available clues fit), then no points are spent.The investigative spotlight sharing is all about the differences in skill rating. If two players have Chemistry 1, then they will seem the same (as they should, right?). But a player with Chemistry 2 will have either the opportunity for better clues (they can get 2 point spend clues that a PC with Chemistry 1 simply can't get) or more frequent non-core clues (they can find two separate 1 point clues whereas the player with Chemistry 1 can only find one clue). The rules also encourage giving more of the core clues to the player with the higher rating. In games I've played they have certainly felt "more expert".I'm not sure why you think that it's not possible to auto-succeed on general skill checks... there is no "1 automatically fails" rule, so perhaps that is where you are confused? Normal target number is a 4, so a 3 point spend will automatically succeed. A 2 point spend will only fail on a one. For an expert (generally considered to start at 8+ in a general skill), they will be able to have 2-3 automatic successes, or 4+ "almost a sure thing" successes. Also remember that general pools typically refresh much faster than investigative skills, and most experts (8+) will have cherries which allow them to partially refresh general skills within a scene. Certainly the difference between someone with skill 8+ and someone with no skill (or even someone with a mediocre skill like 4) - has been noticeable in games I've played. The no skill guy really is relying on luck to succeed (approx 50% of the time against standard difficulty), the mediorce guy generally has one or two good checks in him, and the expert generally has enough auto successes (or near enough) to seem like an expert through the whole scene.Finally, you state that players shouldn't be told the difficulty... which is only part right. The rules advocate not giving the exact target number to players, but it also strongly advocates giving them narrative cues as to whether the task is easy (3 or less), average (4) or difficult (5+), to give them an idea of whether they want to spend points, given the stakes involved in the roll.</blockquote>

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