NPC veriety

I have finished Chapter 8.

I am struck by how easy it is to make up NPCs. A wide variety of challenges that look like people and be thrown at the PCs very easily. And they can be overcome in a variety of ways with or without killing. I tend to play bloodthirsty types but FATE seems to be designed to allow the range of combat and non-combat challenges that you get in movies. I think I like that. The idea that there is a mechanic for allowing the NPC's to be defeated in battle but not necessarily killed is cool.

collaborative storytelling

"Your main goal should be to enlist the players as partners in bringing the drama, rather than being the sole provider." - FATE Core pg. 212

So far as I can see this is the main thing that sets FATE Core apart from other games, certainly other games I have played. FATE players can get NPCs to do things through the spending of fate points. They can ask the GM to give them a fate point to do something that complicates things for their characters. In fact it is clear that the players are not always in their characters corner but, if playing FATE right, are in the corner of the story and making it cool. Not their characters story cool but the collaborative one.

I have played games like this in the past. A dear departed friend and the greatest Game Master I ever knew played endless hours with me and our group in a system that we never knew the rules for and cannot now replicate. We sometimes spent whole sessions, long ones, without a single die roll, by anyone. It was true collaborative storytelling and I did not realize how much I missed it.

FATE may well give me the tools to recreate the feel and excitement of those bygone games. It gives me hope that I can get back a piece of something that was special. It gives me a hope because someone wrote rules that allow for this kind of play and others have adopted it with delight.

now that I understand this I cannot wait to play.

slight progress

I'm up to page 206. The GM section is not hard but life is getting in the way of game again.

The main gist of the GM chapter is 'don't be a jerk'. Good advice for anyone, but especially true for GMs.