EN World Post

A few days ago I posted a question on the FATE gaming board over at EN World. I got some interesting feedback.

its here

finished

I have finished the FATE Core book.

It is my plan to move on immediately to FATE toolkit.

I think that extras are very cool. A system whereby the addition of new mechanics can be added to the game that only takes 10 pages to explain is a feat in itself.

As far as the book as a whole goes I loved it. I'll have more to say on this later, for now I just thought I would post to say I have reached my first milestone on my journey.

end in sight

I finished chapter 10. I might be able to finish this tomorrow, chapter 11 is only 21 pages.

I am really not sure I want to implement the skill pyramid. I like the skill selection at start but the idea that you have to have one skill stack on top of another is kinda silly to me. Maybe it will make more sense in game but right now I am considering changing it, even if it does make it easier for the characters to advance to high skill.

discouraged

I finished chapter 9.

I am not sure I like the aspects for scenes idea but I'll play it as written and see how it goes.

Before I read chapter 9 it was my plan to simply convert a small dungeon I designed to FATE and use that as an introductory scenario. I'm not sure that kind of adventure will even work in FATE. I'm not sure that my GM style will work in FATE. I hope it will but I am having difficulty with the concepts as I get deeper into the rules.

I am discouraged but how slowly I am reading and understanding this game. I plan to read the Tool Kit next but that might be a while.

Made of Twigs

I have made some but not much progress reading today. I made it to pg. 232.

The adventure creation rules are so different from other games I have played as to be almost alien. I have to read each page 3 times or so to get the gist of what is being said. I am catching on but its taking time. I haven't read a set of rules that I wasn't familiar with, at least in previous editions, in years - like ten years - and I am finding FATE to be a stretch of my understanding of what a pen and paper RPG can be.

Aspects are not only the basis for character creation but the basis of everything. Think about that a moment, it is as if the new edition of D&D had, as a part of its core mechanics a rule that said every dungeon had to have a Dexterity and Wisdom score. That is exactly what FATE has done with the ubiquity of aspects. A PC can, if he can figure out how to convince the DM that it makes sense, spend a fate point to get the house he is in to spontaneously catch fire if say, it has the Made of twigs and dried grass aspect. That's not the same as having his character lite the fire, that player gets the house itself to lite the fire!

That is a great game mechanic, I cant wait to play this game.

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.