Cool Referance

I fund a cool reference for FATE, I thought I'd post it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/17h3a2/a_mechanical_summary_of_fate_core/

Skills or Something

I have finished chapter 5 Skills and Stunts.

The thing that strikes me most is how not like skills the skills are. What I mean by that is that skills in FATE are a lot more like what you would call stats in other games. Your strength and dexterity are skills but so is your fighting ability.

The skill chapter goes out of its way to inform GMs that the skills listed are very fluid and can be adapted, split up, or added to in whatever way suits the setting the characters find themselves in.

I like systems that allow the GM to show the players what type of world they are in instead of telling them. Skill lists in FATE provide this exceptionally.

No Insight

I made it to page 103 today. Still not on track to make my goal of Thursday. Life, unfortunately, comes before game.

I think that the skills and stunts system is pretty cool. I don't have any real insights or observations today, I just need to get to reading.

Pacificon 1

I just made a GM account at Pacificon's site. I have the chance to just declare and describe my event now but I chickened out. its still like 6 months away and I haven't finished reading the rules let alone designing an adventure. I just feel like if I schedule early it will make it more likely that I will actually go. Patience, its good for GM's.

Reading

I knuckled down and finished chapter 4 before midnight. I think I'll have to read it again before I GM a game but for now I'm happy to be back on track to finishing the book before Thursday.

The next chapter is Skills and Stunts. It should be a lot easier as far as mechanics go.

Aspect Invocation = the cool

I got to page 70 today, I'll have to do better each day if I want to finish inside my one week goal. I am a slow reader and I had a bit of difficulty with the material today.

Today the idea of aspect invocation refused to resolve itself in my brain. I reread almost the whole first half of chapter 4 and I think I finally got it. Invocation of aspects allows a player to get a bonus on a conflict resolution roll but the thing that was confusing me was how this allows for the maintenance of suspense and tension.

Compelling aspects is how.

Compelling is the GM's way of getting the players to do things that he wants for the story. He offers FATE points as bribes for characters to invoke their aspects in a way that benefits the story and maintains suspense and tension. This antagonist relationship between the story and the characters creates a situation where it is in the players best interest to help the GM tell a story. Maybe not the story either of them envisioned, but a fun, suspenseful, and exciting one.

This is not to say its a perfect mechanic. It puts a lot of pressure on the GM to think on his feet and not rely on notes and maps that keep the players in line with the story he is trying to tell. As a long time GM I can say that it is very frustrating when a group of players do something outside the scope of the game you designed. Especially if you put your heart and soul into designing an element of the game that the PCs don't even look at for more than a second or two and then go on a quest to discover the meaning of a random encounter that had no purpose in your game but to put a bit of action in a session. And frustrated GM's do foolish things. This detracts form the fun of a game profoundly.

In a game Like FATE the players and the GM know that each has a bit of control of the others actions. Invocations and compels allow a kind of direct communication that in other games is oblique at best. The GM can point to aspects of his design that he wants the PCs to look at more closely and the players can tell him what they want expansion on.

I have always wanted to play a game like this and I think my gaming group has too.

Player Control

I finished chapter 3 and now have some thoughts.

FATE points work kinda like hero points in the old DC heroes rpg. I love the idea that the characters have some control of the Deus Ex Machina, but I'm not sure how I feel about giving them some control of the world.

I have always made my games in such a way that the events around the characters happen until the players interfere and the NPCs react to the changes. I'm not the kind of GM that has a specific story to tell and forces the characters to go through it my way. I have played 1st through 5th edition dungeons and dragons and have always had a partiality to Gygaxian adventure design. The bad guys should try to kill the PCs and TPK is always an option (it's only happened to me twice however). If the PCs know that they can decide that for a critical roll probability will be on their side it might change that dynamic and I am worried that this will detract from the suspense that is the source of a good bit of the fun of an RPG.

I'll have to read further and see if a different mechanic allows for the creation of suspense. There is something about the GM getting fate points to use for something, maybe its just for, what they call, compels? Got to keep reading.