I'm very interested in this, as I'm fiddling with this in Wrath of the Autarch. My one concern with the "get more actions" route is that could possibly make it much easier for the big bad to take out one of the characters, since they'll get so many actions that could possibly be focused on one character.

I agree, though, that one big bad vs. many characters doesn't work very well in Fate, due to the Create Advantage action. I've had lots more luck using extra minions to help differentiate the opposition and make the fight a little more dynamic. Or the "big bad is multiple zones big" option, which also works.

I'm curious how War of Ashes handles this, as that game takes a more tactical slant to Fate, but I haven't looked at the playtest yet.

A single character with a number of actions equal to the players can be devastating. Let's say there are 4 players, the NPC could do 3 advantages and have a good chance of taking out one of the player characters each exchange. That's crazy dangerous.

And not every opponent makes sense with multiple actions.

I think the best way to address something like this is to go an indirect route, creating a different sort of scene than a physical conflict. I had proposed something along those lines a while ago, though I haven't pursued the idea any further since then.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/112230078537377625576/posts/78MucHSSXGW

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Clearly an enemy built to have the same number of actions as the PCs wouldn't have the same stats as one built to only have one action.

I still doubt you'd get a single turn Taken Out, just because of the massive stress required.

It might be necessary to only allow one action targeted at a particular PC per Conflict round.

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Recall, an NPC that is 2 steps better than the PCs is, in effect, 3 PCs teaming up for all purposes except potentially unteaming.

So I worry that giving two actions is overstacking the major NPC.
 
But I wouldn't worry so much about there being 2 just +1 better than the PCs or 3 or even 4 that are on-par with the PCs.

Well, a lot of that depends.  You get a +1 to teamup bonuses, sure.

But you can also use Create Advantage to get an effective +4 to +8 per round (assuming two extra PCs).  If you're allowing teamup bonuses as well, then that could mean that the two 'extra' PCs are contributing both a free invoke (or two!) as well as their teamup bonus.

In my experience, an NPC with a skill of +2 over the PC peak will go down very quickly against three PCs, even without considering teamup bonuses.

Allowing for more narrative uses of aspects as opposed to purely mechanical ones, it'd be pretty easy for one or two PCs to put the NPC on permanent 'lockdown' by performing actions that would prevent the NPC from doing anything (think Spiderman and "caught in a web").

You'd definitely have to build NPCs built in this way differently - a +1 to "peak" would probably be more appropriate in most cases.  And it certainly might be worth looking at giving the NPC a number of actions that's somewhat lower than the number of PCs - as I said, "actions = number of guys on the other side" was mostly just a starting point.

As far as it not "being appropriate" for some NPCs, I disagree.  An action isn't a unit of time, it's a measure of "camera focus".  I could certainly imagine in a movie a major villain being given time to do more than one 'thing' in comparison to each individual hero.  I'm thinking Magneto in X-Men here, I'm pretty sure I remember scenes that would fit that model.

BTW, since I'm usually first on the "don't hack" brigade, here's my motivation for this:

1) Single NPCs tend to go down very quickly in Fate.
2) The only way to get them to stay up currently is to give them extremely high skills and stress tracks
3) This often doesn't model well what it is we want to model
4) Even with relatively high skills, the NPC will typically go down very quickly.  Adding a number of mook mobs is more effective for keeping a big NPC up than anything you can do with the NPC.

Specifically, here's how I see "big bad" fights go.  This is assuming a peak skill of 2 higher than the PC peak:

1) PC 1 performs a disabling action that targets either the environment (and thus passive resistance) or a weak skill of the BBNPC.

2) If PC 1 failed, PC 2 tries the same.  If PC1 succeeded, PC2 performs an action (via CA) that assists the third PC.

3) PC 3 either cashes in the free invokes and attacks, or performs another "setup" type maneuver.

4) If not Taken Out, BBNPC tries to get out of the disabling situation they were placed in by PC 1/2.

5)  Goto 1.

This is more the reason why you don't fight PCs vs. Big Boss alone.  The big boss has mooks, and the mooks serve to break up the PC's rhythm and overcome the PC's advantages for their boss.  While they're present, though, the boss is just as likely to be tossing order to them (Creating Advantages to pass around) as attacking.

And since they're mooks, they crumble over time, and so serve as a nice ablative armor to extend the boss fight without overpowering the PCs.

So, the things I'm hearing the most are:

1) Extra actions targeted at a single character would be overpowering.
Agreed.  I think that some restriction on their usage (either by convention or by actual rule) would be appropriate.

2) Extra actions combined with higher skills would be OMGBAD
Agreed.  The skills of the NPCs would have to be adjusted accordingly.

+Jack Gulick: This is more the reason why you don't fight PCs vs. Big Boss alone.

Yes, I understand that.  That's how it works in Fate Core by default.  I'm looking for ways to remove that requirement.

And it's not even the "big boss".  It's any NPC that you want to be remotely challenging to the players by themselves.

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I did this with a monster horde recently. Used what I remembered of the minion rules for skills and damage and just did one move per PC with ever lowering effectiveness. It worked great for that. 

Use the VLM Very Large Monsters rules from the fate core devs? Multiple zones in size (one action in each zone), stunts that allow it to damage anyone who attacks it, damage the whole party and rearrange its zones for a fate point...

Right, but that doesn't work for Magneto :)

Based on the concerns here, I'm leaning towards trying this out, but decoupling the number of actions from the number of PCs (though I'll play with that) and allowing the character only a single Attack action per round.

I'll certainly report results.

/sub

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You could do what marvel heroic does and give all big bosses a stunt that for a fate point can inflict stress on defense rolls (or allow them to roll attack actions against attack actions instead of defense actions).

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I'd like to know why when +Robert Hanz suggests this it gets serious discussion and when I introduce it it gets flat 'dude, don't even think about it' reactions :p

And because I don't listen when people tell me not to do things but I still try to take their concerns into consideration, when coming up with solo monster rules for Amethyst I made it 'one extra action per two PCs' if the monster was a major one, or 'two actions period' if it was an 'elite' (in the 4e sense). Which I think reduces the risk of being overwhelming to manageable levels while removing most of the problem with solos being Zerg-rushed to death before they can do anything.

The problem there is that it doesn't work well with the MHR initiative because ideally the monsters should be taking turns in between PCs, and at least at my playtest the players never let the monsters go before all of them had.

+Christopher Stilson   if all the PS's go first dont all the monsters go head and take 2 turns of actions together to teach the PC's to spread it out a bit?

That's not terribly fun for me. I like my turns to be more spread out, and my group wouldn't learn from experience anyway (I'm tempted to switch to Dungeon World style turns for that reason).

With "Table Chooses" initiative, I would say that a boss Always gets to act after a PC acts. So it gets as many actions as there are PCs, but it can't bunch them up into one rush of attacks without so e PC reacting between each attack.

In essence Bosses don't get their own turn, they act on everyone else's turns. Normal NPCs act normally when the table gives them their turn. Bosses kinda become environmental hazards I that regard.

There's a game I've only read the description of (I think it's called "Murderhobos") where the monsters don't have turns at all, but get to attack if the player misses them...

That's Dungeon World (and pretty much any Apocalypse World-based game).

(Murderhobos may work that way as well, I've never played it).

As far as Atomic Robo initiative (which is I believe the preferred nomenclature for MHR initiative these days :D), I don't see how it works any different for an enemy with multiple turns than it would for multiple enemies.

As far as my idea not getting "dude, don't even think about it" reactions, um, look at the first several comments.  They pretty much all said "dude, bad idea", to which I took the concerns brought up, addressed them, and used that to refine the idea.  +Jack Gulick has been pretty negative about the idea the entire time (which is fine, that's his opinion, and his concerns are valid).

I have no problem with it if abstracted as "instead of one NPC at PC skill +2, it's in effect 2 NPCs at PC skill +1".  That's just backing out teamwork.  And, frankly, one guy with 2 actions is less endurance and two guys with 1 action each (though not a lot if we take that 1 extra point of stress they take each hit due to 1 point less defense).

I just worry about it more on a "how do I get a piece of that action" side...  Players wonder why NPCs can get multiple actions per round, but they (with rare exceptions) can't.  And it's because it's spotlight share breaking to let a PC have such...  But it isn't a spotlight problem to let the NPC do so.

But if you make it clear that you've stated two weaker NPCs then colored them as just one body...  I think that might work.

The way I'm reading it giving BBNPC 1 action per pc would allow you to model them being a mastermind (and thus prepared for everything).  

I think your idea would go okay for fresh pc's, but not if they had to fight through mooks and exhaust a lot of their resources to get to BBNPC. By giving him multiple actions, you're going to force the players to spend more resources defending themselves than if he only get's one action.

The action economy, the way I read Fred's comments, is more about keeping the players balanced to each other than anything between the NPCs and PCs.

Now I'm thinking of a stunt idea
Mastermind: once per scene you may interrupt to try to create advantages based on things you could have prepared for. For each attempt you must pay 1 FP and if your attempt does not succeed you may not use this stunt for the remainder of the scene.

This would break the action economy in a limited way, but it's balanced by being fairly expensive and it stops if the plan breaks down.

I think perhaps a good option for dealing with this issue is to look how a game that's dealt pretty successfully with this problem has done it. I'm talking of course about 4th edition D&D.

It's solo monsters act as multiple baddies for climatic fights in a few different ways:

1. Special attacks/defenses/what have you that don't take actions.
2. Being able to take additional actions each turn.
4. Having interrupt actions that occur when specific criteria are met.

Now few monsters in 4e use all of the above mechanical options, but I think that looking into a few of them for a FATE game can be helpful if we're looking to create "bosses" that don't utterly annihilate any character who doesn't have fate points out the wazoo. Here are some ideas:

1. Giving the NPC a free Create Advantage when certain circumstances come up.

So to use Rob's example of Magneto, maybe Magneto gets to Create Advantage using his magnetic control powers without using an action whenever a PC attacks "alone" (without using an Advantage representing teamwork).

2. Giving the NPC a "free attack" or create advantage at the beginning of the Conflict.

Perhaps Maxine, the vampire monarch of Seattle gets to start off any Conflict with a free Provoke roll. She's crazy scary.

3. Giving the NPC an additional action when they're on the ropes (when they take a Consequence, when half their stress boxes are filled up).

Badly wounding a dragon drives it into a berserk fury. When it takes a Consequence because of Physical stress it gets a free Attack action on it's turn.

4. As a last resort, just giving the NPC additional actions can serve so long as it makes sense in the fiction.

An Ettin might be stupid, but two heads are better than one. It gets double the normal number of actions each of it's turns.

Those ideas, used individually or together might improve the threat "boss" NPCs pose on their own without making such characters a "nuclear option".

Just a thought.

+Jack Gulick:  Hadn't thought about the PCs wanting to get in on the multiple action action.  That's a very valid point.

I think that's part of why I wanted to originally tie it to number of participants - it creates a rule that can easily work both for or against the players.  It also allows gang-up bonuses to still work, while de-emphasizing the absolutely crushing nature of the action economy.  A three-on-one fight would still be clearly balanced in favor of the three, due to both potential gang-up bonuses as well as the fact that the "one" side has a single stress track.

In some ways, it's kind of like *World, in that enemy actions are directly tied to PC actions (thanks for reminding me of that, +Christopher Stilson).

I dunno, I'm gonna chew on it for a bit and may experiment.  I think limiting it to one attack per actual combatant would be a good idea, to say the least.

+John Jessop:  I don't know how I feel about introduce 'interrupt' style stuff.  Allowing for some effect on a success with style on defense is an interesting option, but it still kind of ignores the potential action lock potential of being outnumbered.

And it's no longer FATE. It's Fate.  What, are your brains made of mud or something?  (Note to observers: I'm not off my meds - I know John in real life, and that's a callback to a recent game when Maxine insulted his golem mob boss by saying his brains were made of mud.)

Making sense in the ficiton is an interesting point, since, realistically, actions don't represent time slices, they represent, for lack of a better term, 'camera time'.  What giving each side equal actions would do is effectively say that both sides get equal camera time.

+Robert Hanz  Think about it this way: "Make your move, but misdirect". When you give a speedster villain in a Fate supers game 3 actions, you're doing it so that they'll be able to hold their own against 3 PCs in a Conflict.

But that's not how you represent it, any more than you reveal Aspects created by Create Advantage to be entirely dependent on the dice. You're obscuring the actual cause AW-style.

Regarding Interrupts, I find it helpful to think of them simple as contingent actions. You're getting the benefits of giving a BBEG multiple actions without the potential mechanical complications (such as encouraging the baddy to focus fire on PCs).

Using specific interrupt conditions also allows you to drive home what a particular baddie is good at. That being said, you still run into the problem of players shouting "ME TOO!" if you introduce a mechanic specifically for NPCs.

It'd be a simple enough thing though to introduce a stunt allowing an interrupt action under specific circumstances once or twice a session. That wouldn't break the action economy too badly for players and would let them get in on the action.

Well, if I did go with something like this (and again, I kinda see it as giving both sides of the conflict equal "camera time" more than anything), I'd likely limit it to a single Attack action per actual combatant.

Bit late to the party, but upon seeing it I was reminded of how the new D&D 5e seems to be handling this problem (it's more of a general P&P problem than a Fate specific one, I think).

Solo monsters in 5e have a trait, I think it's called Elite Actions or something of the sort. This gives them a certain amount of action points, along with an elite action list that is tailored to the monster. By spending a certain amount of points, they may take one of their elite actions outside of their own turn, between other people's turns. They regain their action points on their own turn.

For instance, take some sort of combat specialist solo boss character you want to run. Give him an action point pool of 3 to represent he's of fairly high standard, but nothing monstrously high. Let's say he's an agile combatant archetype, and give him 2 heroic actions to showcase this. Quick Strike (2 points): perform a melee attack; and Agile Combatant (1 point): Create an Advantage using athletics or another movement based skill.

Putting this guy in an encounter, you'd play his turn as normal. Then a PC gets to go, attacks the guy. That shows your NPC that perhaps where he is standing right now isn't the safest place, so he spends 1 of his heroic action points to dodge away and climb on a roof, creating an advantage. Now the situation has changed before the next player's turn, making the fight much more dynamic even though there's only one opponent. He could use his 2 remaining points to whack someone trying to follow him up, or he could continue to make it hard on them in other ways, continuously relocating, perhaps luring them where he needs them for when he sees his chance (his turn comes up).

I believe this has many advantages on simply giving an opponent X actions where X is the number of PCs. For one, lets say my character is, for whatever reason, not for useful in combat at all. Normally, I don't feel bad for being in a combat, as I can just do whatever I want. Even if I don't manage to help us win, I don't push us towards losing. The proposed system would, however, give the boss NPC an extra action because I'm there. And he's actually competent. My team has less chance to win because they brought someone extra along. It feels wrong to me. Even for a party that's all combat focused, it still feels very odd that every new party member you add reduces your own actions proportional to the NPC.

You'd also have to come up with rules so it doesn't end up being X attacks against 1 PC, of course.

These problems don't come up nearly as much with the elite actions idea. You get extra actions, but they're not tied to the amount of PCs, but only to the quality of the NPC. It doesn't feel like the PC are doing it to themselves at that point. You also can easily limit the pool of available actions, so the "attack one guy 4 times" stops being an issue. On top of that, the players don't know when the big bad will take an action. He might do it just before your turn, but he also might not. This, in my opinion, makes it feel even more dynamic than if he has multiple turns, but you clearly know when they're coming up.

Just something that popped up in my head and I ended up writing out far lengthier than I should have.