Jul 28, 2015 Fate Core Thought of the Day Fate is...
Fate Core Thought of the Day: Fate is Boring
There. I said it. You know you've been thinking it.
And you're not the only ones. How many people have said "eh, I read Fate, and there's nothing special in there." And you know what? They're right.
Seriously. As a system, Fate's pretty boring. Unremarkable. Dull, even. I mean, look at other systems! They try and show you how amazing they are. That one there, showing its pages of critical hit and miss charts? I mean, you can trip on an imaginary turtle! That's pretty awesome.
And that system over there, tantalizingly showing us a bit of its books and books worth of classes? Bet we could put those together in some pretty interesting ways, huh?
Or how about that system over there, showing off its powerful material strength charts? It even has rules to show how having armor on vehicles at different angles impacts protection. I could swoon.
Yep, all of these systems are pretty good at showing us how awesome they are. They all want to convince us that we want to show up at the gaming table with them on our arm, to show off that we're good enough to be seen with them.
The problem is that these systems are also pretty high maintenance. They want things to go a certain way, and heaven help you if you disagree. And you find that they want to be the center of attention. They want alllllll of the focus on them. Want to heroically run down the streets? You just tripped on an invisible turtle, pal. Hope you weren't planning on having a cool chase, because now we're dealing with someone's invisible turtle issues. Want to have a cool fight? Well, better study up first, because you'd better know how somebody did some contortions with their characters and what they're capable of. Or want to have a cool firefight? Break out your calculators, because we've got some figurin' to do. That system is going to tell you everything it knows about armor and angles and it's gonna make damn well sure you know how smart it is.
Fate... doesn't do that.
Fate knows that its job is to make you look good. All of you. Fate wants to just kind of slip into the background, and quietly support you. Fate anticipates your needs, even ones you didn't know you had. Fate gently prompts you for coolness, subtly nudges you to be awesome. Fate does everything it can do to help you and everyone at your table shine, and then just kind of slink off into the background again.
Fate's kind of like a really good butler, or a roadie. Nobody talks about how awesome the butler or roadie is. If they're doing their job right, you don't notice them. They spend their time figuring out how to do their job to make someone else shine, and to not draw attention to themselves.
Fate doesn't want attention. Fate shies away from attention. Fate wants you to pay attention to your character, your story, your friends. Fate knows that those are the important things, that those are the things that people remember and talk about.
So, you're sitting there and run into a problem. Fate's there for you. Fate's got your solution. And Fate does its job simply and quietly and effectively. And then gets out of the way and lets you carry on, without any fuss or calling any attention to itself.
Fate's boring. And that's just the way Fate likes it.
There. I said it. You know you've been thinking it.
And you're not the only ones. How many people have said "eh, I read Fate, and there's nothing special in there." And you know what? They're right.
Seriously. As a system, Fate's pretty boring. Unremarkable. Dull, even. I mean, look at other systems! They try and show you how amazing they are. That one there, showing its pages of critical hit and miss charts? I mean, you can trip on an imaginary turtle! That's pretty awesome.
And that system over there, tantalizingly showing us a bit of its books and books worth of classes? Bet we could put those together in some pretty interesting ways, huh?
Or how about that system over there, showing off its powerful material strength charts? It even has rules to show how having armor on vehicles at different angles impacts protection. I could swoon.
Yep, all of these systems are pretty good at showing us how awesome they are. They all want to convince us that we want to show up at the gaming table with them on our arm, to show off that we're good enough to be seen with them.
The problem is that these systems are also pretty high maintenance. They want things to go a certain way, and heaven help you if you disagree. And you find that they want to be the center of attention. They want alllllll of the focus on them. Want to heroically run down the streets? You just tripped on an invisible turtle, pal. Hope you weren't planning on having a cool chase, because now we're dealing with someone's invisible turtle issues. Want to have a cool fight? Well, better study up first, because you'd better know how somebody did some contortions with their characters and what they're capable of. Or want to have a cool firefight? Break out your calculators, because we've got some figurin' to do. That system is going to tell you everything it knows about armor and angles and it's gonna make damn well sure you know how smart it is.
Fate... doesn't do that.
Fate knows that its job is to make you look good. All of you. Fate wants to just kind of slip into the background, and quietly support you. Fate anticipates your needs, even ones you didn't know you had. Fate gently prompts you for coolness, subtly nudges you to be awesome. Fate does everything it can do to help you and everyone at your table shine, and then just kind of slink off into the background again.
Fate's kind of like a really good butler, or a roadie. Nobody talks about how awesome the butler or roadie is. If they're doing their job right, you don't notice them. They spend their time figuring out how to do their job to make someone else shine, and to not draw attention to themselves.
Fate doesn't want attention. Fate shies away from attention. Fate wants you to pay attention to your character, your story, your friends. Fate knows that those are the important things, that those are the things that people remember and talk about.
So, you're sitting there and run into a problem. Fate's there for you. Fate's got your solution. And Fate does its job simply and quietly and effectively. And then gets out of the way and lets you carry on, without any fuss or calling any attention to itself.
Fate's boring. And that's just the way Fate likes it.
Shared to the community Fate Core - Public
+1'd by: MJ Ellis (Master MJ), Jim Tait, Robert Hume, Geo J, Tony Tucker, Ron Frazier, James Henry, Alex Goodnight, Tom Padel, Michael “Chugosh” Heywood, David Pflug, Ryan Cronkhite, Matthew Logan, Diamond B, SteamGeorge, Alexandre Santos e Alves, Fredrik Sellevold, Steve Ainsworth, Zach Hunt, Cameron Corniuk, Bryan Thrall, Borja Aguirre, Dirk Willrodt, André Le Deist, Daniel Stewart, John Stepp, Paul Vencill, Jesse Cox, Erik Alfkin, Mark Kowalizzinn, Antonio Gualda #CuartodelRol (Oiolosse), Francisco “Funy Skywalker” Blanca, Frank Hampshire, Tomer Gurantz, Tim B, David Ferrell, Kika Asylum, Tarquin Carlin, William Schar, John Faludi, Jason Tryon, HumAnnoyd, Adrian Scott (Drynyn), Luca Bonisoli, J Lee Watts, Nathan Roberts, Claes Horsmann, Alfredo Sendín, Colin Stratton, Winchell Chung
Other times, I have a very, very clear image of my character and the problem becomes the fact you would need either a system with something of a steep learning curve like HERO or something very simple like Fate.
In gameplay, however, I prefer my game to take a backseat and let me do my thing.
So yeah, Fate's good for that. And there's always dials to add to make the char gen more or less precise and complex if I want it that way.
The more we play, the more we like. It has supplanted d20 as our zombie 'pocalypse ruleset, and for horror/supernatural storylines, too.
uhm, V:TM is boring actually, but it ports easily to FATE.
If by horror you mean something more like Supernatural or Buffy, then it works great!
Fate, though, can and already did.
I mean, it's scary to go against aliens, of course... But you also know, that scary equals fun, while you're equipped with deadliest tropes human race ever
exploitedinvented.I simply modeled sanity checks as fixed attacks with the players having to use the defense action to avoid crippling mental consequences.
Again, I'm not saying it can't do horror, just that it's not a perfect fit and requires a little thought. _Aliens_ is pretty much plug 'n' play. _Alien_ deserves a bit more thought.
I think it's interesting that people extol the ideas of narrative focus or even mechanical focus as if they are mutually exclusive. I really disagree with this sort of idea, I think that you can have both, and I think both are essential to a truly excellent game.
FATE has the capability of doing both because of how readily it lends itself to modification, it's a bit like a kit car in much the same way as say, D&D Modern was. I love it for that.
The thing I like about Fate is that on the two occasions where I intentionallly decided to mechanise some aspects of the story and use the system, that actually contrbuted to the narrative oomph.
Never had that before, except in the rosy golden Pendragon games of yore...
Fate rulebook is not good at selling what is Fate about. Ok, if you read it through with right mindset, you'll see there is everything it should be, but...
Let's say many people who try to read that, don't have that mindset. Its my anecdata mostly, so it shouldn't be generalized, but I noticed many people who simply didn't get it. I didn't too at first glance (being Dresden Files game fan and Fate Core supporter). I simply put too much traditional RPG crap into it. Reading Fate Toolkit didn't help, much more enlightening were Fate Worlds surprisingly. Now I'm still learning... Your texts helped too, but I read it quite not so long ago.
You know what helped more? Cortex Plus games, especially Marvel Heroes. They are much "Fate inspired", with all resources, plot points, compels and consequences, and they sell it slightly better (or it was easier for me specifically).
And finally, "Spark".
And remember, code is twice as difficult to debug as write. So if you write code more than half as clever as you're capable of, you can't debug it :)
Fate has a similar problem. It it not until people have actually run through some evokes, compels and had the conversation that surrounds actions, that Fate makes sense. The ongoing character story in the book is a good attempt at simulating this, but I still feel that there should be a Fate starter box that ran a basic adventure for you, like the good 'ol D&D red box....
Sorry for misunderstanding you, or not expressing myself clearly (English is not my primary langage). As said, I always needed time to adapt to new FATE builds.
I thing it's due to the amount of conceptual and practical work done beetwen versionns, "the evolutionnary gap" to use the same comparaison as . :)
Now I'm used to Fate Core and Accelerated, and my only problem is to choose witch one to use with a particular game/campaign !
Unfortunately, this is what seems to be what's actively keeping me away from Fate. In other games, I know what the focus is on, it has a structure, a concept of what it is. The mechanics + GM interaction push you towards that focus, putting you all on the same page. With Fate, the group is expected to "get on the same page" on your own; come up with and enforce the concept on your own. And that is just too much work.
Now, if you prefer having it all laid out for you, then maybe Fate isn't the best game for you (although I'm sure it could be run the way you prefer, with the right GM and other players). The gaming world is so amazing right now. So many more options for everyone than there were when I first got into the hobby. It's amazing that there are whole systems based around the way different people like to play. So, I say, try out whatever catches your eye, and you'll no doubt find the system and group that matches your style.
What's freeing to one, can be constricting to another. Likewise, what's perfect for one might be too restrictive to another.
If you've got a group that can't accept that this is up to GM judgement, or if you're a GM that can't budge a little bit if players tell you something doesn't match their expectations? Or if your group, for whatever reason, has to argue about every judgement call made? Fate will be a pretty terrible fit.
Fate's a great helper. It's a pretty bad authority.
I might be better off with an actual setting book. I got Secret World of Cats, but even that is pretty vague in parts, and other settings like Spirit of the Century seem to outright implore the hand-waving.
Part of that's because Fate Core is a generic system. As such, it doesn't make a lot of assumptions about things, until you fill in the blanks. Something like Atomic Robo or DFRPG or Jadepunk is better at laying that groundwork because they're specific games aimed at specific settings with specific assumptions.