Too pithy for me! Can you explain the "resolve things" part, and how that differs from, well, any other system?

Is the definition of "model" in this case: "A small object, usually built to scale, that represents in detail another, often larger object."?

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A lot of traditional systems attempt to model how something works - physics, story structure, etc. In that case, they also serve to resolve things. For example, your character swings a sword at someone. The system may try to model how a sword works. It might have rules for things like reach, different kinds of damage, the actual swing, dodging the swing, etc. At the end, you receive a resolution of the swing that tells you how hurt the target is (or not). Fate just resolves what the outcome of the action of swinging the sword is, without trying to model how a sword swing behaves.

Also, I think it's important to note that the resolution in Fate from a character swinging a sword does not have to be the other person getting hurt. It could be any number of things, from intimidation to proving a point to saving their life.

I can see this being a good explanation of the Fate Point Economy, particularly when the inevitable line comes up; "I have Aspects for this, why can't I apply them, again?" The very fact that Fate is rules light means a larger portion of the rules are devoted to "How to solve for Actions." More character sheet is used to solve for Actions, rather than building the character further or auditing how a character got where they are.

Perhaps a way to solve this best lies where character creation is modified or more stringent. It's Not My Fault, Phases, Modes, ect. can reemphasize the Model and weave a more complete character.

However, this doesn't seem to be where I find players fail to grok Fate versus other systems. I see that particular fault along the axis of Simulation versus Cinema, where the sense of making up applicability comes crashing up against the well developed sense of more concretely defined abilities.

The fact that any given Invocation only grants a +2, despite some being clearly more applicable than others, could be said to be high on both the Resolve and Cinema axes.

This, of course, is based on my experiences, YMMV.

Fate rules model narrative structure rather than physics. Multiple rules can be used to resolve the same physical action or event, but which one you choose depends on how you want to frame/progress the story.

It's not even narrative structure. Fate supports what's going on in the "fiction". Like modeling includes resolution, fiction includes the narrative but isn't limited to only that.

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