Fate Core Thought of the - Oh, Hell, It's Been A While: The Fate Action Resolution Process

A thread up on rpgnet was lamenting the fact that many people seem to have difficulties learning Fate, and so one of the things I wanted to bring up, and post here for future posterity, is how I generally go about action adjudication. I'm not going to go into scene setup (a totally different thing). Some of this is probably going to duplicate my "How I Run Fate" post. It's not an official answer, the Evil Hat guys may tell me I'm high on crack, YMMV, objects in mirror may be closer than they appear, etc.

The flowchart: (I'll give the expanded version later)

1) The acting player declares their action
2) We determine if the action makes sense/is at all possible
3) We determine if there is any passive opposition
4) We determine if there is any active opposition, and if so, the active opposition declares its action
5) We determine if this makes sense to roll for - is there an interesting success and failure?
6) We determine the mechanics to use
7) Roll the dice!
8) Narrate up to the seeming dice roll
9) Either side may invoke aspects as appropriate, preferably including narration
10) We resolve any mechanical consequences of this action
11) The final results give us narrative constraints
12) We narrate the results within the constraints given to us mechanically

Now, let's be clear here: In practice, most of this stuff is done in a matter of moments or quickly glossed over. This is not a ten minute process, here. This is just laying all of those things out in a very explicit, step-by-step way to hopefully help people who aren't sure exactly what's going on when they see people play, or hear advice that's based on an already internalized version of this.

And the further in-depth discussion:

1) The acting player declares their action

Ideally this is something that happens in the "fictional" layer - in other words, we say what our character is doing, not necessarily the mechanical widgets we're using. This should preferentially include not only what we're doing, but what effect we're going for, especially if it's not obvious (if you're "stabbing the orc through with your sword", it's fairly safe to assume your intent is "make the orc stop breathing").

Sometimes an intent isn't possible in one action, so this is where we clarify what a success will mean, and what impact it will have, and hash it out until we agree (this is usually a matter of seconds, at most!)

If the setting/scene is not obvious, this should be clarified here as well - ideally, most if not all actions take place in some kind of concrete scene and are tied to something kind of concrete that's going on.You don't just "find someone", you go to a bar and start asking around. This is useful information because it gives us context and allows us to determine what both success and failure look like, as well as what kind of opposition may exist.

Once everybody has a good picture of what's going on, we proceed.

2) We determine if the action makes sense/is at all possible

Does the action make sense? Is it possible? This boils down to a ton of shared understanding of the world. We can break this down a bit further, though:

2a: Is this an action that is generally possible?
2b: Is there some kind of aspect, personal or situational, that would prevent this action from occurring? While most people can jump, you can't really do that in a wheelchair, or if you're Stuck In A Web.
2c: If this action is generally not something that we expect a character can do, is there some kind of aspect that permits it? Most people can't fly, but if you're a BirdPerson you probably can, or if you have a Jetpack

3) We determine if there is any passive opposition

Is there a reason this is difficult? Going down the stairs is easy, most of the time. However, if there's a raging fire, or the stairs are falling apart, it might be difficult. We can look at the overall situation for reasons this isn't easy, taking special note of any aspects in play.

4) We determine if there is any active opposition, and if so, the active opposition declares its action

Is there any active character (or Bronze-ruled aspect) that can get in the way of this? If so, they should declare what they're doing to stop this, and we apply the same checks in Step 2 to the opposition's action. Keep in mind that "does this make sense for someone to be able to do?" is also impacted by aspects!

5) We determine if this makes sense to roll for - is there an interesting success and failure?

We don't roll for everything. If there's a low fence and no pressure, it's safe to say you'll eventually climb it. So unless there's some reason or pressure that makes failure interesting, we can just allow you to succeed.

I don't take "interesting" here to mean "ooo it has to be some super cool fancy idea." It just means that if you fail, something happens - the situation changes in some way. We can generally assume that a Fate character can succeed at anything, given enough time and effort. So we're really asking here "what's to stop the character from doing this until they succeed?"

Context matters here, too. If you're stuck in a web with nothing else going on, it's safe to say that eventually you'll break out, so rolling isn't really necessary. However, in a Conflict, failing to break out means you're not acting, which is "interesting" in a "consequences" way, even if it's not that interesting of a result naturally. Bad guys getting to do stuff while you're stuck isn't "nothing happens"!

6) We determine the mechanics to use

Is this an Overcome? An Attack? A Create Advantage? What skills are in place? What's the final opposition?

7) Roll the dice!

This one, I hope, is fairly self explanatory!

8) Narrate up to the seeming dice roll

This is the ellipsis trick - narrate the action up to the point where it seems like the result is clear, but leaving space for other things to happen. "You miss your parry, and the orc's axe comes down at your head." If nothing changes, the orc will hit you, but there's still time to make something change and alter the final result.

9) Either side may invoke aspects as appropriate, preferably including narration

Pretty self-explanatory. I tend to be a fair stickler on narration of aspects invocations in most cases, as I think the back-and-forth creates some of the most memorable Fate bits. But sometimes, when it's obvious what's going on and not super critical, it's fairly safe to gloss over.

10) We resolve any mechanical consequences of this action

Are we dealing with Stress or Consequences or Conditions? Did an aspect get Overcome? Did an aspect get created? Do we have any boosts. I usually do the bookkeeping here, though that's more or less simultaneous with the next point. However, when there's mechanical choices (stress/consequences), approaching these first can be very informative for the next step.

11) The final results give us narrative constraints

At this point we know what the dice have said about the final result, and any mechanical bits. This tells us what boundaries we have to do our narration in (and keep in mind that narration is real, it establishes facts, even if those facts aren't represented by a widget).

12) We narrate the results within the constraints given to us mechanically

At this point, we know success or failure, and we know what bounds we have to work within. So we can determine the actual final results in the imaginary world.

If the character succeeded, they should get their negotiated intent from step 1. That's a given. However, depending on the opposition and margin of success, there may be other details added.

On the other hand, if they failed, we should go back to what we talked about in step 5 to figure out what that failure looks like. It could be some kind of failure, it could be a complication on a success with a cost. So long as we work within the constraints of the setting and the situation, and the results given to us by the dice, we're good!

I'll try to come up with a worked example later.