Fate?

[Charon]

Just throwing this ball in the air. I'm planning on teaching my RL group to play Fate, mainly because if someone bails close to game time we can easily whip up a Fate one shot in 30-45 mins unlike a DnD one shot which takes considerably more effort.

This got me thinking, being more combat lite in terms of mechanics and theatre of the mind vs grid, Fate could work pretty well on the forums in terms of pacing, past initial setup obviously. It would also be good practice for me. Any of you already familiar with Fate? Thoughts? Interest? Etc?

[Grodech]

I've never heard of it.

[Cmdr Maxwell]

Check these out, Grodech. Charon has assigned me this as homework to read/watch. The first is a pdf of the Fate Core book, and the second is an hour long video of Wil Wheaton running a Fate game

REMOVED LINK TO PDF OF FATE CORE BOOK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... =emb_title

[Charon]

Should prolly remove the link to "that site" for now Pell and put in a link to the srd. Don't wanna attract any attention. ;) I'm sure those interested can find their own way there. Thanks for linking the yt vid tho.

[Cmdr Maxwell]

Am I missing something with the website-that-shall-not-be-named?

[Charon]

Well, while I personally think out of print materials should be preserved and current copyright law is insufficient for the modern era, that site does still host in print material in its archive and is most definitely in violation in the USA, UK and nl. By avoiding direct links we avoid any risk of being associated.

Posting links from my phone is hard but there is a free fate srd out there which is legal and covers the information in the core book.

[Charon]

So anyway. Fate is a fairly easy system to pick up as well as run. The mechanics are pretty stripped back, relying largely on back and forth narrative, earning fate points by voluntarily compelling your character to follow his flaws whilst spending fate to invoke those same flaws in your favour when it really counts. It's not the life and death combat sim of more technical RPGs, often failure leads to long term consequences rather than death. On top of all this, the systemless, classless nature of it makes it ideal for short forays into ideas as one shots or even mini campaigns built from one shots.

Finally, the simpler mechanics make it ideal for ideas too complex to run in other systems. An example I gave my players was a ww1 aerial dogfight. A nightmare to run in d20 or gurps but resolved down to simple piloting rolls and narrative licence in fate. It all books down to whether it's rewarding enough. If you're a hard numbers guy, into gurps, or munchkin or habitual fisher then it's probably not for you. But looking at some of the quality posts we've had in g1 so far, I figured some folks might be interested.

[Charon]

Books down, not books down. Fixing typos on phone 8s super hard. Dunno how the young folks manage. If not for autocorrect my fat sausage fingers would Bork every message.

Ps fingers not even that fat.

[Charon]

B o i l s.

FFS why won't it say that word.

[Charon]

Now that I'm back on my Pc, here's a link to the Fate SRD for any interested parties.

https://fate-srd.com/

[Charon]

Quick and Dirty Fate Guide

As I've mentioned before, Fate is a versatile, streamlined system that would lend itself well to forum play. It's easier to balance and scale, with fewer stats and less complex math, no grid squares or convoluted magic mechanics to grind things to a halt, yet still engaging enough to RP in. I'd love to get a Fate one shot running in the near future so here is a quick and dirty guide to how it all works. Note that this is only a summary and you'll still need to skim read the first four chapters of the book (or the SRD equivalent) to fully grasp it, but this is enough to start playing at least.

First up, let's cover the two main mechanics, dice and fate.

You may have seen Fate dice before, d6s with a + on two faces, a - on two faces and the remaining two faces blank. You could use standard d6s in their place for forum rolls (minus on a 1-2, blank on a 3-4 and plus on a 5-6). Most actions in Fate require you to roll four dice to produce a modifier to add to a skill. For example, if I had a +4 in athletics and rolled +, +, -, Blank, that would be a total of 5 for the final result. The DM would usually set a DC between -2 and +8 or make an opposed roll (eg, notice vs stealth). Generally, degrees of success and failure occur so that roll of 5 would be impressive against a Dc of 1 but only middling against a DC of 5.
You will generally begin play with one skill at +4, two skills at +3, three at +2, four at +1 and everything else at a +0. You can assign these at creation or ad hoc during play.
This covers the bulk of the dice mechanics.

The Fate system is represented by fate points or tokens. You usually start with 3 of these and they only refresh between one shots or chapters of a campaign. You can spend these in a couple of ways.
One is to invoke an aspect, more on that later. This allows you to reroll or add +2 to a roll depending on which you consider the most favourable.
Another is to declare a detail. For example, in our Karrthragoth one shot, Ullo might spend a Fate to declare, luckily for him, one of the guards on the gate is none other than his cousin. How fortunate. DM discretion applies but you're essentially twisting fate in your favour. Expensive but powerful.
Naturally, 3 fate won't go very far which is why you can earn more by accepting a compel. I'll discuss invoking or compelling aspects later but simply consider this the opposite to the above. The DM is essentially paying you a fate point if things go wrong. Maggot giving in to his rogueish greed and getting caught with his hand in the pocket of Ullo's cousin right after he lets them in. This allows you to regain Fate by making the narrative more interesting. Fate then, flows with the story.

There are a few more mechanics covered in the book such as a wounds system in place of hit points and stuff but I can always cover that if enough people are interested. For now, I'll use the next post to go over how character creation works with some examples.

[Charon]

Character Creation

Let's make something wacky. Something that would be a balance nightmare in DnD. We're gonna make two characters, one human, one mindflayer. What's more, we're gonna set them in an alternative earth where it's WW2 and the mindflayer isn't necessarily evil (but Hitler still is). So we have guns and psionics.

We start by giving these characters a high concept. The book has many examples. I'm gonna say our mindflayer is "code breaking expert" and the human is "demolitions expert".
Each character also needs a "trouble".
We'll give the mindflayer "A Taste for Scientist Brains" and the human "Secretly a Werewolf".

So high concept is kinda like your class and you can go with literally anything. Swashbuckling pirate or sentient cactus, the only limit is the tone/setting of the game in question. The character's trouble is gonna be a source of fate points so the easier it is for the DM to leverage the more likely you'll be offered a compel. However, just because a trouble is easily leveraged doesn't mean it will happen every five minutes. As one Redditor succinctly puts it, Angel wasn't threatened with the approaching dawn in every single episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A spot of googling will throw up many interesting examples if you need them. A trouble can also be invoked but that usually happens less often.
Ok, let's give them names. Squiddy and Dave will suffice for our example.

Next up, our dudes need some aspects. These are traits that can be leveraged positively (invoking) or negatively (compelling). For example, "Steals everything that isn't nailed down" could be invoked by a player to have earlier stolen an item, like the key to their prison cell, or likewise, compelled by being the reason the characters are in prison in the first place.
It's common to tie your first aspect to something you character did in the past that defines them, often in discussion with the DM and even other players.
For our example, let's imagine a backstory for Dave in which he makes a heroic escape from a POW camp in which he used some makeshift explosives and give him the aspect "Things I fiddle with have a tendency to explode."
For Squiddy we'll imagine his first encounter with a human whose brain he didn't eat and give him "I am not a monster".
If you can't immediately think of an interesting way to both invoke and compel an aspect then it's probably not gonna work.
As you can see from the above, these aspects not only provide opportunity to invoke and compel but also serve as RP material.

The second and third aspects are traditionally a collaborative effort. Players pair up and work together to spin a brief yarn about how their characters crossed paths in the past and what aspects they gained from those events.
Two more aspects would then be added at game start or ad hoc in play for a total of five.

So, in summary.

A character's high concept is a descriptor, ie who they are and/or what they do.
Their trouble is the primary source of struggle for them.
Three starting aspects offer chances to RP, invoke and compel, spending or gaining fate points as the narrative changes around you.

I'll spaff out one more quick example we can all be familiar with. If Batman was a Fate character.
High Concept - Vigilante Crime Fighter
Trouble - Secret identity as well known billionaire
Aspects
- I bring criminals to justice, not kill them
- The Commissioner and I go way back
- I rely on an arsenal of bat gadgets

-------------

Beyond covering a few fiddly bits like actual combat, the only mechanics left are skills and stunts. I'll cover that in my next post when I get a little time.

[Charon]

Skills and Stunts

So, let's talk skills real quick. Skills cover the usual shenanigans, I won't list them all but here's a few examples, Athletics, Deceive, Investigate, Shoot, Stealth. You get the idea. Flavour these as you want for your character. The shoot skill for example, might represent Dave's ability to handle a firearm such as a Luger pistol or a Lee Enfield rifle. But with Squiddy, the shoot skill might represent his psionic bolt. That's right, mind bullets! Likewise, Deceive might cover Dave's natural charm and his ability to fast talk, whereas old Squiddy utilizes Deceive by directly manipulating his opponent's thoughts.
There's that easy balance I was talking about. Surprisingly effective, no?
Most skills can be used in two ways.
To Overcome, which is basically just a fancy way of describing what we call a skill check in DnD. Trying to hide? That's using Stealth to Overcome.
The other use is in creating an advantage. This is a little more complex and allows you to manipulate the environment in order to grant benefits to your whole team (or penalties to the enemies). It's a bit beyond the scope of our simple guide but just bear it in mind. As a quick example, you could use the Burglary skill to break into a bank vault, this is an Overcome. But if you went there the previous day and cased the joint, well that would be Creating an advantage, and a successful Burglary roll there might give you say, a +2 on the actual roll to overcome. You with me? Hope so.

So that's skills. What about Stunts?
Think of stunts as specializations. There are some samples to choose from but you're encouraged to make your own. You get three of these by default and can choose which of your skills they apply to. Stunts should be things that don't come up very frequently and usually require specific circumstances to trigger them. The benefit is often in the form of a buff to a roll although they can do other things.
Here's an example. The fight skill covers melee combat. Imagine Dave had a weird youth where he was a cage fighter. He has the stunt "Fight Like Someone's Watching" and gains a +2 to his fight roll any time he is fighting one on one in front of a crowd. You can see how this might not come up very often, but could be still be leveraged by a DM.
Here's one for Squiddy. It's not necessarily a perfect fit flavourwise but I do think it's a good example.
"Scene of the Crime. You have a strong visual memory, and whenever you revisit a place where you have used Investigate before, it takes a matter of seconds for you to use Investigate to determine what has changed since you were last there."

Again, there are many examples to help with setting these up and they allow you to flavour and specialise your character, in many ways just like feats in DnD.

So, there we go. Our Fate crash course is complete. Now when everyone starts to return we'll see if we can get something rolling.

[Charon]

Been a while since I mentioned this but just gonna add in with an idea I had. I've been watching Relic Hunter (series loosely ripping off Tomb Raider) and now I really wanna run a dungeon delve using a modern setting Tomb Raider style (akin to the relaunch game).
All the tropes of that Indiana Jones style adventure. Hostile locals on the trail. Mechanically trapped subterranean ruins. Hostile fauna. Lost relic. Swinging around on ropes.
Anyway, just an idea in case there's any interest.