Switching from D&D 3.5 to Fate Core

[snailgosh]

My players and I are somewhat experienced in D&D 3.5 but are now considering to change things up a bit.
As indicated in the title we want to switch systems to Fate Core for our upcoming campaign, which I am going to run.

As neither me nor any of my players has any experience with Fate whatsoever I'm asking you folk if there is a certain style of running a game that caters especially well to Fate and what habits I need to drop, coming from a D&D background.

So far I only skimmed over the rulebook (going to read it in full of course), but what I noticed from a glance is that Fate seems to be much more permissive, as in if a player wants to do something you just assign the difficulty and roll with it, while in D&D you usually can't do stuff that's not explicitly listed on your sheet.
So I guess the ability to improvise and decide on the spot is key?

I'm eager to hear your advice. Feel free to post your own experiences playing Fate and what you liked/disliked.

Edit: A question that just occured to me: how does the Fate Point economy play out? How liberally are players supposed to spend them and how often are aspects to be compelled?

[neonchameleon]

Big jump there! But a fun one! Fate runs with larger than life pulp characters - Indiana Jones, Conan, any non-gritty action movie or action TV series you care to name although normally with an ensemble cast. And yes, Fate absolutely is much more permissive than D&D.

A key difference between Fate and D&D is that in Fate the players lose scenes fairly often because death isn't always on the line (and they get a nice stack of fate points when they conceed) so they end up captured James-Bond style and you aren't meant to fight to the death. It's little exaggeration to say that in the game of D&D you win or you die. (This will take them a bit to get used to).

How often to compel and how the fate point economy works is a table by table question and I can't say much more than that. The flow of fate points is essentially the throttle - open it when you want the game to go faster but remember that if they throw enough Fate points at the problem they can do anything, so don't give freebies. Also the big boss is stronger than they are but is normally going to have a stack of fate points dropped on them.

[snailgosh]

Your insight is much appreciated :)
Let's see how my players take to the "You're allowed to lose" mentality.

[Knaight]

The skill and stunt system is pretty traditional - assign a difficulty for a task, have the rolls play out, see which way it goes, and generally operate in a pretty normal fashion. Adapting to it should be fast - it's Aspects and the FP economy where things get weird. You'll want to get good at assigning scene aspects quickly (keeping in mind that they can be a lot more dull than character aspects), and you'll want to keep fate points flowing quickly to encourage players to do the same, with the relative magnitudes of these two rates creating the throttle effect.

*This takes some getting used to, and it's a large part of the reason that I never took to Fate.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Honestly, you can play Fate with just skills and stunts and starting Fate Points and it works just fine. Most sessions I've played have had a fairly slow Fate Point trickle and no real trouble on that front.

Aspects, and what you DO with them, does take a little getting used to. They tend to reward teamwork more than most systems-- everyone spends their turns creating Aspects, then the last player tags them all and blows the opposition out of the water.

[Zombimode]

They tend to reward teamwork more than most systems-- everyone spends their turns creating Aspects, then the last player tags them all and blows the opposition out of the water.

Wait wait wait, you can use more then one Aspect in one action getting the bonus from all of them?

[caden_varn]

My D&D group started a Fate game last year, with me running it. It was fun overall, but was quite a bit of a culture shock. We still haven't really gotten the full experience, as it were, in my opinion.

A lot will depend on how your group plays D&D, but assuming they are anything like mine (pretty typical of groups I've played with over the past 30-odd years)Main things I note are -

Getting good aspects is trickier than it might appear. They need to well enough defined for people (the player and GM at least) to understand what they mean and when they should come up, be wide enough to come up reasonably often (there is no point to an aspect that is never used) but not so wide that is comes up constantly. Still haven't got a good handle on this

Players need to remember their own aspects (and preferably others) and suggest when they would come into play. I ran a group of 4, and trying to keep 20 player aspects in mind on top of everything else is tricky to say the least...

Assuming you play core out of the box, the way money/treasure/equipment is handled can take some getting used to. It all pretty much comes down to the Resources skill - so what is the point of offering rewards to get people? Some players adapted to it better than others, but in retrospect I'd prefer to have gone for a game where gaining riches was not a real motivation, as I think it would have eased the transition. You can award temporary aspects with limited invocations to represent windfalls of cash though, which can help.

Speaking of that - Aspects again. Aspects on characters, on the scenery (and you DEFINITELY need these), on the world, temporary aspects caused by create advantage - so. many. aspects. to remember. Get a wipeable mat/sheet and pen to record them. Wipeable index cards for important NPCs are also useful. Hope your group is creative naming them (see above).

Fate is designed for proactive characters, and mostly the D&D games I've played in have been more reactive (if you play more sandboxy this may not be an issue). Make sure you & your players understand this, and design the world & characters with this in mind for best results. Weaving your groups troubles and other aspects into the story to give them a better motivation to get involved is helpful. The players having a good knowledge of the world, or involved in the world-building helps with this. One of the main problems we had was a pretty vague concept of the world, from the core book suggestion of doing the world-building in the first session. We needed longer and more of it to get a world we were comfortable we understood well enough to be proactive. This might work well with more experienced Fate groups, but did not work so well for mine.

Hope you have fun (we did, despite some issues) - let us know how it goes for you!

Wait wait wait, you can use more then one Aspect in one action getting the bonus from all of them?

Yup - you can also use the same aspect more than once if you have free invokes on it - you can spend the free invokes, and spend a fate point for an additional invoke. So you can get +6 from a single aspect if the initial Create Advantage goes well enough...

[Grod_The_Giant]

Assuming you play core out of the box, the way money/treasure/equipment is handled can take some getting used to. It all pretty much comes down to the Resources skill - so what is the point of offering rewards to get people? Some players adapted to it better than others, but in retrospect I'd prefer to have gone for a game where gaining riches was not a real motivation, as I think it would have eased the transition. You can award temporary aspects with limited invocations to represent windfalls of cash though, which can help.

If you want a game where acquiring wealth is a thing, I'd remove the skill altogether, or at least divorce it from the usual pyramid. It works alright for a more static game, where you can just say "I am rich" as a character trait, but not so much for one where you're supposed to be getting irregular windfalls as a result of in-game actions.

[caden_varn]

That is pretty much the conclusion I came to in hindsight. It's a wonderful thing

[Beleriphon]

And that had nothing to do with nothing

[daniel_ream]

Fate is a narrative game, and D&D is a resource management game, 3.5 especially. I expect that's going to be the biggest hurdle. Fate requires and rewards a totally different set of skills.

[Knaight]

Honestly, you can play Fate with just skills and stunts and starting Fate Points and it works just fine. Most sessions I've played have had a fairly slow Fate Point trickle and no real trouble on that front.

You can, sure. At which point you're basically playing Fudge but with an inferior Trait Ladder, a different damage system, and no access to certain mechanics that got cut. That's not a bad thing (Fudge is my personal favorite game), but it's not how Fate is meant to be played and it's not where it really shines.

[snailgosh]

I'm glad I opened this topic. Lots of useful advice. You all have my sincere gratitude.
(Is it just me or does this sound awfully sarcastic, even though it isn't meant to?)

Hope you have fun (we did, despite some issues) - let us know how it goes for you!

The campaign won't start for another little while, but I'm both optimistic and enthused!

[Knaight]

Out of curiosity, have you looked at the Fate System Toolkit? I wouldn't reccomend using it just yet, as homebrew in a little known system is usually not a great idea, but I would recommend reading it. There's a lot of fairly concrete discussion on why the game is made the way it is and what the different things in the game do, and it's useful background information.

[Fri]

I have two basic advice would be.

1. Ask your players what they intend to do for their actions, then convert it into rules.

So for example, your player says "I'm going to vault over the barrel of oils." Ask them "What you intend that to do." If they say answer "It's to slow down the orcs pursuing me" then you can say "Alright, you're making <rain of barrels> in the road as advantage then. Roll <athletic> to see how big of advantage you're making."

But if they say "It's to intimidate the orcs with my athletic prowess." You can say "Alright, you're doing overcome action then. Roll <athletics> against the orcs' willpower (or whatever difficulty you're setting), if it's a success they'll be intimidated but if you fail they'll laugh at you instead .

It's just example. Basically just ask what's your player's intention for their actiosn.

2. Aspects exists even if not used as mechanical bonus.

So for example, if the orcs have <hand tied up> aspect, it makes sense if they can't pick up the golden idol, eventhough you're not using that aspect as any numerical bonus right now. This is a very important part that's often forgotten.

Also, I guess there's the third one. Remember the fractal of Fate. Basically, say there's fire in the warehouse. You could have it act as simple obstacle to be overcome. Or you could actually have it be an "enemy" to defeat and give it some "stress" boxes for your PC to beat.

[snailgosh]

Out of curiosity, have you looked at the Fate System Toolkit? I wouldn't reccomend using it just yet, as homebrew in a little known system is usually not a great idea, but I would recommend reading it. There's a lot of fairly concrete discussion on why the game is made the way it is and what the different things in the game do, and it's useful background information.

I will give it a look! Thank you.

[2D8HP]

I can't get to my copy of the FATE "corebook" (which I've just glanced a little at) without waking a baby up so I'll probably only be able to look at it after I get back from work in 14 hours or so, but from what I'm gleaning from this thread, FATE sounds like it plays a lot like a board or card game ("aspects" and "points" you play)?

Note: I have never played 3.5, only old D&D, 5e, and a bunch of non-D&D RPG's in the 1980's.
From what I can tell 3.5 seems to be more orientated towards keeping track of superpowers which isn't what I'm looking for either. Mostly I want to imagine seeing a world through Robin Hood and Sindbad-ish characters for awhile, without worrying about rules mechanics.

Mostly I want a GM to tell me what my PC perceives, I tell the GM what my PC tries to do, and then after some occasional dice rolling (for suspence and surprise) the GM tells me what's changed, etc, which is close to how I remember RPG's used to be played, but games don't seem to be played that way anymore.

Can FATE be played in what I'll label an "immersive" style, or is it as mechanics focused as this thread suggests?

[Knaight]

Mostly I want a GM to tell me what my PC perceives, I tell the GM what my PC tries to do, and then after some occasional dice rolling (for suspence and surprise) the GM tells me what's changed, etc, which is close to how I remember RPG's used to be played, but games don't seem to be played that way anymore.

Fate isn't ideal for this, complements of the fate point economy. There's plenty of options that fit this perfectly though - including Fudge, the game Fate spun out of and then gradually stopped acknowledging at all.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I can't get to my copy of the FATE "corebook" (which I've just glanced a little at) without waking a baby up so I'll probably only be able to look at it after I get back from work in 14 hours or so, but from what I'm gleaning from this thread, FATE sounds like it plays a lot like a board or card game ("aspects" and "points" you play)?

Not... really? The core (taken from Fudge) is fairly vanilla RPG mechanics-- you have a bunch of skills ranked from +0 to +4, and when you try to do something you roll dice (that give an average result of 0) and add your skill rank, and if you beat the DC/your foe's roll you succeed. Succeeding by more is better.

To that you add this stuff with Aspects and Fate Points. Rather than fiddle with a lot of situational rules, Fate just runs with "Aspects." An Aspect is basically something that's true about your character or the world-- I am a Legendary Swordsman, the room is currently Dark as Sin, the orcs are All Tied Up and can't come to the fight right now, that sort of thing. Your characters has some permanent ones, the GM invents some for the scenery... and you can create or "discover" them through in-game actions. Now, in addition to being generally true things, you can "Invoke" an Aspect to get a numerical bonus-- for free if you just created it, or for a unit of metagame currency if not. I sometimes like to explain Fate Points as a kind of narrative spotlight-- you're shining a light on the fact that you're a Legendary Swordsman to get a bonus to stab someone in the face. The GM can do the same thing, but because they're the GM they tend to do it in a negative fashion-- shining a light on the Legendary Swordsman bit to have you be recognized when you were trying to lay low, say, or to have a wannabe trying to make a name for herself pop up when you least want to deal with something like that.

It plays pretty normally, in my experience. The Fudge-based core is rock-solid, and "I have a few hero points to counteract luck when I really need it" is always a nice addition, in my mind. GM-based Compels might seem arbitrary at first, but it's really no different than the GM deciding to bring up a roleplaying bit to make trouble in any system-- here you just get a reward for your trouble, and the whole thing is nicely codified a bit. In that sense, perhaps it would fit your GM-heavy style well?

[erikun]

One thing that I will note, which doesn't seem to come up often. Fate Core tends to work best with very proactive players, ones who will say "I want to do X" with their characters or which actively start trying to work towards something, either a goal or a quest or accomplishing something in combat. It tends to not work so well with reactive players, or ones who wait for the GM to lay out plot hooks and then use a set expected skill when encountering a challenge. This seems to hold for both character creation and for interacting in the game. The player who comes to the table with a character idea in mind will have a very easy time making something in Fate, and the player considers a scene and comes up with an idea to do something in it will generally make some progress (even if not necessarily what they want). On the other hand, the player who wants to look over a class list or skill list, or the player who wants to stab the closest orc or use their most effective class abilities, are probably not going to enjoy it as much.

I should also note that games progress faster than you might expect from something like D&D. In a D&D game, it isn't unusual for several hours to only get a party through a couple of fights and partway through one floor of a dungeon, at least in my game sessions. In Fate Core, you can probably expect the party to run through negotiations, fight off some thieves trying to jump them, pick their way through the forest, delve into some ruins, fight the big climatic battle, and return home in roughly the same time. Part of the reason for this is that Fate doesn't emphasize battle quite as much, so their are less time-consuming fights. Part of this is because it is far easier to jump from one situation to the next without too much worry; enemy stat blocks are just a few lines of text, and tying up a grappled opponent (or catching and riding a wild horse, or whatever) is not any more complex than anything else.

Or perhaps it was just my group.

Skills behave much the way that you would expect them to: roll some die, add (or subtract) from the skill bonus, and check your result. One interesting aspect of Fate is that the dice average is +0, so you can use just the skill bonus as the result if you wanted. This is typically a good idea for rather passive challenges that come up in the story. The GM can choose when and where they want to be rolling dice, so you could have a GM which rolls for everything (which is fine), a GM who only rolls for "active" threads (which is fine), a GM who only rolls for the big suspenseful events (which is fine), and a GM who never rolls for anything (which is fine).

The way that combat is intended to work is for the players to spend several rounds creating advantages (generally applying their best skills, where they can) and then one player invoking multiple advantages at once for a large combat bonus. Creating an advantage can be carried over between rounds, and is far preferrable to just rolling until you hit a lucky strike... and is nearly required for stronger opponents. Your players might be frustrated if they don't understand how combat is intended to work yet. If you see them just continuing to roll against a brick wall, or burning through all their Fate Points invoking aspects for the one-time uses, then you might want to point that out to them. It might also be worthwhile to have NPC combatants use the same tricks (if in a limited fashion) to present a challenge and to show players how the game works.

Aspects are generally "true things" about a character. They can be permanent aspects (like Gunslinger), temporary aspects caused by skills (Lights Out, Slippery Floor), or even aspects caused by taking damage (Broken Arm). In general, aspects stick around until somebody does something to change them: the Lights Are Out until somebody in combat takes an action to turn them back on. Anybody (including NPCs and enemy characters) can spend a Fate Point to invoke an aspect, getting a +2 on that roll, or reroll the dice. An enemy might use Lights Out to get a +2 bonus to their defense, or reroll their defense, when being attacked by a PC. (The PC can also spend a Fate Point and use Lights Out for the same benefit, as long as it makes sense.)

In general, aspects are the important things about a scene or character. It probably helps to think about what is (or will be) relevant in a particular scene and then make sure to note it. It might help with sorting out the scene in your head and writing it down. It's also probably a good way to describe a character or place by making sure you mention the aspects in the description. If a NPC walks in the room with a Visible Limp, Smelling of Smoke, and a Suspicious Glare, then it gives a good description of them along with hinting to players what is important about the character (although not necessarily why).

Compelling an Aspect is the last thing to note, and it is basically identical to invoking. Typically it is the GM compelling an aspect on a character relevant to the scene. The options there involve: following along with the character aspect (against what might be in the interest of the players or party) in order to get a Fate Point, or spending a Fate Point to not go along with the compel. Note that players can prompt compels against themselves, although it is up to the GM if it is relevant enough to warrant a Fate Point. Invoking aspects on enemies (such as invoking the Broken Leg aspect of an enemy NPC) is functionally a compel against them, and involves the player giving up the Fate Point just like a normal invoke. I don't recall if enemies invoking negative aspects on players involves generating Fate Points, though: you'll need to double check the rulebook yourself.

[Kol Korran]

Quite some time ago my group tried mmaking this switch as well. If you check my extended sig, I wrote a fairly detailed gaming log about it. It.. didn't work out well for us... why? 3 main reasons I think:
1. None of us ever played it, or anything like it. A lot of the system takes getting used to, and is very open for interpertation... We messed with a lot of stuff, not really understanding it well.
2. It was quite difficult getting into the Fate mind set... That failures drive the game as much as successes, that the players have a much larger role in the scenes, and can crrarely stuff for them, the whole reckoned of aspects and compels, and more...
3. Tied to the previous point, a lot later I read an article about the 8 gaming aesthetics, and understood that d&d and Fate basically cater to different aesthetics, or gaming preferences. Fate focuses on expression, narrative and fantasy, While d&d focuses a lot on challenge (though not only). My players, though some have interest in Fate's aesthetics, also have a strong preference for challenge, which Fate provides less... one of my players likes time come and just kill monsters, an dead with builds and mechanics. He HATED Fate. We plan someday to perhaps play again, but a smaller group. He said he won't join. Make sure your players like theplaystyle.

Good luck!

[Quertus]

You can, sure. At which point you're basically playing Fudge but with an inferior Trait Ladder, a different damage system, and no access to certain mechanics that got cut. That's not a bad thing (Fudge is my personal favorite game), but it's not how Fate is meant to be played and it's not where it really shines.

Fate isn't ideal for this, complements of the fate point economy. There's plenty of options that fit this perfectly though - including Fudge, the game Fate spun out of and then gradually stopped acknowledging at all.

Would playing fudge first be a good way to learn fate?

I have two basic advice would be.

1. Ask your players what they intend to do for their actions, then convert it into rules.

So for example, your player says "I'm going to vault over the barrel of oils." Ask them "What you intend that to do." If they say answer "It's to slow down the orcs pursuing me" then you can say "Alright, you're making <rain of barrels> in the road as advantage then. Roll <athletic> to see how big of advantage you're making."

But if they say "It's to intimidate the orcs with my athletic prowess." You can say "Alright, you're doing overcome action then. Roll <athletics> against the orcs' willpower (or whatever difficulty you're setting), if it's a success they'll be intimidated but if you fail they'll laugh at you instead .

What if it's both? Or, more my style, what if it's to slow them down, to intimidate them, to provide cover vs ranged attacks, to force the group to scatter, to break line of sight in the hopes of throwing them off the track, to break the barrels for later use, and to hurt the orcs in the line of fire? How does fate handle something like this, where the same action logically has many effects?

Aspects are generally "true things" about a character. They can be permanent aspects (like Gunslinger), temporary aspects caused by skills (Lights Out, Slippery Floor), or even aspects caused by taking damage (Broken Arm). In general, aspects stick around until somebody does something to change them: the Lights Are Out until somebody in combat takes an action to turn them back on. Anybody (including NPCs and enemy characters) can spend a Fate Point to invoke an aspect, getting a +2 on that roll, or reroll the dice. An enemy might use Lights Out to get a +2 bonus to their defense, or reroll their defense, when being attacked by a PC. (The PC can also spend a Fate Point and use Lights Out for the same benefit, as long as it makes sense.)

It being dark... doesn't give anyone any bonuses to defense... unless they spend resources to make that so. That makes as little sense to me as, "the floor being made of fire doesn't deal anyone any damage unless someone takes an action to make that so". Can you explain how this makes any sense?

Compelling an Aspect is the last thing to note, and it is basically identical to invoking. Typically it is the GM compelling an aspect on a character relevant to the scene. The options there involve: following along with the character aspect (against what might be in the interest of the players or party) in order to get a Fate Point, or spending a Fate Point to not go along with the compel. Note that players can prompt compels against themselves, although it is up to the GM if it is relevant enough to warrant a Fate Point. Invoking aspects on enemies (such as invoking the Broken Leg aspect of an enemy NPC) is functionally a compel against them, and involves the player giving up the Fate Point just like a normal invoke. I don't recall if enemies invoking negative aspects on players involves generating Fate Points, though: you'll need to double check the rulebook yourself.

So, if a player of a character with a "vindictive" trait aspect declares that they are attacking the orc that hit them, is that a valid compel?

[Knaight]

Would playing fudge first be a good way to learn fate?

To an extent - it covers a lot of the material and gives you a grounding in the basics. With that said, the things that distinguish Fate from Fudge are also the things that are hardest to get used to, so it's kind of a moot point. On the other hand, looking at this thread it seems like Fudge might work just as well if the Fate specifics aren't the draw.

It being dark... doesn't give anyone any bonuses to defense... unless they spend resources to make that so. That makes as little sense to me as, "the floor being made of fire doesn't deal anyone any damage unless someone takes an action to make that so". Can you explain how this makes any sense?

Fate purging modifiers is one of the reasons I favor Fudge over Fate. With that said, the aspect means it's dark even if nobody is tagging it, and there are ways to represent it.

So, if a player of a character with a "vindictive" trait aspect declares that they are attacking the orc that hit them, is that a valid compel?

If you want to spend the fate point, sure. On a different note, the example aspects from this thread have mostly been pretty weak (mostly because people put a lot more effort in aspects for characters that they play than examples) - you'd generally want something a bit longer with a bit more zing to it than vindictive.

[Fri]

What if it's both? Or, more my style, what if it's to slow them down, to intimidate them, to provide cover vs ranged attacks, to force the group to scatter, to break line of sight in the hopes of throwing them off the track, to break the barrels for later use, and to hurt the orcs in the line of fire? How does fate handle something like this, where the same action logically has many effects?

That's why I ask you to ask their intention first. An action can have many result, but you should be able to figure what rule you need to use for that one action. Also, you really can't do ALL the things in one single action in any games right? If they want to do ALL the things with one action, I think it makes sense if you tell them to calm down, and pick one they want to happen first. Like, maybe it will hurt the Orcs for this round, and you roll to see the damage, and the next round you tell them to roll to see how big advantage this making.

It being dark... doesn't give anyone any bonuses to defense... unless they spend resources to make that so. That makes as little sense to me as, "the floor being made of fire doesn't deal anyone any damage unless someone takes an action to make that so". Can you explain how this makes any sense?

It doesn't makes sense. That's why I remind you that Aspects stay true even if it's not used as mechanical bonus. Situational aspect also might give active or passive opposition. For example, the room being dark makes people completely unable to see you is valid use of aspect. Feel free to give anyone damage every round if they're moving in a burning building as well until they manage to douse the fire.

http://www.faterpg.com/2013/richards...-in-fate-core/
this is a really helpful article.

So, if a player of a character with a "vindictive" trait aspect declares that they are attacking the orc that hit them, is that a valid compel?

Aspect should be more descriptive and "bitey" that's true, something that should be able to be used to help and hinder, and also exclusive to the character. So, "Trained at Legrand Fencing Academy" is better aspect than "Good at Sword," but "Kicked Out Of Legrand Fencing Academy" would even be better. "Strange Luck" is a better aspect than "Lucky"

An example I like to use is James Bond. It's obvious that "Womanizer" is one of his aspect. When she meet an obvious femme fatale, eventhough it's obvious to the player to ignore her invitation to her room, he/the gm could compel the "womanizer" aspect to make him follow her. But also, he could use the aspect as mechanical bonus to charm the secret plan out of her.

[Max_Killjoy]

Quite some time ago my group tried mmaking this switch as well. If you check my extended sig, I wrote a fairly detailed gaming log about it. It.. didn't work out well for us... why? 3 main reasons I think:
1. None of us ever played it, or anything like it. A lot of the system takes getting used to, and is very open for interpertation... We messed with a lot of stuff, not really understanding it well.
2. It was quite difficult getting into the Fate mind set... That failures drive the game as much as successes, that the players have a much larger role in the scenes, and can crrarely stuff for them, the whole reckoned of aspects and compels, and more...
3. Tied to the previous point, a lot later I read an article about the 8 gaming aesthetics, and understood that d&d and Fate basically cater to different aesthetics, or gaming preferences. Fate focuses on expression, narrative and fantasy, While d&d focuses a lot on challenge (though not only). My players, though some have interest in Fate's aesthetics, also have a strong preference for challenge, which Fate provides less... one of my players likes time come and just kill monsters, an dead with builds and mechanics. He HATED Fate. We plan someday to perhaps play again, but a smaller group. He said he won't join. Make sure your players like the playstyle.

Good luck!

Do you have a link to that article?

I can't get to my copy of the FATE "corebook" (which I've just glanced a little at) without waking a baby up so I'll probably only be able to look at it after I get back from work in 14 hours or so, but from what I'm gleaning from this thread, FATE sounds like it plays a lot like a board or card game ("aspects" and "points" you play)?

Note: I have never played 3.5, only old D&D, 5e, and a bunch of non-D&D RPG's in the 1980's.
From what I can tell 3.5 seems to be more orientated towards keeping track of superpowers which isn't what I'm looking for either. Mostly I want to imagine seeing a world through Robin Hood and Sindbad-ish characters for awhile, without worrying about rules mechanics.

Mostly I want a GM to tell me what my PC perceives, I tell the GM what my PC tries to do, and then after some occasional dice rolling (for suspence and surprise) the GM tells me what's changed, etc, which is close to how I remember RPG's used to be played, but games don't seem to be played that way anymore.

Can FATE be played in what I'll label an "immersive" style, or is it as mechanics focused as this thread suggests?

From what I've seen, the two things that jump out immediately about FATE are:

1) your character does not possess "Strength X" or "Intelligence Y"... they're "Strong as an Ox" or whatever.
2) rolls aren't about what the character is trying to do, they're about what they character is trying to accomplish with the action(s)

[Fri]

Do you have a link to that article?




From what I've seen, the two things that jump out immediately about FATE are:

1) your character does not possess "Strength X" or "Intelligence Y"... they're "Strong as an Ax" or whatever.
2) rolls aren't about what the character is trying to do, they're about what they character is trying to accomplish with the action(s)

That's pretty summary. Though I'll add that you do have numerical skills, like "Athletic 4" or maybe your car has "Speed 4" but it's not meant to say that "Speed 4 means the car can move 250 mph" but it's just relatively, Speed 4 car can move faster than Speed 3 car, and can move even faster than Speed 2 car.

[Max_Killjoy]

That's pretty summary. Though I'll add that you do have numerical skills, like "Athletic 4" or maybe your car has "Speed 4" but it's not meant to say that "Speed 4 means the car can move 250 mph" but it's just relatively, Speed 4 car can move faster than Speed 3 car, and can move even faster than Speed 2 car.

Does this make it difficult to assign values sometimes?

[Fri]

Hm maybe, but I think values you assign in games are relative anyway, except maybe for weight lifting? Like, a DC 15 lock, what does that actually mean? You can assign a Difficulty 2 lock in Fate which means "professionals can pick this consistently" or Difficulty 4 lock which means "only the top level or lucky professionals can pick this lock regularly" or such.

Or say there's athletic challenge. If it's against another person it's just rolling against each others, and you can easily someone with Athletic 4 is better at running than someone with Athletic 2. But when there's athletic challenge, say vaulting over a river, the gm can say "most people can jump over this if they try, except if they're unlucky, so the difficulty value is 1,"

There's guides on assigning values in the toolkit, I think, I just arbitrarily put those numbers as example. Basically something like "assign difficulty X if you think the players should be able to do this consistently, assign difficulty X if you think they need to excert a lot of resources for it."

But the good thing is, the values can be relative to the game. Like, if it's a superhero games and everyone are superheroes, Athletic 1 might be Batman and athletic 4 might be Superman. So you set up a scene where the PC have to chase a running car, and set it as difficulty 2. But if it's a game about ordinary school students, a scene where PC have to chase a running car might be difficulty 4.

[Quertus]

If you want to spend the fate point, sure. On a different note, the example aspects from this thread have mostly been pretty weak (mostly because people put a lot more effort in aspects for characters that they play than examples) - you'd generally want something a bit longer with a bit more zing to it than vindictive.

... One of the things I like about even basic role-playing in combat is, when you've adventured with the same group long enough, you can predict what your teammates will do - one will go after the biggest one, one will attack whoever damaged them, one will attack whoever is most wounded, etc. I was hoping fate acknowledged and rewarded this characterization.

That's why I ask you to ask their intention first. An action can have many result, but you should be able to figure what rule you need to use for that one action. Also, you really can't do ALL the things in one single action in any games right? If they want to do ALL the things with one action, I think it makes sense if you tell them to calm down, and pick one they want to happen first. Like, maybe it will hurt the Orcs for this round, and you roll to see the damage, and the next round you tell them to roll to see how big advantage this making.

I do it all the time in D&D. I cast fireball. Yes, it deals damage. It's also rather frightening; sometimes, foes will flee. It also tends to cause enemies to spread out, because, you know, not doing so is dumb. If I'm in a world where it sets things on fire, I can also get some secondary effects, like smoke for concealment. I pick my spells, not just for their obvious effects, but for how they effect opponent psychology and deployment. I'm a war mage - casting fireball is me being passive-aggressive.

And, perhaps less effectively, I do so in other systems, as well, so long as I have a good GM.

But, really, in what system wouldn't dropping a bunch of barrels of oil on a pack of orcs heads not a) damage the orcs, b) cause them to scatter / break formation, c) leave barrels on the floor (which might be useful for cover etc); d) leave oil on the floor, and possibly e) make them consider reconsidering their current course of action?

[Fri]

Yes, they all can happen in the same time, but the mechanical effect might not happen at the same time for the purpose of the game. Like, if you shoot 3.5 fireball to the orcs, there's no mechanical effect that make them scatter. the mechanical effect is the damage. It's up to the GM if he want to make the orcs scatter, though you might argue to him it makes sense. In Fate, if say you cast a fireball, it might damage, scatter the orcs, intimidate them, and make cover to your allies at the same time. But for all of them happening in mechanical term at the same time, might not happen.

What happen might be, you cast fireball, aiming for damage. You say to the GM "I think they should be scattered from fear now" And he says "makes sense," and the orc scatters to cover. Then at the next round you say "I want to intimidate them to surrender now, I think that fireball should give me bonus for that intimidation." The GM might say, "Alright, there's a "big intimidating crater" aspect on the field, roll Intimidation to see how big is that aspect. You rolled, and you rolled -1, so you fail to make the <big intimidating crater> aspect. No aspect was made. Next round the orcs start firing arrows at you, and you say "I'll use the smoke from the crater and my Tactic 4 skill to make "Smoke Cover" aspect. You roll good, and the GM says "Your allies got 2 free use of "Smoke Cover aspect" from your good tactical insight.

The GM say for example, "nah, no need to roll, the fireball really intimidates them" as well. Or the GM could say after the first fireball "the orcs are really disciplined, they won't scatter from one measly fireball" and you then say "alright, this round I'll turn that crater into a "scattering obstacle" aspect then, while in 3.5, there's nothing in the rule to turn that fireball to scatter the orcs, the only thing you can do is telling the GM "it makes sense for the orcs to scatter after the fireball."

You could also might have a personal Stunt for your character "Intimidating Fireball" which says, "Whenever a fireball attack kills a mook in a group, you can pay a fate point to give the rest of the mook "intimidated" aspect"to turn it into your special attack that happens automatically, for example.

If a GM is someone who will make enemies scatter without any mechanical reason after a fireball in 3.5, there's no reason to not think he will make enemies scatter without any mechanical reason after a fireball in Fate. It's a game with friends after all. But if he's a GM who have his orcs won't scatter because in his setting orcs are disciplined fearless creature, Fate just give you a tool to force the orcs to scatter with your fireball. (Though he might give impossible difficulty for it? But in that case, the problem is not in the system anymore).