@thorgrit Ahh, good point. It's probably closer to the truth to say anything *I* would want to do in a game can be accomplished with Fate.

I always forget about things like that.

@zephasaurus_hex @thorgrit «War of Ashes: Fate of Agaptus, by Sophie Lagacé. Welcome to the War of Ashes RPG: Fate of Agaptus! This “grimsical” minis-friendly tabletop RPG is based on the popular miniature game.» Sounds like an intriguing concept (but not for me). https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25895668-war-of-ashes

@kensanata Interesting, thanks for sharing. I haven't actually played FATE myself, and I wonder what you think about the Drama Points in Black Wolf (see the section "Complications"): http://hardcorenarrativist.org/black-wolf/Black%20Wolf.pdf

The differences I suspect there are, judging from your post: you start with no drama points; drama points are given only for role-playing things that get you into trouble (and not many); drama points only last for that scene.

@hardcorenarrativist You knew my predisposition and still asked for my opinion so I'm going to skip talking about the nice stuff (PDF, page count, writing, all of that) and go right for the complications. 😀​ The first thing I notice is that you get points for complications that I imagine will be complications at the table, not just in the story. If your character has a phobia, will they join the adventure? If they are argumentative or a fanatic, are they going to annoy fellow players? 1/

@hardcorenarrativist A fundamental aspect that takes away tension is how one uses these points once they are acquired: it's calm deliberation, and saving them, and wondering about the trade-off and the future badness that is coming. In short, it puts me in the mindset of an accountant. Here's an alternative: *borrow points from the future*: you can have a bonus right now, here, have it! Temptation! But there will be payback. At some time in the future, you will pay. 2/

@hardcorenarrativist For example, for each borrowed point, another digit is designated as bad luck. Start with "9". Now any time you roll 09, 19, 29, ..., 89-99, it's a dramatic failure and one of the complications strikes: paralysing fear, memories of an old wound. Narrate the bad mojo and then clear that bad luck number. So, mechanically very similar, but suspense and luck and build up are maintained. What do you think? 3/3

@kensanata Maybe "complications" is a confusing name (I took it from Blood and Bone, maybe I should have called it "disadvantages"). A typical situation would be "because someone is a fanatic, they decide to insult someone, and that gets the party in trouble". It's a way to nudge people into role-playing even when they know it will have bad consequences.

I don't find the points to make such a huge difference so it doesn't shield the PCs so much (I feel).

@kensanata I totally understand the "calm deliberation" problem, I hate it! That's why you use them after the fact: you roll, and if it failed you can choose to spend to re-roll. Still a bit of deliberation, but it removes a lot of the "accountant mindset".

Interesting idea for complications, I'll give it a thought. I fear a bit that it might be hard to keep track of, and that it might be hard to introduce a trauma or whatever in a random point in the future, but it's intriguing.

Thanks!

@zephasaurus_hex Whereas something skill based like say, Call of Cthulhu or GURPS is better at representing a full character and all their details. (In my GURPS game we just pulled off a plan using my characters hobby of wood carving)

@Canageek
@zephasaurus_hex
tell me more

@Canageek @zephasaurus_hex We've bent the rules a bit and allow fate points to be spent on anything that's true about the character. I've taken a compel about being squicked out by prosthetics (despite my character having one themselves) even though it's not on my character sheet.

I think other games tend to limit /how/ you can describe your character instead. Whether that be stats or professionals or races, etc. I really like the flexibility to make anything mechanically relevant.

@zephasaurus_hex @ossifog That is cool, but that is what traits and advantages are for in GURPS.

Plus from what I've seen in Fate you can't do stuff like have a couple of skill points in swimming because you learned how as a kid, while the character that grew up in the desert doesn't.

@zephasaurus_hex @ossifog Like, you can only describe the bits that are core to that characters identity, not all the little details that might come up in play.

@Canageek @zephasaurus_hex Interesting. in GURPS are the traits free form or picked off a list?

Maybe the difference in approach here is being able to describe things about your character before they become relevant. I think in Fate your example would be a compel against desert kid when they try to start swimming. But then you need someone to actually make the compel for it to be relevant.

@zephasaurus_hex @ossifog like where's I see that you should outline as much as your character as possible within the first few sessions, and that is your toolbox for actions you take later in the game. so early on I made my character a little bit of a womanizer something he quickly grew out if I should gain more responsibilities, but it meant I still have points and dancing which became relevant later on

@zephasaurus_hex @ossifog I tend to pick them from a list for this being a couple of times where the thing I wanted to do wasn't a skill in the book so I sent it to my DM who has the specific Magic and Powers books and he's being able to create the advantage I wanted by applying the modifiers.

@zephasaurus_hex @ossifog so for example I wanted a character that could touch an object and see its history, there's a similar skill in the core book but it only lets you see the immediate past of an object, so I asked my DM and by going through the powers book he was able to apply some advantages and disadvantages so that I couldn in Theory see b back to the object creation

@zephasaurus_hex @ossifog but I had to touch it with bare skin, which has the possibility of triggering curses or poisons or leaving fingerprints. The player that took over that character when I left the game for a few years discovered that downside and spent time practicing his ability until he could do it without touching the object, for that reason

@Canageek @zephasaurus_hex Hmm, but wouldn't it have been simpler to just say "Spend a fate point, roll x skill, if successful learn the history of an object you've touched" instead of cross referencing some books and having to do some ad hoc balancing? I'm pretty surprised that there was something similar that already existed, it's easy to imagine a situation where there wouldn't be.

Though, I guess when it comes down to it, if there's a will, you can hack in a way. :)

@zephasaurus_hex @ossifog Not add hoc, GURPS has math for that sort of thing.

@ossifog @zephasaurus_hex That limits it to having to use up a limited resource though. Plus, I'd say your version is much more ad hoc then mine, since mine is actually using some rules extensions based on the power, and GURPS is really heavily play tested, whereas you've just made up a power whole-cloth.

@zephasaurus_hex @ossifog to be fair I also fundamentally disagree with the idea of Fate points as a resource, since they're in the category of things I put under too good to use. I might need them later so why would I spend them now if I'm not going to die if I don't use them? by tying the ability to it it means I don't want to use them because I might need them to survive a later situation.

@zephasaurus_hex @ossifog points should be split up into categories so that by using points to investigate things I'm not decreasing my survivability later. DND does this somewhat with spell levels, I'm unlikely to need a lower-level spell later on, but it still has the problem. gurps does someone as well with spell points, though if you're using the variation where you're spending fatigue and getting it back every 20 minutes it's not too bad.

@zephasaurus_hex @ossifog Oh that is another downside of Fate in my opinion (from the couple times I played).

Players can muck with the world, which limits the types of games you can run. So when I played a thief in the party spent a point to have a second story widow open. If players can do stuff like that then you can't run mystery games as players could overright important clues (say, those widows are never open as a vampire lives the who leaves as a bat)

@ossifog @zephasaurus_hex That is part of what I mean! If it’s about the flow of the story, getting a +2 is good enough. But if you want to feel clever, then the actual thing has to be hard.