Fate Megathread: Aliens Built The Skill Pyramids

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Hugoon Chavez: Nov 4, 2011

The FATE thread!

FATE is a roleplaying system that's being used by many games right now. It's probably the most “mainstream” indie system since it has spread between several companies and games, and has grown quite a lot since it's roots on the FUDGE system.

But, How does it work?

(FATE DICE)

There are two important core mechanics that define the system and make it awesome. The first of them is called The ladder.

This represents the degrees of everything that goes on in the game (from skills to difficulties) and it's read using both the adjective and the value, with MEDIOCRE (0) as the base value. Anything above mediocre (0) is somewhat challenging, or represents training in a particular skill, and anything beneath is ridiculously easy or a big flaw in your character (like a mute zombie barbarian with Terrible(-2) social skills)

As Evil Mastermind put it in his Let's Read:

Evil Mastermind posted:

(I'd like to take a moment here to point out one of the things I love about Fate: the Ladder is universal to every Fate game, which means that all the games operate on more or less the same scale. This makes it really easy to pull parts of one Fate game and plug them into another with only minor difficulty.)

While the competences of the characters vary a lot (from gritty to over the top pulp heroes), the ladder always remains the same, making it easy to judge difficulties and power from game to game.

The second core mechanic are aspects and fate points.

Aspects are basically descriptions that you stick to anything in the game so you can use them without creating specific rules for every interaction or quirk. Things like “Fast” for a car, “Slippery” for a floor, “Falls in love easily” for a character, etc. They represent the real meat of any stat block, the few lines that make whatever it is you're stating an actual, dynamic part of the world and the game.

Fate points are the currency in which you pay your use of these aspects, or are rewarded by their use against you. Fate points and Aspects are used in five simple ways:

Invoking: By paying a FATE point you can, after a roll, use your character's aspect it it relates to the action taking place, in order to gain a +2 bonus for it, or re-roll the dice. A single aspect can only be Invoked once for each action, but you can invoke several if they apply.

quote:

Hugoon Chavez reads a post in the Something Awful forum that berates another Goon for liking ad&d better than d&d 4th, and springs to the action! Invoking his Filthy Grognard aspect, he gains a +2 to his poo poo posting roll, but he still does poorly. But wait! The goon being berated is actually a goonnette! Hugoon Chavez then invokes his “The SA White Knight” aspect and re-rolls, scoring a superb (+5) result and making a poor kid that doesn't know how to play a real MAN's roleplaying game cry running to mommy and WotC.
-“HEH”.

Compelling: Whenever an aspect should act against you, impeding you to perform something well or forcing you to act in a way that could end up badly, it gets Compelled. Taking the hit means earning a Fate Point for later use! This is the easiest way to earn Fate points, and a good GM knows to compel aspects that make the scene more fun and challenging, not to mention that it creates a lot of good roleplaying.

quote:

Hugoon Chavez is once again Browsing the SA forums, when he finds a thread about a racial riot somewhere in the world. He already has somewhat of a reputation for being a bit non PC on the forums, and he knows that another post showing his beliefs would end up badly. However, he has a date with the obese Pizza Girl in a couple hours, and he knows he needs those Fate Points, so he accepts the compel of his “I'm not a racist, BUT...” aspect and posts anyhow.
He gets banned, but now he has a Fate point he can spend invoking his “Micropenises are better penises” aspect on his date!

Declarations: a declaration is when the player uses an aspect to take brief control of the scene. With a declaration you can make certain things related to your aspect happen, like a cousin from your “Big-rear end redneck family” show up at that Kidd Rock concert. Declarations make the players more invested in their stories and characters, and create a more collective game where every PC is an actual part of the story.

quote:

Hugoon Chavez is bragging about his military training and gun collection to his date. Everything is going smoothly and he might get lucky tonight and touch a boob! Pizza Girl moves her mass to the bathroom, but not before telling Hugoon that she's an Outerkin and really into polyamory.
Hugoon doesn't really know what that is, and there's no time to investigate while his date is in the bathroom. But wait! He declares that he has a smartphone with internet connection at hand thanks to his “To the internetz!LOL!” aspect, and this allows him to make an investigation roll despite being stuck at a fancy KFC.

Tagging: A tag works like an invoke, except that instead of using your own aspect, you use the scene's, or even your enemy's!

quote:

Hugoon Tries to impress Pizza Girl when she comes back from the bathroom, and flatters her, admiring her ICP pin, and using a Fate Point to tag her “Juggallo” aspect. He doesn't want to pull any punches, he wants to lose his virginity tonight! So the last fate point is spent tagging the “Kinda nice if you like greasy joints” aspect of the KFC, to get her Fat Cinderella to realize just how romantic he is.

Maneuvers: are everything your character does in game to change the scene, your enemies or surroundings. Tripping enemies, setting a building on fire, making a terrifying speech to get the people at town scared and hopeless, etc. Maneuvers set a temporary aspect on the thing you are influencing (provided you pass the roll) that you can invoke later to gain the full benefit. One of the amazing things FATE has is maneuvers in combat: whenever you place a temporary aspect, the first invoke doesn't cost Fate Points, and you can give this benefit to a friend! That way you can create a maneuver on an enemy (for instance, intimidate him so he becomes afraid) and let your more combat oriented friend take advantage of it!

quote:

Hugoon Chavez talks about his video collection to his date, and rolls to put a temporary “Curious about tentacle porn” aspect on the obese princess. After succeeding, he gets a free tag on it to help his seduction rolls, and gets her to come over to his house!

Besides these two main mechanics, there are a couple of other important ones:

Stress tracks are the Hit Points of the system. It works differently from game to game, but it's basically a track in which you take damage as “stress”. Reach your maximum and you are Taken Out, which can mean a lot of different things depending on the situation and the attack.
Besides stress, there are Complications, which are temporary aspects that you can receive to mitigate some stress and vary in severity. The least severe Complication may give you a “bruised” aspect and reduce incoming stress a little bit, while the most extreme one can mean a “Collapsed Lung” but basically ignore all the stress.

These Complications work like any aspect, meaning you can invoke them, compel them, or get them tagged by enemies (and they WILL get their free first tag)

Taking the place of d&d feats, Stunts allow your character to gain a specific and constant bonus (usually +1 if it's something common, like +1 damage with guns, or +2 for something less common, like +2 to rolls for making a disarm maneuver), or to break the rules a little bit (bigger stress tracks, doing an action with a different skill than it should take(Might instead of Meele for a kung fu fighter), etc)

Blocks are special maneuvers that instead of placing and aspect, directly stop people for performing certain actions. For instance, cover fire is a block against movement using your guns skill. It basically means that anyone that tries the action which you are blocking will have to first compete against your block.

quote:

Hugoon takes Flappy Female to his bedroom to show him his tentacle anime videos and maybe something else that's also gross and sticky. However, there's a bunch of pictures and some files about said girl in his desk, the product of months of silent reconnaissance. Some people find this disturbing and call it “stalking”, so he tries to prevent her from seeing them.
He starts talking about Naruto and tries to distract her, rolling his speech as a block against her notice. If she wants to take a look at that picture of her drinking ranch dressing, she has to go trough his Naruto Block first!.

But, what about dice?

FATE uses FATE dice, except for some specific games. FATE dice are six-sided dice without numbers, instead with two “-”, two “+” and two blank spaces. You roll 4 dice and add the, together, rolling between -4 and +4, and adding that to a skill for a result. You can use regular six sided dice replacing 1 and 2 with -, 3 and 4 with 0, and 4 and 6 with +. It works just the same and even if it seems a little unintuitive at first, it's actually quite easy.

Some games (mostly Cubicle 7's) use a different way of rolling, instead having two 6-faced dice, one positive and one negative. Roll them, add them, get a result. This gives results between -5 and +5, making it a little more random but not that much different (since results in both systems average to +-1)

quote:

For example, our Goon Gentleman has Good (+3) Deceit skills. He tries to bluff his Busty Vixen friend and get her to believe that he's an ex-marine.
He rolls FATE dice, and the dice come out +,-,+,0. Adding them up, that's a +1 overall, which is then added to his skills for a total of 4! Checking the Ladder, we can see that it's a Great lie, well done!
If he didn't have FATE dice (would would he!? d100 supremacy!) he could have rolled 4d6 and convert them: 2(turns into a -), 3 (that's a 0) 5 and 6 (both are a +) leave him with the same result.

Had he decided to roll using 2d6, the dice would have turn out 6 and 5 for the negative die. That's a +1 once again!

Cooperative character creation

Almost every game that uses FATE has very similar rules for creating characters, and it's very awesome.

The process is a collective effort between all members of the game. It takes place in a few phases and focuses on creating a cool, well rounded character that fits right into the game. Every phase defines a certain number of aspects and are very tied to the events you describe on each one.

The first couple of phases have to do with your character's background. The first one is usually his early years, then the second talks about that time were your character became what he is today.

The rest are where the fun begins. You create an legend, adventure, epic tale of badass or small story that talks about your characters first real moment of awesome, the start of his many great stories. Usually this takes the form of a small tale that could be in the back cover of any pulpy novel.

quote:

Hugoon Chavez in... The Cheetos cheat!

After bravely putting on his flip-flops and walking to the corner stores, Hugoon realizes every one of them has Cheetos out of stock, and it's almost time for his raid!

Can Hugoon find a bag of cheesy goodness before his raid leader subs him?

After that, a player gives his adventure to some else and receives one from another player. Then, they discuss how the characters can each form part in the other's legend, and write it down. This way, every character has been part of someone else tale of awesome!

quote:

Pizza Girl in... Chasing tail!

Pizza's Girl furry tail has disappeared! If she doesn't find it soon, she'll be forever incomplete, a mockery in the otherkin community. Last time she wore it, some kids in the mall were staring and laughing... of their evil plans? Only one way to find out!

-then I would add-

With Hugoon Chavez' help, Pizza girl confront the bullies. But could have she known that one of the truants would be her own lost brother? Or at least, it was like that in another live, when they both were furdragons...

Is that it?

Yes/no! Those are just the very basics of FATE. Every iteration of the system adds something else. From Dresden File's magic system to Kerberos Club's custom power skills, FATE mutates between games, but it's always simple, fast and fun. Go play it now!

Hugoon Chavez fucked around with this message at Dec 17, 2011 around 20:04

# ? Dec 17, 2011 18:12

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# ? May 24, 2013 17:46

Hugoon Chavez: Nov 4, 2011

Reserved for games comparison

# ? Dec 17, 2011 18:12

SGRaaize: Jan 19, 2011; DONT YOU DARE TELL ME HOW THE FUCK TO HAVE FUN IN VIDEOGAMES!!! OR TO READ THE FUCKING OP!!!!

First of all, great OP, pretty enjoyable read and helped explain very well how the system works.
That said, I didn't really understand how the FATE dices work, could you explain a little better? Maybe with an example cause I'm a dumbass?

# ? Dec 17, 2011 18:56

Hugoon Chavez: Nov 4, 2011

Sure thing! I edited the OP with a small example of the three different ways to roll, for future reference. Here it is anyway:

quote:

For example, our Goon Gentleman has Good (+3) Deceit skills. He tries to bluff his Busty Vixen friend and get her to believe that he's an ex-marine.
He rolls FATE dice, and the dice come out +,-,+,0. Adding them up, that's a +1 overall, which is then added to his skills for a total of 4! Checking the Ladder, we can see that it's a Great lie, well done!
If he didn't have FATE dice (would would he!? d100 supremacy!) he could have rolled 4d6 and convert them: 2(turns into a -), 3 (that's a 0) 5 and 6 (both are a +) leave him with the same result.

Had he decided to roll using 2d6, the dice would have turn out 6 and 5 for the negative die. That's a +1 once again!

I'll have the different games better explained in a few days, and whenever I get time I'll stat some characters for you to see.

Meanwhile, I can recommend for you guys to read Evil Mastermind's amazing let's read in the FATAL thread.
Edit: links!
1
http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...ostid=398391482
2
http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...ostid=398580072

Hugoon Chavez fucked around with this message at Dec 17, 2011 around 20:37

# ? Dec 17, 2011 20:08

SGRaaize: Jan 19, 2011; DONT YOU DARE TELL ME HOW THE FUCK TO HAVE FUN IN VIDEOGAMES!!! OR TO READ THE FUCKING OP!!!!

Ah, I get it now, thanks for the explanation. This seems like a pretty good system, but looking at the sites about it (faterpg and the store), they are pretty lovely, which is a shame.

# ? Dec 17, 2011 20:10

Hugoon Chavez: Nov 4, 2011

They ARE quite lovely, it's pretty sad but FATE has a very low presence on the internet, even after Dresden having sold as it did.

Kinda why I wanted to start a thread, we need more FATE information out there.

# ? Dec 17, 2011 20:38

Porkness: Aug 27, 2004; Everybody's scrambling
for a teat to hang from.

Excellent! A few of the regular players in our Pathfinder game will be away for the holiday, so we'll be playing FATE for the next three weeks. I had only a vague idea what we're getting into, but this makes it much more clear.

Are FATE iterations like other games' modules? All I know of our setting is that we're going for a sci-fi-comedy theme. Any idea what that could be?

# ? Dec 17, 2011 20:41

Hugoon Chavez: Nov 4, 2011

No, don't get me wrong, they are all different games even though they share the basics of the system. You play pathfinder, think about fate like the d20 system. Sure the many games that use it ar very similar and you can probably combine parts of each, but they are different games and intended to be played like that!

As for the sci-fi comedy thing, there are three FATE games that deal with sci-fi, but two of them are a bit too dense for a single off session (starblazer adventures is space opera pulp, but a giant 600 page toolkit, and Diaspora is hard sci-fi and kinda deep). The other one is more light, Bulldogs, but I haven't read it so I can't comment much.

For a pick up game to play between campaigns, you can't go wrong with the original Fate game, spirit of the century. It's 1800s pulp buy it can easily be converted to a light space game. Almost no thinkering required if you aren't looking for something serious.

If you like it, THEN you can consider checking out starblazer.

# ? Dec 17, 2011 22:43

I Am The Scum: May 8, 2007; The devil made me do it

Hugoon Chavez posted:

No, don't get me wrong, they are all different games even though they share the basics of the system. You play pathfinder, think about fate like the d20 system. Sure the many games that use it ar very similar and you can probably combine parts of each, but they are different games and intended to be played like that!

In other words, FATE is not GURPS.

Here are some quick video reviews of Diaspora, Bulldogs, and Starblazer Adventures.

# ? Dec 18, 2011 01:01

Hugoon Chavez: Nov 4, 2011

I Am The Scum posted:

In other words, FATE is not GURPS.

Except for Strands of Fate!.

However SoF is a more clunkier FATE and requires more preparation, although it can be awesome and it's very flexible.

I'll add those links to the game comparison when I come around and post it.

I'm just about to buy Legends of Anglerre when I get my extra pay. I like 4th ed. but the sword & sorcery vibe from LoA really calls to me, no to mention FATE's inherent awesomeness. I've been toying around with the idea of running eberron using LoA, since it's such a cinematic setting, anyone thought about this?

# ? Dec 18, 2011 10:22

Comment: Feb 18, 2011

LogicNinja beat you to it, and it sounds like he's having an absolute blast. I don't see any reason why you couldn't just charge ahead and do it as well!

# ? Dec 18, 2011 22:47

Hyperactive: Mar 10, 2004; RICHARDS!

Hugoon Chavez posted:

For a pick up game to play between campaigns, you can't go wrong with the original Fate game, spirit of the century. It's 1800s pulp buy it can easily be converted to a light space game. Almost no thinkering required if you aren't looking for something serious.

Heh, actually Spirit of the Century is 1900s pulp. Kerberos Clue (FATE edition) is 1800s pulp

And has a super great system for building any powers you want from street level antics to cosmic grade stuff and everything between.

Kerberos Club 4 lyfe.

# ? Dec 19, 2011 01:02

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008; You pick up the nugget of URANIUM and...

Oh that was so stupid. Why would you do that?

Hyperactive posted:

And has a super great system for building any powers you want from street level antics to cosmic grade stuff and everything between.

Kerberos Club 4 lyfe.

Indeed. My playtest group consisted of:

An "automechanist" who had a predilection for spider-based designs. (One of her Aspects was "Beautiful Daughter of a Mad Scientist".
A 9-year-old Indian girl who was the vessel for an avatar of Ganesh.
A gentleman pyrokinetic.
A cowboy who had the custom skill "Texan".
Doctor Klanekwagen, The Ambulance That Walks Like A Man.

I believe someone asked me to review Fate Kerberos Club, so that might be coming up after I finish Part Time Gods or Legends of Anglerre, whichever comes first.

# ? Dec 19, 2011 02:26

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008; You pick up the nugget of URANIUM and...

Oh that was so stupid. Why would you do that?

Oh, and I should mention some Neat Fate Stuff most people wouldn't know about :

The "Tri-Fold Fate" documents made by TheMouse over at RPGNet:
Tri-Fold Fate
Tri-Fold Fantasy Fate
Aspect-Only Tri-Fold
Compact Fate

This thread generated the awesome "Fate Triange Chart": Dropbox copy, and the three-table version.

(Since I didn't get to make the thread, I'm going to post the poo poo out of it instead.)

Evil Mastermind fucked around with this message at Dec 19, 2011 around 20:15

# ? Dec 19, 2011 02:50

LogicNinja: Jan 21, 2011; ...the blur blurs blurringly across the blurred blur in a blur of blurring blurriness that blurred...

Hugoon Chavez posted:

I'm just about to buy Legends of Anglerre when I get my extra pay. I like 4th ed. but the sword & sorcery vibe from LoA really calls to me, no to mention FATE's inherent awesomeness. I've been toying around with the idea of running eberron using LoA, since it's such a cinematic setting, anyone thought about this?

Like Comment mentioned, I'm doing exactly this with my group and it works fantastically well. We ditched the unnecessarily cumbersome equipment rules in favor of Dresden Files-style "weapon rating, armor rating" equipment, and we're also using "check the box" stress instead of "fill in everything up to the amount of stress inflicted" to offset the lack of armor to offload consequences and such onto.

BTW, after saving the Pontiff of Thrane (again) from royalist insurrection, we're now *official* Heroes of Thrane. We got a stained-glass window and everything.
Thrane is now our vacation spot. We may be wanted criminals everywhere else, but in Paladinville, we're heroes!

Of course, we immediately hosed off to ~~France~~Aundair, to drop by a fancy party a couple of old friend of my character (invented on the spot) are throwing, to find some rich ~~French~~Aundairian rear end in a top hat with an airship we can steal (preferably, Orlando Bloom). Instead, we get hooked by a wizard princess (a wizard AND a princess: so she's a double douchebag!) into going to freaking Sarlona, of all places, to save her sister who got teleported there during a magic-university accident.

Speaking of which, my reward for saving the Pontiff of Thrane was a cool magic cloak. It has Craftsmanship(Athletics), Unique Ability(Flight), and some third thing which I haven't defined yet. Suggestions?

# ? Dec 19, 2011 15:54

Demon_Corsair: Mar 22, 2004; Goodbye stealing souls, hello stealing booty.

Awesome, glad this thread finally got off the ground. Now I just need to talk Evil Mastermind into running an irc game so I can actually play with someone.

I have a couple questions about how to handle some crunchy stuff that is generally abstracted by FATE.

What is the best way to handle weapons? One setting I am thinking about converting is wh40k and there is a ton of different gear for different purposes. Since I mostly care about the flavor and not really the different stats, I was thinking that if a character wanted a proper gun they could take it as an equipment gift, add a couple of aspects relative to the gun. And since in strange fate you can switch/modify your gifts fairly regularly, switching gear isn't a hassle.

The other thing is loot. My group cut its teeth on rifts and it is something that we would like to play again, just with a system that works. Our campaigns tended to involve a fair bit of mercenary work and killing poo poo to take their stuff. Is that something that is just handled by the players moving resources up in the pyramid to represent a big cash haul? I have also played around with the idea of replacing the social stress track with the wealth track from diaspora, as I think the composure track can adequately cover social combat and wealth based consequences would be fun in a group of greedy players.

# ? Dec 19, 2011 16:08

Benagain: Oct 10, 2007; THUNDERDOME LOSER

Okay, I've been trying to understand this system for a while and I don't know what the hell was stopping me because now I Get It. Thanks, now I need to immediately grab all of my friends and convince them to play.

# ? Dec 19, 2011 16:08

Hyperactive: Mar 10, 2004; RICHARDS!

Demon_Corsair posted:

Awesome, glad this thread finally got off the ground. Now I just need to talk Evil Mastermind into running an irc game so I can actually play with someone.

I have a couple questions about how to handle some crunchy stuff that is generally abstracted by FATE.

What is the best way to handle weapons?

The other thing is loot.

I think your instincts are on target for both of these. Dunno how much of Diaspora you've read, but character advancement is less about getting better at everything and more about shuffling around what you already have. One of the examples specifically talks about raising one's Resources skill at the expense of another skill to represent your increased focus on one part of your life over another.

Some players might feel like they're losing out on a big part of the appeal of RPGs, i.e. you never actually "level up", so be on the look out for that. Then again, you could probably follow an advancement philosophy from SotC or Dresden or something that actually adds to your characters' overall power. What's RIFTS without power creep?!

# ? Dec 19, 2011 16:24

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008; You pick up the nugget of URANIUM and...

Oh that was so stupid. Why would you do that?

Demon_Corsair posted:

Awesome, glad this thread finally got off the ground. Now I just need to talk Evil Mastermind into running an irc game so I can actually play with someone.

I've never even run an IRC game...

I'm like the Fate go-to guy now? When did that happen?

quote:

I have a couple questions about how to handle some crunchy stuff that is generally abstracted by FATE.

What is the best way to handle weapons? One setting I am thinking about converting is wh40k and there is a ton of different gear for different purposes. Since I mostly care about the flavor and not really the different stats, I was thinking that if a character wanted a proper gun they could take it as an equipment gift, add a couple of aspects relative to the gun. And since in strange fate you can switch/modify your gifts fairly regularly, switching gear isn't a hassle.

If you're talking Strange Fate, then yeah you just want the Equipment Gift. You get three "special effects" on the item every time you take it, so you should be able to customize guns well enough.

quote:

The other thing is loot. My group cut its teeth on rifts and it is something that we would like to play again, just with a system that works. Our campaigns tended to involve a fair bit of mercenary work and killing poo poo to take their stuff. Is that something that is just handled by the players moving resources up in the pyramid to represent a big cash haul? I have also played around with the idea of replacing the social stress track with the wealth track from diaspora, as I think the composure track can adequately cover social combat and wealth based consequences would be fun in a group of greedy players.

Resources is one of those weird situations where you're better off moving it out of the pyramid in games where getting and spending cash are a Big Deal. In most Fate games, actual "cash on hand" isn't important, and major aquisitions are handled through special items or Aspects.
Bulldogs had a nice system for Resources, where it was a kind of combination skill and stress track. Wealth as a straight stress track works too, since that means people can attack it.

# ? Dec 19, 2011 16:28

I Am The Scum: May 8, 2007; The devil made me do it