Do you like or dislike the fate system and why?

[solbergb]

One thing I like about most FATE-versions are that the characters already have a connection to each other, but that also makes it difficult to introduce new characters.

/Ulfgeir

Huh.  I find this the opposite.   The new character has 5-7 aspects per existing PC to try to tie into, plus whatever aspects any NPCs especially close to the PCs might have.    Just to pick on Harry's world for a minute, lets say somebody wants to join in about the 5th book.

You've got Michael Carpenter (Harry's had two of their kids and the wife introduced as characters, one a PC-level one)

Through Michael you've got the Catholic Church (Nickleheads, Knights of the Cross, Fordhill...any new person of faith could join here)

You've got Murphy - anyone supernatural associated with the CPD might join SI and get involved that way (this is how Butters got into the game, Murphy introduced him)

You've got the Alphas or their teacher (another wild critter might get sent to Chicago to learn of human ways, as the teacher did, maybe rooming with the Alphas for basic orientation, this could have been the way a Forest Person Scion PC might have ended up in Chicago perhaps, before Harry started the Bigfoot side jobs)

You've got Susan - which brings in other Red Court infected as she's got reasons to stay away, but maybe someone else wants to help Harry or get favors from him, or a new mortal reporter (like the one at Splattercon!!!)

You've got Marcone - so any kind of supernatural criminal or security expert might join the campaign from that end

You've got Thomas  - somebody white court connected to keep an eye on him

etc etc.  And we haven't even gotten to Harry's aspects - a Fey from Winter Court to badger him about joining Mab, a Pixie PC from the Za Lord's Guard, that little girl he rescued in the first adventure, grown up and starting to come into magic or with an item of power that the Ring of Love turned into, a new Warden to keep an eye on him after Morgan's prejudice became known to Anastasia, etc)

You only need one aspect-based hook, really.  It's actually easier than joining a super-hero team or D&D adventurers.  "We need a new wizard.  The new PC wizard wanders by. You look trustworthy, want to join us?"    (One thing I like about Pathfinder Society adventures is every PC is a member, and it gives them a reason to work together, even if they don't get along or have anything else in common.  Aspects often work the same way)

[Taran]

"We need a new wizard.  The new PC wizard wanders by. You look trustworthy, want to join us?"

I notice your group has no wizard!

[Ulfgeir]

Huh.  I find this the opposite.   The new character has 5-7 aspects per existing PC to try to tie into, plus whatever aspects any NPCs especially close to the PCs might have.    Just to pick on Harry's world for a minute, lets say somebody wants to join in about the 5th book.

I see what you mean there, but I was thinking more in the line of how the group knew each other due to starring in each others first adventures.

/Ulfgeir

[firegazer]

To the OP: this is pretty on-topic for me right now. I just ran a giant DFRPG LARP at GenCon, and it was possibly the most successful game I've ever had, for a lot of reasons. Some of them have to do with the quality of players we had, but I suspect that a huge part of the success had to do with the system itself.

After running White Wolf LARPs (and tabletops) for years, the below were problems that constantly cropped up for me as a GM:

• Unbalanced attention to certain players: Everyone knows the stereotype (or at least, they'll now know the stereotype) that players are mostly interested in backstabbing each other physically and politically in Vampire: The Masquerade. Some will argue that players should know this will be the case walking into the game; that they shouldn't get huffy when their guy dies, because that's just how it works. But in practical reality, certain players are just better at backstabbing their buddies, and this eventually leads to a game where certain players constantly get the short end of the stick and are told to 'suck it up.' Even in a best-case scenario V:tM LARP, I almost always had some players walk away from the experience feeling angry, hurt, and ultimately overlooked.
• No incentive to roleplay: In D&D and, to a lesser extent, in White Wolf games, there is literally no benefit to playing out your character's flaws on a session-by-session basis. As such, it's arguable that whatever excruciatingly-detailed background you draw up for your character will actually be a mechanical drawback for you; the more you roleplay your flaws, the more NPCs and other PCs take advantage of them, and you get nothing in return. After a time, this lack of reward (and actual punishment) for playing your character as-written tends to push large groups ever-so-slowly into the mindset of avoiding real roleplay if it disadvantages them.
• No meta-game release valves: This is a complicated one, but bear with me. In a game like D&D or V:tM, you're generally encouraged not to metagame under any circumstances whatsoever. This leads to lack of communication and lots of player upsets that could easily be avoided. Your player characters might die without warning, when the entire group might have told you they prefer more choice in the matter. These player character deaths result in a few big problems: interesting storylines get cut short, the GM has to flail around a bit to figure out how to continue them or make them suddenly unnecessary, and sometimes the GM ends up designing the game such that no player character actually matters to the plot that much, so that if they die, the plot isn't lost. This leads to a story where your players feel less invested because they KNOW that their PC could be replaced with another PC, and the game would simply keep rolling along without incident. Another time that officially-sanctioned metagaming is useful is when two player characters get into a disagreement in-game; when the two players are encouraged to compromise with one another, the game runs more smoothly. V:tM doesn't have that, and neither does D&D. It's a player-eat-player world.

These are actually the biggest issues I've had in more than a decade of running LARPs. FATE solved all of them, with plenty of style to boot.

• Unbalanced attention to certain players: FATE is a collaborative game. Everyone contributes to the story, and there are metarules in place to make sure that major betrayals and PC death only happen when everyone is on-board and fully-informed about how it's going to go down. We've written hostile conflict into our characters in FATE, and it's actually been ENJOYABLE for once, instead of leading to inevitable player misery. Players also tend to each get their own moment in the limelight when we run FATE, though I couldn't tell you exactly which rule in the system contributes to this. It may just be a result of the holistic whole of the game system.
• No incentive to roleplay: In FATE, playing out a character flaw gets you a cookie. I mean a Fate Point. The basic fact of the matter is that we get WAY juicier conflict and complication out of FATE than we ever did out of White Wolf. In White Wolf, people cautiously weigh the advantages and disadvantages of every action, regardless of whether their character would actually do it or not. In FATE, our players throw caution to the wind for a Fate Point, and cheer each other on when they make huge errors in judgment based on their Aspects. Players don't get angry at each other for roleplaying their flaws; they say 'ah, I see, you needed another Fate Point. I will respond by doing something dumb based on one of MY Aspects, and make the situation even more tense. Let us enjoy this character stupidity to the fullest! Fate Points for all involved!'
• No meta-game release valves: Players negotiate out-of-character in FATE. In our most recent LARP, we wrote in an undercover FBI agent who had signed on with the Italian mob and discovered the supernatural through interaction with them. On night two, he was outed to his fellow mafia boys as an undercover FBI agent. In-character, the mob boss threatened to kill the agent if he ever showed his face again. Out-of-character, the two players negotiated how to reconcile their characters in an interesting way. 'I'll give you a Fate Point and tag your Aspect 'Loyal to the Family' if you accept my character's offer of continued help' said the player playing the FBI agent. 'I'll show up at the restaurant, knowing full well that you've already threatened to kill me, and remind you that we have a huge common enemy right now that both of us want taken care of. The Family will benefit if you trust me on this one.' The person playing the mob boss accepted the Fate Point, and the scene they role-played out afterward was pretty awesome. The ability to give each other Fate Points to resolve situations is not to be underestimated-- it mollifies players to know that they will get something concrete when they agree to help keep the story fun for everyone, and this idea that they should all work together to help each other have fun can become a pervasive, positive attitude throughout the rest of your game.

So, to be short: I've run a LOT of gaming systems over the course of my lifetime. FATE has beaten them all out, hands-down, for making things fun, equal, and positive for every player at the table.

[MijRai]

I'm personally not a fan of the FATE system, although it is the system that got me into RPGs (huzzah Dresden Files!).  While it'll always have some loyalty from me (until I finally knuckle-down and figure out a Dresden Files magic system for Storyteller or a homebrew system my friends and I use), it doesn't match what I want out of a game. 

First, I don't like the simplicity of the mechanics.  To some extent I have the same issue with D&D; I personally prefer an Attribute+Skill system, as it seems more...  Accurate, I guess?  Your Endurance should be a mixture of your natural stamina and your training, your strength should have an impact on how much damage you do, etc.  Not in the 'I invoke one of my Aspects for this benefit right now' sense, but the overall sense. 

Second, I don't like how the stats and dice make some wonky probabilities.  The books suggest that the difference between a +4 and a +5 would be minimal; it doesn't work out that way when the dice start rolling.  Having a 1-3 die difference in another system isn't near as much of a be-all-end-all like a single level of difference in a skill can be in FATE.

Third, the system is too...  Nice, I suppose.  When certain things happen, certain events should occur, which FATE explicitly disagrees with.  A lot of people around here have seen the arguments regarding things like high-value Weapons; should someone hit with a missile die?  According to the system, not if the shooter doesn't want them to.  Take-Outs, buying out of things with Fate Points, etc. aren't my kind of game. 

Fourth, I'm not the biggest an of the abstractions used in the game as they stand.  Resources, feats of strength, Zones, weapon damage, etc.  It's all a bit too vague for me. 

Finally, there's a number of little quirks in there that aggravate me.  'How is Resources a skill?' is the big one that just tweaks a nerve whenever I look at making a character. 

Long-story-short, I enjoy a bit more crunch to my games.  Give me d10s or d6s, let me do a little math, etc. 

That said, I do enjoy some aspects of FATE.  Aspects are a big yes, even if I'm not the biggest fan of Fate Points.  They're great for character flavor.  The Power/Stunt system is a good implementation as well. 

As far as what you're saying, firegazer...  This is just my opinion, but I wouldn't call those systemic problems.  Those come across as people problems; some folks naturally hog attention, some folks see flaws as bad things, and some folks don't think figuring out how things will go down out-of-character is the right way to go. 
I've played White Wolf for years (Exalted in particular), mostly on chats.  Some people are indeed better at being jerks, and use that to take advantage of the people who aren't.  Others are more verbose, or can simply get what they're trying to do out better or faster than others.  In most games, somebody is going to get more attention than the others, because that person is able to acquire it somehow.  I've seen it happen in FATE as much as in other systems. 
Roleplay itself should be an (the?) incentive to roleplay, in my opinion.  Why play a roleplaying game, otherwise?  As far as Merits/Flaws go, it shouldn't just be doing it for the points and then never bringing it up again.  You got the points, it should be coming up, especially if you're using the positives you purchased.  In regards to getting your character taken advantage of due to how they're played; that's a part of the fun!  The barbarian getting suckered into a fight they shouldn't have picked, the thief taking the valuable shiny that probably should have been left where it'd been found, etc.  Out-of-character, you might go 'I know this is going to be bad', but rolling with it often makes for a better story.
Those release valves are just as possible in pretty much any system, although FATE does reward it with cookies.  I'm honestly not the biggest fan of it anymore; I've been in a number of games where an utterly incompetent and idiotic person joined up, and continued going on because people were meta-gaming away any conflict between players.  It wasn't something I could do anything about besides not play with the problem-players, which made it worse. 

[firegazer]

As far as what you're saying, firegazer...  This is just my opinion, but I wouldn't call those systemic problems.  Those come across as people problems; some folks naturally hog attention, some folks see flaws as bad things, and some folks don't think figuring out how things will go down out-of-character is the right way to go.

You could add a lot of the useful out-of-character resolution rules to any game you wanted-- but most of them don't inherently have those rules, and a lot of them explicitly argue that you should *punish* players who step out of line using in-character punishments, rather than just... you know, talking to them about it reasonably. This is one of the main reasons I've seen LARPs fall apart, among others.

From a purely experimental standpoint, I can tell you this: using the exact same set of GMs and the exact same set of players each year, I have had 'okay, I guess that was fun' White Wolf games and 'my god that was the best thing I've ever played' Dresden games. Heck, we even played the game in the exact same conference room at the exact same hotel at the exact same convention. The use of FATE is literally the only thing we changed in this equation, which is why I strongly suspect that it's the game system at work.

This year, we had a lot of potentially bad situations based on player personality which normally would have blown up and made for bad feelings in a White Wolf game. Because we were using partially out-of-character resolution, though, everyone had fun with the situation instead. This part, I can tell you with 100% certainty-- I saw the situation brewing, and I saw when it was naturally and handily disarmed by the FATE rules in play, without any intervention on my part. That was... very, very cool to watch.

[MijRai]

My point was more along the lines of 'you don't need those as rules in the system', provided you're working with a solid, mature player-base (that's a very big caveat, I know ).  Personally, I do advocate in-character punishments for in-character stupidity- if being reasonable doesn't work first.  My TT game has this kind of situation come up a few times; somebody decides to do something that isn't all that...  Wise.  We informally bring it up (without rules for it), point out the issues, and from there we've had it go two ways; either they agree after looking it over again (with other perspectives/character knowledge a player might not remember thrown in), or they still think their character would try that course of action and go through with it.  Both responses have added more fun to the game.  Though yes, it's not quite as useful in a 50+ person LARP setting (where you need a bit more structure for the disparate players). 

Basically, I think out-of-character conflict resolution should be an informal, not-enforced/rewarded-by-the-rules thing.  It's out-of-character.

Your LARP does sound quite awesome, by the way, and if I ever end up at GenCon I'll be sure to swing by for some shenanigans!  The simplicity of FATE does seem like it'd be better for LARPing than White Wolf or other systems (like Shadowrun *shudder*.  I love the game, but the rules are a little much for anything besides 4-7 people at a table and a couple charts). 

[firegazer]

My point was more along the lines of 'you don't need those as rules in the system', provided you're working with a solid, mature player-base (that's a very big caveat, I know ).

Yeah, when you're used to running large games, you start grasping for every little advantage the system can give you. Also, not being able to vet and choose your players has an effect on which way you go. We always have to plan for problem players that might walk into the game randomly with legitimate tickets in-hand. It takes an awful lot of bad behaviour to make it possible to kick those players out, and it always gets messy when it gets that far. I much prefer a system which naturally handles problem players and integrates them into the game in spite of a few asocial tendencies.

Basically, I think out-of-character conflict resolution should be an informal, not-enforced/rewarded-by-the-rules thing.  It's out-of-character.

Strangely, I find the carrot part of Fate Points to be super-helpful. It's not a huge benefit-- what's one Fate Point going to get you?-- but it seems to be just enough to make players role-play more. Even veteran role-players with a preference for solid story and characterization start getting reserved about role-playing in systems where it's continually mechanically punished. I even catch myself doing it at times, and I absolutely LOATHE min-maxing. I'm also tickled by the idea of making your Aspects based on both your best and worst attributes, all in one. It took a while to get the hang of it, but once we started phrasing Aspects properly, the Fate Point economy's give-and-take got super-interesting.

Edit: To clarify a bit, since I rambled off-point some: small carrots seem to be the nudge our players need to tend toward peaceful OOC resolution rather than salted-earth policy. The reward part also trains them, in a sense, to be more likely to handle OOC conflicts maturely in OTHER games, even though the carrot isn't there anymore. Pavlov has struck again.

Your LARP does sound quite awesome, by the way, and if I ever end up at GenCon I'll be sure to swing by for some shenanigans!  The simplicity of FATE does seem like it'd be better for LARPing than White Wolf or other systems (like Shadowrun *shudder*.  I love the game, but the rules are a little much for anything besides 4-7 people at a table and a couple charts).

I actually had to swear off running giant LARPs for a few years, starting the next one. I've got too much on my plate for the moment to handle it properly. But a bunch of my assistant Storytellers and players have banded together to continue the tradition. If you're interested in jumping in, I can give you the info on the group.

[Sanctaphrax]

...should someone hit with a missile die?  According to the system, not if the shooter doesn't want them to.

Not to be that guy, but it's not the shooter. It's the shooter's player. Also, if the shooter's player goes for a nonlethal take-out, the guy probably wasn't hit at all. That's true to life, in a strange way: plenty of people are nonlethally taken out with missiles in real life. They get stunned or terrified into submission when the blast lands nearby.

'How is Resources a skill?' is the big one that just tweaks a nerve whenever I look at making a character. 

Yeah, skills isn't quite the right name for skills. Not sure what else to name them though.

As far as what you're saying, firegazer...  This is just my opinion, but I wouldn't call those systemic problems.

If a problem appears in one system but not in another, it's a system problem. There are many systems where roleplaying your flaws is nearly synonymous with playing poorly.

[Haru]

'How is Resources a skill?' is the big one that just tweaks a nerve whenever I look at making a character.

Yeah, skills isn't quite the right name for skills. Not sure what else to name them though.

I like "Approaches", as they call the "skills" in Fate Accelerated. Especially the resources skill makes much more sense in that light. It's not about how much money you have, it's about how well you can influence a scene by the use of your resources. Having loads of money is one way, but being especially good at bartering or anything like that can work just as well to describe how you solve a problem by use of the resources skill.

[solbergb]

I do have to say that I think the Fate systems have some issues at pickup-games for convention-type settings, with pregens.

I was pretty turned off by a game I played where I ended up with a character mostly because the others at the table had stronger preferences, I couldn't get the aspects to do anything interesting (because they weren't mine, I didn't know how they should be invoked or compelled, and ran myself out of fate points quickly on not especially interesting invocations, while getting none back) and you know...a character whose main skills are social and piloting is going to have a problem in a scenario where there's pretty much nobody to talk to and everything after the first scene goes underground.

It was a fairly perfect storm of problems, and it didn't help that it was a late game session where the table was fairly cranky.   We took a break, I thought about things decided "screw it" and started just poking at the scenery to get something going.  It started working to get me more engaged, and then some stuff happened where my "fear of flying" consequence taken in the first scene could be turned around, and a critical point I found a way to use my high concept in a pretty cool way.   But....

Could have been completely miserable, instead of "kinda salvaged near the end" and mostly because I've been there, done that and decided I was part of the problem and shaped myself up halfway through the game.

When I ran a game, my players also struggled to use their aspects (and I'd not yet gotten better about putting good scene elements visible) as well, largely because *I* knew how to use them but *THEY* did not, and the aspects they were free to create were...I guess the word is shallow.  They didn't have time to really pick something that was "Fuego" in the DFRPG terms.

I've not had this problem at all in my new game I'm running on these boards.  I can leisurely look over character sheets to find the story behind each aspect, plus often hints about how the player expects compels and invocations to work, my NPCs have found both compels and invocations for their aspects naturally in play, etc.

Without the strong aspects, FAE and Fate Core just don't have a lot of crunch to them.  The skill+stunt system is a framework around which you use aspects, plus something to fall back on when conserving fate points or trying to build a stack of them.   DFRPG's a bit better in that respect, you can do quite a lot with supernatural powers and skills even if you never touch a fate point or a maneuver for advantage/declaration/etc, but without the compels and invocations, it's just another middle-of-the-road typical gaming engine - AND the abstractions get in the way of the crunch of what you can do without the aspect economy. 

This is why I'm sold on the "build the campaign and characters together" idea with Fate...doing it in a hurry or with a character handed to you that you don't understand....just doesn't work well.  It all goes two-dimensional and bland, at least for me, and while granted a small sample size, with others I've seen trying to play it in a con setting.  (FAE isn't really any better, if anything aspects are even more important there.  The primary benefit of FAE in a time-restricted setting is it takes less time to get used to the rest of the character, so you have more time to think about aspects)

Simulationist games also have a resource level.  It's fairly strong in d20 systems with magic, or in D&D4 with its limited-uses-per-xxx stuff.  Even an extremely "build-point" oriented game like Hero system has endurance, stun, body to provide a battery for the other powers and to determine when "taken out" is.  It's just that the resources are usually trumped by build+action economy.  (Most of the complaints about overpowered spellcasters in high level 3.x D&D is tied to the fact that their resources tend to trump dice, muck with action economy and render much of the build economy useless.  OTOH, people not especially good at the "build" game consider this a feature - a 12th level cleric is of some value even if the player makes bad choices at each level-up)

[g33k]

...
Yeah, skills isn't quite the right name for skills. Not sure what else to name them though.
...

Some of them clearly ARE "skills" (in the traditional-RPG sense of the word).
Others... erm, well, uh...  "Resources" is a classic example.

I think lumping things-that-are-not-the-same into the same level of game, same mechanical framework, character-building / character-advancing strategy, is one of the few things DFRPG (and Fate) got wrong.

[PirateJack]

The only thing I really dislike about FATE is the way fate points can be used post-roll to reach a target for the same amount as they could beforehand. I prefer the Savage Worlds approach which gives you the full effect of a Bennie (Fate Point) before the roll, but lessens their use afterwards. So you could get +2 on a roll if you spent one beforehand, but would only be able to +1 afterwards.

I prefer that kind of system because I like my fights to have a definite impact. As it is if you've got 2/3 fate points spare you can invalidate pretty much any decent attack or all but guarantee yourself a oneshot on a bad guy after knowing how close you were to killing him in the first place. I love the consequence system as it is, but I do dislike how easy it is to go from almost got him! to I'll just drop a fate point and finish this guy off.

[solbergb]

regarding skills - in Fate, skills are just a trapping for getting something done.  There is no difference mechanically between overcoming resistance of a witness to give information via bribing them, intimidating them, making friends with them or ripping it out of their mind with some kind of supernatural attack.  One gripe with magic in DFRPG is how it pretty much replaces every skill with Lore, Conviction and Discipline, but that's the setting.  Other Fate games tend to reduce magic or other super powers to a combination of aspects and a few relevant skills too, plus maybe some refresh spent for the extra trappings on those skills.

Resources indicates the "cash and equipment" way of doing things, that's all.  It has reasonably broad trappings but they're also fairly severely limited by the need for money or gear to be relevant.   It's a helper skill to skills like Shoot, Craft or Drive, which work with "stuff" just as Might is a helper skill to Fists or Weapons.

The original Fate game (Spirit of the Century) had guns, fists, weapons mechanically identical, because in the pulp genre, they pretty much were, except for range considerations (including "creasing the skull" to take out enemies with pistol or having no serious consequences to bonking people on the head with clubs as a tranquilizer).

DFRPG muddles that because in the Dresden setting, gear and powers MATTER.   Resources sort of matter for gear, but in the end you have what you need with a little play (Kincaid provides an excuse for Murphy to have limited-use amounts of military gear, Dresden has his clown car and an office even when too poor to really afford them, Charity makes Armor-2 vs nearly everything clothing for the entire cast once Michael's secret kevlar-in-chainmail is revealed and they've made friends with her, etc.  If you are built around Resources and Contacts (see Marcone) you are often more able to know stuff and exert force than even Dresden.

As for fate points....all "story" oriented games have some kind of mechanic like this, it's almost a marker of a "modern" game.  What is going on is adding a resource-management economy onto the usual action economy and build-point economy.

DFRPG has a fairly simple action economy - exchange+supplemental, or scenes.  There are some ways to juice it (minions, summons, traps like wards) but that's about it.  Fate core's even easier, exchanges are about it, but they have more scope for a strong defense to put aspects on the scene.

DFRPG and fate has a rudimentary build-point economy.  It is there to provide a way of stating "this is how my character does things when I'm not burning resources".  That's your skills, stunts and in DFRPG, supernatural powers.  If you want to accumulate resources you lean on these, but you accept that you are going to fail from compels as a way of getting fate points from time to time.

The fate economy is SUPPOSED to trump the build-point economy.  That is in fact the marker of a story game.  You express the importance of your actions to the story by spending the hoarded resource, indicating that the player considers it important for an action to succeed...spending resources gained by either numerous prior failures or by a deliberate decision to have fewer build points than others at your table (refresh).   As I've mentioned before, Nobilis has an even stronger resource-economy, and Feng Shui, a fairly early story-oriented game, had a weaker form (it only affected die rolls and weakened as you used it) but it had an entire archetype oriented around this idea, the Everyman Hero's (he had a lot of it, and it didn't weaken with use until he ran out...this is your Jack Murphy kind of hero, with a terrible "build" compared to a lot of the other characters and was humiliated a lot but had the ability to throw Karma around like water when it mattered, to be the tipping point in the story.)

[solbergb]

I prefer that kind of system because I like my fights to have a definite impact. As it is if you've got 2/3 fate points spare you can invalidate pretty much any decent attack or all but guarantee yourself a oneshot on a bad guy after knowing how close you were to killing him in the first place. I love the consequence system as it is, but I do dislike how easy it is to go from almost got him! to I'll just drop a fate point and finish this guy off.

1.  What you describe works pretty well to invalidate attacks, but only takes out the other guy if he's a mook.  Spending fate to inflict a mild consequence instead of stress isn't usually that effective a use of an action+fate point, unless the invoke on that consequence tips things better than making use of other aspects on the scene.   PC-level opposition is INCREDIBLY tough, if they use all of their consequences, you need an outcome in the mid-20s to take them out, and if they have fate points, that goes higher.

2.  Therefore if you're spending fate points that way, it must be more important than it seems.  In my relatively limited play with fate, I've seen it done to avoid high-stress attacks (yes, that's how Murphy can survive fights with things that can throw cars, it isn't just Fists) sure, but it's more commonly used to make sure some kind of aspect lands on the scene so an action isn't wasted.  Only if taking out a mook is unusually important is a fate point going to be used for that purpose and in that case...do you really want a character with the competence levels of most Fate characters screwing up something like silencing the lookout WITHOUT an aspect-based compel involved?

In a simulationist game, of course.  That "d20" or percentile die looms large compared to your skills at most levels of competence so the chance of failure is always something you build into a plan.  In a story game, rolling poorly means burning a resource to get the desired outcome, or you attempt it deliberately finding it more entertaining to have the guard shout an alarm, and you get a fate point for whatever aspect (either on yourself or on the scene) explains how your uber-mercenary-dude failed at so elementary a task.