Do you like or dislike the fate system and why?

[firegazer]

Huh, I didn't get notified on this topic. It's certainly kept going, hasn't it?

We've run a number of pre-gen one-shots at GenCon-- both tabletop and LARP-- and the important part of writing up pre-gen characters is providing a short paragraph of explanation to go along with each Aspect. The DFRPG sheet has a place specifically for that paragraph-- the sheet should not be considered complete if you haven't filled it out, especially since FATE sheets are so short and simple in the first place.

Furthermore, if you're running a pre-gen one-shot in FATE, WHY IN GOD'S NAME would you not tailor it so that every pre-made PC has a useful skill for the one-shot when you had full control over both your player characters AND your one-shot ahead of time. That's just. I don't even. It's like writing up a group of all rogues for a D&D game and throwing them against all undead or oozes who are immune to sneak attacks.

[solbergb]

They used Spirit of the Century iconics.  I guess they just assumed anyone who signed up was familiar with them and wanted to play one.

I probably could have figured out more to do if that flyboy was my character.  By the last half hour I'd kind of gotten a handle on him, even invoked the high concept at a critical point.  But yeah.   The Codex Alera game I ran had pregens all suited to the situation but I did not really have the hang of aspects yet, so no, I didn't fill in all the invoke/compel details I had in mind, and my players had only one real Fate veteran, the rest were fans of the books but had varying degrees of RPG backgrounds.

So it is entirely possible my attitudes towared convention runs are based on a small sample size of not very well thought out pregens

[firegazer]

I will agree with one of the further up posters-- DFRPG specifically has some rough edges due to the sheer power of magic and the use of weapons and armour. Our games have generally run pretty brilliantly in spite of those edges, but I'm still looking forward to seeing if Dresden Lives! smooths some of them out.

[potestas]

I will agree with one of the further up posters-- DFRPG specifically has some rough edges due to the sheer power of magic and the use of weapons and armour. Our games have generally run pretty brilliantly in spite of those edges, but I'm still looking forward to seeing if Dresden Lives! smooths some of them out.

I dont think its strong enough ingame, the books feature wizards and magic ascentral themes. The game attempts to recreate the books, magic and wizards should be an overpowering presence. I dont understand such comments in relation to that fact. If  you play this game you should expect powerful magic why play otherwise.

[firegazer]

I dont think its strong enough ingame, the books feature wizards and magic ascentral themes. The game attempts to recreate the books, magic and wizards should be an overpowering presence. I dont understand such comments in relation to that fact. If  you play this game you should expect powerful magic why play otherwise.

Because when every player character plays a Wizard, long-term games get boring. Because if Wizards are so awesome, you will always have people arguing over who gets to be 'the group Wizard' (and this does happen). Most of the other templates tend to balance out when we play, but I've found that as soon as you give a character either Evocation, Thaumaturgy, or both, they tend to really bulldoze through things compared to the other players, and that tends to disgruntle the people left in their dust.

A good way to balance magic would be to make it cost more than it does right now, honestly. Because as expensive as it is Refresh-wise, it's still incredibly powerful. That would leave magic just as powerful, but would make it appropriately expensive for that power. Another way to tone it down would be to remove the free specializations and focus item slots that come with those abilities and make people pay for them separately.

[potestas]

Because when every player character plays a Wizard, long-term games get boring. Because if Wizards are so awesome, you will always have people arguing over who gets to be 'the group Wizard' (and this does happen). Most of the other templates tend to balance out when we play, but I've found that as soon as you give a character either Evocation, Thaumaturgy, or both, they tend to really bulldoze through things compared to the other players, and that tends to disgruntle the people left in their dust.

A good way to balance magic would be to make it cost more than it does right now, honestly. Because as expensive as it is Refresh-wise, it's still incredibly powerful. That would leave magic just as powerful, but would make it appropriately expensive for that power. Another way to tone it down would be to remove the free specializations and focus item slots that come with those abilities and make people pay for them separately.

Then you wouldn't be playing dresden files, you would be playing something else. Magic is that powerful, as JB describes it " as the fundamental forces of creation". I've always thought that the game severly understates the power of a wizard in the dresden files. If you uread the majority of my posts I whine about this constantly.  When I picked up my copy of dresden it was to play a wizard like dresden, not his brother the vampire or a plain jane mortal like murphy. Plenty of games out there that already "balance" magic against other things, i've never been one to think that magic should ever be balanced otherwise its not magic its something else.

You could have your players play sorcerers or some one trick pony like Bender. Make sure your games stay at the low end. But expect them to get trounced should they go up against a white council wizard or "gasp" a warden. In the magical community and beyond the WC is supposed to be that bad ass. You really aren't meant to be able to fight against a preped wizard and that prep incudes the use of magic items; that is part and parcel of the wizard template. Magic items are what allow the wizard to be ready for anything, they allow him to focus on offense and leave the defence to a sheild ring or a coat with defensive ruins.

another thing you might do is have the wizard research new spells instead of make them up on the fly. I think this better reflects what Dresden wizards do anyway. Dresden only seems to know a few spells and he consistantly mentions not knowing how something is done but if he spends the time working on it he could do it. Rote spells is where id start each wizard can start with a defined spell per point in lore, but to learn a new spell tie it to a story or a exp cost say 2-3 points of refresh per spell.The power of the spell will always be tied to conviction and bonuses but at least he cant create the well of death with any element until he figures out how to do it first with each element. And you havent really done anything to the dresden motif, in the dresden world the older wizards have all the power and it explains why they spend most of their time researching and not doing what dresden does. You could do a lot with this storywise and control the power of you wizards. Instead of always increasing refinement to make stronger and stronger wizards they could increase their versitility with new spells. Dresden packs a mean punch but basically its a force missle a fire missile or now an ice missle. If you go through the books he really doesn't do a lot of different things just a few that hit really hard. I really don't think hes a very good wizard.

 None of what i think matters its your game, but it is the Dresden universe and if i play in it I expect to be that badass out the box. It is a game about wizards and magic so magic and wizards are going to be front and center. Hope the idea helps

[firegazer]

Then you wouldn't be playing dresden files, you would be playing something else. Magic is that powerful, as JB describes it " as the fundamental forces of creation". I've always thought that the game severly understates the power of a wizard in the dresden files. If you uread the majority of my posts I whine about this constantly.  When I picked up my copy of dresden it was to play a wizard like dresden, not his brother the vampire or a plain jane mortal like murphy. Plenty of games out there that already "balance" magic against other things, i've never been one to think that magic should ever be balanced otherwise its not magic its something else.

You're absolutely entitled to want to play a Wizard character. I'm not arguing that at all. What I'm saying is that OUT-OF-CHARACTER, Wizards just dominate in a way that isn't fair to people who DON'T want to play a Wizard. I know plenty of players who find the idea of a Changeling compelling and interesting, and that's great. They should be able to play in a game with someone who wants to play a Wizard without feeling constantly overshadowed. The way that happens has nothing to do with which group is more powerful in the game world ON AVERAGE, because PCs are, by definition, not average instances of their template. They are almost always more clever, more powerful, or more resourceful than their average counterpart.

Thus, an example of a balanced group who can all get the right amount of attention without undoing power-levels: a Warden, the son of the White King, and a mortal cop with so many Fate Points that she can get a major creature of faerie to back down just by threatening him. The son of the White King is EXPECTED to be awfully powerful for the White Court vampire template-- he's PC-level in this case. The cop in question is just the most awesome cop ever written-- she's PC-level. They all get their moments in the series, and you could probably argue that they all have the same number of Refresh Points and Skill Points. This is how a balanced tabletop should run: out-of-character, everyone is balanced, while in-character, their average templates could vary significantly.

If magic is really that powerful, then it should cost more out-of-character points to choose it, so that other PCs can compensate accordingly. My argument is thus: I don't WANT to nerf magic. I just want to make it cost the right amount of points for how powerful it already is, so other PCs can use those points for other things, and play more awesome pinnacle-versions of their own template.

I hope that clarifies my position a bit more. It's a difficult topic to make clear sometimes.

You could have your players play sorcerers or some one trick pony like Bender. Make sure your games stay at the low end. But expect them to get trounced should they go up against a white council wizard or "gasp" a warden. In the magical community and beyond the WC is supposed to be that bad ass. You really aren't meant to be able to fight against a preped wizard and that prep incudes the use of magic items; that is part and parcel of the wizard template. Magic items are what allow the wizard to be ready for anything, they allow him to focus on offense and leave the defence to a sheild ring or a coat with defensive ruins.

I've actually experimented quite a bit with many of these ideas already in my games, but I don't enjoy telling my players things like 'you can't play a Wizard.' That, too, can feel unfair to players, especially when there are ways to help everyone have fun while still making character choices they enjoy.

TL;DR version: Out-of-character, one PC should be just as powerful as another PC, no matter what template they are playing. In-character, you can explain this away in whatever manner you must in order to make it work. Increasing the cost of Wizard abilities keeps them just as powerful in-character, but makes them more expensive out-of-character, thus resolving this situation perfectly.

[solbergb]

There is also an element of system mastery - wizards or even anyone with evocation, thaum or sponsored magic have a lot more choices than everybody else.  This can lead to paralysis in the hands of a player that doesn't know what to do with the choices, or it can lead to the "Doc Savage" syndrome, where one person is better at everything than his teammates, and only needs them because he can't be in two places at once.

The best limit on the latter problem is to just insist that players pick strong aspects that define their magic.   Most of what keeps Harry from dominating everything is Not So Subtle but still Quick to Anger.   He's an angry thug, and that tends to make him overlook most approaches with magic that don't involve bonking things on the head.  Where he does anything subtle, it ties into the Wizard PI high concept - tracking spells and such.   

With thematic magic it is easier in many ways, as the lower cost, no-refinement-except-with-items magic already draws boundaries around the awesome that other PCs can use to fit their concepts into and shine.  But even the full-on generalist still has seven aspects.  Magic is who you are, every aspect is going to draw lines around how you'll approach problems with magic and therefore should allow scope for other characters to shine.   Magic doesn't entirey solve problems.  It merely turns all skills into Lore, Discipline and Conviction if you've got the time and/or stress boxes to make it happen.  That's a pretty big deal, but the genre pretty much establishes this as how things work.

[Wordmaker]

For me the toughest part of Fate to get people's heads around has been that, unlike most games, Fate isn't about building powerful stats. It's about building a powerful story.

I love that Fate allows the freedom to play with things on a narrative level, and that's how I regard skills. To me, skills are not a reflection of a character's literal ability, but rather of how much of the story they can steer with that ability. This is why I'm perfectly happy with my players using Minor Milestones to swap investigation and combat skills around regularly. Early on, the story is about the characters figuring out what's going on, so they do better at finding clues but take some licks if they get jumped. Meanwhile, towards the end when they've figured out who the bad guy is, the story shifts to be about them kicking ass, and they change their skills around to suit.

I do find that magic is a real spanner in the works when it comes to presenting the group with a challenge. But there are a couple of solutions to this.

1: My favourite is conflict groups. It's an easily-overlooked section, but the rules state that you separate out characters into groups for a conflict, and that "typically" this is simply "players vs villains", but it can easily be more refined than this, with certain PCs fighting certain opponents. This is great for making sure that wizards don't dominate the whole conflict, and allowing all players a chance to shine.

2: Compels. Using magic in a city? Compel for car alarms to go off or street lights to explode, drawing attention or injuring people. A villain bursts a fire hydrant to put the aspect "doused in running water" on a wizard, and uses the free compel to stop the wizard using magic. There are all sorts of fun ways to challenge spellcasters.

That said, arguably the biggest badass in our group is the Pure Mortal. He's gone toe to toe with a Kemmlerian necromancer. And won. Twice.

[potestas]

For me the toughest part of Fate to get people's heads around has been that, unlike most games, Fate isn't about building powerful stats. It's about building a powerful story.

I love that Fate allows the freedom to play with things on a narrative level, and that's how I regard skills. To me, skills are not a reflection of a character's literal ability, but rather of how much of the story they can steer with that ability. This is why I'm perfectly happy with my players using Minor Milestones to swap investigation and combat skills around regularly. Early on, the story is about the characters figuring out what's going on, so they do better at finding clues but take some licks if they get jumped. Meanwhile, towards the end when they've figured out who the bad guy is, the story shifts to be about them kicking ass, and they change their skills around to suit.

I do find that magic is a real spanner in the works when it comes to presenting the group with a challenge. But there are a couple of solutions to this.

1: My favourite is conflict groups. It's an easily-overlooked section, but the rules state that you separate out characters into groups for a conflict, and that "typically" this is simply "players vs villains", but it can easily be more refined than this, with certain PCs fighting certain opponents. This is great for making sure that wizards don't dominate the whole conflict, and allowing all players a chance to shine.

2: Compels. Using magic in a city? Compel for car alarms to go off or street lights to explode, drawing attention or injuring people. A villain bursts a fire hydrant to put the aspect "doused in running water" on a wizard, and uses the free compel to stop the wizard using magic. There are all sorts of fun ways to challenge spellcasters.

That said, arguably the biggest badass in our group is the Pure Mortal. He's gone toe to toe with a Kemmlerian necromancer. And won. Twice.

thats been my most difficult thing too is getting passed the number crunching. I like to power game min max things to perfection its fun, not really needed at all here. Probably why I prefere die 20 or ars magica for my games with magic. Fate points area power all on their own level.

[solbergb]

The "min/max" in Fate is mostly choosing good aspects.

Good meaning "they steer the story to the kinds of conflicts, problems and awesomeness I want my character to be".

The skill/stunt framework in Fate Core is a skeleton, the aspects are are everything else.  You need the skeleton, to flag your routine competence and favored approaches to problems.

DFRPG actually blurs the lines a bit because the supernatural powers are so strong that they overwhelm the mechanical advantage of using fate points for +2 or rerolls.  They do not, however, provide a smidgeon of protection against compels, so you sometimes get situations where someone at Mab's level is discommoded by rolling a nail toward her.

[g33k]

... I've always thought that the game severly understates the power of a wizard in the dresden files ...

  Remember that Dresden *regularly* taps himself out, spends all he has.  Sure, he flipped a car onto Cowl, but then he... uh... well, didn't have enough to keep going.  It's that mortal-energy-limitation -- from the books -- that limits the power of wizards.

[Tirs]

Like: It's simple, flexible and narrative.
Dislike: Too primitive, sometimes awkward, undetailed.
As for me, the best system for urban-fantasy - Storytelling System versiin 2.0 (new World of Darkness Blood-and-Smoke).

[geomarshal]

I've actually been toying with the idea of using aspects in D&D.

Most modifiers give a +2/-2. 

Myself and other people who've DM'd have used various Role playing points/Luck Points etc.. to let players save up to buy extra feats or buy skill points.

I think adding the aspect system would enrich the game.

An interesting facet of 5th edition D&D is inspiration.  Characters have two personality traits, one ideal, one bond, and one flaw.  If you play out your personality traits, the DM award you with an inspiration point.  This can be spent to roll and extra D20 on a roll and then take the highest.  It has a low level fate point/aspects vibe.  They even give advice that sounds like it came straight from FATE.  An example is not to use the trait "I am smart" but rather "I've read every book in Candlekeep" becuase the latter says more about you.

I am getting ready to run a 5th edition campaign and am considering adding a more robust system that includes Declarations and such.

[Taran]

I thought about declarations but skills can get pretty high at higher levels making some declarations auto-success...but if you set dc's too high, then low level characters can't add to scenes, which is boring.  I'm not sure the best way to incorporate them.

although, When players tend to ask, "Is there any 'X' the room?" , I don't decide in my head 'yes or no there is(n't)' and then have them roll to notice it.  I just set a dc and have them roll.  If they succeed, it's there.  In a sense, that's what a declaration is.