Hot answers tagged fate
64
Buy some. The best "replacement" for not having Fudge dice is to buy some! Grey Ghost Press (maker of Fudge) sells a tube of four Fudge dice for about 5 bucks, or a bag of twenty Fudge dice for about 15 bucks, but a lot of places are sold out. However, Indie Press Revolution just started carrying Fudge Dice (four or twenty) to support the FATE-based games ...
32
Yes.
The books never explicitly say that the GM should or must tell the players the difficulty, but that's because it takes it for granted. (It really should say, because – as you point out – keeping players in the dark is just so normal for so many GMs.)
There is circumstantial evidence in the text that the GM is supposed to set difficulties "in the ...
25
See DFRPG:
p.200 for Attacks
p.207 for Maneuvers
Whenever you attack someone, you choose the appropriate Skill to roll - Fists for punches, Weapons for knives/swords, Guns for guns, etc.. Roll 4dF (the 4 Fudge dice) and add the result of the roll, which will be between -4 and +4 to the Skill you chose.
The defender gets to make a defense roll with an ...
22
Write out a starter set of "power cards" on index cards, formatted somewhat like the D&D 4e power cards for familiarity. They can have some normal FATE combat options, and also some tailored to her Aspects - you can make these up yourself, or based on things you've heard her say she'd think her character could do.
After each combat, tell he she ...
21
To me it sounds like your player is a mix of being impulsive and a newbie to roleplaying. The newbie elements (needing stuff explicitly explained and such) should work themselves out with time. The impulsiveness usually needs a little bit of work.
Here's what I did once to rebuff the impulsive players in my campaign:
Set up a wonderful campaign arc that ...
18
First off, DFRPG is full of "the group should agree" (YS92), "keep in mind the intended play style" (YS31), "make sure your players are okay this" (YS338), "make sure you're on the same page as your players" (341), and "when in doubt, talk it through with your group" (YS99).
In many places throughout this book, the phrase “the GM decides” is often used ...
17
OGL for d20 Only?
The OGL, or Open Game License, was originated by Wizards of the Coast in the year 2000 to use for the D&D rules. But since then, other people have used the same license to openly license other systems. It's like the MIT or Apache or GPL software licenses; anyone can use them, they are not "owned" by the parent company in any ...
17
Ask her for her character's intentions.
Then guide her through the game system towards the result she strives for.
The FATE system is quite different than many other RPG engines, and the great amount of creative licence granted to players can be overwhelming for newcomers used to other game systems. Some hand holding may be necessary until they get used to ...
17
I was in exactly the same boat as you a year ago: introduced to Fate with Diaspora, loved it, and then wanted to capture than in a fantasy setting. This is where I went with it:
Dresden Files RPG has a comprehensive, flavourful, flexible, and very Fate-like magic system that easily translates to a fantasy setting. For an incredibly-good explanation of its ...
16
I would say this is bad practice. You've just had the players roll alertness when they should be rolling empathy. Say one of your characters has Empathy as a Superb skill. They get a huge bonus on the roll. Say they also have only an Average Alertness. You've just denied them a +4 on that roll and they don't even know it! (If they find out they will be ...
16
It helps to first tell them that in a FATE game, the players are not their characters. Players are not much different than the GM in what they do, only that they usually have a limited jurisdiction (their character) and limited resources (their FATE points). Everybody at the table has control over how the story unfolds regarding their jurisdiction, and can ...
16
The specifics are going to depend on your implementation of Fate, but in Standard Fate (and Fate Core), when you Create an Advantage (or create a temporary aspect), you get a free invocation. I'm going to quote the rule from Fate Core:
Free invocations work like normal ones except in two ways: no fate
points are exchanged, and you can stack them with ...
15
There are at least 4 ways to use FATE aspects:
Tag opponent for bonus to self - you pay 1 Fate
get tagged by opponent for penalty to self - You get 1 fate
get compelled by opponent to force a move or prevent a move or attack- you get 1 fate if you accept, pay 1 if not
get tagged by opponent to who narrates the outcome - You get 1 fate if you accept.
To ...
15
FATE doesn't go for fiddly bits
FATE, as I'm sure you've noticed, has narrative expendiency as its core philosopy. One result of this is that mechanics are pretty simple and don't have a lot of exceptions or fiddly bits hanging off.
So when the book describes one Court as stronger than another, that's primarily a narrative distinction, not something that ...
15
Yes, why not!
All Fate games are storytelling games, so all that you can or cannot do depends on whether you can form a coherent story around it that is consistent with what has come before. If you can form a plausible story around shaming a hitman enough to stop trying to kill you, I'd say you can do it.
The hard part is getting there in the first place.
...
15
1) FATE is built on top of the old FUDGE system, which still shows in the die mechanisms. FATE 2.0 was close to those origins and therefore acknowledges them. (FATE 1.0 was never a full published game, just an early internal set of designs.)
2) Spirit of the Century was originally a standalone game set in a pulp-like world. This was the development of ...
14
Fate points represent your ability as a player to manipulate the fate of the story. Aspects on your character(or elsewhere) just provide the pretext.
In FATE games, you do not simulate a world. You simulate a story and your skills represent what kinds of stories your character usually gets involved in. With fate points, you as the player get the power to ...
14
Stress tracks in FATE work as a pacing mechanism. It's not meant to simulate the physiological reaction of a body to punishment; it's there to provide a means of determining whether a character is out of the fight or not and reproduce a narrative aesthetic. Hit points historically have worked this way; the description of what a "hit point" is has often ...
14
A lot depends on the implementation of Fate/the type of aspect it is, and the story that is being told in the creation of the character.
Type of Aspect
In some uses of Fate, all aspects are the same- no aspect is more important to the creation of the character than the other. In others, there is a High Concept or some aspect that to a large extent defines ...
13
Professional Look
For the layout, learn and use a page layout program. Word is NOT a page layout program; it's a word processor with delusions of page layout capability. Word is excellent for doing the original files, tho'; generate the RTF files using the styles system in word or another styles-using wordprocessor (I use Pages; I used to use Appleworks and ...
13
Aspects become unimportant only when the players have no fate points to tag them.
In the question's example of the columns, the first guy gets the free tag, and anyone else who cares to spend fate upon tagging them gets the bonus, but they don't tag them unless and until it matters… when they've failed to dodge and want to up their dodge roll by 2.
Never ...
13
Was reading through and found this blurb on YS 106:
The procedure to invoke an aspect that isn't on your character is
precisely the same as a regular invocation: just declare how that
aspect is relevant, spend a fate point, and take a +2 or a reroll. The
only thing to keep in mind is that, if you're invoking an aspect on
another PC or on a NPC ...
13
Yes, that is exactly the risk a character runs when they run out of fate points. Fate points represent a character's ability to modify... fate, or their free will. IF they don't have any fate points then they are locked into doing what their core character would do. This is the same as being an npc with 0 or less refresh, you are bound by your nature.
It ...
13
Attacking a character with high Athletics (or anything else) is pretty simple, as long as you don't simply try to beat it head-on. Simply put: use maneuvers that aren't opposed by Athletics. (Or, ideally, at all.) FATE is highly flexible, and gives you lots of room to work.
Leverage your skills.
There are lots of ways to turn scores in other skills ...
13
To answer the question, let's connect the dots in the rulebook.
On YS203 the following quote is found:
Stress is a transitory thing, but sometimes conflicts will have
lasting effects on a character— serious injuries, embarrassments,
phobias, and the like. These effects are collectively called
consequences, and they are a special kind of aspect.
...
13
Yes.
The narration of what happens on being taken-out is the realm of the player whose character did the action resulting in being taken out. They are subject to revision by the player of the character being taken-out.
Dresden Files: Your Story, p. 204 (sidebar):
Dictating Outcomes
While the player of the attacker that takes
out an opponent ...
13
The answer is going to depend on what role the poison is serving.
Wraith808's answer using the Venomous feature and tazers will work if it's a feature of the opponents and not expected to last a long time.
If it's part of a conflict with a poisoner, you can give the loser the aspect "Unknowingly poisoned with x venom" as a concession or loss. As an aside, ...
13
“Empty your cup so that it may be filled; become devoid to gain totality.” - Bruce Lee
New players to FATE won't necessarily have much trouble learning what the stress track is about. The issue here is that your players already understand one way of doing things, and are apparently trying to understand the stress track concept in terms of ...
12
Dresden Files does not limit the fate points you can spend in a single roll. As long as you have justifiable aspects and enough fate points, you can go for it.
That being said, Diaspora, another good FATE implementation, does limit you to using one aspect from each scope, the scope being the source of the aspect, like your character, opponent, scene, ...
12
Yes. When in doubt in a Fate-based game about how much mechanical information you should give out, err on the side of transparency. As you say, given the ability to spend Fate points, players really need that information to exercise the narrative power that the system grants them.
That doesn't mean give away secrets, of course. The key of the rule of thumb ...
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