23
votes
Accepted
Fate conflicts are taking too long due to players stacking advantages
Advantages shouldn't just be mechanical gatherings of numbers, they should meaningfully advance the story.
Aspects, created by that move, are always true. which means they have narrative weight in the ...
- 19.2k
15
votes
Accepted
Can you concede to a wild animal?
Only if the wild animal is playing Fate with you.
(Please don't play RPGs with wild animals.)
Concession, as a mechanic, specifically faces outward to the real people playing. It's explicitly about ...
- 42.2k
13
votes
Accepted
Can't I just attack the unarmored mice?
Once you're in a conflict, it's your GM team (or teams) in conflict with the Players' team (or teams). Both the GM and Players' teams are privately choosing the three actions they want to perform in ...
- 37.9k
11
votes
When is it hammer time?
Weapons exist at a mechanical level separate from both fists and guns.
In the "Belongings" step of character creation, p.27, one of the things given is "a big knife 1d8". (Specifically, it's a "holy ...
- 42.2k
11
votes
Fate conflicts are taking too long due to players stacking advantages
As a Fate GM, you shouldn't be nickel-and-diming Advantages in conflicts.
There are actually three separate vectors here that have all plotted a collision course with your game to make it less ...
- 42.2k
9
votes
Can't I just attack the unarmored mice?
It's an abstraction.
Asking "Why can't I just attack the unarmored mice?" is no more or less valid a question than "Why can't the unarmored mice just hide behind their armored friends so they don't ...
- 3,382
9
votes
How to Keep Stakes Non-Maximal?
Characters don't concede or accept concessions. Only players do that.
Concession, as a mechanic, specifically faces outward to the real people playing. It's explicitly about the parsing of narrative ...
- 42.2k
8
votes
Accepted
Running away from a conflict
When the hurting stops, the conflict stops.
Sounds like starting a chase contest to me! This is a completely fine thing to do if you don't have to have total narrative control of your opponents to get ...
- 42.2k
6
votes
Accepted
What does a more Careful player going first in a mental Conflict represent narratively?
The "danger" is the ensuing conflict where one or more opponents are going to try and take you out. For mental conflicts, using Careful to determine turn order rewards those who pay attention to what ...
- 1,176
5
votes
Accepted
How can I make battles to the death less random?
Sure, the GM can have a goal like Kill the Mice. That's part of the conversation between the GM and players when setting Conflict Goals at the start of the conflict. The players have to agree to the ...
- 37.9k
5
votes
Running away from a conflict
Technically, this is conceding the conflict. If the opposition (the GM) accepts it, then the conflict ends on the player's terms. If they (you?) don't accept, then the conflict continues. Now the PC ...
- 17.5k
5
votes
How to Keep Stakes Non-Maximal?
There's some good insights in the answers to this question that address the ways concession interacts with maximal stakes. In the case of that question, it was character death, but the examples can be ...
- 56k
4
votes
Can you concede to a wild animal?
Yes, in general
You can totally concede to a wild animal or group of wild animals. You could also concede to a force of nature, like a storm or wildfire or something, or anything else that is being ...
- 67.9k
4
votes
How Exactly Do Concessions Differ Between the Editions?
A Brief History of Surrender
Good news! For a limited value of "good". The history isn't that complicated because, as far as I can tell, in Fate 2.0 the idea of conceding a fight to go out on your ...
- 42.2k
4
votes
Accepted
How do you handle changing the nature of conflict?
Your second example is a transition from a Conflict (the fight) to a Contest (the chase).
Transitioning to a Contest or Challenge — Fate Core, page 173
You may find yourself in a conflict ...
- 37.9k
4
votes
If you lose both Conflicts, does your Protagonist get two new Features?
The Antag winning does not mean the Protag loses.
Remember the rules of Intent (p.32): the Intents of the players may not be mutually exclusive, and for you dad-jokers in the audience, read that "may ...
- 42.2k
4
votes
Accepted
Damage from a Like who I don't like
The extra damage is exactly from betrayal. The damage goes to the one betrayed.
The rule specifies:
If you take Cool damage from one of your Likes or from a fellow Sleuth, that's another +1. If ...
- 33.4k
3
votes
How to roleplay maneuver in a journey conflict as the GM/season/environment
You've actually misread the result matrix for maneuver here. Maneuver forces versus tests against both attacks and defenses, and has full independent effects against feints or other maneuvers.
I'd ...
- 42.2k
3
votes
How to roleplay maneuver in a journey conflict as the GM/season/environment
This is a good question. The simplest way is to treat the journey as a roll against the season (modified for whatever factors like rain or wind or deep forest) that you choose. But you can certainly ...
- 111
3
votes
When is it hammer time?
Hand-to-hand is the appropriate stage because you're fighting and not using guns. Hand-to-hand means “in close range” not “using only hands”.
- 37.9k
3
votes
Does a “Let us discuss this further” house rule to break “But only if” chains break anything else?
I don't think it breaks anything; fundamentally, your house rule is an alternative acceptance phrase which breaks down the only-if chain into sub-narration.
One of the key things about Polaris that ...
- 745
2
votes
Can Dogs in the Vineyard handle multiple healers?
Given the state of medicine at the time it's hard to imagine productively involving several disparate people in medical treatment. Even with a modern surgical team it's largely support personnel to ...
- 42.2k
2
votes
When is it hammer time?
First of all, those are "arenas" of conflict. Not "stages". Escalation does not have to be in that order. You could (de)escalate a fistfight into a shouting match if you can find a good vector.
...
- 17.5k
2
votes
Accepted
Does the penalty for engaging multiple opponents apply to all of them, or just the extra ones?
HeroQuest Glorantha p.86 example shows that the -3 penalty is applied to the subsequent rolls in the same round cumulative.
Example:
...
- 156
1
vote
Accepted
Can you allocate more than 10 dice to an action/defense for 'free' Nudges?
No
When you form your Action dice, it is unbounded. However, the Take the Declared Action option for Step 2: Resolving Actions (MAG p 179-180) does not make any allowance for creating a particularly ...
- 44.7k
1
vote
How Exactly Do Concessions Differ Between the Editions?
Conceeding fights is part of the new Fate rebuild, introduced in Spirit of the Century.
The FATE system runs primarily at a character-focused rather than narrative-focused level, and so neither needs ...
- 67.9k
1
vote
How do you handle changing the nature of conflict?
Depending on context, both of these might also be a Concession on your part.
A Concession must have the narrative consequence "you avoid the worst fate, but the other party gets what it wants and ...
- 12.3k
1
vote
How do you handle changing the nature of conflict?
The stakes of a Conflict aren't really determined until someone concedes or is taken out. This means that the nature of a conflict can change, story-wise, without there being any need to change ...
- 2,822
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