What is the good the bad and the worst thing about FATE Core? bonus for Fate accelerated too

In addition to these, Fate Core and Accelerated have a few other breaking points.

Firstly, there is the sheer gameability of the "create an advantage" action, which lets you set yourself up for a "success with style" spiral and virtually never fail.

For a system that tries to encourage players to roleplay their characters' weaknesses and tackle challenges in an action-packed and pulpy fashion, the mechanics of the system strongly reward playing it safe and cautiously building up advantages in order to blow away scenes with thick stacks of free invocations, making compels virtually unnecessary.

Fate designer Ryan Macklin suggests splitting apart "create an advantage" into "create an advantage" and "discover," effectively creating a fifth action:
ryanmacklin.com/2014/10/fate-the-discover-action/

This goes a very long way towards reducing the "free invocation success with style spiral," and I would strongly, strongly recommend its usage in any Fate game.

Another issue I have found is that situation aspects, for the most part, simply do not matter *unless* the GM arduously interprets the teamwork rules in such a way that they become relevant (and that is not even an openly stated rule/interpretation in the book).

Think about it. You have to pay a fate point to invoke a situation aspect unless you have free invocations. With that in mind, why not just spend fate points to invoke your own five aspects? Surely, at least one of them will be relevant for any given roll. Likewise, if you want to compel yourself, surely you could bring to the fore one of your own character aspects.

Situation aspects based on the scenery have absolutely no purpose when character aspects exist, except to perhaps create a new source of "forced" compels from the GM, and for the GM to try to justify "this counts as a teamwork action from the situation aspect and thus effectively adds a +1 to whoever is currently taking an action/defending against it."

>
Think about it. You have to pay a fate point to invoke a situation aspect unless you have free invocations. With that in mind, why not just spend fate points to invoke your own five aspects?

Assuming you already know the situation aspect and don't need to discover it...
because you want to describe your action that way? Maybe sometimes you want to say "because It's Dark and Spooky" instead of saying "because I'm a Totally Rad Bro" for the twentieth time.

Thirdly, I do not see a reason to ever risk taking a compel by the second half of a session. Nobody wants to do so out of fear that it might be "wasted" when the session ends (and few in online games can tell when a session will end due to someone saying "Sorry, I am getting tired") due to the way refresh works.

Fourthly, the conflict system is a complete mess. Characters only really have two actions: "deal damage" and "gain a +2 bonus and try to convince the GM that the newly created aspect totally works as a teamwork action to provide a +1 bonus to relevant rolls." There is virtually no tactical depth to it at all from a mechanical perspective, and it suffers for it when trying to hype up "cinematic" combat as something exciting both in-universe and mechanically.

Fate truly needs much more polish.

There is no mechanical advantage to paying a fate point to invoke a situation aspect over doing the same with a character aspect, unless you take a sideways reading of the rules and try to convince your GM that this should count as a teamwork action (again, something that is not even suggested or remotely implied in the rulebooks).

There's no mechanical advantage, and there is also NO mechanical DISadvantage.
It's variety.

And also because there exists the possibility that your character really doesn't have an applicable character aspect.

...

so what is a good alternative to Fate?

>Best
I like how it takes character back story to a different level and makes it an integral part if the game. Fate is a lot of fun when you play with experienced roleplayed.

It also made spell casters fun for me, which is rare.

>Bad
It lacks the "gamey" elements you get from other systems. Item progression, meaningful level ups, etc are virtually nonexistent unless the GM puts a lot of effort into homebrew.

>Worst

The devs are the kinds of people who ban you from the forums for saying a wheelchair-bound submarine officer makes no sense

My players are already pretty focused on character motivations and storytelling, so I was excited to introduce the Fate core system to them.

I read through the Atomic Robo rulebook, threw together a loose story structure, got it all set up and all my people at a table, and then realized I didn't really know where to start. I mean, I worked through chargen: told them about aspects, modes, skills, and then the skill roll, but the concept of fate points eluded them for most of the game. It seemed as though they were too busy learning the mechanics and trying to wrap their head around the fate point economy to come up with any more aspects, and therefore didn't have enough points in the first place to get a good idea of how they flow around the table. What could I have done better? How to I help them penetrate the jargon?

>Good
Very easy and fun to homebrew, provided you understand the original conceits of the game, which are many.

>Bad
It's somehow got a reputation for being rules-lite, it's not.
It fails to do anything low-powered.
Like all universal systems, it can feel samey if you rely on the mechanics over storytelling too much.

>Accelerated
It's barely different to Core.

>why not just spend fate points to invoke your own five aspects?
Yeah I homebrewed that out. PC aspects are for rerolls and compels only.

>NO mechanical DISadvantage.
True, but players are lazy and it often appeals to selfish players to compel "I'm the best" aspect again. Of course the GM can put their foot down but if you're running Fate you're probably pretty permissive to begin with.

Risus, desu. It has Aspects with less cruft.

Your Bad is a Good for me.

Yeah teaching it can be hard.

>Compel them lots at first, remind them they can do it too
My best Fate sessions have always been when players are compelling each other like mad, throwing tons of material at the GM to work with.

>Throw situation aspects on the table, with free invokes on them even, have NPCs use them against the PCs
And be explicit about it. Tell them what the numbers are, when they roll say "you'll succeed if you spend a Fate point and can justify a +2 to me right now"

>Your Bad is a Good for me.

I only say it's "bad" in the sense if you're looking for something crunchier Fate isn't the go-to system.

Like, I can rule in a bunch of magic items and everything, but that takes thought effort I don't always feel like putting into a game. Savage Worlds solves that issue by having readily-available stats for anything I want to give/use against my players.

> it often appeals to selfish players to compel "I'm the best" aspect again

You really shouldn't allow Aspects like that to begin with. Anyone who thinks "I'm great at everything" is a valid Aspect doesn't really understand the point of Aspects.

>You really shouldn't allow Aspects like that to begin with
True.

Another thing I homebrewed to address that and the "everyone levels up at plot points at the GM's discretion" that I didn't like either: party levels up once every character has had all of their aspects compelled at least once. Encourages dual-sided aspects, compelling each other, and mechanical advancement follows story progression (which presumably results from all those compels). Perfect.

When I last ran a Fate game it was a space opera and I used a point system to level up players. Basically Paragon/Renegade points, with players getting some kind of advance every 50 cumulative points. Got the idea from a Renown system one of my GMs used in his fantasy game.

Of course, I had to tell my players at the very beginning they were not "Good Guy/Douchebag" points and they wouldn't be able to level up by firebombing orphanages.

>good
The settings are pretty nice, expecially the "shadows/fire" books.
>bad
People arguing about the concept of "metacurreny" in roleplaying games, see for example.
>worst
This a game where everyone has to be on the same page or you won't have fun.

DUNGEON WORLD. It's AWESOME.

Heroquest 2
Simmilar philosophy, but it is actually rules light, not just pretending. And with 90% less meta.
On the downside, it is vague as fuck and while the rules are few in number and volume, they are complicated in actual application, leaving much to interpretation. Until you'll get used to them at least.

>Worst
The fucking dice I hate proprietary dice. Just use a normal d6 system or something, it could have been just as quick and simple of a system with d6s.
>Bad
The combat system has no meat to it whatsoever, that more personal I like to have at the very least hit points and damage systems, and there stress system doesn't cut it for me.
> the Good
It's free so anyone can grab it and play it and on top of that it's quick, easy and rather simple so it's great to just pick up and play. I find it best for quick one off instead of extended campaigns. Going back to the worst for a second the positives are kinda hindered by it as even though it's free you have to buy special dice to streamline it and with out those special dice you get an annoying extra step when you roll of having to say" okay this is 1 thats a +, and this is 4 thats a minus and this is 5 thats a blank." which is not too tough but in a quick and easy system like fate it can be pretty annoying.

Also, don't forget Evil Hat is making a book for wheelchair users, and other disabled, to feel INCLUDED.

What the fuck I thought Heroquest was bronze age fantasy (Glorantha and all that) until I googled it just now.

>vague as fuck and while the rules are few in number and volume, they are complicated in actual application
I found Fate to be the same, really. Once I understood why certain rules were the way they were (i.e. the design decision and whatnot) it was way easier to adjust them to what I wanted.

The biggest mistake anyone can make is to play Fate RAW. It's a system that needs lots of tweaking to fit each game and each group.

>combat system
How did you find the social interaction system? What about the magic system?

I agree that's pretty silly or at least unrelated to my interests but it doesn't reflect on the game at all.

lets say if someone in my group says "well i want to cut that dude head of in one swing" how it would go?

But couldn't you just make 'in a wheelchair' one of your aspects? Isn't that the entire point of the system?

How would it go in any other system?

If it's possible pick a TN and let them roll. If it isn't offer an alternative. If it's not worth a roll say it happens and narrate the results.

If it's an interesting plot development and you want to encourage that sort of behaviour you could consider it a self-compel if the PC has a relevant Aspect and give them a Fate Point.

If you consider it better for the plot that that doesn't happen but still want to give the players some agency set a high TN so they have to spend some Fate Points to get it done.

I think I've put more genuineness into the answer than was in the question.

Evil Hat (Fate's devs) want to make certain groups to feel INCLUDED in tabletop, like trans, gays, lesbians and feminazi. The whole point of making this book (and shooting down some games at Drivehru RPG) is to show how INCLUSIVE they are.

You tell him he better roll high enough.

Fate is narrativist and has mechanics in place to help players influence the story in the ways they want. But it's not freeform role play and players can't just dictate what happens at all times.

lets say one of the players is a big guy with an axe and wants to show how strong he to intimidate his enemies, so he wants to cut one of his enemies head in one swing to do so, lets say he have cutting heads +2 or something like that

If that's actually one of his stunts, then he's got a bonus to damage if he's trying to cut off someone's head.

He still has to roll for it.

And tell me more about this intimidation character. Does he wear a mask of any sort?

As a player I noticed that this system suffers from the "I have a hammer and every problem is a nail" .
The mechanics incentivised that I try to solve every problem with my +5 skill. There is literally no reason to use a skill less than 3 unless the GM refuses you roll anything else.

he uses one, he only takes it off to intimidate people, but it is extremely painful

this so much
>i am strong
>i am fast
>i am intelligent

Is it painful for him or the people he intimidates?

If it's the former, then why? He sounds like quite the tough, sizable fellow.

answer above ^

This is why Fate needs players who are good writers. People don't always get the Aspects are character traits (and if you're really astute, flaws) first and stat boots second

I am tempted to run a FATE Core one shot just to see how it comes, but it is hard i just managed to make my players play 5e

Weren't you over in the "Rules-Light system" thread too? I have to be honest, this is some pretty stale trolling. Dungeon World's been out for years at this point, some people love it, others hate it, but even the fans aren't as rabid as what you're trying to parody.

You got a (You) out of me, I guess.

its good for a lawfull good group, my players hurt each other one way or another

>everyone vying to gimp themselves in order to pick up bonuses

I suddenly understand why the SJWs love this system so much

This is why I do away with stress completely in my games, just giving another minor consequence slot and heads off from there. Makes battles far more intense and risky.

At least its better than Dungeon World.

Many great ideas, obfuscated by too many fucking rules and a terrible structured rulebook.

Quoting the archive:

>It's a passable system with some great premade settings, but the Core version is very poorly organized and makes a lot of the shit that's supposed to be simplest way too complicated to use (you can count the number of Worlds of Adventure using "Current and Impending Issues" on one hand, and these are from the same company. Wouldn't have been nearly so bad if the book didn't feel the need to START with them, giving the impression they're so central to the design. This is something it does a lot). Fate Accelerated isn't so convoluted, but suffers from the problem where it's too simplistic to keep you interested but too complicated to flow fast. Wushu, Lady Blackbird and some of the simplest *World games do this better.

>I also don't like the fanbase pushing it everywhere like they're competing with the GURPS autists. This game is absolutely, most certainly not for everyone, and it's definitely not the best choice for everything. That they've got a similar habit of claiming that everyone who doesn't like it has either played it wrong or just "doesn't get it"/is too stupid/"needs to go back to wargames, munchkin" is irritating as hell, too.

>It's also advertised far too often as "perfect for introducing people to roleplaying games", but that's fucking wrong. It may not be as mechanically complex as D&D but playing it relies on understanding CONCEPTS which are vastly more so. Nerds who've been roleplaying for 20 years now always forget just how alien the very concept of it is to someone doing it the first time, and the advantage of a simulationist system is that since it only operates on in-game level it's perfectly possible to a run a game where only the GM knows the rules. You just let the players sit down and slowly digest that whole "it's kind of like pretend, but you sometimes roll dice" idea while you take care of all mechanical issues behind the stages. They just need to say what their character does.

>Go try playing Fate, even FAE, without everyone understanding Aspects and Approaches and Actions and whatshit (stuff that takes some time to get mentally used to even to players who are just new to Fate, almost regardless of what other roleplaying experiences they have, much less people who've never done it before). To newbies, this is both intimidating as fuck and makes LESS sense than simulationist game's universe centered mechanics.

>Anyone who thinks "I'm great at everything" is a valid Aspect doesn't really understand the point of Aspects.

I think it's amazing aspect to take as a flaw for narcissism.

I just want a simple mechanic that can evolve into something bigger

I haven't played it, but people speak very highly of the 'escalation' mechanic in Dogs in the Vineyard

Explain!

i dont know if it is a good example but most of OSR have little rules and you can do a lot of thing with them

mostly i would love a system with a central mechanic that makes obvious how the rest of the game plays and what rules to use

Like Risus?

can you destroy a whole city with a fireball in risus?

Yep.

nice answer, how?

Roll your chosen Cliché (probably something to do with magic or summoning big fireballs) higher than the Cliché of the city and... you know the rest. That ONLY IF you GM allows, and I think some will take it as an interesting challenge to the game.

DC 30

Huh?

difficulty 30

It's a contested roll.

Pretty much all the points said so far are spot on, so instead of making a whole list that just repeats half the thread I'm gonna add a few points:

+ it's probably the best "anime RPG" there is, even better than ones that try to specifically be that

+ FAE clears up a lot of the convoluted presentation of Core's rules, and allows you to keep excess Fate points between sessions, making refresh a minimum instead of a reset. This greatly improves play as players will be more willing to accept compels at any point in the session instead of just the end, though you MIGHT end up with a hoarder.

- FAE's approaches sound good on paper, but in practice it can be difficult to decide which approach you should be rolling in different situations, and players WILL jump through hoops to justify always using their single best approach all the time, even when it shouldn't make any sense.

- The books talk about how it's not a game about gaming the system, but that's almost entirely what the rules revolve around.

- the devs are fucking assholes. Not only have they decided to go full SJW, but despite claiming that you can do whatever you want with Fate (even publishing a fucking TOOLKIT to promote the idea) they spend an awful lot of time telling people their homebrews and houserules are badwrongfun and shitting on anyone who doesn't follow the Fate Toolkit and their precious "fractal" to the letter.

>This greatly improves play as players will be more willing to accept compels at any point in the session instead of just the end

I mean instead of just the beginning.

>allows you to keep excess Fate points between sessions, making refresh a minimum instead of a reset

This is no different from Fate Core. Fate Accelerated has changed nothing in this respect.

If you have refresh 3, it is currently the final stretch of the session, and you are sitting at 0 fate points, why would you ever accept a compel, let alone self-compel?

>FAE's approaches sound good on paper, but in practice it can be difficult to decide which approach you should be rolling in different situations, and players WILL jump through hoops to justify always using their single best approach all the time, even when it shouldn't make any sense.

This is absolutely, 100% true and has been my experience in every FAE game I have ever participated in. Even something that would be a simple Investigate/Notice roll becomes an argument between Careful and Clever, and the latter approach is so broadly-written that it could very well be applied to absolutely anything.

>This is no different from Fate Core. Fate Accelerated has changed nothing in this respect.
Yes it is, because in core you roll back if you have excess.

However you are correct in that having less than your refresh makes accepting compels less compelling (HA!).

However I think the idea was supposed to promote players making stunts out the ass instead of worrying about a high refresh, because if it never rolls back it doesn't matter if you only have 1 refresh as long as you can hoard your points.

At least that's my theory, there's really nothing in the rules themselves to support that idea.

>Yes it is, because in core you roll back if you have excess.

This is false. Page 7 of Fate Core states, "Refresh is the number of fate points you get at the start of every game session to spend for your character. Your total resets to this number unless you had more fate points at the end of the last session."

This still means that compels become far riskier to take the nearer the session is to a close.

Good:
Toolkit system: go ahead and play a STALKER setting with some crueler "dial"--as they call it--values.
The toolkit basis also means you can fix its problems with some guidance from other players easily, by modifying rules.

Not good:
Everyone needs to be aware of who they are playing; the Aspects aren't going to compel themselves.
You will have reduced fun unless you are, as the book describes, playing someone proactive. You are responsible for your Aspects.

... Man the guy who I GM'd Fate Core for me was retarded.

I've only ever ran accelerated. But I guess I'm just as bad for not having caught him on that.

I ran fate accelerated once, I didn't like it, it was too loose and pretend. Everything is up in the air, just do whatever you want. The players straight up told me that they disliked the aspects thing because it was a hassle to write them on cards.

On the upside I got over my urge to run freeform and now I crave a crunchy tactical game like Iron Kingdoms RPG.

You know the approaches are a good idea in theory but in practice are WAY too loose. And they wouldn't be so bad if they were much more clearly defined.

Like was said fucking Clever is so broad it can literally be used for everything, it's a fucking God-Stat. Meanwhile Forceful is so restricted it's hard to ever justify in anything but a physical situation. All you have to do to power game FAE is make a tier list from how broad to how restrictive every approach is then allocate your bonuses that way.

My favorite set of approaches is RPG class style JadePunk uses.

Oh? How does that work?

>If you have refresh 3, it is currently the final stretch of the session, and you are sitting at 0 fate points, why would you ever accept a compel, let alone self-compel?

Because it's interesting?

But then, I'm that kind of player.

That's the thing though, you basically have to be that kind of player in order for Fate to work at all.

Fate is not a game for everyone, and absolutely not a game for people who think so much about what is mechanically optimal.

This isn't nessecarily a good thing.

>Fate is not a game for everyone, and absolutely not a game for people who think so much about what is mechanically optimal.

Yep. And this is the reason why I actually like Fate over more mechanically deep games. I don't enjoy figuring out what is mechanically optimal. I don't like the, "Why would you make a monk? Everyone KNOWS monks aren't viable without these supplements..." mentality.

Frankly, my favorite game I've ever played has been Fiasco and that's almost pure group storytelling outside of the necessity to have a scene end in a certain fashion.

Problem is while in theory that should be a good thing, it also requires this sort of social contract to work at all. It's not that you can't have that kind of mentality because the rules are strong enough to prevent it, it's that the rules are so fragile the whole game completely falls apart and stops working completely if you do.

This isn't a good thing, be it Pathfinder or Fate of your game requires that kind of social contract in order to work at all it's poorly designed.

>The Aristocrat influences and socializes. Aristocrats are adept at fitting in at a
party, negotiating treaties and intimidating a Triad thug to stand down by virtue of
their authority or overwhelming presence.
>The Engineer builds and sabotages. Engineers are gifted with advanced technical expertise, able to perform jade refining processes, build clockwork devices or steam engines, and sabotage machinery
>The Explorer evades and navigates. Whether it’s behind the yoke of an airship, hiking the Fuksao Mountain range, or navigating the streets of Kausao City, Explorers are masters of their terrain.
>The Fighter attacks and maneuvers. Either as members of a formal military or focusing on personal combat, Fighters are trained in the use of a wide-range of weaponry and combative techniques.
>The Scholar thinks and discovers. Interpreting the world around you, recalling knowledge, and gathering relevant information are all part and parcel of what it means to be a Scholar.
>The Scoundrel sneaks and deceives. A master of lies and infiltration, a Scoundrel can sneak past guards, come up with a good cover story, and commit acts of crime.
There's the quick blurbs from the book.

>why would you ever accept a compel
Because you literally HAVE to if you don't have any points to decline with

>Because you literally HAVE to if you don't have any points to decline with
Shit mechanic.

Why?

Compels costing FP to refuse will forever be retarded.

I can see the reasoning why some would consider it retarded, because there's no neutral outcome. You either reward the player for playing along or you punish them for rejecting your input into the narrative. It's a mechanic that says "do this or else."

It'd be far less retarded if they could simply turn the compel down and then pay a fate point to turn the compel around on the GM.

Because telling players that they should intentionally gimp themselves is a terrible game design choice because of its farther reaching consequences for gamemasters.

Trying to run a coherent game for people who are literally rewarded for playing in a self-sabotaging manner is stupidly difficult. Even presuming the game system actually manages to pull the whole reward feature off in such a way as to be worth the magnitude of the player's fuckup (Which it never does, causing smart players to look for "acceptable losses" through which to extract meta currency, and not bother doing it with "important stuff, since they're worth the same amount, leading us to a near-identical situation; players ultimately acting in their best self interest while minimizing their losses), as a game master, you are now dealing with a party that will actively be trying to sabotage their own chances at success, which is far more difficult to deal with no matter how you slice it. Any GM who has played one of these wretched systems and claimed to not have had to deal with campaign-threatening calamity because a player judged a meta token more worthwhile than the lives of both himself and his party is lying through his fucking teeth.

I really want this "fuck yourself over for a meta token" meme to stop. It makes any responsible GM's job utterly maddening.

>+ it's probably the best "anime RPG" there is, even better than ones that try to specifically be that

But no.

>I really want this "fuck yourself over for a meta token" meme to stop.

I want this "I want this meme to stop" meme to stop.

I guess I should say "best not-actually-from-Japan anime RPG," but you are correct there.

...

>anyone who disagrees with me is shitposting

Risus has a similar approach to character building, but incidentally can have death spirals.
Fighting to the death in Risus is a bad idea for this reason--which isn't a downside in itself, just let it be known so the players actually display some self preservation. Be mindful of what's at stake before you start shit.

Marvel Heroic is similar to Fate in that it has the same fiction-first goals for interpretation and adjudication of details and abilities. It's actually got a fair number of similarities in the details: It has the equivalent of aspects that even reward plot-fueling currency when working against you, and it has something similar to Fate's stunts that set your character's abilities apart from someone else's, which may or may not require a 'plot point' to activate.

So you're... mad that they want disabled people to feel more included in your hobby?

I legitimately can't think of a reason to have that position that doesn't involve you being a spiteful asshole.

kek

I think the idea is it's really transparent pandering. It shouldn't be necessary to have to publish a "Fate: Handicapped Heroes" splat to make disabled people feel more included in the hobby.

All it will do is make people with disabilities feel more alienated by singling them out (something they tend to hate) and they only people they'll be getting their brownie points from are the overprivilaged middle class tumblrites.

i'm a total lefty inclusive SJW and even I think a 'Fate for Handicapped People' is dumb.

If you are disabled, physically or mentally, you have dealt with it. You know how to cope and interact with society enough to buy an RPG. And so you possess the intelligence to make an appropriate character.
Yes, being disabled sucks. You should be congratulated on still making things as normal as they can be. You don't need something that ephemeral.

Plenty of informative answers itt, thanks a lot people.

>Trying to gimp themselves to pick up bonuses

Players don't get the option to do this. The DM has to make it known he is compelling them.

>Players don't get the option to do this.
You know "self compel" is a thing, right?

"If you’re in a situation where having or being around a certain aspect means your character’s life is more dramatic or complicated, anyone can compel the aspect. You can even compel it on yourself—that’s called a self-compel. Compels are the most common way for players to earn more fate points."

Literally the first fucking sentence under "compelling aspects."