Every time I even bother to try to read this shlock, my eyes roll into the back of my head

Every time I even bother to try to read this shlock, my eyes roll into the back of my head.

>Aspects
>"Uhh so it's like a thing and if it sounds cool you get a bonus"
>Stats
>"Make sure to always argue why your best stat applies, otherwise you are literally playing the game poorly"
>Compels
>"Lol let's spend 5 minutes meta discussing why your character would make a decision to fuck you over :^)"

Who the fuck would ever play this atrocious mess masquerading as a game system?

Gamists who are under the mistaken impression that they are narrativists.

>GNS theory

First of all, shut up.

Second of all, even by your own stupid pet theory's definitions, gamists prioritize good mechanics. FATE's mechanics are *atrocious*.

This needs to be emphasized. This is a """""game""""" where you legitimately want to spend all your time trying to do stuff with your best stat. It's less mechanically vigorous and more a challenge to see how hard you can spin your actions to appeal to your best stat.

What's worst is that the limits of each stat is so poorly conveyed that, functionally, every GM is going to have wildly different interpretations of how each stat will actually behave. I am, of course, squarely looking at Clever. Some will actively curtail Clever being a godstat, some will let anything go as long as it's described as being """""clever""""". It's just absurd.

Agree, this is what the play in practice comes down to. I like the ideas FATE has, but their implementation just isn't very good.

>Stats
Skills, I think you mean

I hope you're not using the defaults because those are fake and gay

It looks like your issue is with Fate Accelerated's list of skills, which it calls "Approaches". Yes, if you need to argue your actions into one of Careful, Clever, Flashy, Forceful, Quick, or Sneaky, there's going to be so much overlap that it's usually easy to use your best approach. But the OP posted a picture of Fate Core, which contains a skill list that could have been lifted from any other game, with 20-odd skills like Deceive, Notice, Fight, and Shoot.

Sure, the mechanics are simple, but if you use a skill list more like Core, where each skill has a defined purpose, it's a great system if simple is what you're looking for. (whether you're a "Narrativist" who wants the system to get out of the way while you tell a story, or you want a system that your lazy friends will actually learn)

That said, the OP does have one good point about "my eyes roll into the back of my head": There's no way this system needs a 310-page core rulebook. Accelerated only took 32 pages, and you could easily describe Core in approximately the same length.

>There's no way this system needs a 310-page core rulebook.
I feel this way about pretty much every RPG ever

FATE relies on a certain level of trust between player and GM.
We're all here to tell an interesting story, you take compels on the chin because your characters are flawed human beings and you gain boosts in turn because it gives a mechanical benefit to getting dicked on which softens the blow.
And your character ends up with a certain style, in line with their highest stats, that's true, but its also part of what makes things work, it nudges you to play up what you've created. One hack I've seen suggested is that you get a -1 to each consecutive roll using the same stat (Or even each roll per scene) forcing people to attack things from different directions.

Then don't play it.

There are obviously a lot of advice pages on how to mitigate "oh no how do I do this" that aren't featured in this document...
but It's definitely a small manual, if one were to replace its superfluous text with some more examples.

I think a lot of systems want to look polished, which means greater verbosity.
I like to read the HomeBrew General's PDFs to see what raw rules and information really looks like.

People who are actual adults, know how to read and have ability to think and invent things. It is not for everyone but you are welcome to try. I do play FATE.

There are many different kinds of gamers out there. Some like system like FATE, some like GURPS, some like DND and there are many other options available. Sometimes system preferences overlap or differ. Just like there are different kinds of people. If FATE doesn't suit you, then you don't have to play it... Just.. Don't try to went on the internet about it. It is your problem. Not ours. We can still try to help you or troll you to hell and back but problem is still yours.

Aspects are fucking fantastic. I love the idea of neatly blending mechanical benefits with character traits, although in terms of systems doing it I think there are better examples than FATE.

Overall, I don't think FATE is a bad system, just a bit mechanically unsatisfying. But that's kind of the point. It's a simple, streamlined system designed to cater to narrative tropes and genre conventions without getting in the way of roleplaying, and it does that very well.

My favourite system is kind of a crunchier take on the same idea, Legends of the Wulin. While it does have a deep, detailed combat system (once you figure out how it works despite the godawful editing), instead of trying to represent the nitty gritty details of combat it focuses more on the genre conventions, themes and style of a Wuxia fight, with your characters beliefs, ideals and relationships being just as important as their weapons and Kung-fu.

I often compare it to Tianxia, a FATE attempt at a Wuxia game, and the latter just always feels so damn unsatisfying in comparison, so little actual depth to the combat or drama involved in who wins a duel, which really misses a key strength of Wuxia for me.

>I'm an ADULT and therefore enjoy ADULT roleplaying games. You're clearly too unsophisticated to enjoy them.

I notice you completely failed to even attempt to address any of OP's misgivings.

Not here to contribute, but your use of """""these air quotes""""" is really obnoxious.

As the op did fail in reading the book.

>point 1
But Aspects don't give you a bonus unless the GM says so, or if you invoke them using the mechanics meant to give you a bonus when your Aspects become relevant. Y'know. Fate points.

>point 2
What the actual fuck????????????????

>point 3
Or just say "my character is a [Closeted Marine] so clearly diplomacy with this gay alien should go badly". It's an in-character choice that you would've done without the 'Compel', but because you called it, you get rewarded.

The fuck is the problem.

Whatever do you mean

We all address """""""""""""""""""quotes""""""""""""""""""" with at least 4 nested instances of quotation marks on Veeky Forums

To concede to OP's ignorance a little, reading the book confused me the first time around. It was harder for me to understand than some of my TTRPG-fresh friends because I kept trying to understand Fate's meta through D&D goggles.

I like how one of the detracting points is the "five minute" debate, which would be more of a rules-lawyering number-whore problem in a more complex situation in a more complex system. Any debates I've had with Fate didn't last longer than maybe a minute before we settled on an outcome.

Thing is, there are many problems with the system. "Stress" makes it so the PCs basically never actually die, "Success at a Cost" makes it so the PCs never actually fail, "Compels" can be used and abused gleefully so the PCs can just stockpile fate points (invoke 3 of their aspects and immediately nail an encounter with a +10 roll on the first turn).

Instead of pointing any of these out, OP just went with easily debunked bait. What a stupid asshole.

I agree that all three points you give are excellent for debate purposes, for the merits and detriments of the system.
Fate's default settings are very heroic and the GM needs to really push on the players to wound them. Your criticism is my own; I don't want to play goofy turbo-tier supers that can't get properly maimed.

If you make Stress a greater rarity, place limits on how many simultaneous invokes can stack, and make sure Compels really hurt the character, you start to get a far more survivalistic game going. My belief is that Fate can be brutal.

I don't think people who like to play Fate leave everything as the book suggests (in fact, the book suggests you do not); experience will almost certainly convince you to tweak and integrate rule changes.
It's a really great sandbox for me because I love skill columns, I love Aspects, and I love the FUDGE distribution. So, I can't criticize the entire system because no two games I've played feel the same.

This and this neatly encapsulate all the things I've hated while playing FATE. Absolutely hated and I'd probably tear my eyeballs out trying to run it too.

I'm glad this system is fading in popularity (only to be replaced in Flavor-of-the-Month land by the equally goofy DungeonWorld derivatives).

The system has BEEN fading. I've seen it maybe once in 6 months in the Game Finder threads, and the only Fate threads are always "uhhh why do people like this system, it's so bad! it's cool to hate Fate right?" like this one.

A derivative of a derivative of a derivative? Just how deep does the rabbit hole go.

Eh, Stress more makes it so the players never die if the GM and player doesn't want them to. I've had several campaign deaths in Fate because it would be dramatic. Same with Success at a Cost. I use it only when the campaign hinges on success and I've written myself into a corner and realize, "oh shit no backup plan makes sense". Every other time? Better believe they fail. Two easily fixed 'problems'.

Now I'm not saying that a system is fine if its issues can be house-ruled. That's stupid and obviously wrong. If there's system issues, there's system issues. But these? These aren't issues. Even the book says you can kill characters. It even has Extreme Consequences as an OPTION for a character avoiding death and instead taking massive permanent damage. An option for avoiding, implying death is, indeed, not only possible but the default. In fact, the book claims that filling in all your consquences and stress and then taking damage COULD mean the character dies via Coup de Grace or complications from wounds. And again, same thing with Success at a Cost, it's an option to soothe over wounded pwecious feewings of baby players. Hell, some people constantly complain about how many systems only have binary pass/fail tests, this is an alternative that isn't unnecessarily convoluted like Eclipse Phase. And seriously, character dies? It is super easy and fast to make a new character in Fate, like holy shit. I can cook one up in a minute or two if I have a concept in mind, 10 minutes tops if I have to figure out a concept first.

>inb4 YOU'RE PLAYING FATE WRONG HOW DARE YOU ENJOY SOMETHING I HATE ABLOOBLOOBLOO

>"Make sure to always argue why your best stat applies, otherwise you are literally playing the game poorly"

"I full attack every round."

>People who are actual adults, know how to read and have ability to think and invent things. It is not for everyone but you are welcome to try. I do play FATE.
You could be more dickish if you said "I like Dungeon World, too!"

At least FUDGE dice are useful.

Can you elaborate on that?

I assume he means for throwing at your cat.

That's what I thought.

This system has always felt a little too 'loose' to me.

Like there's just not enough of its own interest to go on.

I'm a big fan of percentile systems with their own lore and mechanics based on that lore though. They tend to be as easy or as difficult as you want them to be.

As in, the GM can always ease up on a detailed rule system, but it's much more annoying to add detail to a loose rule system.

That, and you can get a nice bell curve about a central number. I use them for population generation (multiplier x (base number + NdF)) and shit like that.

>To concede to OP's ignorance a little, reading the book confused me the first time around. It was harder for me to understand than some of my TTRPG-fresh friends because I kept trying to understand Fate's meta through D&D goggles.
No, no. I know what you're doing. Don't bother. This isn't innocent misunderstanding. He posted a pic of Core while whining about FAE-specific rules. He's clearly never read it before and is just regurgitating talking points he got from other shitposters

>Lol let's spend 5 minutes meta discussing why your character would make a decision to fuck you over :^)"

As opposed to 5 minutes looking over which spell should be used or the rules for hacking or even the combat maneuver rules.

No thanks. Is rather go with whether or not the guy makes an interesting decision

Atomic Robo made it so much easier
>shadowrun style skill categories
>aspects tied to them, also no troubles.
>rules examples in comic form rather than explaining walls of texts with walls of text.
>no intelligence skill
Id still only run it for forever GMS who otherwise hate being players though.