{"id":12260,"date":"2016-09-22T16:33:26","date_gmt":"2016-09-22T16:33:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/randomaverage.com\/index.php\/2016\/09\/on-fate-and-gming\/"},"modified":"2016-10-23T07:20:21","modified_gmt":"2016-10-23T07:20:21","slug":"on-fate-and-gming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/randomaverage.com\/index.php\/2016\/09\/on-fate-and-gming\/","title":{"rendered":"On Fate and GMing"},"content":{"rendered":"

So I kind of gave up on about halfway through August because the questions weren't that interesting for the second half. That's on me.<\/p>\n

Anyway, it's a fun exercise in concept. Inspired (I guess?) by that list, someone came up with an extremely<\/i> tongue in cheek (I hope) list of questions for September.<\/p>\n

Which I also pretty much ignored, because they're mostly joke questions that would require me reliving moments of severe personal head-up-assedness, circa 2009.<\/p>\n

However, today's question prompted some pretty thoughtful and useful posts from folks I see on Google+, so I thought I'd take a break from filling up their comment threads and post my own tangential navel-gazing, since it's something I've been meaning to write about for awhile.<\/p>\n

The question:<\/p>\n

How many friendships have you terminated because they confessed they kind of like to play Fate games sometimes? It’s okay. Fate players have to hear the truth.<\/b><\/p>\n

Obviously the serious answer to the silly question is "none." Let's have that said.<\/p>\n

With that out of the way, I want to post a different-but-related question, phrased (tellingly) as a PtbA-style Hard Move:<\/p>\n

"You've spent several hundred dollars on the Fate kickstarters and Fate-powered settings and scenarios, run several fairly long Fate or FAE-powered campaigns, hacked and rehacked the system, designed custom Roll20 FAE character sheets and submitted them through github, and currently run a (theoretically) weekly FAE game, which your players enjoy… but you've come to the realization that you don't actually like running Fate very much. What do you do?"<\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah. What do you do?<\/p>\n

+<\/span>Eloy Cintron<\/a><\/span> got me thinking about this today, when he wrote "I don't like how it feels in play."<\/p>\n

Yup.<\/p>\n

I like expressing<\/i> stuff in Fate terms, but the further I go (and I have run three or four fairly long Fate and\/or FAE things since Core came out, including hours and hours of play with my daughter), the less satisfying I find it in play.<\/p>\n

Most of it boils down to: No surprises from the conflict system.<\/p>\n

Let me break that down. <\/p>\n

There's a conflict, dice hit the table… but really, there's not much point<\/i>, because the results are almost entirely in the hands of the players. That's what I mean when I say no surprises. <\/p>\n

Between capitalizing on Created Advantages, invoking preexisting aspects with fate points, and bringing applicable stunts in, almost any individual roll can be turned into a success. And just given compels as a means to refresh Fate Points (I actually do a Fate Point refresh every … five or six sessions, if that), Fate points are almost never a problem, especially since there's reasonably good odds on any specific roll that you won't need<\/i> to invoke an aspect to get a success.<\/p>\n

But don't read that and think I have a problem with player success. That's not it. <\/p>\n

It's that Failure, Success, or (that Rarest of Rare birds) success at cost, are all just decisions<\/i> the player makes, not a result they get and have to adapt to.<\/p>\n

See, I'm a big, BIG fan of creativity within constraints<\/i>, and for me one of the richest veins for that kind of thing comes in a conflict system that you can't strongly influence to 'force' the result you expect. <\/p>\n

(See PtbA stuff, basically. That's my sweet spot. You can get it in lots of games, but I especially like PtbA for the largely unmined vein of Mixed Success it sets up in its dice mechanic.)<\/p>\n

Put another way, I like getting results that make us introduce something new. I love "Yes, but…"<\/i> results, because everything after that<\/i> is something we weren't expecting.<\/p>\n

I've got a great group of players in my current game, and they know my love of Mixed Success, but it's Fate, so… even if they blow the roll and I say "don't worry about invoking aspects yet, what about we go with a mixed success?" Even with great players, the inevitable (and fair! given the game system) question is: "Okay maybe… but what's the 'mixed' part going to be?" And we talk through it.<\/p>\n

So… yeah. That. No surprises in the conflicts. Lots of resource use and\/or negotiation to get to a known result.<\/p>\n

Now, I know I can make Fate harder<\/b>, to give the players less of that control. I know that. I've played a lot of Fate – I've hacked it down to the bone and built new flesh on the skeleton, more than once. I get how the pieces go together.<\/p>\n

And I'll freely admit I don't push as hard as I can by using GM Fate points (which +<\/span>Bill Garrett<\/a><\/span> has called me on). But I know why<\/b> I'm bad it: it feels adversarial in an unfun way (I'm FINE with adversarial in fun ways).<\/p>\n

Boardgame Example: I like challenging games (I'm playing a Pandemic Legacy<\/i> campaign right now, we're in September and seriously FUCK the C0DA virus); I don't mind losing because something is challenging, but I have less<\/i> fun if I'm playing a game where the dial for "challenge" is controlled by "how much I (or someone else) voluntarily chooses to directly fuck with the other players at the table by making their stuff harder" – I'm looking at you, Settlers of Catan.<\/p>\n

You pulled the short straw and have to be the Bad Guy in Betrayal at the House on the Hill or whatever? That's cool. You're cock-blocking someone's attempt to get Longest Road, just because? Much less fun. That's kind of what "pouring on GM Fate points" or "start everyone with no fate points and 0 refresh" feels like. <\/p>\n

I mean, there's a point at which you've tweaked that dial so much you need to warn people they won't really be playing the game system they signed up for, exactly.<\/p>\n

Does that mean Fate's a bad game? Nope.<\/p>\n

Does it mean I wouldn't play it? No.<\/p>\n

Does it mean I won't GM it? No, although I think I'm going to do some sunset planning for the system, in IT-speak.<\/p>\n

Does it mean it's a game that doesn't especially suit my GMing style? Yeah, pretty much.<\/p>\n

And that sucks a little, because as I mentioned I've got a LOT of Fate stuff on my shelves, and like… 25 sets of dice… and players who really like the game – some of whom I'm pretty sure would not<\/b> especially enjoy 7-9 "it's a mixed success and you just need to deal with it" results in Powered by the Apocalypse games (which may be my favorite game thing ever).<\/p>\n

Anyway. Something I've been turning over for awhile; glad to have it out of my head.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I kind of gave up on about halfway through August because the questions weren't that interesting for the second<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[53,115,268,141],"class_list":["post-12260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musing","tag-gaming","tag-google","tag-indiegameaday2016","tag-rpgaday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/randomaverage.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/randomaverage.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/randomaverage.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/randomaverage.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/randomaverage.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12260"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/randomaverage.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12261,"href":"https:\/\/randomaverage.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12260\/revisions\/12261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/randomaverage.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/randomaverage.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/randomaverage.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}