FATE Condensed

Here is an interesting one. Evil Hat condensed FATE Core into a 50-page book to make the game easier to learn and play. The final version was released over on DriveThruRPG and I picked it up since FATE was a favorite around here. They made a couple changes under the hood too to speed play, as follows:

Interesting stuff, and I can see why they did this. FATE Accelerated was a great little game, but ultimately limited to six ability scores and a soft interpretation about "what covered what." A lot of my games saw "high flashy" characters glam-ing their way through adventures in a flashy-fest of trying to justify every action with one or two high ability scores. It was fun, but it didn't really have staying power.

FATE Core was where our games were and our thinking about the game, but the book itself was long winded and very hard to reference. For such a simple game, the book was huge, and what isn't said can sometimes be more impactful than what is.

This is a good development I feel. It keeps the game in my mind, shrinks the rules needed to play, and improves readability while maintaining builds and options. Your character's abilities and skills still matter. The game is for the most part the same. I need to read more on this and share thoughts.

Genesys: The Toolkit Layer

I read the entire Genesys book last night and the above image I feel best summarizes my feelings about the game. I love the system, I love the macro-situation creating dice, and I like the idea of this being a generic system...

...but? The game, by itself, is missing what I like to call "the toolkit layer." This is all the setting-specific information that makes character builds matter - weapons, armor, equipment, gear, powers, magic items, foes, monsters, creatures, vehicles, mounts, and all that other fun setting-specific stuff that makes character builds matter.

How can I build a Wild West gunfighter and specialize in a certain...um, where is the six-gun, scattergun, lever-action, horse, throwing hatchet, knife, buffalo rifle, TNT stick...? You get my point, without all these cool "rules-ed out" items and things to build characters around, what is there to do?

As a game master, it puts me in a really bad situation without having setting-specific information because I have to wing it. And when I wing it, nothing really has a cool defined list of attributes and features that the players can look at and sort through as they build their characters. As a game master, it is easier for me to create adventures with a full toolkit, because I can better design opponents and encounters when I have a huge box of toys to play with, all fully-statted out and working with the rules so both me and my players understand how they work with the game's systems.

I could wing it and make up stats on the fly for all my Wild West items, but I feel it does the players a disservice because they need to know about all this cool stuff before I make it up, because they are the ones who have to create characters to take advantage of all this stuff before I throw them into a situation where I say "oh yeah, that guy has a buffalo rifle" and they sit they feeling, "I wish I would have known about that cool piece of gear because I might have wanted to create a character who could use one and take advantage of the item with my character build."

You get into a situation where the player's first characters built for the game feel generic and not built for the world they live in, and only after playing a couple times do you build enough background data that the next set of characters will be able to take advantage of all of the stuff you house-ruled in, and you still risk not knowing about that next cool thing or situation characters may encounter (Gatling guns, derringers, poker games, quick draws, Calvary officers, Marshals, etc).

Six Sample Settings Included

To be fair, the game does come with six really basic sample settings with sample equipment and foe lists. They are by no means complete and I feel just serve as a starting point for you to create your own. They feel more like "sample adventure" seeders than "these are the official gear and stuff lists" for the game to me, because the fantasy section feels like it lacks enough for a long-term game for me. This will be solved one the fantasy book comes out later this year, so we shall see. I could wing fantasy better by pulling in tropes and creatures from other games, but again, these things mater when players build characters, so my default feeling is I want a complete "toolkit layer" before I start palying becuase it gives players more to work with than just a sample list plus "make the rest up."

The other sections for steampunk, modern, sci-fi, space opera, and other settings feel like similar "taster sections" for the genres than full-fledged support, and this is understandable because of their length and brevity. But again, I can't play with them as-is, because for the game to work at its best, I feel players need a full list of stuff, foes, gear, powers, and options to play with and design characters around.

I feel you get the best with this game when you can find an official toolkit (like the fantasy one coming with Terrinoth), or a fan-created one for a particular setting (which there are on the Genesys forums, and more are being shared there as time goes on). I feel the more detailed and more fully fleshed out the toolkit, the more fun you and your players will have with the game.

Contrast With FATE

FATE is a strange game, as it does away with the toolkit layer almost entirely. Weapons are weapons, gear is gear, and if you want a character build that takes advantage of something specific, you just take it as a character aspect or devise a stunt for a skill and you are good. If your character is a "Wild West big game hunter with a coon-skin cap" well then of course your character is going to be good with that buffalo rifle, you get your bonus then and there, and the world is good. Yee-haw, make it up, write something down, and keep playing.

I enjoy a more structured, mechanical game like Genesys where you can build a character to take advantage of a certain weapon or play style through stats, skills, talents, and gear - but you need that gear fully fleshed out in order to be able to build a character like that in the first place. With FATE, yes, things are less structured and therefore you get less of that "character build addiction and obsession" feeling you do with Genesys.

If I were doing pick-up-and-play games, I would use FATE because I do not need a lot to simulate anything. Everything is made up on the fly. I do not need a toolkit, just the English language and an understanding of "this would cover that." The game works well without toolkits and settings, and it is designed more to play off our assumptions and understandings of things through natural language constructs and "X to Y means Z" relationships.

If I want a longer-term game where players could get more deeply involved, I would more likely use Genesys with a fully-fleshed out toolkit and setting for the game, because that is where the players play and the referee derives inspiration from to create the challenges of the world. This is not to say Genesys is weak in any way, as if I had a Star Trek style toolkit I would jump on that and play Star Trek with "Genesys plus toolkit" a lot faster than "FATE plus nothing." I feel the support, and the quality level of that support, makes a huge difference.

But having that support I feels really matters, if it is my work, a fan work, or an official work.

Structured Builds vs. Do What You Want

To me, FATE is like a box of crayons plus some paper.

Genesys is like a video game console with controllers. The toolbox is like the video game cartridge you stick in the machine. Without a cartridge and a game to play, you have that excitement of having a cool game console, but nothing to play with it yet. The console is open enough you could write your own game or find something on the Internet to play, so there is still that DIY freedom.

For character builders, Genesys has that Lego style appeal as well of building things and putting together character builds. But you need all those special pieces in the toolkit to be able to build anything really cool, and all those special parts like doors, hinges, windows, wheels, mini-figures, and plastic trees matter - more so than just the sample settings in the main book and their collection of straight blocks.

With FATE, I will just come up with and draw all those pieces myself when I draw my picture of my fire-station or whatever I want to "build."

Both are fun and have different strengths for what type of mood I am in and my current group of players, but they are different enough to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each. I would not give up FATE because I now have Genesys, and I would not shelve Genesys because I prefer playing with fully fleshed out toolkits. Both are cool and have their places at our table.

Gnomish Copper Dice By Norse Foundry

So I spent a little money and got myself the Official Fate & Fudge Systems Gnomish Copper Dice By Norse Foundry – Pack of 4 Officially Licensed Dice Set. Normally, I am a little hesitant on spending $20 on a set of dice, and at $5 per die they are expensive. Then again, FATE dice in general are a tad pricey. But I am glad I did.

Wow. These are seriously cool. The weight in my hand is very satisfying, and just rolling these is a cool and momentous event. My kitchen table will disagree, and I am using a pad or plastic tray to roll these on because they may leave tiny dents in most types of soft wood.

My Best Four Dice

Considering you only need four dice to play the game, ever, why not make these your best? This is not like polyhedral dice, where games eventually force you to roll 6d8 for some damage roll and all of a sudden you (and your players) are toting around buckets of dice. I am a fan of games with 'dice conservation' and the designers are aware of how many dice are being rolled and what types, and try to reduce and simplify dicing to manageable levels.

I still will use my plastic dice for players, and also myself when I don't have a padded surface to roll these on. They roll well on a cushion because of their weight, and I find myself rolling them on my couch or even a blanket and having them lie flat on something that soft.

Heavy Heavy

Really, what is the point of owning dice so heavy they could be used as metal sling pellets and possibly survive a nuclear war? I think that answers your questions.

But seriously, don't use these as weapons - and you are buying these for two reasons: novelty and bragging rights. Novelty, yes, you don't really need these but you want them - like you want an expensive smartphone. These still are much cheaper than a smartphone, and you are getting something that will last for probably a couple hundred years of use. I don't know yet, so I will let you know.

Bragging rights are important. At a gaming table, as a referee, you sometimes need to establish dominance over a group of players, and having these goes a long way to setting the 'referee means business' tone. Cheap dice I feel cheapen the game, in a way (especially if they are worn out and falling apart). This is way subjective and doesn't apply to everyone, but in social setting such as conventions it is super cool to show off.

And don't feel that if you can't afford these you can't have fun with FATE. They are silly, cool, and fun novelty items that add to the experience in a social context rather than a gaming one. You talk about them. Other players like to look at them. They add a fun weight to roll and heighten the drama. You talk about why you like them and their drawbacks. They still just are "dice" but they invite a lot of discussion (pro and con) and they are a bit of a status symbol (positive or negative) in the game's universe of thought.

It is not a "I am better than you" sort of status symbol, to me it is a "I love the game and the community, so let's laugh at them or think they are cool" thing for me. I still love and use my plastic dice, they are very cool (and more useful in many situations). Everything has its place.

Fidget Dice? Yes! And No! But Yes!

I find the metal dice get me thinking about the game more, and they are an investment in my enjoyment of the game as a mental exercise. They are almost like those metal stress balls you roll around in your hand to meditate and relax. Here, they are the same thing - for me at least - but with the added benefit of being able to make rolls and think about the game while I chill out.

I think that is why I like them so much. They are both a fidget type item, and then also useful for my hobby and mental free time. What better relaxation device than one that you could use to think about one of your favorite games?

Jealousy

My bother instantly wanted a set for himself, so there is a hidden cost here in jealousy. Yours is coming, dude. Lucky they come a a couple different colors and styles so you can take your pick when buying them for someone else. If everybody used these at the table? Wow. I would consider going back to plastic dice.

Just for my table's sake.

Metal Dice

I like metal dice as novelty items. They are not as practical to play with as plastic dice, but I find they are this sort of thing I use for relaxation time, reflection, and an investment into a game I like. Because I bought them, I will play the game more, because I made the investment. It is like that with any game I play, I have my dice I play one game with and don't use them for any other game.

And you only need to buy four.

Correction.

You only need to buy four, and then everyone else who sees them does.

FATE Playtest Notes: Playing with Half a Chess Set

Do not wing things in FATE. I know, the temptation is there; this is such a simple and fast game - why not wing it?

Because if you do you will be playing with half a chess set.

We ran into this in one of our last playtests, as a referee, I winged a lot of the enemies and situations, and things felt a little flat. Why? Usually this game is a blast to play! Well, for one, the aspects of the enemies and challenges were not laid out very well. The players had nothing much to go on, no enemy aspects to trigger, and the enemies and challenges themselves couldn't really work that well within the rules.

You need to design your enemies and challenges. You need to create those 'aspect hooks' for players to trigger and for enemies to take advantage of. You need to design those stunts the enemies or challenges can use on the players to ad some excitement, and also up the difficulty level.

FATE is a game where if the players have weak opposition, the players shall roll over said opposition easily. The game will start to bore, and the session will devolve into "my +5 skill against what?"

No, there needs to be moments where the players are forced back on their heels, and they need to start spending those fate points (and regenerating them) to push back. The game simply isn't fun unless the enemies push back.

And they need to push back hard, and have those aspects and stunts to make pushing back hurt.

Consequences beginning to stack up on the player's side is a good sign. They need to look at their character sheets with worried eyes. They need to start using those FATE points to save their hides, not overpower rolls.

But how you get there, and how you get players involved, is by taking a little time and spinning up those enemies and challenges. Not only does this give the enemies tools to push back, it opens up opportunities for the players to take advantage of an enemy's weaknesses and return the favor by loading the enemy up with conditions.

The game works better if everybody in the situation is playing by the same rules, and everything is spun up and working as a machine. Taking shortcuts and winging it, in my experience, makes the game feel like it really isn't 100% there - especially from a player perspective where you want them playing against the enemy's character sheet rather than the referee's whims.

More notes soon.

FATE Playtest Notes: Old habits, Boss Monsters, and Turtling

We did a wrap-up session last night for our unfinished FATE game, and this time it was a little less crazy and a little more subdued, but we still had fun. We did notice a couple things:

Old Habits!

One of our players started with, "...so I wait for a car to approach the building's parking garage..."

Not really FATE in a way. I as a referee waited for the player to announce the story action and none came. In a typical RPG, this sort of 'open ended wait for the referee to give me a bone' is a pretty normal thing. In FATE, you need to remember you are narrating a part of the story. What works better?

"When a car drives into the corporate parking garage, I sneak in alongside it, out of the driver's view and the security guard, creeping and walking fast along the opposite side of the vehicle."

Better. You are narrating a part of the movie scene and the skill being used (stealth) is obvious. Me, as a referee still needs to decide if a car comes or not, but in this case cars are coming and going all day so that fact will likely push the difficulty a step easier for the players. Fewer cars? Fewer chances and higher difficulty. No cars? I inform the player to try something else.

Remember our 'actions are better as macro events' feeling about the Star Wars RPG from Fantasy Flight? The same applies here. You don't want to aggregate too much into one roll, but you want the rolls to cover more than a turn-by-turn fine-grained breakdown of every action.

If an event has a chance of going wrong, and it requires a different skill set, make it a separate roll. If it is inconsequential, or you are finding you are making too many rolls for a single event (just to throw sand in the gears of the players), stop it, declare one last roll to clean up, and move on to the next story part.

You can focus 'too much' on one part of the story and slow things down by requiring too many rolls. As a referee, you need to be a little more aware of pacing and not punishing great ideas by layering on too many rolls on the implementation.

Boss Difficulty

When four players focus in on your bad guy, please make sure your bad guy is significantly more skilled and capable than an average starting character. You players can 'pile on' with their best skills, and a character equal to one of them is going to go down fast.

A big part of this game is building challenges, and players know when to pile on, drain an opponent's fate points dry, and finish the bad guy off with merciless abandon. I am trying to come up with guidelines on how tough to make a bad guy, but it is going to take some more time with the game and practice.

Our bad guy went down quick when all of the characters were focused on him and not fighting each other. Next time, I will need to give my bad guy a larger fate point pool and some defenses against a couple common attacks (mental and physical). Mental attacks, especially from an enemy unaware of the manipulation, can be very effective and drain a bad guy's defenses quickly.

One Trick Turtles

We saw a tendency to 'one trick pony' characters with their best skills in situations where they were protected against having to make skill checks in less-optimal skills. Of course, this came about with a great plan, but you don't want a game to devolve into 'I am the hacker and sit off in a remote site while I hack and stay immune to any risk.'

You want players in the facility, on the site, and taking risks. You want them sneaking through the enemy base. You want to force players out of their 'this is my +5 skill' box where all they do is sit there and roll that +5 skill when the proper time comes up.

As a player, don't turtle up! As a referee, discourage turtling!

The computer terminal you need to use is inside the building, past defenses and in an area patrolled by guards. You need to be using a couple other skills to get in and get out, and you those will likely be not your best ones either.

A great plan tends to put experts in places they need to be. But don't ignore the fact that getting these experts where they need to be should require a wide and diverse array of efforts. Create challenge by forcing characters out of their 'easy boxes' and into dangerous places.

More Playtesting Ahead

We are not done, but FATE looks like a solid game in our schedule of things we play. One of the things we love about the game are aspects and consequences, and we keep coming back to  those and seeing how other game worlds would benefit from having such a system. A lot of games out there are really 'cut and dried' where you just need to burn down a pile of defenses and hit points to 'win' and there really isn't any sort of control over temporary or long-term effects inside the narrative (other than GM fiat). FATE gives the players some input, and also forces the referee to consider what happens next because something else happened.

It really is an interesting system of storytelling and consequences that has captured our imagination.

FATE: Playtest Post

I have never laughed so hard since I played the classic Paranoia RPG in the mid-1980s.

So we did a playtest of the FATE Core System last night and we had an absolute blast, we had players having characters laying down aspects on the bad guys, and then in a moment of pure backstabbing greatness, on each other.

For a group of self-centered con-men and thieves trying to pull off the ultimate heist like something out of TNT's Leverage series, this was an absolute blast. At one point the mastermind of the caper was talked into killing off the band of criminals working under him he put together - by the bad guy they were trying to steal from.

"You work for me now."

Madness ensured.

Fun was had by all.

Not for Stat Crunchers

One thing to remember is FATE is not really a system for those who like their +1 longsword, AC 18, +6 initiative modifier, and 17 hit points. It is not that type of game. Your character's story, skills, and special 'stunts' are not there for singular "did you break down the door" type skill rolls, they are there to measure how much your actions impact the flow of the narrative.

And the narrative means the story itself, the room you are in, the situation around you, and even the stories and backgrounds of other characters with you - good or bad. The illustration on the cover of the book is a bit misleading, you may think this is a game about being that magic-wielding spy, samurai thief, or gorilla monk kung-fu guy - but it is not a game of personal min-maxing power at all. This is a game about how "whatever your power is" can push a story forward, sideways, or backwards and have a blast doing it no matter which way things go.

It is really a freeform "story simulator" and it excels in letting players delightfully mess things up for everyone at the table, good guys and bad guys included - and even your own character should you wish to take a setback for a couple extra hero points (so you can mess with things a little later in the scene). Yes, you will even find reasons to set your own character back if it advances the story in a way, or gets your character captured so you can finally be taken to the villain's secret lair.

You will start your own brand of trouble once you are there, trust me.

This is hard to simulate in a traditional style of pen-and-paper without a lot of GM fiat or "it is written into the module that you get captured" sort of stuff going on. Here? No, there are times you crave being set back because it opens the door to more trouble. We had a character try to sneak into the evil corporation's high rise fortress only to blow the roll spectacularly, where I instantly ruled, "...and they walk you into the evil CEO's office and say look who we caught trying to sneak in...."

And the player smiled in glee because "he was in" anyways, and then proceeded to go about his nefarious original plan when the bad guy offered up a new angle, and the player smiled at the chance to backstab all of the other players around the table with a double-cross.

And after an entertaining attempt of this player trying to eliminate the other high-tech thieves around the table with multiple chances to eliminate players, a devious triple-cross plan was formed and we are back at square one-hundred with the traitor serving as a part of the plan to pull off the biggest back-stab the world has ever seen on the evil CEO.

Oh, and now the evil CEO has devised a plan to tap all the city's phones and search for the player's characters throughout the city by monitoring every electronic device.

This was a simple heist. Get in the building's computer room, steal the plans, and get out.

The game has turned into a cross between Christopher Nolan Batman movie, The Exorcist, and The Matrix.

And we love it.

Player Directed Energy

So if you think about this game as "stats drive narrative" you begin to get it. We walked into this game thinking "traditional rules light game" and we were wrong. While the game itself has rules-light elements, there is a structure there around the basic four actions in the game (and subcategories of rules that control them) that is pure genius. You have to wrap your head around these concepts a little to get started, and about halfway through our first session it clicked.

You are not using "strength" to "bust down a door," you are using your strength to push the narrative along by busting down a door. You may additionally create an aspect (situation) for the scene stating "everyone suddenly ears the door crashing down" and use that short-term story-changer to your benefit. Or someone else may use it for their benefit.

You could use it to shock the group of baddies in the room on the other side into inaction.

They could use it to sound the alarm for help.

Someone nearby could use it to figure out where you are.

But the concept is the players use the situation, modify it, take advantage of it, or succumb to it (for their benefit) to create player-directed energy into the center of the table. This is not a one-way game where the referee tells the players what happens next. The players have direct input into what happens next, what is going on, and where the flow of the story is moving next. You may think in a traditional game this would be the case, if the players weren't in the goblin-infested tower rescuing the princess "they are driving the narrative!"

But in reality, they are not. They are playing through the referee's narrative and moving along a set path of events laid out in the adventure. Even if the adventure is free form, the only impact the players have on the story is through the result of skill and attack rolls.

In FATE, you lay down aspects of varying lengths of time on the story, create them, use them up, let them expire, or create long-lasting ones called consequences that stay in play for the entire adventure.

You make rolls with your skills to stir the pot, add new ingredients to it, and change the nature of the soup. The goal is not individual, atomic success that accumulates towards a conclusion. Here, you and your friends are aiming at changing the story through your individual skills and specialties. This game is not about winning X number of battles, collecting treasure, getting XPs and levels, and defeating the final boss.

Here, every player is a gamemaster in a way when it comes to writing the story together The players' stats rate how good they are at changing and adapting to the story. The gamemaster plays the bad guys, lays out the combined narrative, and is the final decider on how all this chaos comes together.

Silly, but also Serious

And we walked away realizing this is not just a silly party game. You could dial down the insanity a couple notches and have a really serious and satisfying game where you play spies, gangsters, space explorers, horror adventures, or any other sort of normal situation with normal characters. There would still be that subtle 'change the story' thing hovering around there in the background, but it would be used in different ways.

In a horror game, your character may suffer a consequence 'afraid to go in the basement' as a result of being scared by a sudden shock.

In a gangster game, your character could start a soup kitchen with some illegally gained dough and gain a 'loved by the working class and poor of the neighborhood' aspect.

In a spy game, you could talk an enemy agent into 'mistrusting a trusted source' of information and gain an advantage in a situation where that information becomes critical to the mission.

You can dial this down and play it straight. The characters do not need to be fate-alerting gods of chaos, and the insanity can be set at a manageable but still realistic level. It was a strange and sobering moment for us, that there was actually 'more there there' after a night where we laughed our heads off at the potential and insanity of what we just experienced. It was one of those door-opening moments for us that we experienced a few times, like when we first played role-playng games and realized 'you can do that?'

Here, with the narrative and story, yes, 'you can do that.'

Some Mental Assembly Required

As noted, it takes you looking at gaming and the story in a different way. There are a number of terms and interlocking pieces here you need to understand to get the most out of the game. You need to let go of your fear of spending "precious" fate points, and accept the fact you will be playing against your own best interest (in the short term) in order to get fate points back. You need to abandon some of the learned behaviors that traditional pen-and-paper games train you in, like some weapons being better than others, stat building, or min-maxing.

We had one player looking at their character and wishing they could be more than a single-purpose combat expert, that he had some social and technical skills when the situation called for a different approach and their influence wasn't as powerful. The player made up for it by spending fate points, playing smart, and steering the situation back towards what his character was good at - but still, that feeling 'you need to be good at many things' stayed with us. Also, that feeling of 'move the story to where it can be affected by your character the most' also became a tactic, and the bluffing and poker game began between players when they each tried to steer things their way.

But understanding the story-related aspects is key here, and letting each player have that 'ah-ha' moment where they realize the story-shifting parts of the rules are the most important parts of the game. Boosts, stunts, free uses of aspects, triggering them, creating them, and shifting the narrative playing field is where this game shines. If you play this as Basic D&D looking to see what's in the next encounter key you are not going to have as much fun, because you will limit your exposure to the best parts of the game with limited in-the-box thinking.

The more you understand and master the story-based aspects of the rules and how they are used, the more fun you will have with FATE.

Yes, we are Coming back to This One

We are planning a regular weekly game with this rules set, which is a rare thing. It is rare to find a game like this, that allows a high amount of energy to be directed into the game session from all of the players, and for pure chaos to send the story down a path nobody expected. That is the magic of roleplaying to us, not the stat-crunching or MMO simulation a lot of modern games get into, but the free form, 'we gather together to tell a story' thing that makes us feel like we are sitting around a campfire and kicking back with old friends.

FATE cerebrates the narrative. It gives everyone a chance to tell their part of the story. It gets this whole 'shared storytelling' thing that attracted us to the hobby long ago. Nicely done.

You Play What Your Friends are Playing

One of the terms popularized during the D&D 3 heyday was "the network effect" - or, you play what your friends are playing. This is one of those "no duh" theories, but there is a lot of truth to this congealing force between players, groups, and what's hot.

There are groups that follow along with similar games, such as Savage Worlds or FATE, and finding a group for those two games is typically more difficult than Pathfinder or D&D 5. The Internet, of course, makes everything easier, and you can find a pick-up group for almost any game and any past version of it somewhere online. But that "walking into the hobby store" moment where you look around on a Saturday and see what people are playing? This is the Network Effect.

It's What's Hot

In a way, it's like having a smartphone that can run the game everyone's talking about versus having a flip phone. You are in, you can talk about the game, and you are a part of that 'water cooler' crowd that can talk about the game. Older versions of the game, or lesser played games? There's less of a discussion, and you may find yourself talking to a smaller and less-interested group.

You buy the game, and that gives you a 'golden ticket' to participate in the social interactions surrounding that game. In a way, it is why you pick up the new version, to be a part of the fun.

There are a couple things to consider, for example, with Tunnels and Trolls the version 5.5 of the game is the one most all of the solo adventures (over the last 20 years) were written to support, and the newer version 8.0 changes things. A lot of people online see 5.5 as the version they still want to play, since the solo adventures are still a huge attraction in playing the game. This may change if 8.0 takes off, but that many years of solo adventures is hard to walk away from in just a rules-compatibility standpoint. There are still holdout crowds like this with other games, such as Shadowrun 4th vs. 5th, and possibly about every version of Traveller ever published.

It's What You See People Playing

We walk into hobby stores, and people are playing D&D 5 and Pathfinder. A lot of people play Magic the Gathering and Warhammer as well, along with games like Warmachine. You see those games, and you want to join in the fun. It is harder to get people interested in a niche or smaller-fanbase game. You have to work harder at it, and there may be some cross-interest (such as old-school D&D groups forming around the current edition players).

I play with some stubborn players with strong opinions about games, and that is cool, but sometimes this limits your options. I have some players that refuse to play Pathfinder because of the complexity, and others that feel D&D 5 isn't for them. Some don't have the money to play some of the games I would like to play with them becuase of the cost to buy books. I think this is about the trickiest part of our hobby, we have a lot of players with strong opinions and it isn't always easy to get people together.

But It Isn't Always So

I ran a group once where it was tough to have the rules keep us together. We 'thought' the rules were the driving force behind keeping the group interested, but in the end, it turns out some of our home-brew ruled games were more compelling than the latest version of the D&D. For some players 'new and shiny' doesn't matter at all, and they are there for the interaction and the fun.

This was a D&D 4 game, and the rules here I feel let everyone down. When a computer program is needed to do things right you take away a lot of player interest and investment in learning the rules. It's part of our struggle with Pathfinder and HeroLab, part of me wants to go back to basics with that game and ignore a shelf worth of expansions, but another part of me says 'investment made' and use everything. Granted, sticking with a smaller set of Pathfinder books probably means a larger player-base as well, so there is that.

When a set of rules goes bust for a group, adjust quickly. This can even happen with the 'newest and latest' so the current version isn't always a sure thing. The latest version gets your foot in the door, but always when you deal with a group of people individual tastes change. Some players care, some champion their favorite version, and others will go along with everybody else thinks. You may have some players more involved with a totally separate genre than what is being played, we had a subset of that group that loved superhero gaming a lot and that resonated with them.

Know Your Group

The hobby is diverse, and the people who play tabletop games are even more so. The best advice is to know your group, and also to play games that you love and your group loves as well. In the best of all worlds, everyone could come together based on our common interests regardless of time and distance. In the real world, there are times when we have to make due with groups that may not play the things we like to play, and we have to make due - because playing something face-to-face is better than sitting at home in front of a computer or television.

You have to put yourself out there to find those people though, so sometimes a couple dull weeks playing at the hobby store is worth finding that group which brings magic to the table and your gaming life. Be a fan of everything, open to new things, and join groups which you may not think you would like, and things may eventually come your way.

Easy to Design, Hard to Balance

I am reminded of some of the games that came out around the original AD&D game's creation, most notably Squad Leader and its successor, Advanced Squad Leader. Games back then existed in the age before personal computers, where the game's rules were written out almost like computer code:

• Run the game turn in phases
• Every rule is laid out in detail
• Structure of the rules was paramount to understanding them

They played like pen-and-paper versions of computer games, because, that is what they were. From Car Wars to Battletech, we had a whole generation of games which required players to run through turn phases, long lists of rules, and players acted more like human computers than players.

We haven't gotten away from this design philosophy much with today's games, especially with the d20-based games like D&D 3.5, Pathfinder, D&D 4, and D&D 5. To be fair, there are plenty of older games that fall into this mentality, such as Aftermath, Rolemaster, Runequest, Space Opera and many others. These are games which draw heavily on the "pen and paper computer game" design mentality, where players are more "computer code interpreters" than "game players."

Combat Conditions

Games need rules, but I feel I am getting to a point where enough is enough. Take, for instance, conditions in d20-based games:

• D&D 5 has about 15 conditions
• D&D 4 has about 16 conditions
• D&D 3.5 has about 24 conditions
• Pathfinder has about 36 conditions
• Basic Fantasy and Labyrinth Lord have 0 conditions

These are all "specially defined rules conditions" which can potentially apply during combat, have special durations, effects, removal conditions, and special rules - in addition to special conditions applied by spells (charm, hold person, etc) or things like death. This is just one area of the game, as there are vast numbers of feats, powers, combat rules, movement rules, and other fiddly and complicated interlocking rules that control how players act and what they can do during a turn.

The more rules a game gives you, the slower it will run. In general, the thicker the book, the slower the game will play. These "big book" games are easy to design since you just keep adding rules and options, but in practice very difficult to balance, and very easy to break.

Old School Games

It is interesting to note there are no "special conditions" in the old-school games, beyond what spells did to you. They are, in general, simpler games where you do not have to worry about special effects being applied to you during a turn. There was a point in d20's history where the Magic the Gathering design philosophy took hold and numerous special conditions were added to the game.

It's like the AC and hit point system felt too abstract and realism needed to be added though the use of conditions to flavor combat, when the old-school games embraced the abstract nature of d20 combat and left things how they were. In an old-school game, if a goblin bonked you on the head, the referee could rule you were "stunned" and lost a turn - if that was important. Otherwise, AC, to-hit, damage, and hit-points were all that were needed to simulate everything that went on during combat - including the millions of possible conditions that could happen during a turn of battle.

Roll a "1" on damage during a turn in an old-school game? Maybe you were stunned, staggered, or weakened during that blow, who cares? Miss the to-hit entirely? Maybe you got knocked down that turn and got back up, who knows, make it up and go with the flow. It doesn't matter what happened during the turn, just the outcome of the roll.

AC and hit-points are intentionally abstract systems, like "money" or "property" in Monopoly. There is a simplicity and beauty in leaving them the way they are, and not over-designing "reality" systems on top of them. Really, once you add "realism layers" on top of abstract systems, all you do is show the weakness of the original underlying systems instead of making them work better.

"Play How You Want?"

Note that this discussion only applies if you want to play the game by the rules as written, any one of these games can be played "fast and loose" by omitting rules, but then again, you are not really playing the game at that point and taking advantage of rules that were written to give you the full experience of the game. A complicated game will always have the line "play however you want" in there because this is the only way the designers of these games have to control complexity, they need to tell players it is okay to omit rules to speed play.

Writing complicated games is easy, since all you have to do is keep piling rules, feats, conditions, special rules, new class structures, new powers, and more options onto the book. Writing a simple game is very hard, because you need to write rules that can handle a lot with a little.

Modern and Old-School Designs

Contrast these games with more modern designs, such as FATE or Savage Worlds. These two alone are very impressive designs, and make the d20-based games feel like flip-phones to play versus a smartphone - at least for our group. To be fair, D&D 5 did try to follow the more modern design philosophy and simplify, but for our group, we felt too much baggage (with specific and single-purpose feats and powers) was held over from the older rules to really place the game into the more modern design style.

Modern designs do a lot with a little. Old school games also did the same, but intentionally abstract away parts of the game which could slow things down. Balance exists in the simplicity of the design, and in universal rules. Special cases are handled through the referee. Are you tied up? You can't act but could struggle out of your bonds, maybe...referee's call. We don't need a restrained condition and a page of rules for escaping bonds, plus feats to support "escape artists," and spells that free people from ropes.

Big book games over-design everything and add every feature and whistle, like Homer Simpson designing a car. Modern designs simplify, and handle many things with a single mechanic, leaving the referee to handle special circumstances. A "gunfighter" in a big-book game needs a special class, powers for that class, feats for that class, and special rules for that class. A "gunfighter" in a modern design or old-school game is likely a skill at using guns and that's it, it is handled the same way as any other attack.

Modern games tend to be more streamlined and handle everything with unified mechanics. Old-school games typically handle one type of action under an abstracted mechanic. It is not uncommon for an old-school design to use parallel but different diced mechanics for different actions (d20 to-hits and d100 thief skills). A modern design would put those all in the same dicing mechanic and unify action resolution.

FATE Accelerated vs. FATE Core, part 1

In this corner we have FATE Accelerated, the stripped down, lean and mean light version of the FATE rules, which we will call FAE. In that corner, we have FATE Core, the little rules book that weighs in at over 300 pages which is way longer than I ever imagined a rules-light game could be, and a book we will call Core. I got both books and I wanted to do a first impressions sort of review as I read both and check them out, so I will be going over what I learn and how things work in this comparison.

Both PDFs are pay-what-you want and free and unrestricted for the initial download, an incredible distribution model and very progressive and thoughtful. I am feeling I will pay something here, this is just too kind and they deserve something for a great game and all this hard work. Honestly, I am not cheap, and we want companies this generous to stick around and put out great stuff in the future.

Dice!

I bought a special set of FATE Dice and I love these things. They are fun and very collectible, high-impact (I dropped one on a stone floor from 4 feet with no damage or marks after 2 three-foot bounces), and very pretty. I can see myself collecting these just to play around with, and they are a fun part of the game. More are coming in the mail, and I love the ones made by Evil Hat. Something makes me want to invent a game to play these with, or maybe use them for Monopoly or a WW2 wargame like Squad Leader. More dice? Let's do another picture of dice:

You only need four of them as a player or referee. Only four, so a 12-pack will be enough for three people. You roll them all together, plus means +1, minus means -1, and you total the result and add to an Approach (in FAE) or a Skill (in Core), what this game uses as an ability score. 4d3 is a unique mechanic, and it feels novel and unique.

Core Skills vs. FAE Approaches

FAE gets rid of a skill list for a more generic "action based" set of approaches to problems - it doesn't matter how skilled you are at an action, your approach to how you solve a problem is what matters. Core uses a list of 18 task-specific skills, where FAE sticks to 6 non-skill 'problem solving' approaches which any. I can see how those wanting a crunchy, more character-design driven game would be drawn to core, while those wanting a rules-light and more 'let's play a movie or TV show right now' would gravitate towards FAE. Core seems more like the long-term campaign choice, but I want to check out Accelerated to get my feet wet before diving in.

OGL and SRD FTW

And these are OGL games with a Creative Commons license, and an SRD as well. Wow, they are trying really hard to win me over. Really hard. I feel my defenses breaking already. A sensible, modern, open, and SRD-driven game with the normal OGL/SRD licensing guidelines and rules? Yes, D&D 5 went OGL, but they leave things out, so there is that forking thing going on over there. Here? It's all on the table, start creating your game. Or making a module. Or whatever. Just play by the OGL/SRD rules and you are good to go.

Okay, I am won over now, let's get back into the game.

But see what this does? Being open and flexible about your rules system wins fans. Legend is like this as well, along with a couple other games Mongoose makes. Evil Hat follows suite, and we have another game that will live forever and spawn countless forms, and there are no parts left out. This is the way to publish a game. Worrying about selling physical copies rule books is so year 2000. Make a great game, let people have it without restrictions, and then sell the rulebooks and other add-on items. Rules are cheap and should be free.

And yes, I will keep buying dice, and paying-what-I-want because generous people deserve to stay around and be rewarded for the cool stuff they make.

And I want other companies to follow this model, so I will support it.

Aspects are Where It's At

Aspects are really the core of this game, and while the game seems almost rules-light, don't let this fool you. There is a very deep and meaningful aspect game going on here underneath, and it supports the entire role-playing and task resolution system in the game. This really shouldn't be understated, where in most other RPGs, you get this dry "number vs. number" thing going on, what's your skill and what's the DR of the lock? Roll. Fine. Done, pass or fail.

An aspect is a simple statement of truth about any fact about a character, situation, or scene that can give you a bonus or penalty when invoked or compelled by a fate point. The statement can be anything, but ideally it can be something positive or negative that could apply in multiple ways.

In FATE, it's all about the aspects, baby. I want to stick to FAE for this, since that is how I want to learn the game, so here goes. Character aspects can come into play, like, "I am a master thief of the city of Cairo." Situational aspects can come into play, like, "the room is really noisy and it is hard to concentrate." Consequences (injuries or other temporary conditions) can come into play, such as, "I sprained my wrist" or "my confidence is shaken."

Before we get into the mechanical workings of aspects, the action system of the game turn plays into aspects as well and completely supports them. There is another layer here that is really critical to understand so you won't be playing this as a novice. Action during a turn can be taken to "create an advantage" or create a new, temporary situational aspect. I could plug cotton in my ears to cancel out the noisy room, or take extra time picking the lock. I could also try to use an "overcome" action against the noisy room aspect by trying to quiet everyone down, and if I roll good enough, get a one-time boost that I can use for a limited time (the room quiets down and circles around so they can watch me pick the lock with anticipation).

You can invoke positive aspects (or negative ones against fores) by spending a fate point. You can earn fate points by compelling negative aspects on yourself. The game's entire fate point system revolves around the invoking and compelling of aspects, and fate points are your "story points" which you use to gain benefits and make interesting stuff happen.

In this game, you are constantly creating aspects, invoking them, compelling them on others (and yourself), having the referee invoke them or compel them as NPCs, and keeping the "fate point economy" spending and earning points like poker chips being tossed around the table without abandon. This is not just for dry RPG combat, this is for social scenes, technical scenes, tasks, and any challenge or interaction in the game. You could have a whole social combat scene play out with situational aspects being created by the "create an advantage" action, such as a diplomat questioning the integrity of another diplomat, creating a "suspicion of personal gain" aspect on that person. That aspect could be compelled against that diplomat, or it could be invoked by a character saying "my integrity has not been challenged!" That "suspicion of personal gain" aspect could be dispelled by the "overcome" action with irrefutable proof of honesty and integrity, and if you roll good enough, earn a boost in which to turn the tables on your accuser with a boost, which you could use to inflict a "dishonest accusations and dealings" aspect back on your accuser.

This is not a cut-and-dried "by the numbers" RPG, this is a social experience simulator that can be used in a remarkable number of ways. You could use aspects to perform auto repair, negotiations, cloak and dagger sneaking around a enemy base, roleplaying, exploration of new lands, cutting down a tree, mining a mine, searching ruins, and any other normal and exceptional situation - should you choose to. The aspect and fate point system, combined with the create advantage and overcome actions, create an interactive and social experience out of anything you throw at it.

Aspects can be Special Equipment

Another interesting part of the game is that there are no equipment lists. You are a swordfighter, so you have a sword, often as a part of a character aspect. If you are a sniper, you could create an aspect "my specialized rifle is good at hitting targets at long range" and get a +2 when you invoke this piece of special gear with a fate point when that condition is true. At short ranges, it is like any other gun and can be used normally, but with a fate point and the right situation, that special equipment comes into play.

Again, in many "by the numbers" RPGs, you are forced to sort through long lists of equipment, match a weapon to a style of fighting, and weight positives and negatives of giant spreadsheets of modifiers, damage outputs, and numbers. Here, that isn't how this game is played, and specialized gear is more of a "TV or movie plot device used during a special scene" than something you would geek out about ranges, fps, muzzle energy, and all sorts of other arcane numbers that would bore the audience to tears.

Accelerated vs. Core

This is a tough one, since I want to see Core as AD&D versus FAE's simpler D&D. I don't really see that analogy holding up, since they are both the same game - but different. I want to learn and play Accelerated first and save Core for later. I may stick with Accelerated after I read Core, or incorporate the parts I like from Core. I don't know. I need to read and play some more before I make that decision, and no rush, because I am liking the interactive and social nature of this game.

It is not like Savage Worlds at all, nor Legend, d20, or any other game. Savage Worlds is taking our top spot as our group's "polyhedral game", while Legend is our "percentile realism" game, and our own Second Edition of SBRPG as our favorite "d6 game" (still in development, more soon). All of these are crunchy, by-the-numbers games, with SBRPG 2nd Edition sitting somewhere between storytelling and crunchy.

I can see FATE working its way into our playlist as our "fast and fun" story light game of choice. Why? It is anti-crunch and social. It is interactive and verbal. It is built around storytelling and a shared experience. It has a unique and fun mechanic. The dice are interesting and make us want to play.

A very strong system overall, and I am pleasantly surprised by this one. I had expected something rules-light and not as compelling, something you buy, collect, and never play. I got something which once dug into compels me to play, is full of interesting and social-play ideas, and is tailored to create a unique and fun experience.

A winner? Too early to tell, we need to run through our first session and see.