@MikeQ [wave]

@BESW That sounds pretty good -- and it revolves around proactive improvisation, a lot like Fate does.

@BESW [photon]

Ha! Physics.

lol

@doppelgreener For people who've never played anything but D&D, the first non-D&D game can be kinda mind-blowing. Better to have that moment without worrying about long-term impact of your choices on a full campaign, or while trying to learn the nuances of a new system.

@BESW Definitely one-shots are appropriate for venturing into new arenas.

Example: Playing a sorcerer in 5E versus playing a psyker in 40k Dark Heresy

Mmm, I'm thinking more about paradigm shifts like discovering new stances.

@BESW Yeah, I remember my first non-DnD experience. I'm trying to lessen the impact by reminding everyone, new and old players, that system matters a lot.

@BESW Ah yes, my favorite game, Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons

What's an example of a paradigm shift?

@MikeQ Somebody who's only ever been in games where the Director stance is reserved for the GM (like D&D), experiencing games which offer Director stance to everyone at the table (like Fate).

More qualitatively, a (successful) paradigm shift might be experienced as “OOOHH. You can do that?!”

@BESW Or Great Ork Gods -- the GM's narrating part of what's happening, but mechanical power is distributed among all of the players.

It's something that just seems like an immutable law, just a way things are... and then you realise it never was; it's just the way you did things.

(cf threshold concepts)

yeah, and it actually does look like Venture City might be a little overwhelming

since I have now read all of it, and also followed most of this conversation

it seems like possibly the best way is something like what Greener suggested

I like a lot of the concepts Venture City is pushing, but it's a very specific kind of superhero story.

show em the bare bones difference that will probably blow some minds anyway

The whole "leave out skills/approaches" thing with Greener's approach is... I dunno, I'd have to make that call per group.

Leave out stunts, sure.

But, yanno. These are folks coming from D&D. Not only are they going to want to have dice and modifiers, they're used to a certain level of complexity and I'm not sure it's warranted to artificially reduce Fate's already dramatically less complex mechanics.

@BESW Their being used to certain mechanical features is exactly why it can be advantageous to leave out some of the features they're used to. Coming from D&D, a group might see the D&D-like bits which D&D was all about (skills, dice rolls, and conflicts) and make their session all about those -- whilst Fate uses that stuff, but is driven by aspects and compels and the fate point economy and freeform storytelling.

Again, it's something I'd have to judge by the group.

I find that reasonable.

And it's something an RFS session would help me judge.

But why I'm responding is that it is not about reducing complexity.

The complexity isn't the issue -- it's the feature equivalences that will be incorrectly concluded that going aspects-and-fate-points-only first interrupts, allowing for people to learn what the system's really about, since it's all that's there in the first session.

If they go wild in RFS pushing what skills and narrative permission can do, I'd probably want to throw the Core at them. But if they treat RFS skills as D&D-like in scope and permission, I might want to go your route.

@BESW That sounds good to me.

@BESW fair enough

I probably would have been upset myself if we had to start Fate with even less than it normally has

(I'm not entirely sure I buy that dice and modifiers aren't central to what the system's about, anyway, but that's a different conversation.)

That's a conversation I'd be interested to have! I'd like to hear your ideas on that.

@doppelgreener Specifically skills and approaches aren't necessary, but rolls with some kind of reliable character-based modifier are. Without dice rolls the fate point economy is missing a third of its engine, and without reliable modifiers characters lose a third of competent/proactive/dramatic triad.

I like showing off how in Fate the dice roll is just the start of resolving a task, and it's actually the fate points and aspects brought in to tell the story of the success that are most important. It's kind of like the roll sets the DC, the Invokes resolve the attempt.

You can ditch stunts and just lose a level of customisation, but ditching the action system loses you "with style" and "at cost," competence with chance of failure, a major way to spend fate points (cheapening compels and detail declarations)...

'cause you're not just losing dice and Attack/Defend. You're losing Create Advantage, which is a major tool in Fate's box for showcasing how players can stance-switch.

Meanwhile in other news, the sudden switch where our 5th party member became a wizard instead of a fighter forces me to reconsider School of Valor instead of Lore.

We have a Dwarf Paladin who specializes in defense and a Gnome Barbarian (yes) who can soak up decent amounts of damage from mundane foes because of the class's rage feature. They're in charge of meat-shielding for my bard, a magic-focused warlock and a rogue whose main tactic is darting in and out of melee using Cunning Action.

I think two melee characters tanking is enough for most purposes, but then again we're going round-robin - when the Paladin's or the Barbarian's player is mastering, we're stuck with only one tanky character.

@BESW Right. I think that's important to introduce in the second session, or whenever the group feels comfortable with compels & declarations.

I don't think proactivity or competence are lost by taking out skills or stunts.

Definitely there's pieces that move the fate economy not there without skills, I agree with you.

(and hadn't thought of it that way until you put it like that)

@trogdor Also yeah this is something to consider, if you're really looking forward to all the stuff in it.

yeah

I like the idea, to some extent, but I also realized I probably would have been not so great about us starting Fate that way for our group

Why d'you think so?

I was already a little worried when we started that Fate was missing the number of fiddly bits that 4e had

going into it that way might have actually lessened my enthusiasm for the system

Yeah, I can see that being an issue. Thanks. :)

I still think that approach is a decent idea, I just agree with BESW that it depends a lot on the group involved

I agree with that too.