Fate chat and game room

12:39 AM

Mobs! With stress tracks! How do they work?

Okay, so (as per Fate Core 216) when you put lots of nameless mooks together into a single "character" unit for purposes of mechanics, it works thusly:

The mob uses the stats of a single member of the mob, but for every individual beyond the first, the mob gets a +1 bonus to all its rolls.

Every point of stress dealt to the mob reduces the mob by one individual, thus also reducing their bonuses.

When the last individual is left alone, he runs if he can.

This means mobs should have stress equal to the number of individuals in them, minus one.

So a four-man mob should have OOO stress, right? WRONG!

I got ahead of myself and had to re-do the math. Six-man mob comes later.

Miniman

Oops

BESW

OO stress is the right answer, because that's the capacity to absorb (1 + 2 =) 3 stress.

If I gave it OOO stress, that'd be (1 + 2 + 3 =) 6 stress the mob could absorb.

Miniman

So how is 5 even possible?

BESW

EXACTLY!

Miniman

lol...

BESW

12:45 AM

A six-man mob appears to be a mechanical impossibility.

HOWEVER.

What if it was a OOO-stress mob with one stress already dealt? like so: XOO.

Miniman

I thought you might say that

BESW

That'd be (1 + 2 + 3 =) 5 stress.

Miniman

What happens if it has to absorb 1 stress?

BESW

Whenever you have to absorb an amount of stress that has already been ticked off, you roll up to the next-highest box.

Miniman

Again, remember that I know nothing about Fate, I may just be saying stupid things

BESW

12:46 AM

So if this six-man mob gets hit for one stress, it takes out two men.

Miniman

Is that how it's meant to work?

BESW

Yup!

And normally it makes sense, but in this corner case where stress is being used to represent individuals in a group it's.... kinda wonky.

Usually Fate is a lot more narrative-first, mechanics-second than this.

Miniman

I'm confused, but you seem satisfied with your calculations. I hope next time you can find a better audience :P

BESW

I could be getting it wrong.

Let's see.

If you have OOO, and you're dealt two shifts of stress, you cross off the second box: OXO.

Then you're dealt 1 stress, so you cross off the first box: XXO.

Then you're dealt 1 stress again. The first box is crossed off, so you roll up to the second; but the second box is crossed off too, so you roll up again: XXX

Miniman

So 1 + 1 + 1 stress is as hard to absorb as 1 + 2 + 3 stress?

BESW

12:52 AM

Yup.

And 4 stress is impossible to absorb, as is 3 + 3.

(At that point we start getting into choosing if you're willing to take lasting consequences in order to not lose the fight then and there.)

Because stress is not hit points or damage.

Stress is a measure of how much you're able to handle without having something happen to you that'll last beyond the current conflict.

Miniman

Interesting as it is, I suspect this is not the best way for me to go about learning about Fate

BESW

....possibly.

I'm dealing with edge cases here.

Specifically I want to have two mobs of five individuals in a conflict tomorrow night, and trying to make that work caused me to go WAT.

I can either give them XOO and have them easier to take out, or OOO, and have that last guy standing still able to take a point of stress before he's taken out.

@JoshuaAslanSmith [wave]

Miniman

@BESW That sounds simpler and more dramatic. (Again, I know nothing.)

BESW

I'm exploring the mechanics of mob stress.

@Miniman Which one?

Miniman

Last man standing fights desperately to survive on his own

BESW

1:02 AM

Aye.

Miniman

I'd link to TVTropes if I wasn't at work

BESW

Heh.

Okay! I'm happy with the mobs now.

Thanks for being a sounding board.

Miniman

No problem! Sorry for my ignorance

BESW

No, no. Explaining things helps me look at them in new ways.

Miniman

If there is a TPK due to that last bit of stress, it's not my fault

trogdor

1:09 AM

lol

Joshua Aslan Smith

@besw should I avoid the spoil lair for the near future?

BESW

I haven't started anything in there for your game yet.

I can't really do anything spoil-worthy until I know more about the PCs and setting.

So you're welcome to go look at my mob build if you want.

Lord_Gareth

3:49 AM

Thou art summoned, @BESW. Thou art called, @Doppelgreener. Yea, bring forth the FATE gamers to the foot of the Dark Throne, and we shall converse, they and I.

BESW

Okay, that's the Create an Advantage action to create the aspect Gathered throng with one free invoke. Roll 4d6 against a difficulty of +3.

trogdor

4d6

Dice Service

•

trogdor

oops, my fudge program was off

BESW

That's a +1, and we can assume Gareth's got at least +2 in Summoning with a stunt granting +2 when creating advantages with it online.

Which is +5, so it's a success but not a success with style.

@Lord_Gareth The Throng is Gathered, O Petulant One.

Lord_Gareth

3:55 AM

I have had Thoughts regarding why FATE's mechanics exist, and I think it may have less to do with a group's trust relationship than it does with certain inherent flaws of free-form that drive people to create systems in the first place.

trogdor

one of his specific summons isn't here though

Lord_Gareth

Your mind control example made me think of it.

Sec, wife

Okay, so - in your example of the mind control, you had an event the player didn't want to happen (they lose agency over their character). They were prepared to spend valuable resources to prevent this event from happening, but you offered them one to permit it instead. The player chose to gain the resource, thus submitting to your (immediate) control of the narrative.

Is any of that wrong thus far, @BESW?

BESW

That seems accurate.

Lord_Gareth

Would you be surprised if I told you that such narrative conflict can halt a lot of free-form games for, depending on medium used, anywhere from 30 minutes to several weeks?

BESW

....I suppose so.

I mean, I've seen instances in LJ RPGs where players enjoyed making their own characters lose agency but couldn't bear having others do the same to them.

Lord_Gareth

4:04 AM

Freeform, as a "system", has a problem where narrative control is always considered to be equal unless voluntarily relinquished. And this can be a difficulty, because some people - rightly or wrongly - will value that control over the overall narrative.

BESW

But in an IRL version where the group knows each other better I'd expect it to be a little less show-stopping.

Lord_Gareth

And the trouble happens either when the narrative requests or demands an element they don't want (loss of agency) or they have a competing vision of the narrative (the hero shakes off the spell and counterattacks)

trogdor

there are several ways I can see character mind control working in the form that BESW's games take

at least in Fate itself

Lord_Gareth

That's actually where I'm heading, @trogdor

trogdor

for this instance, the Player deliberately had his character do something that gave some of his agency away at some point

Lord_Gareth

4:06 AM

Even in a mature group defined by mutual friendship and trust, disagreements about the narrative are going to happen. This is a symptom of putting a group of creative people together, really.

FATE's mechanics define who has control when - and give you a solid incentive to relinquish control

trogdor

the way it would work was discussed beforehand, and the player was even given a Compel worth a Fate Point to not fight it, at least till it was used once

Lord_Gareth

I wasn't asking how it'd work

I'm musing aloud as to why it was written

trogdor

I realize that

but I just thought of a few ways it can work

and I would like to post them here

BESW

@Lord_Gareth Hmmm.

Lord_Gareth

Very well

BESW

4:08 AM

Here's a detail you left out of the "how it happened" narrative for my mind control scenario. Not sure if it's relephant or not:

When I offered that Fate point to allow it to happen instead of him spending a fistful of Fate points to stop it, I also said "I think you'll have more fun this way, too."

trogdor

@BESW said player agreed

heartily, in fact

Lord_Gareth

@BESW Yes. But would that have worked without the resource?

BESW

I'm not sure.

trogdor

I think, even, that he managed to succeed on a roll to not be mind controlled, spent FP on it, and got all that back from the compel

Lord_Gareth

Or, maybe more accurately, would it have been resolved as quickly and smoothly?

trogdor

4:10 AM

but that is only if I remember it right

BESW

Given that specific player--maybe. But if it had been Daniel or Ira, definitely not.

trogdor

one of the ways I think mind control or something similar can work in our Fate games, said person has to spend their turn doing what they are compelled to do, but before or after said turn, they can roll to resist. we could also add onto this a mechanic where they get a Fate Point every turn this goes on, or, possibly more workable, offer a Fate Point every time they succeed to let it continue

Lord_Gareth

Right now I'm in a pair of freeform games with people I know and trust intimately. I've known both for years, I've slept with at least one of them, we have deep respect for each other's skills. But time-consuming delays and stalls over narrative disagreement still happen.

I think at least part of the reason for FATE's mechanics existing is to smooth that over

Not just for the trust relationship but to give people a "solid" reason to let someone else's vision prevail.

BESW

Interesting.

Lord_Gareth

Thoughts on this theory?

BESW

4:16 AM

In this light, I'm thinking of the rules as providing a communal structure: the group picks a ruleset that they agree encourages the kind of game they want to play, and so when you're not sure what to do you lean on the rules and trust they'll guide you to a decision that'll be fun for everyone.

trogdor

seems reasonable enough

BESW

IE, the rules provide an external reference for gameplay expectations, and support for enforcing them, rather than hoping everyone's on exactly the same page in a freeform game and things breaking down when you find out they aren't.

(This is why internal consistency in realising a system's ethos on the part of its designers is important.)

Lord_Gareth

[Nods]

The question of "Why is FATE not freeform?" has been naggling at my mind lately, as you can tell.

BESW

Hm. It's not a new area of thought for me, but it's a different angle on it. Cool!

@Lord_Gareth It comes back to something I've said many times: Fate is a storytelling manifesto.

"If you use these kinds of story elements, you'll be hard-pressed not to tell a cool story of this particular type."

Lord_Gareth

I still wonder how it deals in making certain concepts that fit into those stories feel, in play. If I might use an example from a different (homebrew) system, which you said sounded similar to Dogs in the Vineyard?

BESW

4:29 AM

Okay...

(I'm in and out helping my dad, that's why I'm kinda erratic here.)

I'm not sure what "making concepts feel" means.

Lord_Gareth

Well, that's what I'm getting to

In the system in question, combat had three options: make an action, contest an action, or escalate

Making an action is simple; you do something that is controlled by your skills. For instance, a group of soldiers opens fire (Firearms), beginning combat at the Murder level of escalation

Contesting an action keeps things at the current level of escalation but tries to prevent or counter the action in question; you roll your Dodge vs. their Firearms (escalation remains at Murder)

Escalation invalidates the opposing action by raising the stakes with an action of your own. For example, you escalate from Murder to Battle by teleporting into the midst of the soldiers with your Psychoportation skill

The previous action is negated entirely but you are now using the mechanics for the new level of escalation

With me thus far?

BESW

I think so.

Lord_Gareth

So, my character was a military vet of deeply black ops, on the run from the law. An assassin, soldier, and butcher, he had a dangerous, ruthless, and blunt feel that I was going for.

Game mechanics made that really easy

Soldiers open fire (Murder). Escalate to Battle by teleporting into their midst; his killer instinct kicks in to protect him and attack. Soldiers stay at Battle to engage in melee, but he chooses to escalate to Chaos by scrambling a bunch of their minds

A different character might have chosen to escalate to Pursuit by teleporting away

Etc, so forth

So my question here is, how well does FATE handle not necessarily that specific scenario (though by all means), but the idea. I mean, he's got the attributes of a FATE character - he's competent, motivated, and driven to act

But my general impression is that a person whose problem solving toolset is heavy on murder is not a great place to be in FATE, even if the story you're telling supports it

trogdor

that escalation system doesn't seem to be too similar to Dogs in the Vineyard from the limited experience with it we had

Dog's escalation pretty much stopped at "Murder"

at least from what I experienced

BESW

In a Fate game, he's going to have aspects/stunts/skills reflecting those competencies. When his aspects are relephant he'll be awesome and so the player has incentive to move the narrative toward circumstances where he can do it--and the GM can compel him toward it, also.

He'll be murdering nameless mooks left, right, and centre in a pulpy action-film kind of storyline.

But when he comes up against a story-important character, they'll have the Fate-mechanic equivalent of plot armor which lets them engage him in awesome battles repeatedly throughout the story without either of them actually dying from it.

Lord_Gareth

4:42 AM

[Is listening]

(Also fun aside, one of his knives was made by a general with a thing for torture. It had an audio recorder built into its hilt. This came up a lot.)

BESW

No, that's about it. I'm still not entirely clear on exactly what you mean, if what I just said doesn't address it.

Lord_Gareth

Everything you said makes sense to me. I suppose...lemme try to think here.

I think it might help if we go back to the squad of soldiers example?

BESW

Okay. They sound like tough but nameless guys.

Lord_Gareth

@BESW Precisely. In the original game, they were a narrative challenge whose great strengths were being good at combat and We Have Orders

So overcoming their challenge (getting off-world alive and free from incarceration) required meeting those strength somehow

BESW

I'm imagining the faceplate mooks in the puppy-in-the-trunk scene from Equilibrium.

Lord_Gareth

4:46 AM

I chose to invalidate those strengths by plunging the situation into Chaos

And then get out while they had to quell it

But how does FATE treat such NPCs? Are they faceless mooks to be ignored, or...what?

BESW

Okay, so I'd probably stat up something like this:

> Elite Soldier of the Galactic Imperium
Shoot +3
Fight +2
Wpn:2 on attacks with guns; armor:2 on attacks less powerful than military hardware
Stress: O

Then I'd figure out how many there are: let's say there's a half-dozen, and I'll divide them into two groups of three each.

Each group starts with base stats and gets +1 for every individual in the group beyond the first.

> Elite Soldiers of the Galactic Imperium (x3)
Shoot +3 (+5)
Fight +2 (+4)
Wpn:2 on attacks with guns; armor:2 on attacks less powerful than military hardware
Stress: OO

Lord_Gareth

Okay

BESW

And I'll give each group the temporary aspect We have orders with two free invokes.

So they open up firing at you with Shoot +5, dealing an extra 2 stress if they hit.

And there's two groups, each with its own initiative count.

You defend against the two attacks, probably taking a little stress but nothing your guy can't handle.

Then your guy teleports into the middle of them (probably a stunt which lets him move two zones for free without possibility of mundane opposition) and scrambles their brains.

You could fight them, but instead you use your telepathic ability (probably an Extra that grants a bonus trapping on the Will skill) to create an advantage.

So you roll Will vs their.... well, I hadn't given them a mental defence stat because I thought this was going to be a physical conflict (talking as if I were a GM who didn't know the outcome yet) but let's put it at +1.

Between stunts and so forth your Will is probably something like +5, so even with a penalty for targeting both groups at once you easily succeed with style at creating the aspect Can't tell friend from foe.

That's the end of your turn, but You spend a Fate point to compel Can't tell friend from foe on one group to make them attack the other, which means the other group starts shooting back. Their turns are spent on each other, and it's your turn again.

Lord_Gareth

At which point the GTFO happens

BESW

You spend both free invokes for an extra +4 on an Overcome action to flee the scene. That's an Athletics check to run away, with +1 zone of movement per shift on the roll.

Your Athletics is probably at least +2, so you're likely 6 or more zones away now.

If at any point you roll badly or they roll well, you spend Fate points to invoke your relephant aspects to get bonuses and re-rolls. You're in your element, so you probably have at least two aspects which can be reasonably invoked for each of those actions.

Does that help?

Lord_Gareth

5:03 AM

Yeah. It kinda...when it's put that way it sorta lessens the feel on the brutality aspect but not enough that I feel like it's absent

BESW

Narrative can help with that.

If Can't tell friend from foe were Convinced of sudden betrayal, does that help?

Lord_Gareth

Well, the thing is - and I should have been clearer - that what he did was cause them to start shooting randomly into each other, the crowd, buildings

In the midst of a gang-lander hell based on Mos Eisley

So it was less "these soldiers are screwed" and more "instant riot, add war crime trial"

BESW

Ahah.

Everyone is an enemy, then.

Lord_Gareth

So, lemme think on describing your flow of events

BESW

Maybe I skipped over the most important part.

Lord_Gareth

5:09 AM

Soldiers attack, deal Stress. He teleports. Narratively, the stress is...the effort from dodging the attacks? Lucky shots that were faster than his reflexes?

BESW

Stress is ephemeral, so anything that'll go away at the end of the scene.

Effort of dodging, superficial cuts from exploding bricks as bullets hit nearby buildings, ~~worry about innocent bystanders~~.

Lord_Gareth

@BESW "Bystanders? Useful if you can get their deaths on camera."

BESW

Stress is "I can't keep this up forever, but I'm still okay so far."

Lord_Gareth

So fair enough. Not like psychoportation is an effort-free event

BESW

Right. I'd usually model it as a once/session thing, or something which costs a Fate point each time you do it.

(Or a failure-possible skill check.)

So, maybe it'll help if we describe the soldiers' second turns.

You compel the first soldiers to attack randomly because everyone is an enemy.

They take a -2 penalty on Shoot to make a spray attack against everyone within a random zone.

Even with -2 they're attacking at +3, and even defending with a +3 still inflicts 2 stress because their guns have wpn:2.

And the NPCs they're attacking are lucky to have +1 to their defence rolls.

Almost everyone in that zone is now unconscious/dead (taken out), or bleeding/freaking out (took a consequence to stay in the conflict).

The second group of soldiers probably opens fire on the first, because they're the most obvious threat.

The second group doesn't get taken out, but they probably lose at least one man.

Lord_Gareth

5:21 AM

Now, if the GM was inclined to have them focused on me, I could...compel We Have Orders against them, because part of their duty is to protect civilians?

BESW

Yes.

That'll be +5 Shoot attack vs +4 Fight defence, and the guns still have wpn:2 but the armor:2 is useless against military hardware--which by definition they're using.

Lord_Gareth

(I really should read the SRD at some point but I think I'm having more fun learning the mechanics by inference and questions)

BESW

So assuming both roll +0 on the dice, that's 3 stress the first group is taking from the second, and--wow, the entire second group is down.

Is this sufficiently chaotic and brutal for you?

Lord_Gareth

^_^

BESW

And keep in mind, this is using default Fate Core settings.

You could turn the dials further to encourage more brutality.

Eliminate stress tracks from all NPCs so that PCs are striding through a paper world where anyone who wants to stay standing against them has to be taking lasting damage to do so.

Miniman

5:27 AM

There's gotta be a reverse of that, right?

BESW

Meaning? Describe the narrative.

Paper PCs in a tough world?

Or turning the dials to be more silly, slapstick?

Miniman

I meant PCs that get hurt when they get shot at, basically.

BESW

Ah, yeah. Just take away their stress tracks.

Probably wanna add more consequence slots to make up for it, maybe.

Now every time they take stress, it's take a consequence or be taken out.

Magician

5:54 AM

@BESW, o @BESW, I require your aid. How would you model Kitty Pride in Fate?

BESW

Haruum. I am not very familiar with her.

Magician

Basically, phasing through most materials at-will.

BESW

Is it effortless?

Is there a common chance for failure?

Magician

Venture City stories has a "ghost" archetype which uses Burglary to phase, but that's a check.

Not unless the material is ultra-dense

BESW

Does it kick in at inconvenient times?

Magician

5:56 AM

It's problematic because as is, she can just not take physical damage, ever.

Her power doesn't really have drawbacks that I can think of. It shorts out electronics she passes through, but she uses that offensively most of the time.

BESW

Making Superman Invulnerable for that, except doesn't she have to see the attack coming?

Magician

While I'm sure she gets knocked out that way occasionally, once in a fight she can just stay intangible.

BESW

How does she participate in the fight if she's intangible for the duration?

Magician

When she's particularly annoyed at people, she can put her hand through their heart and threaten to materialise it just a bit.

So she has quite decent control of the power and can make only parts of her body tangible or intangible. She can also make things or people she touches intangible, so she frequently occupies herself with saving others.

BESW

Hrm. [reads]

Magic and energy attacks would inflict stress, with opportunity for extremely creative consequences.

Magician

6:01 AM

The character I'm modeling on Kitty has Overprotective as her trouble, so I fully anticipate mental attacks being used against her (which is kiiiinda what that Superman article suggests, really).

doppelgreener

In the comics, Kitty Pride doesn't often get brought into missions ('cause she's still a kid, and has to do school stuff), and when she is brought in, she often does stuff uniquely applicable to her role.

The problem is that she can't actually fight as well as anyone else.

Magician

That's old information :D

BESW

Yeah, she may require that you get more creative in applying social problems. Compel her being a kid.

doppelgreener

Her powers are evasive, and keep her out of harm's way.

@Magician It is?

Magician

Well, currently she acts as the Professor to the time-displaced original X-Men, and she's very much no longer a kid. She's also been trained to fight by Wolverine, and apparently occasionally kicks ninja ass.

Lord_Gareth

6:04 AM

Psylocke!

doppelgreener

@Magician Ok, so there's a very very very different Kitty Pride being modelled here to the one I know... :P

Magician

Lord_Gareth

Psyloooooooooooocke

doppelgreener

@Lord_Gareth What about her? :o

Magician

@BESW But what do I do with intangibility. Is it fair to just make one of her power stunts be "ignore physical attacks while intangible"?

Lord_Gareth

6:06 AM

@doppelgreener Nothing except my vague memory that Shadowcat -> Psylocke

BESW

@Magician That does sound like it's a little outside everyone else's power scope.

Magician

@Lord_Gareth Hmm? They're different people! Psylocke is... a couple of people, really.

BESW

My current response is "Challenge her by addressing her social weakpoints, and also just talk to the player and ask what they envision as providing challenges and drama to the character," with a side order of "The group can talk about whether it's necessary to scale her down."

Magician

@BESW Oh, she's an NPC they'll be facing tonight.

So I'm not that concerned with long-term balance as such, but still need to model her reasonably.

doppelgreener

Then she's an NPC they either won't be fighting, or can have fun figuring out how to fight.

Magician

6:08 AM

The other way would be, I suppose, to make the intangibility stunt be "spend a fate point to ignore a physical attack", making it much more limited.

doppelgreener

e.g. somehow discover she can still get electrified in that form, or is still vulnerable to psychic attack, or etc

BESW

@Magician Oooooh. That's important!

doppelgreener

(bearing in mind this is your group's shared Fate setting, and things are allowed to work there that don't work in the comics [depending on the author chosen])

Magician

@doppelgreener Oh, absolutely. And the NPC in question is not Kitty Pride anyway, just has similar powers.

BESW

How about this narrative: she doesn't stay intangible all the time, but can flicker in and out pretty quickly.

Magician

6:12 AM

Sure. How does that help? :)

BESW

She uses a quick-reaction skill/approach to defend by trying to go intangible really fast.

Then give her a stunt, like:

Because I can go intangible, when I successfully tie to defend against an attack I can get a boost or prevent my attacker from getting one.

Or, alternatively:

Being intangible is an aspect she has to place on herself, with others can use magic/energy/tricks to remove.

So she is immune to physical stress, but there's a way to remove the immunity--at least temporarily.

One moment, I have an answer like this.

Magician

@BESW Wouldn't such immunity require fate point spending each time?

BESW

@Magician not if she dedicated most of her resources to it?

It's an NPC, don't worry as much about resource balance.

Magician

It's more of a general Fate-logic thing. Though I understand that's all variable.

doppelgreener

@BESW If you're thinking of what I'm thinking, that thing where aspects are only 'on' when you're spending a fate point on them, no

BESW

6:17 AM

Basically, give her a super-powerful extra.

Ah, here we go.

3

A: How to design battle between characters of different scales (e.g. mecha vs. infantry)?

Shadow of the Colossus is a good place to start... ...but we can take the general notion and use Fate mechanics to make it a tactical complication the players can control. To do this we'll use option A, with an option B twist. (I originally developed this idea to model monsters like vampires wh...

Magician

Curious. You say attackers would use Create Advantage to remove these aspects. Wouldn't it be Overcome, instead? not that this matters.

BESW

Possibly! I may again be confusing it with DFRPG?

I think of Create an Advantage as the aspect-interaction action.

Magician

I think in Core Create Advantage is only used to create or discover aspects, as befits the name.

doppelgreener

@BESW you are

BESW

Fix'd.

doppelgreener

6:24 AM

sudden thought:

Attack is not the mainstay of comic fighting.

At all.

The majority of dramatic fighting is not modelled by the Attack action.

Magician

A lot of it creating aspects to circumvent powers, or actually bantering with physical combat as a background.

Though it does depend on the characters and their powers. Wolverine fights.

doppelgreener

Dramatic fighting is largely just creating advantages, and trying to overcome your opponent's advantages. Wearing out the other guy, or getting some energy back. Bruising him, distracting him, breaking his will, figuring out his weak points, getting him off his guard, and so on.

(The attack action could be said to model those dramatic exchanges where nothing changes, but those could equally be the action we don't zoom in on, or the results of failed attempts to create advantage.)

Lord_Gareth

@Magician I'm pretty sure Wolverine invokes Inmates running the asylum and rigs the 4th wall to crush his enemy for him.

doppelgreener

I could model a fight where the participants do nothing but create advantage - modifying their surroundings, affecting their opponent - and everything would be pretty cool and keep changing.

Lord_Gareth

Since that cheating two-dimensional bastard is the most popular sack of crap in Marvel

doppelgreener

6:28 AM

And the only attack that ever takes place is the attack that ends fight. Suddenly, everything comes into alignment, and you spend all your free invokes from all those aspects on one attack.

BESW

@doppelgreener This is one reason I'm really interested in low-stress/no-stress conflict models.

doppelgreener

Your opponent may then spend all of his, and thus we reach an epic clash.

@BESW Do tell? (Do you think it would encourage this kind of stuff?)

BESW

I think it might.

Basically what you're saying is that the cool stuff in fights comes from creating aspects.

doppelgreener

@BESW Yeah, that's it.

BESW

What does stress do? It's the mechanic to keep you from needing aspects to stay in the fight.

Magician

6:31 AM

It's also a buffer from a stray roll.

BESW

Without stress, you have to rely on consequences.

Without stress, you build up invokes more urgently and spend Fate points more dramatically.

doppelgreener

Probably, but no stress also encourages me to use Attack anyway. It just means my attacks reliably have an impact on the enemy, even if we somehow work out an exchange of stress -> fate points which results in me requiring an equal amount of shifts over the course of the conflict to take them out.

BESW

Mmm. Here's the other problem: attacking is boring.

doppelgreener

It is, mostly.

Magician

There's no reason you can't creatively describe the attack, just as you creatively describe creating an advantage, though.

BESW

6:34 AM

We attack because it's the way to end the conflict, but attacking is broken from a story-first perspective because it's the one action which regularly results in no change to the story.

doppelgreener

The aspects resulting from attacks are also outside the control of me, the attacker, and I do not get free invokes on them.

@BESW Yeah, so my thought is: what if we're doing it wrong? We know advantages are more powerful, they can result in things like Knocked out and stress can't. So what if Attack should not be considered as the default way to fight?

BESW

I think it's less "us doing it wrong" and more "we have found the flaw in Fate."

[insert "Fate-al flaw" pun here]

doppelgreener

@BESW Haaaaa. Nobody try it. [points guns]

@BESW I don't know if it's a flaw, just: what if we try fighting differently?

"I'm gonna attack them! So I'll use the attack action!" is a logical conclusion. Except we know the attack action isn't the most effective.

Magician

Hmmm. I think stress track provides an escalating progression to the fight. You work your way towards knocking your enemy out, and it doesn't feel arbitrary when they concede or are taken out. Just giving them a Knocked out aspect doesn't feel that way.

doppelgreener

So what if, unless we're trying to reach that climactic point of deciding the battle, most attacks are really just creating an advantage in some way?

And the decisive action to end the battle and take the guy out is an attack, once everything's finally in place and we have enough free invokes to do it.

Magician

6:38 AM

@doppelgreener Yeah, but what if that roll fails, and we're back to square one? How is that... better?

doppelgreener

@Magician Yeah, though on the other hand, in a stealth-focused adventure, the PC party of ninjas would be pretty justified in being able to create 'knocked out' advantages.

Magician

@doppelgreener Against mooks, though, who'd have few stress boxes as well!

You'd expect a major baddie in a ninja game to still put up a fight.

doppelgreener

@Magician Against anyone. It's a matter of agreement of power level.

@Magician Yeah, I agree.

Magician

So it's a question of drawing the line between mooks and major NPCs, which is already present in Fate.

trogdor

I don't like the idea of removing stress entirely

Magician

6:41 AM

To clarify, I'm not being contrarian because I dislike the idea, I'm just debating.

BESW

May I once again point out my "you gotta have a performed the benediction aspect before you can attack the vampire" concept?

doppelgreener

@Magician The roll can't fail; the roll itself is going to only make a difference of +/-4. The attack itself might fail, because your advantages don't significantly outweigh your opponent's. But no, you're not back to square one: everything that's happened has still happened. You are both still tired, Thor and Hulk have both levelled a portion of the town fighting each other, etc.

This is gonna be a situation where you've created, say, 10 advantages, each with a free invoke, half of them with two free invocations. Then Thor goes: "I'm gonna swing my hammer at him," attacks forcefully, gets a -1 on the roll and +3 from forceful, and then +20 from all those invocations on all those presently-relevant aspects.

and the Hulk goes "oh no!" and uses up his own free invocations as ablative plot armor.

Magician

@doppelgreener Hm. So what's the significant difference between 1) Hulk punch Thor through building, Hulk roll Fight to Attack, Thor rolls Fight to Defend; and 2) Hulk Create Advantage of Punched Through Building with Fight, Thor Defends with Fight?

Narratively, the same thing happens (or doesn't happen, or not as hard, if the roll fails). I'm not seeing why the kinda-weird aspect of Punched Through Building is necessarily better than 2 physical stress from being punched through one. Not to mention the potential for Thor to use Physique to Overcome it by shaking his head, which literally reverts any progress made.

doppelgreener

If Hulk attacks and succeeds: Thor takes stress, so nothing happens, or also a consequence, meaning an aspect happens. Hulk gets a boost (+2) briefly.

If Hulk attacks and fails: nothing happens.

If Hulk Creates Advantage and succeeds: Thor gets an aspect placed on him, Hulk gets at least a +2 or a +4 from it.

If Hulk Creates Advantage and fails: nothing happens, or they happen but Thor gets a free invoke on it.

So Create Advantage almost guarantees something will happen. It also guarantees someone gets at least one free invoke.

@Magician I guess that's true, it can be zero-sum, though Thor would have Overcome it by at least as much as Hulk used to put it there.

Meaning, he has to justify it, roll well enough, maybe expend resources to get there.

Magician

@doppelgreener Which suddenly would require bookkeeping for each aspect

doppelgreener

6:52 AM

@Magician What?

Magician

@doppelgreener If you have to roll as much as the character creating an aspect rolled to make it in order to overcome it, you have to write down that number for every aspect created.

doppelgreener

Hm. Somehow I'm under the impression that if you put an aspect there with 5 shifts, it can't be overcome unless the overcome action also gets 5 shifts or more. Am I mistaken?

Magician

@doppelgreener I don't recall such rule (which doesn't say much).

doppelgreener

@BESW @trogdor have I done a mistake-up or is this legit?

BESW

@doppelgreener DFRPG again, I think.

Magician

6:55 AM

@doppelgreener Is the main issue the lack of outcome on a failed Attack roll, then? Because I'd say filling stress boxes certainly means something has happened, and the narrative of being punched through the building still occurred.

BESW

Removing or changing an aspect.

doppelgreener

@BESW Ok, yeah.

@Magician No, quite the opposite. It's just that Attacking results in nothing changing very often, because of failures or stress absorption.

BESW

I think "Attack" is the only action where you've got no option for "success at cost" negotiation on a failed roll.

Magician

@doppelgreener You're drawing a line here between "2nd physical stress box filled" and "Punched Through Building aspect", and saying the former is a non-event while the latter isn't.

doppelgreener

Fate conflicts that are 100% attacking kinda suck, and it doesn't tend to work out that well. Conflicts ebb between creating advantages and attacking. Maybe it doesn't work taking it all the way to the extremes of preferring advantages almost all the way.

@Magician Narratively, yeah, stuff happened, stress got taken, but no aspects have changed.

Magician

7:00 AM

@doppelgreener Having an advantage or two around to call upon if the dice don't go your way is definitely useful, and we tend to do that.

@doppelgreener But why is having a temporary aspect so important?

doppelgreener

Hm. I guess if you take it from a narrative approach, things have changed just as much as normal.

@Magician It might not be!

Magician

@BESW That is what I'm coming to, yeah. Though I still often struggle to offer meaningful costs.

BESW

@Magician Ditto.

More and more I'm calling for the group to help with that.

doppelgreener

I'm just considering, like: what if instead of attacking via attacking, I attack via creating advantages? I don't hurt the guy, but I create ablative armor in the form of free invocations every round, and if I don't need to use it, I have free invocations around for when I finally attack the guy.

Magician

@doppelgreener In one of the few fights we've had, a PC did basically that: created aspects for a couple of rounds. Then the fight was over, and they were sitting on their free invocations and just were kind of sad.

doppelgreener

7:03 AM

@Magician Yeah, and that can happen.

So the important thing is to not create aspects that are superfluous and don't change much. Bruise their leg badly. Shatter the building's wall, changing the terrain and scenery. Set things on fire. Change the scene dramatically, such that it shapes what your side and your opponents can and cannot do and has palpable, immediate impact on what's going on.

If I were doing that I would not feel my aspects were wasted: they changed the fight every step of the way.

Magician

Going back to comic book fights, they consist of creating aspects so often because they frequently feature characters with powers that make them immune to straight-up attacks.

@doppelgreener Right. I definitely don't advocate for the, ahem, D&D fights of standing there and hitting the opponent until one of you falls down.

I'm just not sure simply removing the stress track would achieve more interesting fights, either.

doppelgreener

@Magician I'm not sure about it either (honestly I'd like to try it to see); what I was talking about doesn't require doing anything to stress tracks.

So anyway I walked away to do something and thought about this for a second:

(a) I do not know how viable the create-advantage-focus thing I've been talking about is. Maybe I'm wrong about it, it feels like the idea's crumbling under light inspection.

@Magician (b) I am glad you said this, because I realised I've had it in my head that if an attack fails, things don't change. But they can! Thor can be punched through a building even if the attack failed, but no stress or consequences or other aspects happen. And that's fine! Fate isn't there to tell us what happens in the narrative any more than we want it to. It's a toolbox, not a dictator.

(c) I may give my monster in the Archives a stunt saying its attacks cannot be absorbed by stress.

And see how my players respond. 8)

And now I need to go visit parents. Ta ta!

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