Fate chat and game room

doppelgreener

00:02

Yesssss.

The power of fate points is unlimited and well beyond anything you can achieve through your character at any one time ('cause you'll only have limited options at any one time, and you'll also have only limited mental capacity to figure out how to do things with your character to roundabout observe things)

Marc Dingena

07:45

This is poor Shrödinger's Cat all over again... :'(

BESW

Heheh.

Skills only let players influence what your character can interact with (at least indirectly), even if the kind of influence isn't always the sort of agency your character himself has. Declarations remove that restriction.

Pixie

08:30

[rubs hands together and attempts to catch up on room] There really has been some interesting discussion going on here.

@MarcDingena Non-Fate-specific advice on couples and siblings in games: don't sweat it unless it manages to become a problem, and likely enough, it won't. It can go badly, but so can many dynamics between many types of people. In the end, it's a personality thing, and I've seen both ends of the spectrum. (Well, with siblings I have. Couples have pretty much never been an issue for me.)

Marc Dingena

I don't think it'll go sour, to be honest :P

Pixie

Cool! I like to reassure people because there's more than enough of the perspective out there that made BESW's players so reluctant to play simultaneously.

BESW

08:51

Yeeeah.

-33

A: A fellow player is uncooperative with the group and gets GM favoritism. How do I handle this?

I hate to sound crass here, OP, but there's a reason that you don't date your fellow players, and you're discovering it. Love tends to make one see something in another that other people don't, just by its very nature. This means that even if you're best friends with someone, they might end up be...

Our most downvoted-but-undeleted answer or question on the whole site.

Pixie

Yes. We don't tolerate it well here, luckily.

BESW

Numfar! Dance the Dance of Reasonably Well-Adjusted Citizenry!

Pixie

09:07

Now if only all citizenry justified such a dance... :P

Marc Dingena

Great. Now I've got the Safety Dance song in my head....

Pixie

Ah, yes. The most well-adjusted dance of them all.

BESW

09:24

@Pixie I'll try to do better.

Pixie

@BESW [confuse]

BESW

@Pixie I'm clearly still among the Poorly Adjusted.

[attempts to tighten own screws]

Pixie

Practice the safety dance. If you're poorly adjusted, you are probably not safe. Therefore, if you are safe, you are obviously not poorly adjusted. (Please conveniently ignore the fallacy. Please also conveniently ignore that Safety Dance is actually pretty anti-establishment.)

Marc Dingena

Men Without Hats - The Safety Dance(long version)

►

What's Peter Dinklage doing in this video?

Pixie

@MarcDingena The safety dance, of course!

BESW

09:39

Marc Dingena

Oh yeahhh!

Pixie

It is a pretty bizarre video, but it makes a tiny bit more sense in context. Bouncers did not like the kind of dances that people did to new wave, which involved jumping and flailing of arms, because they didn't think it was safe. (Unless you're asking what's up with this mix, in which case my answer is [shrug].)

BESW

I'm reasonably sure a jester's cap counts as a hat.

The extra in the goldfish costume definitely has a hat, but I can't be sure about their gender, so I'll let it slide.

And the chicken mask is definitely a grey area.

Pixie

Perhaps they're rebelling against their own name. Perhaps the propensity for dancing overrides the hattedness of their compatriots.

doppelgreener

10:14

The entire song is an act of subtle rebellion

BESW

"An Act of Subtle Rebellion" would be a good name for a band that does easy-listening rock & roll.

Pixie

That is a pretty good band name.

BESW

On reflection, "A Act of Subtle Rebellion" would be an even better name.

Pixie

10:29

Or pronouncing the b in subtle.

Marc Dingena

11:12

Time to bail the main chat again :P

BESW

I'm thinking that I should re-build Jessie's character aspects some time.

They just don't sparkle for me.

And she still needs an Omega aspect anyway.

I guess she's sorta... flat? And I feel like she shouldn't be.

There's something about her I don't know yet, I think.

@doppelgreener You've expressed an interest in playing Jessie some time, do you have any ideas?

Hmm. I think when I first built Jessie, I was focused a lot on what she does. Maybe if I break her down into likes and wants and needs and other whys, that might help find depth.

Jessie likes excitement. She likes adrenaline and endorphins to an unhealthy degree.

Marc Dingena

11:31

That's dangerous...

addictive :P

BESW

She's lusty--full of vigour and energy and yes, some of it is sexual (I'm pretty sure she's multisexual and is used to her sex life being an endless series of ill-advised one-night stands) but more generally she just can't sit still.

trogdor

lol

BESW

Jessie's also very interested in being the centre of attention.

She wants to be noticed and admired and fussed over--after all, she does all these amazing things!

But Jessie isn't just interested in being the centre of attention, she wants to be noticed for the right reasons: for her bravery and courage, for saving people and stopping bad guys. She wants people to say she's a hero.

She's not Booster Gold though. Jessie actually thinks of herself as a hero and holds herself to a hero's standards.

Faking heroism isn't exciting or honourable or courageous.

That's one of the reasons she joined the Space Force. She's not a vigilante or a glory hound--at least, not just a glory hound.

Jessie also loves engines. Things that go vrmm and bzzz and grrr, things that vibrate and tremble with barely-contained power, that get hot and loud and take her to cool new places and might explode!

She's proud of her skill with engines, and the few times she's ever thought about what she'll do if she retires from the Space Force before the job kills her--she thought about being a mechanic who specialises in working on the big and dangerous stuff.

Grease and wrenches and the smell of fuel are things that make her feel at home.

If Jessie were more selfish she'd probably be an extreme sportswoman, but she's on the Space Force because they let her do wild crazy things while helping people. And sometimes they don't yell at her when stuff explodes.

trogdor

extreme explodey sports

BESW

As much as Jessie's a loose cannon, the kind of agent that cheap TV trailers would say "Plays by her own rules," she really does value law and civility, honour and duty and the need for just governments.

Sometimes at night, after a particularly good mission, she giggles to herself because her job is unleashing chaos in the name of order.

She knows she doesn't quite fit into the society that she's upholding, but that doesn't make her sad or lonely. She's making good people safe (by making bad people extremely unsafe) and having a blast doing it.

trogdor

11:49

which society are we talking about?

Earth?

BESW

[shrug] Any society with good people governing themselves to the best of their ability and not being evil.

trogdor

why does she not fit in then?

BESW

Jessie is very egalitarian. She's been around the galaxy and learned that people are people whatever they look like.

@trogdor Because she feels a glory-seeking adrenaline junkie who loves things that can explode and enjoys making bad people pay for their crimes is not the kind of person who can settle down into an ordinary, safe, non-explosion-having life.

She can't have--and doesn't want--the kind of life she's fighting to protect.

trogdor

that isn't any fun, what if she secretly wants random things that come from a less exciting life?

not a less exciting life itself though, cause that would be silly

BESW

Hmm. Such as?

trogdor

11:55

I don't know, I was throwing stuff out there to try to shake things up

because that is what you are trying to do with the character at the moment

maybe she is intrigued by simple tech, like toasters and coffee machines

or maybe she tries to use weird things during field missions, like aprons to see if they keep the blood and ashes off the rest of her

Marc Dingena

Is... Is this still about MLP?

trogdor

no

this is about our ARRPG campaign

Jessie is his PC character

he is trying to make her less flat as a character

Marc Dingena

I thought Jessie was another pony...

BESW

@MarcDingena Major Jessie Farman. I'm trying to revise her aspects to make her more multidimensional.

Marc Dingena

Nice hair ;)

BESW

12:08

It's a gender-swapped Starlord cosplay. [grin]

Marc Dingena

Yeah, I'm not familiar with a character sheet structured like that. I'm not looking at things based off Fate, just at Fate Core itself for the time being.

BESW

It's the same basic thing, but instead of High Concept, Trouble, and three other aspects, you've got (high) Concept, three aspects that each represent a mode of action your character focuses on, and an Omega aspect that's basically a wild card.

Jessie's modes are Action, Banter, and Space Force. Those are the ways she engages with the world to solve problems.

(Each mode has skills associated with it, and the order you rank modes determines your skill ranks, but that's not important today.)

Marc Dingena

ok

Are you looking to replace a specific aspect?

trogdor

I think he is looking to fill in the Omega

Marc Dingena

@BESW So she's afraid that she might run out of work, however unlikely that may be?

trogdor

12:19

I don't think that was quite the point

but it is an interesting question

sillyputty

@BESW What about her self or her situation makes Jessie un happy?

BESW

@MarcDingena I think she's got mixed feelings about the apparently unending supply of bad people in the galaxy.

@sillyputty Jessie doesn't live up to her own code. She's impetuous and reactionary. She much prefers giving orders to taking them, and she doesn't follow plans well even when they're her own.

She's okay with that putting herself in danger, but she hates when she puts others in danger or lets the bad guy get away because she jumped the gun.

...and yet, she's an adrenaline junkie with a hero complex.

She's not gonna stop rushing in too soon, or calling out the bad guy on a stealth mission.

sillyputty

Maybe that's the area to explore in terms of making Jessie not feel so "flat"?

"Dammit, I endangered the team again." "Would you do it differently if you could?" "Well...no, not really. But I still feel badly about it!"

BESW

12:34

Hmm.

I think part of my problem is that I'm trying to pack too much into each aspect, and it's winding up making them all sound the same.

Let's see. Saving good people and punishing bad people. Extreme action. At home with engines. Extremely open-minded.

Concept: Ace pilot from another world
Action: [adrenaline/endorphine addict]
Banter: [extremely egalitarian]
Space Force: [saving good people and punishing bad people]
Omega: [good with engines]

That... feels better.

Marc Dingena

13:04

> Temporary Blinding: Throwing sand or salt in the enemy’s eyes is a classic action staple. This places a Blinded aspect on a target, which could require them to get rid of the aspect with an overcome action before doing anything dependent on sight. Blinded might also present opportunities for a compel, so keep in mind that your opponent can take advantage of this to replenish fate points.

> Disarming: You knock an opponent’s weapon away, disarming them until they can recover it. The target will need an overcome action to recover their weapon.

So... if I disarm someone, they get the Disarmed aspect. What if they don't Overcome this, and instead attack me with fists? Do I get to Invoke that aspect to aid in my defense? Do they receive my Fate Point because I Invoked an aspect (not entirely the same as Compelling)?

I guess Compelling would be more powerful here, because the same cost of 1 FP could give me either a +2 to my defense roll, or Compel him to not attack me because maybe he feels insecure about engaging bare fisted, thus avoiding having to defend at all?

BESW

If being disarmed makes sense for the invoke, you can invoke it. But being disarmed usually isn't going to make their punch less powerful.

Disarmed changes which options are available to them, but doesn't make their available options less powerful than those same options were before.

Marc Dingena

@BESW This is where it gets tricky for me. What is the difference between using fists over swords then?

BESW

@MarcDingena At the basic heart of the mechanics, nothing.

But if he's got a stunt that gives him +2 to Combat attacks with swords...

Or if the sword is an awesome extra that gives him weapon:4...

Marc Dingena

Yes, then it makes sense. But in Fate Core, equipment is not really a basic thing, it's always treated as an Extra, right?

BESW

Usually, yeah.

handwave for your campaign as you like.

Marc Dingena

13:10

I mean, my High Concept could be that I'm a Knight, which implies I wear armor and carry a sword. But it doesn't make me less dangerous when I get disarmed, right?

BESW

Aye.

Marc Dingena

I mean, not automatically, unless you have said Stunts or Extras to beef up your damage if you carry a (specific) weapon.

BESW

However, being disarmed would make it harder to invoke your high concept in combat.

It's going to be a hard sell to invoke being a knight when you're punching someone in the nose.

Marc Dingena

Not impossible, I guess a Knight knows how to pack a punch too, but I see what you mean. Being disarmed just decreases the number of narrative options you have, and sometimes even has mechanical effects.

BESW

Right. This bit is the key: Being disarmed just decreases the number of narrative options you have.

In Fate you should never jump from mechanic to mechanic.

Something happens in the narrative: a disarm attempt.

It's translated to mechanics to discover what happens, and that result is narrative: the knight is disarmed.

Marc Dingena

13:15

I haven't seen this anywhere yet, but are there things like anti-Stunts? Like, instead of taking a Consequence, you take a Stunt that influences you negatively, always, under specific circumstances? I'm thinking something like being Poisoned, as a negative Stunt, rather than a Moderate Consequence.

@BESW Ok, that's another "gotcha" here :)

BESW

What does the knight do? Close in swinging? Scramble for the sword? Whatever he does is a narrative response to a narrative event--and if mechanics are needed to represent or resolve that response, you can bring them in.

Marc Dingena

I seriously keep forgetting this kind of flow.

BESW

@MarcDingena Maybe you're thinking of a "Trouble aspect."

Marc Dingena

It's pretty hard to remember that it's like that in Fate...

Can you have more than one Trouble Aspect?

BESW

[shrug] I wouldn't advise it, but sure.

ARRPG has "weak against" and "at cost" as negative permissions to mitigate stunt costs.

Both are basically "And you can compel me on this as if I had a very specific trouble aspect."

Marc Dingena

13:19

Poisoned: You begin each Conflict with 1 Stress in your Physical Stress Track.

BESW

What's the purpose of this?

Marc Dingena

I don't know. :P

BESW

Mechanics need to rise from story.

Without knowing the story, it's nigh impossible to evaluate a mechanic.

Marc Dingena

Just trying to figure out if there were ways to have bad consequences without something actually being there for others to Compel on Invoke against you.

Negative Stunts came to mind.

BESW

Generally not, because it futzes with the Fate point economy.

Current crisis should contain the seeds of future victory.

2

The FP economy is the closest to a sacrosanct principle that Fate has.

Marc Dingena

13:26

@BESW If you take an Extreme Consequence, you have to replace one of your Aspects. Could you instead add-upon your Trouble Aspect in this case? Or would you still recommend not having multiple Trouble Aspects, and replace one of your Character Aspects?

doppelgreener

@BESW She doesn't have a drive to do things, she's a go-with-the-flow person who is from another time and doesn't have much of a stake in anything. This impacts being proactive (why? for what?) and dramatic (about what?).

You probably made her this way because that works for playing a background character.

BESW

@MarcDingena I have lots of thoughts about this, but my brain is too dead tired.

Marc Dingena

D'aww :(

BESW

Trouble aspects aren't always totally negative--it's the act of choosing to make one aspect your trouble over another that imbues it with that negative power.

doppelgreener

@MarcDingena Here's the thing about a Trouble aspect: it is Just An Aspect.

They could say: "Concept, Aspect 1, Aspect 2, Aspect 3, Aspect 4", but they found it useful saying "Make that #1 a troublesome thing."

BESW

13:29

Similarly you can have a non-trouble aspect that's hard to imagine how to invoke, but it's not your trouble aspect so it's not supposed to be the MAIN way you get complication.

Marc Dingena

@doppelgreener Not sure I really agree. It has much more negative connotation than just any Aspect.

doppelgreener

It's actually just Aspect 1-5, except it's a really good thing to have one aspect which summarises your character.

BESW

@MarcDingena You choose to make it negative by calling it your Trouble.

doppelgreener

@MarcDingena Yeah, because they're suggesting you do that specifically with that one. It's just an aspect, though, one you deliberately make more troublesome than the rest.

BESW

Putting it in the Trouble slot is just saying "Hey, GM, this is the one to compel most."

doppelgreener

13:30

So, if you want to ask "can I have more than one trouble?" the answer is yes because they're just aspects. If you want to have a second aspect that is deeply troublesome, go ahead.

Marc Dingena

I still have to read the whole "The Long Game" section of the SRD. I guess a lot of this may also be explained there.

Also my fiance let me know that my books arrived in the mail today :)

doppelgreener

I dunno, I just picked this up through play, and through playing other Fate games which don't have the Concept / Trouble / 3 aspects thing.

Marc Dingena

Fate Core and FAE

doppelgreener

Atomic Robo for instance has Concept, an aspect correlating to each of your modes, and an Omega aspect, which is another way of saying "misc" or "pick something else to say about your character"

Marc Dingena

I think having an explicit Trouble aspect slot is good for people new to the system, so they understand Aspects can be used against you too, and to promote interesting (back)story.

doppelgreener

13:32

There's that saying that creativity is inversely proportional to constraints, and Trouble gives you a constraint to be creative in.

@MarcDingena I agree completely.

Just don't go enshrining the Trouble as a unique special thing. It's not, they just want to funnel your creativity for the second aspect on your character sheet into something troublesome. (And it's a good signal to say "hey, GM, compel this", like BESW said)

BESW

It's... it's permission and imperative to shaft your character.

Folks new to this sort of system, coming from games where it's the GM's job to challenge your character and your job to solve challenges? They often need that boot in the pants to get them out of "must mitigate all potential weaknesses or the GM will exploit them" territory.

doppelgreener

@BESW That's a good point, it's really good at that. :D

BESW

It's also a safety valve for folks who have a hard time coming up with nuanced double-edged aspects.

You'll have at least one that'll feed you Fate points, for sure!

(A Trouble can also be looked upon as "Push here for Fate points.")

Anyway, I must with the sleepies now. ttfn

doppelgreener

Goodnight!

Marc Dingena

night :)

@doppelgreener Tonight I'm seeing a friend who quit Pathfinder after 2 sessions. He's genuinely interested in learning more about Fate, but he really want to understand what Fate will mean to him as a game, before he's prepared to dive into another RPG with my group. Considering this obstacle, I think I really need to be careful which information to feed to him first, without overwhelming him. Do you have any advice?

I should start with an elevator pitch, just some bullet points of how Fate is not Pathfinder... but then what?

doppelgreener

13:50

@MarcDingena What are his gripes with Pathfinder, and what does he want in a game?

Once you know those things, you can tell him whether Fate is the kind of game he's looking for. (It isn't everyone's, and that's that.)

Marc Dingena

He pretty much hated that his freedom was fully constrained to mechanics. He truly is the story-first type of person and PF just wasn't the best platform for him to work with

doppelgreener

Oh wow. Fate is totally his gig.

Marc Dingena

I'm seeing him at a birthday party tonight, and there will be a moment where I'll probably be able to geek out a bit about games and stuff with him, maybe one-on-one even (big family, lots of stuff going on anyways). How can I sort of promise him a better experience with a 5-minute pitch about Fate?

You should consider this guy "mildly turned off by the notion of table top RPGs" because of our "Pathfinder experience"

doppelgreener

Fate is basically a game about freeform roleplay plus mechanical support to help resolve things that freeform can't do alone. (This began really clicking for me when Lord Gareth basically pointed it out in this conversation.)

7

From him, I understand that loss of agency takes enormous amounts of effort and time to resolve in a pure freeform game. In Fate, you get a fate point, and that's enough to turn it into a few seconds' resolution.

You have combat and challenge rules, and skills and stunts and aspects and other bits you can engage when you want.

Fate's also however a game of legos. It just gives you a whole lot of bits. It's up to you when and how you want to make use of them and what kind of thing you want to build with them.

That can be very weird for people coming from D&D and Pathfinder, where the game is an enormous engine that tells them everything that can happen, and when it can happen: "you're in combat. it's this person's turn. they pick from this finite move list consisting of special actions, their attacks, skills, spells, feats, items, and other things. okay, they're done. now it's that person's turn. now it's theirs. conditions have been met, the combat is over, you win, get some XP and proceed."

in D&D you're either freeforming with scraps of your character sheet, or the game is telling you exactly what you can and can't do when.

D&D also heavily obstructs actually realising character concepts in the name of balance and progression. if you want to do this special thing, gain several levels and feats and classes you're not interested in and maybe when you get the thing it will still be sorta useful, unless "the thing" is being a super powerful wizard or something like that the game expects.

Fate's like: "here's your thing. come up with a character. do you want to do the thing? okay, you can do the thing. you have a cool character concept? you are that from the moment of character creation if you want. now, go roleplay. have fun. the rules will be here when you need them."

Marc Dingena

Yeah, this is exactly why I'm considering switching systems in the first place. Because this dude quit after 2 sessions, he knew he didn't want this type of play. I on the other hand didn't know better: Pathfinder was all I ever played and since I had to GM now, I chose this as my go-to system, because of personal security.

Now after playing PF for 14 months, I find it a very slow and crunchy system, and not all of my players are enjoying it either. Not all of them have a problem with it, but some might want to try something different.

doppelgreener

14:00

Have you seen our old Enchanted Forest Chronicles games?

They are old and from a time we were still figuring out the system, but they're right here if you want to read through them a bit.

Marc Dingena

No, but I have to halt you here for a sec before you throw more links my way. I sometimes have a pretty hard time understanding what is said here. English is not my mother tongue.

doppelgreener

Okay. Ask away if you have questions about anything I've said.

Marc Dingena

And the terminology of Fate isn't really baked into my brain yet so I have some issues wrapping my brains around seemingly simple concepts.

I'm trying to understand what Lord Gareth is saying in the convo you linked.

But it's quickly very philosophical, at least in my experience. I'm trying to distill whatever he's trying to say.

doppelgreener

@Marc Here's the situation being discussed: BESW, myself, Trogdor and some other people were playing a game together once, set in the Doctor Who universe, using Fate Accelerated. One of the players was playing the Doctor, the rest of us were his companions.

Marc Dingena

narrative control, voluntarily relinquished, agency... it's all a bit much to take in at once if you've never played Fate

:P

It's a mix of terms I'm not familiar with, all the way over to English words I'm not familiar with.

doppelgreener

14:05

One second, I'll clarify.

Marc Dingena

The level of communication is pretty daunting high here, sometimes, for foreigners like me.

doppelgreener

Partway in, one of the Doctor's companions (controlled by a player, remember) came under threat of becoming mind controlled. That player had quite a lot of fate points at that point (maybe seven or eight?). He picked up all of them, and was willing to dump them all on the roll to resist getting mind controlled.

BESW, who was GMing, just picked up one fate point as a compel, offered it to that player, and said: "I promise if you actually get mind controlled you're going to have a lot of fun with it." Player took back his fate points, accepted the one he was offered, and now his character was under subtle mind control - he became a sleeper agent to be woken up and taken control of later.

Marc Dingena

I see. And that explanation made Fate 'click' for you? (that's why you linked to the convo in the first place)

doppelgreener

Later on we got into a fight with the ultimate enemy of the session, a mind controlling entity. The companion sleeper agent got activated and ordered to attack and kill the doctor (another compel). The player gladly accepted, we had an enormous fight trying to keep the doctor alive, and then this player took his enormous pile of fate points he'd accumulated and dumped them all into one attack on the Doctor and killed him.

@MarcDingena It made part of Fate click for me. Lord Gareth was remarking that normally in freeform games, handing over control (agency) of your character takes a LONG TIME to work out. He was amazed that in Fate, we made it happen in seconds.

("Voluntarily relinquish narrative control", put differently, is "of your own choice, give up control of part of your character's story")

Marc Dingena

I guess I've never been in a situation where player agency was taken away from a player, myself included.

doppelgreener

14:12

We've had questions where a player who got mind controlled mid-combat was effectively out of the game for the rest of the session (the combat would take that long), they kicked back and played their nintendo DS.

In Fate, you're still playing your character, you're just getting compelled to play them differently.

Marc Dingena

@doppelgreener Thanks for that. It made sense because of its context, but these kind of sentences really force me to concentrate on reading and understanding what is being said in chat or conversations.

doppelgreener

Fate has you conspire against your character for drama and fun.

3

@MarcDingena Yeah, I understand that. Like for me reading Wikipedia articles about abstract mathematical concepts. Or trying to read a Shakespearean play.

Marc Dingena

@doppelgreener I think this sentence alone could tickle the dude I'm meeting tonight just in the right way to try it out.

doppelgreener

@MarcDingena Excellent XD

Also, our old Enchanted Forest Chronicles games are available in BESW's bookmarked conversations anytime you want to read them. They're down the bottom, look for 'EF 001'.

Marc Dingena

Are those games played in chat here?

doppelgreener

14:18

Yes.

We played them using a userscript which converts d6's in this chat to fudge dice:

3

Q: RPG.SE Chat Fudge dice: a userscript for Fate & Fudge games

RPG.SE's chat rooms support dice rolls as an easter egg. This script will convert d6 rolls that you see into Fudge dice, using the ordinary conversion rules: 1–2 = minus, 3–4 = blank, 5–6 = plus. You can enable or disable these dice on a per-room basis. It will remember which rooms you picked. Y...

Marc Dingena

I installed your script

4d

Feeds

•

Marc Dingena

Again, I roll better here than with my actual Fate dice.....

doppelgreener

haha

Marc Dingena

May 13 '13 at 11:20, by BESW

[out of character: Zemenar is lying Cleverly to you, and got a total of 4 on the roll.]

He's open about the NPC's intentions. I know Fate is much more "all facts on the table" than Pathfinder, but why would he reveal this immediately? I don't know how much my players will fairly handle these things their characters aren't supposed to know.

Also, I see I need to leave for an appointment now. Talk to your all later :)

doppelgreener

14:26

@MarcDingena Well, he has to tell you what he's rolling to do, and that's to lie to the player to create the advantage that they'll totally believe him.

What you do is you trust your players. See above:

14 mins ago, by doppelgreener

Fate has you conspire against your character for drama and fun.

Make the events dramatic and fun. If they are like "wow, if he's lying, my character's so not going to do that stuff," they can totally find reasons their character might not go with the person. Compel them to totally buy into what the person's saying and try to make it fun! :D

You can keep secrets in Fate. But the GM is not the story's sole author. All of the players can be, once they get used to that way of doing things. So share the story with them freely.

Stack Exchange

Evil Hat Productions: Fiction Friday: Debuts Tomorrow!

posted on August 06, 2015 by fred

To mark the impending release of our final Spirit of the Century novel (don’t worry — another Sally Slick Young Centurions novel is on its way, too), starting tomorrow we’re […]

doppelgreener

You can keep secrets, but you do not have to. I can talk more about that another time.

(Mainly you may want to keep secret that the character is secretly a vampire, which is fine. And you may want to not tell them where the exit is yet, if you want them to have to find it. But also not telling them these things yet gives them room to create other, different facts for themselves. You were planning for the exit to be in the grand hall? They just rolled Notice to declare it's in a secret tunnel behind the kitchen's fireplace. Great! Go with that.

(This means you now either use your plans for that other exit for this one, or come up with something new. The players are authoring a bit now. That is excellent. Time to respond and use it to create more story for them!)

SPArchaeologist

It is so strange that this "Fate" seem so different from managing an online MMRPG event like every tabletop rp game, yet it manages to feel oddly similar at the same time...

Will have to try to read more when I get the time.

BESW

22:13

@MarcDingena We're happy to work with you to unpack anything that's giving you a hard time. The process is helpful to us, too.

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