For situational aspects and consequences rule out of thumb is that the side that created them (not necessary character that created them) gets one free invoke. After that point anyone can spend Fate point to invoke these aspects. For instance Bilbo Baggins spots (creates) a chink in Smaug's armor and then Bard uses it to slay Smaug.

For stunts, whether it requires a Fate point, that is usually mentioned in stunt description. General rule is that only most powerful stunts require Fate expenditure as having a stunt already reduces the refresh score.

Newb here, asking what may end up being a frighteningly simple question.

Let's say I'm running a game in the 1930's. My character has a revolver, and I don't feel it's going to do the trick against the velociraptor (don't ask) bearing down on me, so I grab a bigger gun.

What, mechanically, (if anything) is the advantage to picking up a bigger gun in this scenario?

Two ways to handle that. If you're using the Weapon/Armor ratings optional rule (Fate Core 277) then the larger gun will have a higher rating granting more shifts of damage on a successful attack.

Otherwise, you might just have a Scene Aspect in play like "Packin' a whole lotta Heat!" That you could invoke on the attack.

Ivan, make sure you say explicitly you are "creating an advantage" because it has happened a few times to me that when I simply narrate what my character does, but omit the "I'm creating an advantage" phrase, the GM doesn't gives me the +2.

Checking out the new Nest supplement by Evil Hat Productions. Looks pretty cool so far. :)

Nest supplement?

I suggest checking it out. :)

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/pr...enture-for-Fate-Core

Personally, Gods and Monsters were more my cup of tea. Of course, colorful artwork does it for me every time.

So, I'm running a FATE Core game and we're all new to the system.

Page 68 - The system is pretty clear you can spend a FATE point to Invoke an aspect on someone else's roll/action.

In order to invoke an aspect, explain why the aspect is relevant, spend a
fate point, and you can choose one of these benefits:

• Pass a +2 benefit to another character’s roll, if it’s reasonable that the aspect you’re invoking would be able to help.

This may just be my personal issue, but I'm having a problem with one character essentially hoarding FATE points (mostly from Event-based compels), and then spending all their FATE points on other people's rolls.

It feels like somehow there is a communal pool of FATE dice, since anyone can throw in on any action (assuming there is something to invoke, of course).

This is especially evident towards the end of the night, when everyone with 1-2 fate points knows they're going to get them back next week anyways and they all just start throwing in.

Thoughts? Am I just hyper sensitive?

I think you're making an issue where there isn't one. It's not going to happen often enough to be a problem, but when it does happen you probably want it to happen. See my second point.

First, if your players are hoarding more Fate points than you want them to have then give them more reasons to spend them.

Second, if a player wants to blow a mound of Fate points on another player's roll and there are enough aspects in play to make all of those invokes valid, then clearly whatever is happening is hugely important to that player. The group has gone through the trouble of setting up all of those aspects to use and then they are spending their "narrative currency" on whatever that other player is doing. That's them saying "Hey, this means a lot to us. This is important to our story. We want this to happen." That's player investment. That's a good thing. This situation is not going to happen often, but when it does it's going to be important for your story.

I think Ingersoll also mentioned that players were dropping Fate Points towards the end of a session on just any old aspects they could to give their buddies a bonus. While Cripple X makes good points you should keep in mind, this situation doesn't sound like that.

My advice: what Cripple X said anyway, but with less emphasis. :P If they're busting out FP simply because it's the end of the night and they know they'll refresh soon (which they might not, if the next session begins without a break for the characters!), then why not let them? They get to up the awesome as the session comes to a close, ending on a high note as the heroes get to show off why they're the heroes! Remember, Fate is about competent, proactive and dramatic heroes. Using aspects ups the drama, choosing to take action makes them proactive, and the bonuses from invokes makes them competent.

If it's really important to you that the heroes don't come up smelling roses, then just pull the same trick on them that they've been using. End of the night? Your NPCs are gonna get your GM Fate Point pool refreshed next session? Drop a whole load of FP to invoke all the NPC aspects on the heroes and put them in a real bad situation. Bonus points if you're invoking for effect rather than for a +2 bonus. :D

Situation: The characters are fighting Space Pirates on a space station in a sealed cargo bay. Characters are all in sealed power armor, along with some of the pirates. Other pirates are just in space suits. The cargo bay has the aspects of 'Cargo Crates' and there is a second zone of 'Control Gantry' with an aspect of 'Control Panels'

Action: One of the characters moves to the Control Gantry and successfully makes a roll to open the cargo bay doors. I add an aspect of 'Explosive Decompression' to both zones and remove the 'Cargo Crates' aspect from the scene. (If the scene went on longer I would likely change it to just 'Lack of Atmosphere' or something similar.

Here are the questions: I want to create an Event Compel using 'Space Pirate' to add 'Magnetic Boots' aspect to all of the pirates, keeping them from getting sucked out of the airlock.

1. Does this sound fair? It sure makes sense that people that fly around space all the time would have magnetic boots, but at the same time I don't want to just say that they have them without Compelling -something-.

2. Do I just give a Fate chip to every character in the scene? If so, would they get it immediately or at the end of the scene?

Thanks!

Ooo, I see what you're doing there. Personally, I'd handle that as the character making an attack roll on the affected zones (including his buddies) rather than applying aspects, but it could work the same way. So he makes an attack roll, and everyone needs to roll against that result or take "damage" (and being taken out results in flying out into space). Using aspects, you could apply the Explosive Decompression aspect to the whole scene (or just affected zones), and anyone affected would need to make overcome actions against the aspect in order to take other actions. If they're taken out by anything /else/ during that time, they're kicked out into space.

For the magnetic boots, I'd call that an invoke for effect rather than a compel. Drop one of your GM Fate Points for the pirates, maybe one for each (or each group, if you have them set as mobs), and say they can ignore Explosive Decompression. Or else have them take up an action to Create an Advantage they can immediately invoke, so they effectively spend the round activating the magnetics.

Does anybody have any recommendation for a set of Magic rules for a D&D world, specifically Planescape, for FATE Core? I don't have any desire to mimic the Vancian system (which I've never liked), nor do I feel a need for specific spells. I'm looking for something that captures the general feel and power level of a D&D mage of level 4-9, and would probably use a Spellcasting skill.

I haven't reviewed the FATE Core example yet, but have leafed through the Toolkit examples and didn't like them much.

Read the Fate Core example. It's simple and works well. I think it requires a stunt. If you didn't like the Toolkit systems because they were more complicated than you wanted then the example they give in Core will probably work for you.

Alternatively you could just have magic be a trapping of regular skill use, e.g. An Athletics roll could described as using a Jump spell. All that would really require is a Aspect with a Permission.

Yes, I just found those, and they look good and simple.

Which one do people use more often: the Collegia Arcana, or the more detailed approach in the back?

I like this idea! Never thought of it before. This way you could use aspects for permission, but also stunts since they are often used to let people use skills in previously impossible ways. Kind of like the Toolkit when it talks about race packages. Thinking about the elf/high elven magic one.

Another one you might try out is to go on the MP idea found in Toolkit. I know you said you didn't like much in Toolkit, but suppose you have a list of things that could be done with MP for each default skill. You then allow the player to trade Refresh for MP and give them all the options for all the skills they have (at +1 or better), and allow them to negotiate effects you didn't think of for say... 3MP for initial use that may drop with further use down to a fair number based on the proposed effect's usefulness.

Sorry for not being more clear. I was referring to the Collegia Arcana one. It's really easy to customize too. You can just change out the required skill and the trappings to represent different types of spellcasting.

One of my favorite magic systems for FATE was published in Spirit of the Season. While it is tied to Spirit of the Century, it wouldn't be too difficult to adapt to FATE Core. The main difference is the reduced number of Stunts and removal of most Stunt 'trees'. Here is the Mystic Rites stunt from Spirit of the Season.


Depending on the game, I could see allowing anyone with the appropriate Aspect to do this without requiring a Stunt.

A few more questions, if I may:
1) when using the Collegia Arcana magic extra, do you allow area attacks (fireball-esque)? Do you add penalties for increasing range or area?
2) do you use weapons and armor rating for regular fantasy games?
3) do you use the race skills from the Toolkit?

Thanks!

I imagine it varies on a case by case basis, but for myself the answers are.

1. Yes, split shifts between targets as normal unless you have a stunt or something.

2. Not for ordinary equipment, no. I have never found that Armor or Weapons ratings added anything to the system. It has always ended up being the zero-sum game that the sidebar talks about. So only a truly legendary weapon or suit of armor got a Weapon or Armor rating.

3. No. Not particularly familiar with the concept, but regular skill use and aspects have always covered my needs for different species in Fate Games.

This is the approach I prefer, in my slight dabblings with D&D-inspired Fate/SotC. The magic becomes how the character represents their skills. If they have a good Shoot skill, it's because they're slinging magic missiles. Good Stealth or Deceive means that they practice invisibility or illusion magic. Etc.

Aspects and stunts would make the use of these skills more magical, in how they're applicable and limited. The wizard would, for instance, be able to hide without necessarily having cover, but injury or other deleterious circumstances might hinder the wizard where they wouldn't hinder the thief.

One might call for the use of fate points for particularly magical effects, which I think would emulate the traditional disadvantages of a wizard. Consequences are a fine way to stock up fate points, so a wizard might gladly forego a high Physique. A particularly bad Trouble aspect (or other aspects for that matter) such as "Not my precious spellbook!" would pull the wizard in different directions and help them rake in fate points, to be used for a string of mighty spell castings later.

Just my thoughts. I haven't tried many of them in practice yet.

I'm new to Fate and I'm not sure I understand Challenge and Context. They feel like multiple rolls for the sake of multiple rolls... I have a harder time with Context, because except in case of Tie, the situation do not change between check. What I'm missing?

In reply to MalaeDezeld (msg # 42):

Here's my take on Challenges:

There are some things that make sense to resolve with a single roll or even no roll. Those are often things that are quick, or are themselves part of a larger collection of rolls in a scene, like a Conflict. One could resolve a Conflict with one roll, or even no roll, but we accept the need for several or even many, because it's about how the situation unfolds.

A Challenge is for when there's a specific goal that's going to take a whole scene to resolve, but which no one wants to spend more than a few rolls or moments resolving. That's a judgment call. I believe the example in the book is of defending some people in a house against a horde of zombies. A group could play out every moment of that, providing decision points or needing specification from the GM or players at every opportunity: where are the wood and nails?, Where do we start covering the windows? What if someone isn't strong or is too short? What happens at each point allows the situation to unfold and how successfully. You don't need to wonder what success or failure look like, because you can see it directly.

A Challenge just lets you boil down a scene like that into a handful of rolls. You could decide to do it in one, but that gives you a very simple pass/fail/pass with cost kind of outcome. In a scene like the zombie example, things could go wrong in one of several ways and the multiple rolls let us see which of those ways it goes wrong.

The key to Challenges, as I see it, is deciding what the failures mean. Those are how you take a handful of dice rolls and make them meaningful. I think the rules say to describe after they're all made, but you could describe as you go, too. The main reason to do it after is so that the game doesn't bog down on someone continuing to roll to succeed on some aspect of it. They get one roll for each aspect of the situation, and then you decide what it means in aggregate.

I think Contests are similar, though I'm not as familiar with those. Yes, I tend to agree that if nothing changes, it's hard to see what one is rolling for. But tracking who has how many successes seems to me to form the basis of the description one provides. If one side needs one more success and the other needs three, that's a different situation than if both sides only need one more.

I don't have a ton of experience with either, but I've spent a lot of time thinking about skill challenges in 4th Edition D&D, which are similar to challenges in Fate.