Running a Game
Acting as the GM for any FATE-based game is a challenge that is different from GM-ing games in more traditional RPG systems. The first big shift you must make is to understand that you are just one of the story-tellers, perhaps the lead one, but you still have to make opportunities for the players to have input beyond what would happen in, say, PathFinder or d20 Modern. In those games, you are essentially the all-powerful god, and you determine everything that isn't a choice made within the narrow free will of your “worshippers.” In a FATE game, you are more powerful than the others, but still have to bend to their ideas. This is at once frustrating and exhilarating: Elements you've planned may go completely unused, and you have to think fast to keep the story going in a direction that you never expected, but the result is often more interesting than what you would have ended up with if you had rigidly defined every aspect of the world.
Players' skill rolls should usually succeed
These are heroic, incredibly skilled characters, and they generally accomplish the tasks at which they excel. When you plan an adventure, putting assorted skill tests in it, most of those tests should be no harder than needing a Fair(+2) or Good (+3) result. What becomes important is not so much whether or not the character succeeds, but how well – i.e. the number of shifts of success. If you have some important plot point that requires a Great (+4) Investigation roll for the players to find it, even your best investigator might roll badly and miss it. Then the characters are stuck without the key piece of information they would need to move forward.
Instead, have a sense of how much of the story, how much of the drama, a particular element is worth, and just expect your players to take that long to get there. For some information, meeting, or activity that is absolutely crucial to the plot, think of several ways that it might happen, and be prepared for the players to think of others you hadn't even considered. If you had planned them taking half the session getting to some important goal, and then they have a great idea or just make a great roll that they get there quickly, don't stand in the way of this success, just put another layer on the problem – someone else shows up, the address is really just a call-forwarding mechanism, the key NPC took the day off from work to go to a ball game, whatever. When you think about making a good story, you should have a sense of how much playing time a particular goal is worth in terms of suspense in the narrative. Don't penalize good play, and certainly don't reward bad play by making it easier, but try to work with it and make the whole thing more fun.
For example, suppose that today's session, you plan, is to culminate in the player characters learning where Ned Sneet's secret hideout is. The next session will be assaulting the hide-out, so this one is just about learning its location. You might have this level of detail planned out for how they might go about it.
- The Post office has a forwarding address of a P.O. Box in Rosharon, a small town south of Houston, implying that the hideout could be near there. Any of a variety of methods from computer hacking to intimidating or persuading a postal employee would with any Fair (+2) result would find this. Investigation at his old apartment might also turn this up.
- Staking out the Briar Shoppe in Houston where Ned gets the Cuban cigars, using stealth, tracking, etc. will turn up a minion who also knows the P.O. Box in Rosharon. However, the minion doesn't know the location of the hideout, so no amount of Intimidation will get that out of him.
- Charlie Horn, a named character who is known to have worked with Ned in the past, knows that it is just outside Rosharon but doesn't know the exact address. He also knows that Ned has jokingly referred to it as “The Treehouse.” A Good (+3) result in Diplomacy/Contacting would find Charlie, but he'll try to avoid the PCs. He has a motorcycle gassed up and there could be a good chase scene. He still won't talk without Superb (+5) Intimidation, but a credible threat to his sister could give a free tag to that. (A Fair (+2) use of Diplomacy/Information Gathering would turn up that Charlie has a sister, or maybe the characters already know.)
The point is that the plot is completely stalled without the characters getting to Rosharon and knowing at least something that could lead to the hideout, so the GM has planned several ways they might get that information.
In Rosharon
- First try of staking out the P.O. Box fails, and could bring trouble with the sheriff for loitering. (Stealth or persuade to avoid.)
- Diplomacy/Information Gathering is an obvious skill, but the GM should require the players to role-play it. Are they hanging out at the coffee shop, buying beers for the crowd at the bar, or trying to make a connection with a local blogger? The GM should decide before the players roll what the chances are both of success and of the information about their queries getting back to Ned.
This whole example brings up a good point. Typically, the GM has a strategic plan for the story arc, that the players will spend this adventure learning the location of the hideout. However, the tactical plan – exactly how the players will learn this – is more up to the players than to the GM. He has a few ideas and knows a few of the named characters that are in the area, but inevitably the players will come up with something he hasn't thought of. When that happens, he should run with it, but be ready to throw a twist into their plans for the sake of drama and fun.
The GM should try to avoid just saying, “no, that won't work.” Instead, even for approaches that he considers to be terrible ideas, he should come up with some way it might work, and then assign a (high) difficulty level to it. For example, suppose a player declares that he's going to find out where Ned Sneet is hiding by using Intimidation on the bartender in a crowded biker bar. It's a terrible idea – it's certain to get back to Ned, and the regulars at the bar will NOT be happy about it, but then the player makes a Legendary (+8) roll. The GM can't exactly ignore a Legendary roll, so he decides that, while the bartender doesn't know the location, one of Ned's minions happens to be at the bar and is frightened enough by the action that he tries furtively to slip out a side door, only to be noticed by the character with the best Alertness. Also, there's a big bar fight which the characters have to survive, and a group of bikers will not all be simply minions.
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:03, Sun 17 Jan 2021.
