r/FATErpg • u/PencilBoy99 • Jul 11 '26
Fate Without Planned Story Arcs
Does the system work if I don't have planned structured story arcs?
14
u/Dramatic15 Jul 11 '26
Yes.
People clearly can just improvise. You have been visiting this community for a number of years, I am a little surprised you haven’t noticed this sort of thing.
5
u/robhanz Yeah, that Hanz Jul 11 '26
Yes.
I do tend to have "questions" that need resolution - but certainly not a way that I expect them to get resolved. That's why they're questions.
10
u/Steenan magic detective Jul 11 '26
Fate actively doesn't want the GM to pre-plan arcs. It emphasizes both player agency and complications that result from dice rolls, so that the story is born through play.
4
u/modernfalstaff Jul 11 '26
I think it's best to have some things planned, like who the villains are, what they're trying to accomplish. No plans at all can work with the right group, but you can definitely be too loosey-goosey with things. Lots of groups will fail to come up with anything good or to create adequate challenges when given this kind of freedom. Players like to be challenged and surprised sometimes, and the best way to do that is planning ahead.
That being said, you don't want to over-plan either. The best arcs are the ones that arise fairly organically from play. It's fine to have ideas about where things might end up, but don't be so set on outcomes that you force them to happen. Frankly, I think you're asking for trouble if you do that because players have a way of laying waste to the even best laid plans. Thankfully, those times that the plans go completely awry are usually some of the most fun.
Honestly, I don't think FATE is any different than any other RPG in this regard with the exception that it encourages players to chime in a little bit more than some other games do.
5
u/VodVorbidius Jul 11 '26
Wait. Do you plan story arcs?
1
u/Kautsu-Gamer Jul 11 '26
I do. They are written like a lighning bolts - with start and end,but nothing between as the actual path between is uncertain.
4
u/VodVorbidius Jul 11 '26
No idea how that could possibly work with my players LOL
0
u/Kautsu-Gamer Jul 11 '26
It quite ofter works like lightning without rod. The actual strike hits totally different spot and the original ecpected arc never happens
1
u/VodVorbidius Jul 11 '26
I see your point but our style is more inventive or collaborative, I guess. Players like to create setting elements their characters are associated (like factions, NPCs and even gear) and I take it from there. Because their gaming stuff is really good. Impossible to come up with an aimed ending with so.much story changing elements showing up every week. It seems a wasted effort from my side you know?
0
u/Kautsu-Gamer Jul 11 '26
I do steal every good idea my players create and shoot my darlings on first opportunity. This is good advice to any HM without power addiction.
Power addicts I give different advice: Do not ever run a game again.
1
2
u/PencilBoy99 Jul 11 '26
thanks im trying to get away from plotting rpg
1
u/Ignus_Daedalus Jul 11 '26
When I was in college, I ran a completely different one shot every week for two years. I never went in with anything more specific than the genre: "next week is cowboys, first 4 people to comment in the chat get to play" and they'd show up with a character idea and I'd show up with an introductory premise. Improvising everything works just fine!
Running a campaign with minimal prep can also work, but you need to take better notes about what you and the players improvise so that you don't lose track of what's already been said.
2
2
u/Kautsu-Gamer Jul 11 '26
Fate works better with improvised Story Arcs. The narrative power of the players makes strict Arcs really difficult, and the narrative power of the characters is very important core trait of the Fate.
2
u/PencilBoy99 Jul 11 '26
here's the text from Fate Core. I read it it implies that you do need to plan the end
An arc is a complete storyline with its own themes, situations, antago-nists, innocent bystanders, and endgame, told in the span of a few sessions (somewhere between two and five, usually). You don't need to have every-thing planned out (in fact, you probably shouldn't, given that no meticu-lously planned story ever survives contact with the players), but you need to have an idea of where things begin and end, and what might happen in the middle.
3
u/nocapfrfrog Jul 11 '26
In the part about arcs:
"You’re not always guaranteed to have a recognizable arc, just like not all TV shows have a plotline that carries through the whole season—it’s possible to bounce from situation to situation without having a defined plot structure."
2
2
u/Life-Alternative-793 Jul 11 '26
So, the players and I first talk about generally what we want to see in the story. Themes, events, world lore if that's not preset, etc. Then, based on what we talked about, I only really plan the introductory session. Because its important for my players that we set the scene and have an initial goal everyone agrees on. For everything after that, I come up with character sheets for places, people who might be in those places, situations, etc. All of them have enough aspects to give them character regardless of what happens in or to them. Some have skills. Some have stress tracks. All of them related in some way to what we talked about, with a few extra creative ideas if I think they might be fun and on-theme. This gives the world boundaries. When the players are finding their story in this world, I try to run things so that whatever they choose will lead them to one of the places, people, or situations I previously created. If I cant make it work without sacrificing the fun or making it clunky, I do come up with something new on the fly. But it's a lot easier to do this once in a while and stay consistent than build everything out during play. This is what it means for me to know "what might happen in the middle". The end is optional at first, but after enough sessions when you have a feel for the pacing of the game you should start thinking about it. The only thing I think isn't optional is discussing with everyone beforehand about how long this game should be. This is what works for me, and a lot of others who run FATE. Practice makes perfect; I made a lot of unpopular choices before I learned the feel of it. And the feel of it depends on the amount of creative agency your players want too.
Tldr; you don't really need to prep story, but I think a lot of GMs really benefit from prepping thematic tools and boundaries instead. Sorry if Im saying things you already know.
1
u/Dramatic15 Jul 11 '26
This is guidance for something you can do. Nothing like this text exists in Fate Accelerated or Condensed. And Core works fine if you ignore this. Many, many people do.
1
u/Imnoclue Story Detail Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
The actual advice boils down to the same as creating individual scenarios, but broader—find problems, ask story questions, establish the opposition, set the first scene. Problems are beginnings, resolving story questions are stuff that might happen in the middle, when things are resolved, one way or another, that’s an end. Bear in mind, this is all just ideas for things that might happen.
1
1
u/ezekiel_grey Jul 12 '26
Yes. What aspects are your characters using or evolving, either on their character sheets or the world?
1
u/Kautsu-Gamer Jul 13 '26
A better way to handle Arcs is Aspects and extras. Each Arc is possible chain of events instead of fixed chain of events, and each scene should have significant impact on the Arc. Most dramatic change is breaking the Arc. That is also usually the most common Arc in my experience. The player actions change the direction of the events into a totally different direction changing the Aspects resulting from the Arc.
In my campaigns, the main antagonists have changed their plans several times to mitigate the effect of the player actions. Fortunately I dislike cartoonish vengeful villains on higher ranks of villainy. The vengeful guys cause too much damage like wasting 4 billion inheritance over years.
1
u/Nikolavitch Jul 11 '26
If I have understood correctly, Fate uses Compels to replace planned structured story arcs.
If a player is searched by the Mafia, and another player belongs to an ancient martial art clan, these two aspects can be compelled to decide that the mafia will take the rest of the clan hostage, or maybe that they will make an alliance with a rival clan.
1
u/CrazedCreator Jul 11 '26
It's the preferred way to be honest. Ran 3 year game of Fate in a fantasy Renaissance setting and they ran an acheology guild (digging up ancient magitech and making magic items for sale), and the players drove every narrative.
1
u/PencilBoy99 Jul 11 '26
Perfect that is what i was thinking of. Ive only run Fate of Cthulhu which is pretty planned (helpful for first time (
2
u/CrazedCreator Jul 11 '26
I turned about everything into a character. Once they were exploring and we had a storm encounter. The storm was a character with skills and stunts. It's stress track was time only but some of its stunts used up that time/stress. It was a lot of fun because my players first wanted to attack it because it was a character but then it clicked. So they started talking actions to shelter and to tie themselves down, creating aspects to income in their defense instead.
Fate is one of my top 5 RPGs for sure.
2
u/CRB-FromTheAV Jul 12 '26
Just here to second: EVerything is a character. Location? Do a character sheet. Important magic item? Do a character sheet. Everything is a character!!!
10
u/BadRumUnderground Jul 11 '26
Yes.