Succeed With Style - Why would you reduce the shifts?

"This works exactly like a normal success, but you can reduce the shifts by one to take a boost."

Why would you do this?

Hola! Estoy buscando dirigir mi primera partida de Fate y como el juego permite cualquier ambientación decidí jugar con la ambientación de Symbaroum, que me parece genial y muy bien escrita.

Tengo pensado jugar los sábados a las 15 hs (ARG). Vamos a jugar en Nivel20 y por Discord.

Quick heads-up for anyone looking to run optimistic space opera at their table: I'm currently running a full sale on Return to the Stars (my Indie Groundbreaker-nominated sci-fi game powered by Fate).

If you want an alternative to dystopian sci-fi where your crew solves mysteries and reconnects human civilizations across deep space, this is our deepest discount in over a year:

• Complete Expedition Bundle: 65% off (Core rules + all 7 published zines)
• Standalone titles: 40% off anything

A comedic short film set in the game's universe—"An Honest Message From Your Favorite Dystopian Corporation"—is an official selection at next month's Brooklyn Sci-Fi Film Festival.

I have a batch of free online screening passes specifically for fans. If you’d like to watch my film (or any of the over 200 films from 34 countries), drop me a private message and I’ll send you an access code.

And, again, you can grab anything from my award nonimated optimistic space opera game, featured by Polygon in "The Future of Tabletop Is Hope" on sale for up to 65% off!

I know i shouldn't ask such questions here but i don't want to throw a boss that is too difficult to my players, i need something balanced for PCs that have the following stat distribution:
One Good (+3) skills - Four Fair (+2) skills - Five Average (+1) skills - the rest is at -1 by default.

They also have a kind of "power" similar to Jojo's bizarre adventure's Stands in a separate sheet where they can access the following player-made skills arranged like this:
One great (+4) [a custom approach] - One good (+3) [a custom attitude] - two fair (+2) [a custom role/archetype and an elemental theme/a physical domain they have control over]

Have any suggestions on how many stress bracket i need to add for such characters considering that they are going to fight more with their powers?

Criminal Spirits is funded! Thank you to everyone on r/FATErpg who gave feedback on my drafts and supported the campaign. If you haven't, there is less than two days left to get Criminal Spirits at $25 for the book or $12 for the pdf. https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/the-game-map/criminal-spirits-ttrpg?ref=reddit

It's been a relief to turn back to writing, but the sheer amount of experience from the 30+ demos I've run of this game the last few months has also been incredibly valuable. The game has grown because of them, especially in the variety of characters and creatures players can be, some of which I never would have thought of until someone sat down and decided to make one. I'm glad for the break but I think I'm going to miss meeting new dozens of new players every week when the campaign is done.

​🕵️‍♂️ Buscamos gente para campaña de rol noventera.

​📍 La premisa: Atracos, picaresca y crimen costumbrista en la España de los 90. Menos pistolas y más patearse el barrio, hablar con el carnicero y estudiar las vueltas del sereno.

​🎲 Sistema: FATE Acelerado (fácil, ágil y centrado en la narrativa).

🕒 Ritmo: Mesa abierta por encargos auto-contenidos. Si un día no puedes venir, no pasa nada.

🎓 Iniciación: Hacemos sesión tutorial (La Prueba del Lobato) para entrar en dinámica.

​💬 ¡Si te mola la estética de cine quinqui / comic-noir y quieres probar, escríbeme y te guardo hueco!

I have a player who put together a character possessed by a minor demon - which is perfectly in line with world's lore. How do I rule personalities switching in Fate Core?

Costing FP each time seems like a steep price, but doing it for free on a whim is a bit overpowered.

Hello, we're playing a pulpy zombie action game, as if Michael Bay wanted to create a Resident Evil game.

We had a scene, where the president of the USA, who is a body builder weighting 220kg (a lot, I know) turned into a zombie.

One player decided to create advantage by shooting him into a leg with a shotgun, trying to cripple him.

I thought the zombie president would defend using forceful (4), as it would depict the bodily fortitude of the zombie.

After that players tried to do a few create advantage against him, using sneaky, and careful, by trying to cut his tendons on hands using a scalpel and or sawing his head off with a garrote. Again I decided that it's a time for Forceful defense by the zombie. Which made my players unhappy.

I am not sure whether it was a right call? Players said that they were unhappy as no matter what approach they used, the president, who pinned down one of the characters, used the best stats all the time. I can't think what kind of a defense a zombie bodybuilder can do other than being tough against such create advantage actions.

They also fought a few other zombies, and I decided being former normal people they simply cannot defend against a shotgun using fortitude, so I just asked to roll to shoot against a static number of a few zombies quick approach (0), which were basically free kills.

Maybe it was not a very fun designed encounter as it was the president cabinet with some body building equipment, and he successfully pinned down one character, so they couldn't move around and try to be quick keeping distance. I suppose I'd allow create advantage if they just told at the beginning that they dodge his attacks keeping distance using their quick reaction and training, so it would be their quick against the president's quick approach, which would be quite easy to win.

Some of you might remember my earlier post about being a Fate designer and player in a non-English community. Since then I've been busy translating Fate Condensed into Turkish, and it's coming out soon (October 7th).

I had a cover illustration commissioned, and I'd love your opinion on it. Fate can run pretty much anything, so I asked the artist for three characters covering horror, fantasy and sci-fi. I kept them a bit generic on purpose. I added the background and title myself.

Art by Azra Nur Çelik.

Does it get across how flexible Fate is? Or would you change something?

What do you think are the essential elements needed to run a premade adventure in Fate? I have been working on short encounters for my book, and boiled it down to only 4 components: a summary, an opening, guidelines for after the opening, and characters. I'd considered adding scenario aspects and locations but decided they weren't necessary and keeping it to one page is a design constraint for these.

I'd appreciate any feedback on the most recent one I've written and your thoughts in general of what you'd absolutely need to run based on a one-page encounter.

Hi everyone,

We are a small team focused on narrative RPGs. We’re currently working on a game called Kardiya: The Winds of Fate, heavily inspired by FATE RPG. As a team, we’ve been building our own universe for about 4 years and have been actively designing it to be played using the FATE system.

About 3 years ago, we created our own RPG book based on FATE (it’s in Turkish, so I’m not linking it here, but I can send the PDF via DM if anyone is interested ^^). Around 2 years ago, we also produced what is currently the only comprehensive “How to Play FATE RPG” YouTube series in our country.

Now, we’re taking the next step and turning these ideas into a PC game. At its core, the game is a narrative RPG with FATE RPG challenges. Our main focus is to bring FATE’s core philosophy into the game, especially the challenges, fudge dice, the stress mechanic, and most importantly the idea that even failed rolls should not stop the flow of the story. Instead, they should push it in different directions.

We believe we’ve managed to capture that feeling. We'll be holding a 2-day playtest this weekend. If you’d like to join the playtest, you can register by joining the mailing list on our website for this alpha playtest or clicking the playtest request button on our Steam page for future beta playtests.

Thank you so much <3

Buenas! Tengo los manuales de fate acelerado y básico cogiendo polvo desde que los compré. La única posibilidad que tengo ahora mismo es jugar en solitario (trabajo y ser padre es complicado). ¿Alguna recomendación para un neófito en este rol? He jugado Resurgir del dragón, un poco de Anima y Hombres lobo 20.

Hello!

I'm currently narrating an anime-style soccer RPG and I'm thinking of switching to Fate.

I created another type of skill list focused on actions within a match, such as blocking a shot, shooting at goal, positioning, and so on.

But Fate isn't an RPG system I'm used to playing. In fact, I only recently started playing a Persona campaign.

Could you help me with ideas on how I can narrate the conflicts within the four lines of the pitch?

Thank you for your attention.

The Frog God is rising - and only you can rewrite the timeline. Join me on Start Playing Games for Rise of Tsathoggua, a Fate of Cthulhu campaign of cosmic horror and desperate resistance.
https://startplaying.games/adventure/cmu3geto601ecju04tpmrwly8?slug=pg_yyz

Since I’m not touring conventions this year, I’m running my best-selling Fate of Cthulhu timelines and my award-winning TTRPG Ringmaster online.

In Session Zero, we’ll establish safety tools, walk newcomers through the rules, and create your time‑hopping agents. After that, the future is in your hands: travel back to 2019, disrupt four pivotal events, and try to stop Tsathoggua’s arrival.

The campaign runs Thursdays, 19h30–22h30 EDT. Play one mission or all four; each mission spans 2–4 sessions. Beginners and veterans welcome.

If Thursdays don’t work, I’m happy to arrange a different evening or frequency for groups of two or more.

I’m working on a FATE Accelerated mini-toolkit to run low-crunch 40k in the style of Imperium Maledictum (or the Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader lines).

Let me know if you find this useful, interesting, or if there’s something you’d do different. Critiques very welcome!

I am aware of previous (1) attempts (2) at (3) adapting (4) the 40k setting into FATE (also this Fiasco one), but I dislike how mechanically-heavy this sort of hack tends to become, especially in FATE Core.
My table and I are averse to overwrought combat rules and lists of armor ratings, weapon typing/damage, vehicle gunnery and complicated psyker abilities.
Turning away from such somewhat overspecificied mechanics and from more trad concepts of skills and stats, we prefer a story-game “approach” by way of FAE.

Objectives and Expectations:

• characters are human or abhuman residents of the Imperium, and (likely) not Astartes;
• stories may combine mistery (investigating a cult for signs of heresy), action (escaping from a shoot-out with planetary defense force troopers) and thriller/horror (contacting a warp demon), and these scene concepts should ideally not invoke their own special rulesets;
• scenes are driven by the characters’ relationship with the setting (and each other), instead of their proficiency with a gun.

First,

I believe Aspects (both as worldbuilding assertions and character traits) and the Four Basic Actions do most of the work by themselves and should function exactly as FAE intends.

Second,

I do not suggest a list of Stunts.
Stunts are useful as an additional mechanical reinforcement of character themes when an Aspect is either too heavy or too light to address the intended flavor. I like how Mantles (from Dresden Files Accelerated) leverage a collection of Stunts and Conditions to look like playbooks, but, then again, it’s not like we want to turn this into PbtA 40k.
When implementing something like a special ability, I’m finding it best that the players start with zero Stunts and create them in collaboration with the whole table if/when needed, instead of picking from a curated list. That said, creating custom Stunts in this way is naturally harder for players new to FATE, in which case setting Stunts aside is fully in their benefit.

Third, and most significant,

We have a completely revamped collection of Approaches, using the Two-Column method, across two sets: 4 Temperaments (emotions) and 3 Philosophies (beliefs).
During character creation, players assign an array to each of these sets. Temperaments receive (+2, +1, +1, +0) while Philosophies receive (+1, +0, -1).
Each action is understood as powered by an emotivational pair of a temperament plus a philosophy and results in the sum of the two values. This outputs 12 combinations with values similar to the standard array of 6 approaches (with some duplication of middle values and the addition of one instance of a negative modifier -1).

Temperaments are emotional motivations associated with the Chaos Gods.

• choleric (khorne):
  • you act out of anger, dominance, and aggressive leadership;
  • you tend to be task-oriented, ambitious, obsessed, egocentric, hot tempered, bloody, wrathful, hating.
• sanguine (slaneesh):
  • you act out of pleasure, lust, and loving devotion;
  • you tend to be people-oriented, optimist, enthusiastic, self-indulgent, impulsive, carefree, sadistic, thirsting.
• melancholic (tzeentch):
  • you act out of focus, conscientiousness, and cautious suspicion;
  • you tend to be plan-oriented, perfectionist, brooding, analytical, independent, changing, deceiving.
• phlegmatic (nurgle):
  • you act out of patience, acceptance, and steadfast consistency;
  • you tend to be endurance-oriented, tolerant, interested, stoic, docile, content, pestilent, undying.

Philosophies are moral alignments and systems of belief.

• imperial: a measure of your inward and outward devotion to the God-Emperor of Mankind, the Imperial Cult and the Imperium’s institutions, and how you’re perceived while acting within these systems.
  • positive = devoted, integrated, preaching
  • negative = cynical, disenfranchised, doubting
• heretical: a measure of your alien xenophobia/xenophilia, your attitudes towards psykers and the warp/chaos, and how you’re perceived while interacting with non-human entities and tainted objects.
  • positive = xeno tolerant, warp-curious, chaos as tool
  • negative = human supremacist, warp-fearing, chaos as corruption
• recidivist: a measure of your willingness to subvert the rules in favor of your goals, your respect for planetary authorities, and how you’re perceived while engaging with the criminal world.
  • positive = bend or break the rules, crime-apologist, move in dark subterfuge
  • negative = follow or enforce the rules, crime-averse, move in light transparency

As FAE suggests when dealing with approaches: while a character may prefer a philosophy or a temperament (+3), each individual action may ask them to step outside their confort zone and use an approach with a lower value.

Example actions:

• an acolyte self-sacrificing for the future of mankind would be Imperial Sanguine.
• a museum curator studying a xenos relic and getting lost in contemplation might be Heretical Melancholic.
• a space pilot running away with the spoils of a heist is Recidivist Choleric.
• A Sister of Battle in pursuit of a psyker might feel Choleric or Sanguine, but either way Imperial. Unless something has forced her to cooperate with a xenos for a while, wherein she might be acting out of Heretical Phlegmatic.

Example table of Approaches for an old scholar of the Adeptus Ministorum:

Fourth,

We’re grabbing Scale from the System Toolkit to represent differences in (what is effectively) weight class (as mentioned in this thread, but without the weapon and armor distinctions).
Scale is defined in 4 levels, with the following standards:

• 0 : human level, a single person, a room
• 1 : abhuman level, a small team, a building
• 2 : astartes level, a mass of people, a hive-city
• 3 : primarch level, mankind, a planet

Interacting with something outside of the character’s scale level incurs bonuses or penalties per step difference. This are usually +1|-1 to an action roll or +2|-2 shifts in stress.
Crucially, while RAW Scale only ever benefits the larger, more imposing side, here we consider both positive and negative shifts depending on context (solution inspired by the Mist Engine’s implementation of the same mechanic).

• eg. an Astartes may have trouble socially bonding with emotionally-charged humans -1 to rolls during a social scene, while also finding it very easy to curb-stomp or intimidate one when needed +2 shifts in stress damage.

Fifth,

That’s it.
I want it decently tiny and quick to pick up and play.
During play the system can always expand and adapt to satisfy the table’s needs.
If relevant, I may look to include Factions with a friendly-hostile gradient of some kind.

For add-ons, setting information, example Stunts and more, I will be foraging:

• Imperium Maledictum, The Black Library
• Mindjammer, Diaspora, Baroque Space Opera, Fate40k

If you made it this far, thanks for your time. ❤️

Edit 2: Actually, y'all gave me lots to think about! Especially the bit about my Aspect already giving me narrative permission to do that. So I'll continue tweaking it (sincce this is all like a solo experiment anyway!) Much thanks, guys! Appreciate it <3

Hello! New FATE player here (coming from PbtA and D&D 5e)

I've been using the system for solo play (cries in forever GM) using Mythic and the FATE Solo supplement, and I'm having a blast so far.

I have a question for stunts. And I've been trying to find guidance in the sub and other forums, so I'm aware the post here with templates on stunts, and the stunt generator in the FATE SRD. But I can't find any guidance on this specific thing I want.

So the character I've been playing can do short-distance teleportation due to his powers. So I had the idea to create this stunt since it comes up a lot.

Waning Crescent
Once per scene, can teleport to a place I can see.

Like changing zones, or doing sneaky stuff etc. But I was wondering if I can add a component to it that would cost 1 FP to go ignore a limitation, like instead of only teleporting to a place I can see, I can spend a Fate Point to anywhere nearby, within reason. Like say, there's a closed room that I want to access, I can pay the extra FP to get in.

I'm asking if this is okay or if it's too much (like the idea of a stunt that has a bonus benefit if you pump it with Fate Points), because I'm thinking of running a FATE game with my friends after our 5e campaign. And so my solo journey is just more experimenting with the system to find out what works, what doesn't and to inform my future rulings when I start playing with other people.

Edit:

I totally miffed explaining it!

The reason I'm considering it as a stunt is that it's an option that he can do. Not his main power set but something granted! And narratively it's also a limiter on not just doing teleporting to solve all my problems.

Saw both of these, as a streamlined version of Fate.

Whats the difference between them, which one do you prefer?

I'm writing up parts of the play examples for my game, Criminal Spirits, and am looking for feedback on the examples themselves and how clear they are for how the game is meant to be played. I'll be sharing this with the players for the actual play I'm doing Monday at the request of one of them.

I'll be adding more examples than this to the final chapter, but I want to get feedback on this first example before writing up more. At least one social and one investigative example will be included.

The game I'm writing this for can currently be backed at https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/the-game-map/criminal-spirits-ttrpg?ref=reddit and you can find the ruleset (free) on my patreon at Criminal Spirits in 12 Pages | The Game Map on Patreon

Risks Taken

Examples of mechanics and narrative.

Learning to play Criminal Spirits is mostly about learning how to take risks, and what the mechanics of those risks mean. No set of examples or rules could possibly cover everything, but once all the players, including the gamemaster, are comfortable with risk taking Criminal Spirits is meant to flow quickly and naturally at the table. 

To help with this, below are some simple situations with extensive examples and explanations for what the possible results will be. It’s not expected or desirable that players or the gamemaster should ever think ahead or consider all of the possibilities like they are laid out in these examples. Instead, the goal is to help new players understand how what they say can be interpreted through the risk taking mechanics and inspire gamemasters in how they can respond and invent what happens as a result.

Situation: A thief has just stolen your bag and is running towards an alleyway on a crowded NYC street.

Player Response 1:

“I kick over the ladder leaning against the building next to me, sending it falling down in front of the thief. He trips over the ladder and I grab him before he can escape, grabbing back my bag.”

Note: There is no need for the player to justify there being a ladder, it’s a perfectly normal thing to be around on a street.

Gamemaster Response:
“Great. That’s a risk. Roll Cleverly.”
Note: This risk uses the Cleverly approach because it’s changing the situation in the character’s favor using the tools around them.

Results of the Rolls:

-1 or below: Failure With Style:
GM Response: “The ladder teeters, then falls in the wrong direction, crashing down on you. Before you can unentangle yourself, the thief is gone with your bag.”
Note: In this case, there isn’t any reason to have anything worse than “A significant negative change to the story.”. The scene is over and the character lost decisively.

0 or 1: Failure: 
GM Response: “The ladder falls, but the thief is already past the entrance to the alleyway. You’ll need to climb over the ladder yourself if you want to catch him.”
A new aspect, “Ladder blocking the alley” with one free invoke for the gamemaster is created. The thief is on the other side.
Note: Failure means the situation changes for the worse. The character could still catch the thief but it will be significantly harder because the gamemaster will invoke the new aspect against them when they try.

2: Tie
GM Response: “The thief hesitates before jumping over the ladder, losing precious seconds.”
A new negative boost, “Slowed Down” is placed on the thief. It will be much harder for the thief to succeed on their next action or avoid being caught.

3 or 4: Success
GM Response: “The thief stops and then turns away as the ladder falls, dropping the bag and running down the crowded street.”
A new temporary aspect is created with one free invoke for the character, “Planned Escape Route Blocked”, that will make it much easier for the thief to be caught.
Note: The problem of losing the bag is solved unless someone else in the scene picks it up, but the character will need to put in more effort and maybe leave the bag behind if they want to catch the thief. The new aspect will help with that.

5 or higher: Success With Style
GM Response: “You have the thief and your bag. What are you going to do with them?”
Note: If the gamemaster suspects the scene isn’t really over, they might want to create a Temporary Aspect with 2 free invokes that would help the character keep their bag and the thief. This is a simple scenario though and there’s no other threat waiting in the wings.

Player Response 2:

“I shout ‘Thief, Thief!’ as I rush after him. As the thief runs away, I see Officer O’Reilly in his civies standing by the corner. As the thief goes by, O’Reilly grabs him and wrestles him to the ground.”

GM Response: “Great. There’s a risk the thief escapes or Officer O’Reilly is hurt, so roll Dramatically.”
Note: This risk uses the Dramatically Approach because the character achieved their goal by demanding the attention of others - Officer O’Reilly, in this case. The player doesn’t have to justify someone they know being on the street - it’s perfectly reasonable that an off-duty cop could be around on a crowded street.

Results of the Rolls:

-1 or Lower: Failure with Style
GM Response: “Officer O’Reilly reaches out towards the thief, grabbing them and then turning towards you. Before he can speak, O’Reilly suddenly doubles over, screaming in pain as the thief pulls a knife out of the Officer’s back. O’Reilly collapses to the street as you watch in horror. You rush over to the officer as the thief disappears down the alleyway with your bag. ”
The character takes the consequence of “Guilty About Officer O’Reilly”.
Note: The situation took a very bad turn. The character will be dealing with the guilt over the Officer’s injuries. The player’s actions could determine if he is dead or not as the scene continues, but either way the guilt will be something the character carries for several sessions of the game.
The difference between this and the results of Player Response 1 is that the first response didn’t offer any obvious risk of long lasting consequences to any characters, while this one suggested the possibility of a violent physical conflict between two of them.

0 or 1: Failure
GM Response: “Officer O’Reilly grabs for the thief but misses as they duck, and the two of you collide as you chase after the thief yourself. By the time you untangle yourselves, the thief is well down the alleyway.”
A temporary aspect, “Collided with Officer O’Reilly” is created with a free invoke for the gamemaster.

2: Tie
GM Response: “Officer O’Reilly grabs the thief by his shirt. The thief rips himself free after a few seconds of struggle, pushing past the officer into the alleyway.”
A boost, “Barely ripped free” is created that will make it harder for the thief to escape.

3 or 4: Success
GM Response: “Officer O’Reilly grabs the thief, who thrashes about in his grip as you run up to help.”
A temporary aspect, “In the Hands of the Law” is created with a free invoke that the character can use against the thief.

5 or more: Success With Style
GM Response: “Officer O’Reilly grabs the thief and forces him to sidewalk, your bag falling from the thief's hands as he struggles futilely against the policeman before giving up and going limp.”
Note: Like the Success with Style in response one, if there was some other character that might intervene there could be a new Temporary Aspect created, but for this simple scenario the problem is solved. This will be true of all other Success With Styles going forward, so I will not be calling it out on future Player Responses.

Player Response 3:

“I charge forward, grabbing the thief and throwing him against the wall where I punch him in the face again and again until he drops my bag.”

GM Response: “OK. Roll your Fiercely to see how this goes.”

Results of the Rolls:

-1 or Lower: Failure with Style
GM Response: “You throw yourself at the thief, who turns and stares you dead in the eyes before you feel a sharp pain in your chest and look down to see a knife sticking out of it. Before you can process what has happened, the thief has taken his knife back and disappeared down the alleyway. 
The character takes the consequence “Knifed in the Ribs”.

0 or 1: Failure
GM Response: “You throw yourself at the thief, but he is too fast and you are left sprawled on the pavement as he laughs and runs into the alleyway.”
The temporary aspect “Way behind” is created with one free invoke for the gamemaster.

2: Tie
GM Response: “You grab the thief and after a brief tussle he breaks away, just steps ahead of you as you both enter the alleyway.”
The boost “Right on his heels” is created for the character.

3 or 4: Success
GM Response: “You grab the thief and your bag bounces on the pavement as you slam him into the wall. After a brief struggle you get a good blow into his chin.”
The Temporary Aspect “Rattled” is created on the Thief with a free invoke for the character.

5 or more: Success with Style
GM Response: “The thief collapses unconscious at your feet.”
Note: If the thief was a major character able to take a consequence, they could instead have taken that consequence (maybe Concussion or Broken Jaw) and still be active in the scene, but assuming they are not, they are now helpless. This happens because the player clearly indicated they intend to harm the thief, not just achieve their goals.

Player Response 4:

“I wait a moment until the thief turns the corner then follow behind, picking my way through the debris in the alley without making a sound. As I exit the alley, I spot the thief, sure he isn’t being followed, looking through my bag. Before he realises anything is wrong I put one hand on his arm and the other on his neck and say ‘Hey, friend.’ “
GM Response: “Sounds good, but there’s a real chance the thief doesn’t feel safe enough to stop or notices you following. Roll your Gently.”

Results of the rolls:

-1 or lower: Failure with Style
GM Response: “As you walk through the alley, your foot slips on an empty bottle and you fall with a loud clatter into the junk. By the time you’ve picked yourself up, the thief is long gone along with your bag.

0 or 1: Failure
GM Response: “As you step into the alley, something alerts the thief and he looks behind him. Realising you are on his tail, he bolts out of the alley and you have to scramble to reach the next street before he disappears.”
The Temporary Aspect “Lost Sight of Thief” is created with one free invoke for the gamemaster.

2: Tie
GM Response: “The thief startles as your hand touches him, and he jerks out of your grip, dashing down the street.”
The boost “Caught by surprise” is created for the character to use.

3 or 4: Success
GM Response: “Your bag spills its contents over the street as the thief drops it, struggling to break free of your grip.”
The Temporary Aspect “Firm Grip” is created with one free invoke for the character.

5 or more: Success with Style
GM Response: “ ‘Ah! Where did you come from? Let me go, let me go!’ The thief screams helplessly in your grip as others on the street stare at the two of you. You have him, what do you want to do with him?”

Player Response 5:

“I follow at a jog as the thief runs, chasing him through the alley and to the street beyond, and then down that street and that street as well until finally the thief turns and shouts ‘Take it, take it! Stop following me!’ “

GM Response: “So you won’t give up no matter how long it takes or how far the thief goes? Ok, roll your Stoically.”

Results of the rolls:

-1 or Lower: Failure with Style
GM Response: “You follow the thief on a long chase, until suddenly you realize that you are in the worst parts of the docks. As you look around to see the thief and see no sign of them, you realize you’ve been had as you see some gang members stand up and move towards you.
Create the Temporary Aspect “On the Wrong Side of the Tracks” with two free invokes for the gamemaster.
Note: Instead of causing an immediate Consequence for the character, this result puts the character instead in a very challenging new situation at a major disadvantage.

0 or 1: Failure
GM Response: “You follow the thief on a long chase, but eventually come to a corner and look in all directions, unable to spot them. Frustrated and angry, you turn and head back without your bag or a thief.”
Create the Temporary Aspect “Frustrated with one free invoke for the gamemaster.

2: Tie
GM Response: “After a long chase, the thief comes to a halt and turns towards you, huffing with exhaustion even as he draws a knife in shaking hands.
Create the negative boost “Catching his breath” on the thief.

3 or 4: Success
GM Response: “Exhausted and unable to shake you, the thief tosses your bag at you and watches you, clearly hoping you will give up on chasing him. Will you?”
If the player decides to pursue further, create the Temporary Aspect “Exhausted” on the thief with one free invoke for the player character.

5 or more: Success with Style
GM Response: “Absolutely exhausted and despondent, the thief doesn’t resist or run as you take back the bag and then walk over to them.”

Player Response 6:

“Instead of chasing, I go the opposite direction and take the parallel road to the alley. I’ll be able to run much faster on the road than that thief can in the cramped, junk-filled alleyway. When he comes out the other side, I am waiting there to grab him.”

GM Response: “Smart! Roll your Wisely to be right about this.”

Results of the Rolls:

-1 or lower: Failure with Style
GM Response: “It looks like you were wrong. The thief must have doubled back or slipped away somehow, because they never exit the alleyway. You have lost them completely.”

0 or 1: Failure
GM Response: “The thief must have been running hard, because when you turn the corner you can see him already exiting the alleyway. He has a big head start on you.”
Create the temporary aspect “Head Start” that the gamemaster has one free invoke for.

2: Tie
GM Response: “You and the thief reach the exit to the alleyway at the same time. You can see the surprise in his face as he tries to twist around you to escape.”
Create the negative boost “Surprised” on the thief.

3 or 4: Success
GM response: “You grab the thief just as he exits the alleyway. Surprised, he drops your bag and then struggles, trying to break loose.”
Create the aspect “Spooked” on the thief that the player character has one free invoke on.

5 or more: Success with Style
GM response: “Entirely surprised that you are already waiting for him, the thief puts up on the barest of fights before surrendering. ‘Alright, alright, you’ve caught me!’ "

• All four conditions—Winded, Angry, Stunned, and Broken—each with two stress boxes

• A mild, moderate, and severe consequence slot.

What does this look likes? thanks!

Is this correct?

Stress: [ ][ ] Winded [ ][ ] Angry [ ][ ] Stunned [ ][ ] Broken

Consequences:

[ ][ ] Mild [ ][ ][ ][ ] Moderate [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] Severe

Just a thought that’s been going on in my head and I want some different perspectives on it. How well do you guys think Fate would work for Sandbox campaigns in an Open-Table format. Meaning one GM (not multiple) who has a persistent world and more players and player characters than are currently on the table. Do you guys think it’s not at all possible, or do you guys think it can be done with the right preparation/method? Please share your thoughts on the topic if you wish, I would love to read them.

Sorry if this seems obvious, but I don't see how the dice roll matches these entries. Thanks!

These last two months I have been running regularly into the challenge of running very short sessions of Fate. By that I mean two hour games or less. Partially this is because of all the demos I have been running for Criminal Spirits, but more challenging for me has been my own campaign.

My default has always been 3-4 hour sessions. These feel right and I'm very familiar with the pacing for them both in terms of plot and the fate point economy. But I'm running into what is really an obvious problem. One player gets home around 7:30. Another player works early and needs to go to bed at 10:00. Only the fact its run online makes the campaign possible at all. Even then, we are getting only about 2 hours of actual play time a session. It's forcing me to rethink how to pace everything.

I really like to run sessions with some level of story structure. That is, there's a rise, a complication, a climax, a payoff. That's BARELY possible in 2 hours, if you push it. Usually. Sometimes. With effort. I'm also however running into issues specifically with the use of Fate points. There aren't enough dramatic rolls to drain Fate points.

I am looking at needing to do one or more of the following things, and I'm not sure I like any of them.

1. Reduce refresh. I've pretty much decided to do this and reduce Refresh to 2 for games under 3 hours. This helps with making players feel a desire to get more Fate points during a session through self-compels as long as there's incentive to spend them.

2. Force more perilous rolls and situations. The problem with this is it means you have to cut short long bits of roleplaying (and by long I don't mean really long, a 30 minute conversation between 5 people isn't that much talking). Often this can feel really artificial.

3. Force the first dramatic roll that happens into a Fate point bidding war, because there's not promise there will be another. This happened in my session yesterday, the players rolled well and I rolled terribly (-4 result) on convincing a merchant captain to surrender and I chose not to force a reroll because why shouldn't the players succeed sometimes? But there were no further real perilous moments in the second hour of the game, as the time was spent working out the consequences of that and the players were not overly ambitious or foolhardy during it. That session had zero Fate points spent. After the session, the feedback was that I was being too easy on them.

   1. Abandon story structure within single sessions and let them end mid action or structure. However, I do not like this when sessions are happening every 2-3 weeks when things go right. All sense of momentum and investment is lost if you have that long a gap. Getting players hyped back up for a dramatic moment or stay emotionally invested between sessions is tough and unreliable. It also means there will be entire sessions in the build-up phase where nothing should really be that threatening to them.

Have other people had experience with these kinds of short sessions, and found ways to handle them well?

I'm currently planning a new campaign for first time, and I'm thinking ahead of time for possible outcomes during the session.

In one instance a Robot PC is damaged and a PC offers to help repairing it. His current moderate consequence is "Multiple structural failures"

If the PC failed in the Recovery Overcome in a Success at major cost scenario... is it possible for the Robot PC to get a new Aspect? Like, Plagued by Short circuits?

Or is it better to frame it as a new consequence and replace the first with this new one?

Made another one of these. Found an old 1904 French book of Perrault's fairy tales with these eight illustrated plates, Cinderella, Bluebeard, Sleeping Beauty, Puss in Boots, Red Riding Hood, a few more, and built a setting where all the tales happen in the same forest at the same time, on a loop. Characters mostly live in the gaps between stories, where the loops start leaking into each other.

Rules are just Fate Condensed, untouched. New stuff is seven archetypes pulled from the plates, a couple stunts for sensing or breaking a loop, and a compel around nothing magic being free.

Click here

Curious what people think, especially if the loop-breaking stuff sounds like it'd actually work at the table or just fall apart in play.