Well it is a controversial statement because it is simply not true to make out that is an entirely different ‘paradigm’ that marks out Fate as being a different category of game to any other roleplaying game. It has a set of conventions that mark it out as being the Fate system, including its own jargon - but it is still a roleplaying game and is fundamentally played like any other roleplaying game with a GM narrating and refereeing, players having agency over their characters, and dice and statistics being used to determine the outcome of actions. Things like Aspects often simply amount to having a +2 on the dice roll, re-rolls have been used in other RPGs (heck even D&D has Advantages/Disadvantages and Inspiration), Stunts aren’t that dissimilar to maneuvers in Mythras either, and Narrative editing have also been done before too. I’m not saying that Fate is not being original in its ideas as a complete package, but it isn’t a new genre of game that marks it as paradigmatically different to any other RPG.We both know that's not really how Fate is played.
Invoking Aspects, Rerolls, Compels, Refusing Compels, Activating Stunts, Narrative Editting...there is no skirting around the Fate point economy is a completely different paradigm of play, a different way that players must engage with the rules.
I just really don't think it should be controversial statement to acknowledge that certain games are significant shifts from the traditional set up of play for RPGs, and, depending on the experience of players across the hobby, more extreme shifts are going to require more elaborate explanations. I don't even think this has anythig to do with the Storygame vs Narrative vs Traditional RPG debate, except for those who want to draw a box around one specific group and say "this is the entirety of RPGs". I just think the opposite of that, denying that there are obviously different categories of games, as Trippy does obove, is equally divisive and prevents useful communication.
It is not markedly different in the same way that games like Fiasco or Baron Munchausen are - which are structurally different in design and emphasis, even though you still technically play different roles in them.
And it is not divisive at all to say that - by definition, division only happens is when you divide things. I am doing the opposite and, as per practical experience, this works fine with groups I play with. The only division that occurs is online, where people keep arbitrarily insisting that there are categorical differences between particular roleplaying games and systems, and getting annoyed when others don’t accept them. I don’t even see it as practically useful for communication - because it only lends confusion and prolonged threads of discussion as people argue about definitions and whether or not a particular game is one category or not. D&D players can handle Fate or PbtA games without a bat of an eyelid.
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