Supposedly mainstream games you can't believe anyone actually played?

[thedungeondelver]

But what do you think of the video's demonstration of FATE?

I don't like FATE either!

<runs away crying>

 

[robiswrong]

1. Just admit you like roleplaying+storytelling

See, the fun thing is that this is you telling me what I like. Which is kind of not conducive to continued useful conversation.

(Though, to be fair, I don't mind storytelling/roleplaying games like Fiasco).

2. Tell anyone who doesn't to screw themselves

Not my style. I'd rather engage with people that want to discuss things and not nitpick for things to "prove" their point and claim I'm saying something that I explicitly said I'm not saying.

You used to be someone worth disagreeing with.

I'm still happy to disagree with people, and talk about those differences and try to narrow down to the actual difference.

I'm just done playing the "claim I'm saying things I've explicitly said I'm not saying, because you found one word that you can interpret that way" game.

My experience exactly. I can't think of too many games where the common official examples AND player provided examples only served to make the game more impenetrable.

As in all games, there's differences in interpretation and playstyle. I've heard people say that in D&D you should "do what makes for a good story", and clearly there are many (including myself) that disagree heavily.

It doesn't help that the text is not... excellent at explaining things. The "Aspects are true" language was basically added because people in previous versions didn't think that having a broken leg meant that you couldn't climb ladders.

My personal stumbling blocks were always Create Advantage

It's helpful to look at the actions in Core as not rules, but more like rulings templates. So, you start with what your dude is doing. "I trip him!" And then we figure out what rules to apply.

Create Advantage is the "template" when you're trying to do something that isn't directly achieving your goal, but something to help you achieve your goal. Tripping an enemy doesn't defeat him, but it makes it easier to defeat him.

So we call that a Create Advantage, and then if you succeed, he's Tripped. And we make a note of the fact that he's tripped and call it an aspect.

Stunts

Stunts are basically D&D 3+ Feats, GURPS Advantages, etc. They give you a mechanical bonus or let you break a rule in certain circumstances.

and Free Invocations

Not sure what's causing you issues on this?

What is your opinion of the Wil Wheaton video that was linked earlier?

Overall, pretty good. There's things I did and didn't like about it specifically, and a few notes of things that they did that aren't inherent to the system.

Good:
1) Never once did they say "Fate Point Economy." He wasn't compelling like crazy, and there wasn't a constant flow of Fate Points. I like the game much better when Fate Points are reasonably scarce, otherwise it kind of defeats the purpose, to me.

2) Ryan did a good job of tying aspect usage back to what was happening, instead of leaving them at a meta-level.

Bad:
1) Concessions were handled simply wrong. It's not a get-out-of-jail-free card, and once dice are tossed you lose the option until they're resolved.

2) I didn't like the level of "meta-ness" allowed in players saying what they were doing "I use Deceive" "I invoke <xyz>". I don't allow that. And the game works much better when you describe what you're doing, or describe how the aspect is helping you, instead. I get not being a prick about it during the show, though.

Notes:
1) On-the-fly character creation is an option, not mandatory. It's totally possible to start the game with fully-developed characters.

2) He did more of the "so you tell me what this is" crap than I particularly care for in my games. While I'm a big fan of accepting player input into the setting, most of that I do implicitly rather than explicitly - like, if you say you go to the Mage's Guild, and it's reasonable that one exists, then there is one.

What got me confused, and still does, no matter how many times others explain it to me, is the whole "aspects are always, always true, but you have to spend the meta currency to use them to your benefit". That just doesn't compute.

It shouldn't compute. Aspects are true is the counter to "you have to spend points on them."

So let's say you've got a Broken Leg. (As a Consequence, likely, which is still an Aspect). What this means is that, well, your leg is broken.

You can't climb a ladder because that's something you can't do with a broken leg. That requires no expenditure.

Hitting someone in a fight will be harder because of it. In Fate, this is usually mechanized as passive opposition - which can basically act as a floor to a defense roll. So if we decide the broken leg gives passive opposition of +2 or something, then if your defense is less than +2, you still get the +2 defense. This also requires no expenditure.

Now, if your leg gives out right as you go to hit someone, that's probably invoking the aspect to help a defense roll. That *does* require a Fate Point (or free invocation). Invokes are basically like close-ups in a movie. The bad guy goes to hit our hero, but right as he strikes we see his leg crumple underneath him - that kind of thing.

Not being able to climb a ladder is a given and requires no Fate Points. However, a Compel would be that the thing you need is on top of a ladder.

I've been told that it isn't actually like that, but every example seems to follow my misconceptions. To the point that it seems like no matter how different each PC's Aspects are, every character ends up affecting the game in the exact same efficacy.

Characters do tend to be broadly equally effective, even if not in the same areas. Fate is not a good game for people that like character optimization.

Go ahead and give it a shot. There's no swine here.

Alrighty, then.

The big thing is that Fate is designed to work like movies or TV shows or books. Not in the "overall narrative arc and structure" way, but in the way that a fight scene plays out. Which doesn't have to mean "unrealistic", as you can have highly realistic TV shows or movies.

But let's say you're getting suppressive fire your way.

In a TV show, you'd see the bad guy with the heavy weapon set it up and start going to town throwing lead your way. Then you'd see our heroes try to go somewhere, only to be stopped by the fire. We've established a fact (there's suppressive fire) and then we see it take effect. That's basically Create Advantage.

Or we might see our mighty barbarian warrior lock blades with an opponent to a deadlock, only to see his mighty barbarian thews flex with strength as he overpowers the opponent - that's invoking an aspect.

There are, admittedly, some "out-of-character" decisions made - most specifically, choosing to spend Fate Points (no different than Savage Worlds or many other systems), but especially around Compels and Concessions. But, realistically, that's a very small part of the game session and you can spend the vast majority of the game in-character. I find that I spend more time "in-character" in Fate than I do in most systems, though there are some (BRP comes to mind) that make it easier.

 

[robiswrong]

I don't like FATE either!

<runs away crying>

Cool. Not everyone does.

 

[TristramEvans]

Hey, I don't like D&D. Its a large hobby, no reason to pretend everybody should be eating the same brand of cereal.

The difference is, personally, I'm still interested in games and the gaming hobby at large regardless if it has anything to do with how I play. I'm enthused by the diversity of the umbrella of tabletop games ranging from historical miniature wargames to the most abstract of storygames. Moreover, I enjoy the enthusiasm of others for those things. I don't come to this forum, or any other, to find out or confirm the correct way to play. I already know what works for me. I come to engage with other people who take part in a past-time that exists as nothing more than a celebration of creativity. I want to hear about D&D and FATE and Rolemaster. And in turn I'll share about Planescape and FASERIP and whatever stuff I'm interested in. And yeah, we may have some arguing, bitching, and pretension along the way, but my hope is on the other side of that we're all here because we're geeks, and there's a solidarity, camaraderie, and mutual respect that comes with that .

And by "geek" I mean the penultimate definition as put forth by Dan Harmon:
" I just like liking stuff"

 

[Endless Flight]

Amen!

 

[Necrozius]

R robiswrong

If you ever run a Fate game here, I'd like to try it again! I have a sneaking feeling that my previous Fate DMs were not doing it right. Or I misunderstood something. I'm open to being proven wrong about my interpretations. Fate still seems like fun once I figure it out.

 

[robiswrong]

Yeah, to be clear "Cool, lots of people don't like it" wasn't sarcastic. No game is for everyone, and I'm not going to try to convince people otherwise. Any sarcasm or hostility read into that statement is utterly unintended.

Having grown up on a diet of AD&D and GURPS, I was initially skeptical of Fate, putting it in the "roll to see how awesome you are" category. Only when somebody told me about a campaign arc that ended with the PCs being victorious, but most of the PCs being dead, maimed, turned into NPCs (specifically, they went fully Fae), etc. That's when I got interested. And I still love D&D and GURPS and lots of other games. I just don't talk about them as much here because there's plenty of experts already.

As Tristram said, I like liking things. And I like learning about games, even if they're not to my taste. There's always a chance you'll find something cool, or at least find something *useful* even if you don't like the game as a whole. Like, I've never been able to make Burning Wheel work, but I've found some useful advice in the books. I also like different games *because* they're different. I'd use Fate for very different games than I'd use GURPS for, and likewise with AD&D.

As far as running a game, I'd be more likely to do roll20/Discord/Skype or something than PbP, but I'm totally up for it if people wanna give it a try.

 

[The Butcher]

What got me confused, and still does, no matter how many times others explain it to me, is the whole "aspects are always, always true, but you have to spend the meta currency to use them to your benefit". That just doesn't compute.

Yeah, that's been my experience as well. I got Starblazer Adventures when it came out (a remarkably poorly written and organized book), ran it once, hated it, shelved it.

I downloaded Fate Core and FAE to look into them but ended up never doing it. I already have a backlog of games to run... but I'll look into it some day, I swear. ;)

So let's say you've got a Broken Leg. (As a Consequence, likely, which is still an Aspect). What this means is that, well, your leg is broken. <snip example>

Thanks for the example. Does "Aspects are true" mean that the +2 bonus from an Aspect is granted regardless of whether the player spends a Fate Point or not? Fate Point expenditure is only require to actively intervene on the game world via the Aspect?

There are, admittedly, some "out-of-character" decisions made - most specifically, choosing to spend Fate Points (no different than Savage Worlds or many other systems), but especially around Compels and Concessions.

I'm actually sort of okay with Compels ("tough it out and gain a bennie, or be a bitch and pay me one to get out" is fun) but Consequences and especially the Stress Track were super annoying. Especially during social combat. Yeesh. I think this was the dealbreaker, for us.

"I just like liking stuff"

I strongly identify with this statement. Even if shitty blogs and clickbait sites are increasingly monetizing enthusiasm, it remains at the core of geekiness for me.

 

[robiswrong]

I downloaded Fate Core and FAE to look into them but ended up never doing it. I already have a backlog of games to run... but I'll look into it some day, I swear. ;)

I wrote about 10,000 words on figuring out the system (coming from a more traditional mindset) that's now here: http://www.evilhat.com/home/wp-cont...Book-of-Hanz-Fate-Core-Thought-of-the-Day.pdf (oh, I didn't name this. Somebody else collected a bunch of my posts and called it that)

That... probably shouldn't be necessary?

Thanks for the example. Does "Aspects are true" mean that the +2 bonus from an Aspect is granted regardless of whether the player spends a Fate Point or not? Fate Point expenditure is only require to actively intervene on the game world via the Aspect?

Usually they don't give a +2 to rolls. What they can do is provide passive opposition.

So let's say that I've got a Broken Leg. That makes fighting hard, so we'll say it provides +2 passive opposition. I've got a +3 Fight skill, and you've got a +1 Athletics skill, and you're going to dodge. For the sake of argument we'll say I roll a zero, and you roll a -2.

That means you've got an effective -1 defense compared to my +3, which would be 4 Stress taken. BUT.... the passive opposition takes effect instead, giving you an effective +2 defense, and you only take 1 stress.

I personally like this system because it provides benefit, while not allowing rolls to get into the auto-succeed/auto-fail territory.

I'm actually sort of okay with Compels ("tough it out and gain a bennie, or be a bitch and pay me one to get out" is fun) but Consequences and especially the Stress Track were super annoying. Especially during social combat. Yeesh. I think this was the dealbreaker, for us.

Stress is basically hit points. Consequences are basically bad shit that happens to you in the course of a conflict. Yeah, it doesn't make sense that getting a broken leg allows you to take more Stress, but it's not really supposed to be a "damage model" in any real way.

Is there something in particular that bugged you about them? (Not to "prove you wrong", but so that if there's a misunderstanding or something I can clarify, or just go "oh, cool then.")

I strongly identify with this statement. Even if shitty blogs and clickbait sites are increasingly monetizing enthusiasm, it remains at the core of geekiness for me.

Yeah. There are games I really don't like. Popular ones, even. I just don't talk about them. It's much more fun to talk about shit I like.

 

[Shipyard Locked]

... I was initially skeptical of Fate, putting it in the "roll to see how awesome you are" category.

Ah, 7th Sea 2nd edition.
Add that to the list of games I'm not sure that many people are really playing beyond 1-3 sessions.

 

[Simlasa]

My issue with Fate was always with its fanboys... pushing it and talking down games that weren't it. But not, that I saw, just talking about it as a game they played. There was an evangelistic insecurity about it. Maybe that's died down some by now.

 

[robiswrong]

Can't argue that. There's certainly some people that have pushed it as the answer for everything or some kind of gaming Rosetta Stone.

Screw that. It's a game. Like any other game, it does some things well, other things poorly.

I've received flak in some of the Fate groups for suggesting it's not the best thing for every situation, and that there are things it doesn't do well. I find that silly. Hell, even one of the designers posted about how that annoys him because it kind of implies that the designers don't have to make decisions about what to support and not to support, which is part of the craft of designing.

 

[thedungeondelver]

(tbh I've never played FATE, 'twas a joke Hell, I might like it!)

 

[robiswrong]

(tbh I've never played FATE, 'twas a joke Hell, I might like it!)

Nope, you've admitted your sin, now you will burn in the Chinese Hell of Drowning in Fate Dice.

(The Chinese have a lot of hells)

 

[thedungeondelver]

Nope, you've admitted your sin, now you will burn in the Chinese Hell of Drowning in Fate Dice.

(The Chinese have a lot of hells)

"It's that simple!"

 

[Tommy Brownell]

My issue with Fate was always with its fanboys... pushing it and talking down games that weren't it. But not, that I saw, just talking about it as a game they played. There was an evangelistic insecurity about it. Maybe that's died down some by now.

I've had that same problem with the Savage Worlds community. I love Savage Worlds. A lot. And while it CAN do MOST things, it's not necessarily the best tool for everything...(and sometimes you just WANT to play something else).

 

[robiswrong]

Most "generic" systems can do any genre, but they pretty well always put their own spin on it. Sometimes that spin is what you want. Sometimes it's not.

I can see myself using Savage Worlds, Fate, or GURPS for any given genre, depending on what I wanted out of the game.

 

[CRKrueger]

See, the fun thing is that this is you telling me what I like. Which is kind of not conducive to continued useful conversation.

It seems like you do think that's quite fun, since your first post in this thread is claiming I would "willfully misinterpret" what you said to "confirm my preconceived notions".
If you don't consider that continued useful conversation, then why was it your opener? Because you have no intention of conversing with someone who doesn't like what you like? Have you read the thread? When it comes to Fate, that's most people posting here.

I don't mind storytelling/roleplaying games like Fiasco).

Or Fate apparently, but for some reason classifying Fate correctly upsets you.

Not my style.

Sorry, when you make your thread debut calling me a shit-flinging monkey after I listed two games and made one post with two short sentences that were hardly incendiary, you don't get to claim you'd rather stay classy. Shovel that BS somewhere else.

I'd rather engage with people that want to discuss things and not nitpick for things to "prove" their point and claim I'm saying something that I explicitly said I'm not saying.

So you were the first one to predict what someone else would say or do and yet cried foul when I predicted you'd like something you then said you actually liked. Now for the second time, you're telling me how I'm going to argue.

I'm still happy to disagree with people, and talk about those differences and try to narrow down to the actual difference.

Doesn't sound like it so far, sounds like you just want to preach to the choir.

I'm just done playing the "claim I'm saying things I've explicitly said I'm not saying, because you found one word that you can interpret that way" game.

There's the third time you did what you cried foul over. I suspect at this point you're nursing some sort of grudge from therpgsite over the topic.

Now that we're done with telling me how I'm going to argue, allow me to actually make a point. You may have come here with a chip on your shoulder over some old exchange we had, but...


EDIT: Splitting post for TL;DR

 

[CRKrueger]

Let's start off by just looking at some key things people in this thread said about Fate:

I'd love to, but even after reading the rulebook and many examples, I can't.

Fate is weird...What got me confused, and still does, no matter how many times others explain it to me,

once the "Fate point economy" entered the picture I was bewildered and put off.

Yeah, that's been my experience as well...ran it once, hated it, shelved it.

I've never been able to really understand it -- and I've played it a few times with people who seem to understand it.

Kind of odd, isn't it? You take those 5 players they have probably over a century of combined experience with RPGs. You add my years we're pushing towards two. Cardgames, boardgames, wargames, this isn't anyone's first rodeo, or even their hundredth. So why do they all say similar things about Fate?

What is it about Fate? There's no mystery, really. Fate, for all the forum blood shed trying to prove otherwise, isn't a traditional roleplaying game. Playing Fate is not the same activity as playing AD&D or Traveller or GURPS. Is it close? Yes. But it's not the same.
Why? I'll point to things Rob said and let you be the judge of whether I'm willfully misinterpreting or what have you.

The big thing is that Fate is designed to work like movies or TV shows or books. Not in the "overall narrative arc and structure" way, but in the way that a fight scene plays out.

Yeah, it doesn't make sense that getting a broken leg allows you to take more Stress, but it's not really supposed to be a "damage model" in any real way.

That right there is the difference. That's the whole enchilada and why for some, Fate will never compute. Traditional roleplaying games grew out of wargames, and even though there are fantastical elements, the mechanics of traditional RPGs are there to facilitate roleplaying a character within a setting as if they were real. The rules attempt to model the reality/verisimilitude of that setting. We've all heard the "rules as physics engine" phrase before. That's what that means.

However, probably from the beginning, going back to Braunstein even, some people didn't roleplay their character as if they were a real being in a real setting (or as close as possible, you never actually get there of course), they envisioned them like a character in a book or movie. In some cases, like James Bood 007, literally. As a result, people roleplay not as much within a setting, but within a story about a setting, and their characters, even though they can think and empathize with their character, are seen more like the protagonist of a book or movie.

So a roleplayer who is just roleplaying, has really two competing thought processes:
1. The rules of the game, odds, stats, processes, etc. Which is why you always hear the Holy Grail of "Rules that fade into the background".
2. Roleplaying the character.

Someone who is roleplaying (forgive me, but I'm going to say it) from a more narrative point of view has three competing thought processes.
1. The rules of the game, odds, stats, processes, etc.
2. Roleplaying the character.
3. The third-person view of the story that their character is a part of.

Why do I say they are competing? Because you can't be both IC and OOC at the same instant in time. You can switch back and forth in a second, but that is two different mental states.

Originally there was no "game" for someone who roleplayed within a story, at least not for the story side of things. But these rules started cropping up, and eventually entire systems were constructed with the idea of "narrative roleplaying" at the heart of the mechanics.

Fate is one such system. If you like roleplaying because you like immersing into your character, and don't like rules getting in the way of that because that's what brings you to the table, Fate isn't going to make much sense, because that's not what it was designed to do. It's designed for a different experience, the same way a racing bike is different from a cruiser or an off-road vehicle. They'll all get you there, but depending on what you like to do, some will be more enjoyable than others.

For some roleplaying with Fate/2d20/Cortex+ etc. will always be akin to taking a motocross bike on the autobahn, driving 3000 miles on a street racer. or cutting through crowded traffic on a Harley. You can do it...but...

 

[Baulderstone]

I was flipping through White Wolf's Kindred of the East a few days ago, thinking about how basically unusable it was for such a high profile release (in tabletop terms). Asian vampires were apparently so thematically awesome and inscrutable that you had to track three kinds of main energy (red, black, and demon chi), track the ratio between them, track three poorly contextualized morality scores (dharma, hun and p'o), and remember how all those confusingly (and in several cases inauthentically) named things affected each other and the many, many subtle effects they had on commonplace actions.

It's certainly not the most complicated game there ever was, but it's impenetrable enough that I have a hard time imagining it was used as much as some people I know have implied. I can imagine it mostly being used to give regular Vampire DMs two or three sessions of headaches when people showed up asking to play a character from it, then quietly getting dumped.

I think Kindred of the East may have been the last WoD book I ever bought. I was already largely done with the WoD, but I was curious. It highlighted every reason I was done with the line.

I never had issue with Vampire. But I only ever owned/used The base book, and Chicago by Night. We ran our own world. (In which the characters were basically drug dealers and serial killers, but that's another story.)

The base book and Chicago by Night are the high water mark of the line. It is all diminishing returns from there on.

I've never been able to really understand it -- and I've played it a few times with people who seem to understand it. I think my problem with it is the "fate point economy" doesn't interest me at all. It's very in-your-face gamey where I prefer rules that fade into the background so I can just experience the world through my character most of the time. However, I obviously don't understand the game as people who like it claim I am really mischaracterizing it.

Fate is something I have no real interest in ever running, but I get it. I'd probably be fine with playing it if a friend invited me to try it. I can see the appeal. It's just not my preferred style of game.

Marvel wins over Hero for me. Maybe it was the GM, but the game moved so slowly.

 

[3rik]

All the Gumshoe system stuff, Pathfinder and FFG Star Wars.

 

[Baulderstone]

I wonder if this thread is veering into people simply listing games they don't like. I don't really care for 3E/Pathfinder, but it is clear that many people like a version of D&D where you spend most of your time moving minis around a grid and planning optimal character builds. Those aren't what I look for in an RPG, but I get the appeal. Pathfinder may not be a game I like, but it is clearly playable game.

It is a completely different thing that many WoD books like KotE. At that point of the WoD, it was clear that there was absolutely no playtesting going on at all. As with Changeling: the Dreaming 1E, it was clear that KotE was a game that had never been played once by anyone, even the designers, before being put on the shelves.

 

[3rik]

Nah, I'm just listing mainstream games I can't believe anyone actually played.

 

[CRKrueger]

It is a completely different thing that many WoD books like KotE. At that point of the WoD, it was clear that there was absolutely no playtesting going on at all. As with Changeling: the Dreaming 1E, it was clear that KotE was a game that had never been played once by anyone, even the designers, before being put on the shelves.

To you it is, sure. Kindred of the East had it's fans who disagree with your assessment. It's no more objectively bad then Exalted.

 

[3rik]

Well, there can be many reasons why you can't believe anyone actually played a game. Some rules sets just seem too tedious and fiddly to explain their popularity.

I do agree on KotE. Does anyone think the original Mummy supplement for Vampire was ever actually played? And how about Mummy: the Resurrection?

 

[Shipyard Locked]

I wonder if this thread is veering into people simply listing games they don't like.

For the record, I found KotE very inspiring a flavorful despite its considerable weaknesses, and I did use many of its ideas in a few Ravenloft sessions.

Heck, this thread has made me decide to use a bone flower kuei jin in my very next 5e session.

 

[robiswrong]

Righteous indignation

Nah, dude. You don't get to basically be a dick to me for years in every conversation on this topic and then act offended when I presume you'll continue acting like a dick.

You've been acting like a dick. Please stop. I think you're a smart dude, and would love to talk to you about shit. But I'm not going to deal with your crap any more.

Inaccurate assertions about a game you've never played

Here's the thing.

We've both played traditional RPGs for 30+ years. (At least I'm assuming you have. Maybe you haven't.) I suspect you think I don't know shit about traditional gaming, which couldn't be more wrong.

One of us has made a serious effort to understand Fate (an effort which would have been much less had the book done a better job of explaining stuff, to be fair).
One of us has written a number of posts documenting their learning process.
One of us has had those posts collected and frequently cited as a reference for people learning the system.

For literally years you have asserted that anyone playing Fate must be constantly thinking of their character's story arc. Years. Based on, what? The knowledge it's written by storygame swine? A read-through of the rules?

For literally years I have told you that this has not been my experience, based on multiple campaigns I've run, multiple campaigns I've played in, conversations with people more knowledgeable than me in the system, including some of its creators. I have never, when playing Fate, thought about my character's story arc or narrative arc or narrative needs. I have never, when running Fate, told or encouraged my players to do the same. Not once. I tell my players to do what their characters would do, and do what they find in their best interests. I do this even when they have suggested that they should do "what makes an interesting story." I have literally told people not to do the thing you're claiming is 100% necessary.

So given these two competing assertions, one is true:

1) I'm an idiot, because apparently you've got a better understanding of the system than I do based on? Not traditional game experience, since we both have it, and not Fate experience, since only I've got that.

2) I'm lying about it to try to... do what?

3) My experiences are actually accurate, and your presumptions of how the system is played need a little revision.

So long as the answer is #1 or #2, there's no conversation that can be had, just the equivalent of flinging poo at each other.
I understand your points. I understand what you mean by traditional roleplaying. I've done thirty plus years of it, including some crazy-old-school games (which were some of my favorites).

I get the distinction you're making. I'm not arguing that it's not real. I understand the idea of storygaming (and would certainly agree that Fiasco, Primetime Adventures, etc. fall into that camp). In my actual experience, Fate does not play like this. So long as you believe that your presumptions, backed up by exactly zero experience, somehow have more weight than my actual experience, then there is no possibility whatsoever of any actual information exchange, and any conversation is going to be the equivalent of monkeys flinging poo.

To be clear, I'm not posting this to attack you. I'm posting to say "hey, dude, let's talk like real people that can fucking respect each other and actually try to fucking listen to each other."

So, how about it?

 

[Shipyard Locked]

To be clear, I'm not posting this to attack you. I'm posting to say "hey, dude, let's talk like real people that can fucking respect each other and actually try to fucking listen to each other."

So, how about it?

I'm all for a truce and mutual disarmament between you two. No more snark, tension, and "he started it" for a bit?

 

[Baulderstone]

For the record, I found KotE very inspiring a flavorful despite its considerable weaknesses, and I did use many of its ideas in a few Ravenloft sessions.

Heck, this thread has made me decide to use a bone flower kuei jin in my very next 5e session.

Sure. Unplayable games that have ideas you can steal is a whole other topic. Aria is one of the most unplayable game books I every purchased, but it was still good to flip through for inspiration when I was worldbuilding.

 

[Necrozius]

Not at all mainstream, but I remember the first and only time that I played Prince Valiant. We had a huge laugh, but considering the subject matter (somewhat obscure comic nowadays) and as we threw fistfuls of pennies into the air (you flip coins instead of rolling dice) we thought it ridiculous that anyone actually played that game. I still wonder, even after finding a pristine copy and actually reading it cover to cover.

I love that book and its writing, and if I every actually played it, I'd substitute the coin flipping with d6s.

But yeah, did people really actually play Prince Valiant?

 

[CRKrueger]

It might be a good idea to read what I actually write instead of filling in with past arguments. If you're not willing to do that, then you don't get to pretend you're the grown-up here.

You're conflating "story arc", again, which I did not write above, with "story" in a general sense, which I actually did. The words for this are imprecise because we have to use terms not created for this purpose. By "story", "narrative", etc. I mean an OOC 4th wall breaking awareness that you are not playing a person in some simulated world, but a character in a world operating under some form of literary, as in movie/tv/comic/book, logic.

For example, take that Songbird Saloon example by Anon Adderlan way back when. When diving behind the bar in a western saloon, there not being a shotgun there broke his immersion. Why? Because there is always a shotgun behind the bar in a western saloon. Not because he's roleplaying within the actual west, he's roleplaying within the genre of Hollywood Westerns where the logic is different.

Here's what Anon said:

I do EXACTLY the same thing. For example, when one of my characters is in a bar fight in a western town, I see the tables and chairs, I smell the beer, I hear the sound of broken glass, I'm THERE. Whatever makes sense to visualize.

But what happens when I go behind the bar and grab the shotgun? Wait, WHAT shotgun? The shotgun which I ASSUME WILL BE PRESENT in a western bar where fights tend to break out. And if a shotgun ISN'T present, it needlessly disrupts my immersion

Here's my reply:

Immersion into what, exactly?

You see, your character can certainly assume there's a shotgun behind the bar and most of the time, he'd be right. But are you roleplaying in a montage of Tombstone, Silverado, or Big Whiskey Montana, or are you roleplaying in this particular town, in this particular bar?

Because in the Songbird Saloon in the town of Jerusalem Falls, Ol' Clem Johnson who owns the place is one of those rare Christians who walks the walk. He asked himself once "Who would Jesus shoot?" and the answer was "No one." So Clem doesn't have a shotgun behind the bar, not even to defend himself. Now his old buddy Jack, who plays the piano, however, isn't that much of a "turn the cheek" kind of person, and so he keeps a shotgun up under the piano keyboard where he can get to it.

This is stuff you'd find out if you were from this town, or spent time talking to it's inhabitants, but if you are some low-down, four-flushin' sumbitch outlander just off the range who thinks he's gonna shoot himself out of gettin' caught cheatin' at poker, by grabbin' Clem's gun? Well, you're in a whole lot of trouble. Welcome to a Living World, where it might just not be Hollywood.

Anon is clearly immersing when he roleplays, but he's immersing into a construct that knows it's a construct. There's always a shotgun behind the bar. It's the difference between...
"I dive behind the bar and grab the shotgun"
and
"I dive behind the bar for cover and look for anything I can use as a weapon."

I don't doubt, that you, or Asen, or Skywalker or anyone else who likes the OOC aspect, but not very much of it, can play Fate or any other game like it in a manner that's more traditional than the norm. Good on you. You can also take a more traditional game and tune up the player narrative a bit, like Dave Arneson only letting you save if you narrate how you do it and he likes it, or adding some form of Luck/Fate/Fortune points to a game that doesn't have them.

However, we're starting to get into the Rule Zero Fallacy a bit here. What I can do with a game doesn't speak to what it's designed to do.

I do know what Fate is designed to do, I've read many Fate games, test ran it, and have played in a few variants, mainly at cons. I'm not listening to what Pundit says about it, I'm listening to what the authors say about it, and I'm taking them at their word.

You completely ignored my post above, and possibly didn't read it, but what did you mean when you said...

The big thing is that Fate is designed to work like movies or TV shows or books. Not in the "overall narrative arc and structure" way, but in the way that a fight scene plays out.

Yeah, it doesn't make sense that getting a broken leg allows you to take more Stress, but it's not really supposed to be a "damage model" in any real way.

...if not that Fate is meant to run under a different set of logic than more traditional games that aren't designed to work like movies or TV shows or books or games that are supposed to be a damage model in a real way? Gurps has normal rules and then it has "cinematic rules". Unisystem has a Cinematic Unisystem variant. Maybe if I always used the term Cinematic, people wouldn't get quite so worked up.

The simple fact is, the character living in the setting of the game has no idea that there is such a thing as a Fate Point. They have no idea that their GM just compelled them and their player just spent a Fate point, so their "Lustful" nature didn't get the better of them this time.

The entire structure of the unique mechanics of Fate is from an OOC third-person perspective. Why? So that the player can do more than roleplay their character, they can do some authoring over what happens or doesn't to their player. It provides for a shared narration between the players and the GM, a meta-layer that exists on top of the roleplaying. For some people, this is how they've always roleplayed, keeping an eye toward this 3rd person narrative view. It's instinctive to them at this point, so games that give them mechanics that exist in this headspace are as natural as any other. For those who don't roleplay with that OOC awareness in the back of their minds, games that now include mechanics that operate in that headspace are extremely jarring, confusing, pointless, etc. ie what a lot of people in this thread have been expressing. There's a reason for it, and it's not because they're all hidebound grognard assholes.

In traditional RPGs, or games with rules-as-physics engines, or what has been termed "associated", "character-facing", etc the players roleplay their character and the rules determine the outcome of the character's choices.
In Fate and other similar games, there is a second, different type of rule, on top of the traditional rules, rules that are "player-facing", the choice and knowledge of these rules is beyond the character.

You're claiming I'm ignoring your experience, but all you do is ignore others. At least 7 people in this thread alone, all with 20+ years of RPG experience are telling you they tried Fate and just couldn't get into it.

Are they...
1. Mentally deficient or incapable/unwilling to struggle with Fate as much as you did to finally get it??
2. Lying?
3. Simply don't like roleplaying with OOC player-facing mechanics, and never will?

Playing at a friend's table, it was a homebrew, traditional system, there's one guy who was talking about how fun Spirit of the Century was, and how he likes to play it every once in a while at cons. Some of the other guys asked him to run a campaign since he liked it. He said he wouldn't want to do that on the Friday Night sessions. When asked why he said it's a different game. The actual quote was "I don't know why, but it's not this."

I had fun running 2d20 Conan, but it doesn't scratch my roleplaying itch.

 

[Baulderstone]

Not at all mainstream, but I remember the first and only time that I played Prince Valiant. We had a huge laugh, but considering the subject matter (somewhat obscure comic nowadays) and as we threw fistfuls of pennies into the air (you flip coins instead of rolling dice) we thought it ridiculous that anyone actually played that game. I still wonder, even after finding a pristine copy and actually reading it cover to cover.

I love that book and its writing, and if I every actually played it, I'd substitute the coin flipping with d6s.

But yeah, did people really actually play Prince Valiant?

I remember seeing that in the toy store at the mall and laughing at it with my friends. Being cool 14 year-olds, we were way above that.

I can't think of any names, but Prince Valiant seems to be one of those games that gets name-checked by designers a lot. Maybe it is like the saying about the Velvet Underground's first album. Not many people bought it, but everyone that did started their own band.

Maybe not buying that game at the mall is the reason I am not a famous game designer today.

 

[TristramEvans]

But yeah, did people really actually play Prince Valiant?

I did. We used d6s instead of coins(odds tails, evens heads).

 

[CRKrueger]

Prince Valiant seems to be one of those games that gets name-checked by designers a lot.

1. It's obscure, thus identifies them as "in".
2. It's a genre game written by Greg Stafford, the God of genre games.
3. It's super streamlined and simple, yet easily allows for a lot of depth and does exactly what it says on the tin, allows you to play adventures like the Prince Valiant comic. It's nearly a perfect example of form meeting function.

Which is why White Wolf stole it. :eek:

 

[Tommy Brownell]

All the Gumshoe system stuff, Pathfinder and FFG Star Wars.

I have actually played FFG Star Wars. And after doing so (with one of the starter sets), I thought it was okay...but am prepping a Star Wars Saga Edition game, so it clearly didn't have a massively great impression.

 

[Spinachcat]

I believe people play many games I don't enjoy.

Exalted.

I highly recommend checking out the Exalted 1e Quickstart. It's the best 20 pages from the entire book and amazingly playable.

http://kschnee.xepher.net/rpg/exalted/Exalted Starter Kit.pdf

 

[OHT]

Scion. I bought the first 2 books (having never bought any WW books before) and found it half-formed and rather dull for a game meant to be about modern-day Gods. Amazing how something can be so limited (and limiting) when the idea is that you're meant to be unlimited.

 

[yojimbouk]

I do agree on KotE. Does anyone think the original Mummy supplement for Vampire was ever actually played? And how about Mummy: the Resurrection?

I GMd a 1st Edition World of Darkness: Mummy game. It was my favourite Vampire sourcebook at the time. The game didn't last long, though.

 

[Shipyard Locked]

The game didn't last long, though.

Was it external factors or Mummy itself that ended the game?

 

[yojimbouk]

Was it external factors or Mummy itself that ended the game?

External factors. The game didn't last long enough to expose the problems with the rules. I remember it being pretty sketchily written in places. At the time I winged it a lot so it didn't really bother me. However, Graeme Davis' 2nd edition was a vast improvement in clarity.