Yesterday, my two older boys and I played a tabletop RPG session with a friend and his two oldest children. We had done a one-off OSR game years ago, and I was surprised when my son reminisced about it and wanted to so something similar again. After some discussions about his hopes and goals, I decided to try a session of Fate, which I haven't done in years. I played Fate once five years ago, and though that was my most recent experience with it, I find myself referencing it frequently as a touchstone in RPGs. I think it would be interesting to play Fate under the direction of a GM who had mastered the system. In the absence of such experience, as with my last play, I felt like I was a little underprepared, despite the system being relatively light.
I settled on Fate Accelerated (FAE) as a ruleset for a one-shot game with our friends, and we had a fun time exploring the work of a secret, elite, international organization in the 1930s that was funded by a mysterious benefactor to pursue justice. It was very pulpy and inspired in part by a cousin's fondness for Doc Savage.
I looked for some advice online about how best to use FAE for a one-shot, which reminded me to skim the excellent Book of Hanz. An old Reddit thread suggested using the Phase Trio from Fate Core for character creation, and that sounded like so much fun that I decided to try it. It was a lot of fun, being essentially a narrative minigame in itself. It took a while to get everyone involved, in part due to unfamiliarity (mine and theirs), and I think it may have also shown different player's comfort levels with this style of character creation and with tropes of 1930s pulp. If I do it again, I should probably send out some introductory materials and preparation suggestions before the game to help get players in the right mindset.
We ended up with a ragtag team of specialists who had some complications in their backstory. The group played into the idea that character aspects can be strengths and weaknesses, and this was a lot of fun, although it's harder to play this up equitably in an ensemble cast. I tried to spread the spotlight around, but five players is hard to manage (and more than the rulebook's recommended maximum by one). Many scenes took much longer than expected, but one marvelous outcome was that the group discovered a completely unexpected way to resolve the main plot. The climactic ending involved explosions and petty vengeance, which is an excellent way to end pilot episode.
A quick turnaround of events meant that we did not have much time for a debriefing conversation after the game, but in a short chat with my boys, I found myself comparing Fate and the Forged in the Dark games. Both games are designed to give a fiction-first adventure, but they accomplish it in different ways. Fate encourages a cinematic approach, but its mechanisms do not demand it. For example, in our game yesterday, the team received a call that had them flying to Havana. Rather than cutting to the flight, some players wanted to start itemizing what gear they were bringing along in case they need it. Now in a movie, you'd have a Chekov's Gun scenario: if the camera shows a character packing a particular gadget, that gadget better be used later in the show. With player-driven story, though, how is one to know what will be useful later? The instinct is good from a player's point of view, and it's not exactly anticinematic, but it is dull. I pointed out that any player could always spend a Fate Point later to simply declare that they had brought some particular gadget with them, and I realized immediately that I had just turned Fate Points into Blades in the Dark's flashback and load system. This helped the players understand the various uses and robustness of Fate Points, but in reflecting on the experience, it also pointed out how brilliantly Blades ties the flashbacks with Planning and Load. Get the competent characters into a situation with little fanfare and let the details be clarified through play. I like that better than having players trying to lay out the perfect plan and hope it works.
The other piece from Blades in the Dark that I missed was player-facing rolls. In truth, I struggled to remember the distinctions between Fate's Challenges, Contests, and Conflicts, each of which are almost synonomous in English. I had hoped that the players would face one of each, but we never had much of a direct Conflict. Or, put another way, we could have, but I ended up handling it using what feels like a faster player-facing, elective-order system. I find the idea of tallying each side's Speed and then taking turns with each NPC to be tedious. It's the kind of thing that I may have enjoyed in my youth DMing D&D2e, but those games had a more tactical and simulationist bent. Now, I much prefer the rhythm of letting the players act and watching the world react.
Still, one of the most compelling ideas in Fate is the robust aspect system, and I quite like the action of creating advantages. We had only one good example of that, but I think it's because a player could see that there was interesting on-screen ways that his character could lead another character to an exciting spotlight moment. I have not seen any Forged in the Dark games that have something equivalent.
One other criticism that I have of Fate Accelerated in particular is that, after playing through the game, I don't like approaches over skills. I like the idea of describing how characters approach problems, but practically speaking, it was too easy to alter one word of a story to get a systemic boost. If you're in a boat race, are you necessarily driving "speedily"? It seems to me that there's not much difference between saying you're doing it speedily, flashily, cleverly, or even forcefully. What really matters here is that you know how to drive a boat. (Do you "drive" boats? Whatever.) So, one of my takeaways is that I want to take a closer look at Fate Condensed as an alternative. I think it would have really helped some of the players, especially in the large group, to have an obvious spot where their particular skills could be brought to the table—that they can do a thing others cannot do, not just approach something in a way that's essentially the same as their neighbor.
In preparing for the session, I came across the It's Not My Fault! cards, which I have ordered and am excited to try, so this will certainly not be my last experience with the Fate system. I suspect that this set may be a better tool for one-shots, although I have no regrets about exploring the Phase Trio for character creation. However, it also makes me want to get Scum & Villainy back to the table. I want to try running it using the Deep Cuts systems changes to Blades in the Dark. I also want to rewatch Cowboy Bebop, and maybe these things are coupled.
That's my hodgepodge of thoughts collected from an enjoyable game yesterday. My boys have been on an unexpected TTRPG kick lately, and I need to talk to them about whether they want to pick up the Scum & Villainy campaign we started last Autumn. Incidentally, folks who like Blades in the Dark should check out the recently released video game Cyber Knights: Flashpoint, which is obviously inspired by it and draws liberally on its systems.