Apects / FP system vs. roleplaying

[Jabberwocky]

Hello everyone. I am new to the Fate system and the DFRPG and I have some questions regarding the whole aspect / fate point system. The main question is: Doesn't it hamper the roleplaying experience? Don't get me wrong. I have been GMing for twenty years now and I have played many games. I started with AD&D and its Czech clones, we have played Shadowrun for ten years on (I ran a single Moscow campaign for ten years IRL :-) than D&D again (Greyhawk and Eberron), White Wolf's WoD, Fuzion with Alien/Predator plugin by Chris Tavares Dias, Battlestar Galactica based on the Cortex system ... there were many. We even played a campaign in Hell (Infernum, anyone?) And with passing years we moved from the hack&slash phase towards roleplaying and deep in-character experience. Some of my best gaming experiences come from sessions where not a single die was rolled.
I'm halfway through the books now but I'm a bit sceptical about the said Aspect / Fate Point system. Doesn't it get the player's attention from in-character experience and storytelling more towards game mechanics? I mean, why use it in the first place? It's probably an excellent cinematics means but does a good roleplayer need it? Example from the rulebook: Location aspects. A dark warehouse has the aspect SHADOWED CORNERS (YS 113) so the PC can use stealth. But we don't need aspects and fate points moving  across the table to utilize that. A good and attentive player comes up with the idea anyway and with the dim lighting the GM just modifies the difficulty accordingly without even needing to tell the player about that. Another example are compels. A good roleplayer doesn't need being compelled to do something which is part of the PC's background and/or description. In one of my games a street thug PC joined the army - and the PC was in problems every session due to insubordination and lack of "army spirit". No one needed to ever compell the player. In another game there was a bard suffering from the bipolar disorder. Both her manic and depression phases were played out very well, without compelling the player to do that at all.
Many games have some sort of point system and game mechanics that enable the PCs to modify events in their favour to some degree. In Shadowrun it's called Karma in other systems it has other names. It doesn't matter really as it's either used sparingly or at least not subject to constant trade. In Fate system and DFRPG it's different, Aspects are a core mechanic. And I'm not sure I like it.
So, please, could you relate your gaming experience with this mechanic? Thanks.

[Mr. Death]

I think you're misunderstanding a couple things about the Fate Point system. Foe one, all the things you're suggesting a good player or a good GM should do are and can be done in the Fate Point system.

Yes, a good roleplayer doesn't need to be compelled. That's called a self-compel, and it's basically the player getting rewarded for that good roleplaying.

Fate points and aspects are how modifiers are done in this system. If the player wants to take advantage of something, that's just what fate points are for. I play with several veteran roleplayers, and never once have we had a problem with the system.

The Fate Point system is, basically, rewarding/bribing the player with a fate point whenever one of their aspects is going to cause some tangible complication. Even someone who's constantly playing to the hilt a manic/depressive, bi-polar person is only going to get a fate point when that aspect of them causes a specific problem. It's a tool for the GM to say, "This aspect is going to make this next sequence a bit tougher for you, so here's a fate point to compensate."

[Taran]

Aspects are great and I've incorporated them into other systems.

1.  They don't hamper role-playing, they encourage it.  If a player is rping and constantly getting into trouble, then he's being rewarded for that.  Which then gives him lots of currency to do more heroic things later.

2.  It allows for greater story-telling.  Sure your player might use the Shadowed Corners to hide, but he might tag it to have enemies miss, or a GM might use it to have a recurring villain escape...or become a portal to a part of the NeverNever(depending on what kind of declaration players make). there's more to aspects than the mechanical advantage/disadvantage they provide.

3.  You don't need to modify difficulties.  It makes combat much more fluent.  "What's the bonus for attacking someone who's prone?", "do I get a +2 if I'm flanking?".

Instead an enemy can have a "prone" aspect and the players can use their imagination to use those aspects to their advantage - or detriment, if they want to earn FP's.
"he's prone.  I tag for a +2 to dodge" or "he's prone so it's unlikely he'll be able to run away from me"  The aspects are there until they are needed and they are used in a way appropriate for the situation. 

I've gone back to D&D after playing DFRPG and I found the experience to be overly crunchy and lacking in the depth of role playing that FATE provides.  I'm not saying D&D has no Rping, I'm just saying that I find everyone becomes more involved in the story in this game.

[Jabberwocky]

Thank you for sharing your points of view - they are very valuable for me so please, keep them coming :-)
Maybe it's just me being too conservative and not having enough experience with such a game mechanic. Not that I take D20 for an especially good game - it has its positives but generally speaking it's clumsy and very GM-consuming. I side with skill based systems, e.g. both Fuzion and Cortex are fast, lightweight and easy to steer systems. And predictable. Maybe it's one of the effects of the fate points that I don't like - it makes the game a bit unpredictable, even for the GM. I am not especially comfortable with that. I understand that as a GM I can refuse to accept a fate point but still - when I prepare a dark warehouse scene it's me who knows what's there in the first place. I don't want the PCs fiddle with the general setting of the scene (even if I improvise and change my mind often during gameplay). Either there is a portal to NeverNever or there is none. But I'm the one in the know.
Which are all concepts that I have brought from other systems and maybe it's time to change them. Or at least give it a try. And I'm very glad to read that you find the fate point / aspect mechanic useful. There's always hope :-)

[InFerrumVeritas]

Thank you for sharing your points of view - they are very valuable for me so please, keep them coming :-)
Maybe it's just me being too conservative and not having enough experience with such a game mechanic. Not that I take D20 for an especially good game - it has its positives but generally speaking it's clumsy and very GM-consuming. I side with skill based systems, e.g. both Fuzion and Cortex are fast, lightweight and easy to steer systems. And predictable. Maybe it's one of the effects of the fate points that I don't like - it makes the game a bit unpredictable, even for the GM. I am not especially comfortable with that. I understand that as a GM I can refuse to accept a fate point but still - when I prepare a dark warehouse scene it's me who knows what's there in the first place. I don't want the PCs fiddle with the general setting of the scene (even if I improvise and change my mind often during gameplay). Either there is a portal to NeverNever or there is none. But I'm the one in the know.
Which are all concepts that I have brought from other systems and maybe it's time to change them. Or at least give it a try. And I'm very glad to read that you find the fate point / aspect mechanic useful. There's always hope :-)

You seem to be misunderstanding one of the core ideas of FATE. This is not a GM writes a story for the players to follow with some variation as to how they accomplish goals.  This is not a GM designs the world/sandbox the players wander.  Neither of these are bad things, but they aren't what Fate is.

Fate is designed for cooperative storytelling.  The players have control over the story and setting as much as the GM through declarations.  They get to give NPCs interesting personality traits, add depth and features to scenery pieces.  Yes, this makes it unpredictable.  But that's what makes it fun.  You can't say "Group X can reliably and easily defeat Monster Y."  It makes designing encounters, especially combat, a bit more difficult, sure.  But it makes being a player much more fun, and takes a lot of the work off of the GM.

[Tedronai]

Expanding on IFV:
Declarations (those pesky little things that let your players mess with the setting), in my experience, allow the GM to get away with doing less work without having a negative impact on the story.  The players add some of the detail that is needed for the scene, and all the GM has to do is look it over and approve, deny, or adjust the difficulty of the (possible) roll.
It also is one of the best tools in the system to increase player involvement in the game.  And in this system, that already focuses so much on player involvement, that's setting a very high bar for 'best'.

[Lavecki121]

I would expand even further on that and say that if you did prepare a scene such as the dark warehouse. The PC's can determine that through assessments. If you already made the call thats cool, but they can see if the call you made was there or not. It also is a lot of fun to have everything flying back and forth with naration. Sure it can cause you to have to make stuff up on the fly, but the players can also help with that. Maybe they dont know the specifics, but it is a lot of fun. Plus the ability to create user content is a great aspect of this system.

[JDK002]

I've found the Fate system  to encourage appropriate RPing rather than detract from it.  No out of game discussions about if someone should get a modifier for a certain action, ect.  The aspects are already there or up to the players to come up with declairations.

If you're playing with particularly good role players then you won't need to compel them.  You just award them fate points for being on target.  I've also found that player declairations also pulls some of the work load off of the GM by having the players come up with the details.  If you don't want to get bogged down by excessive dice rolls, you can just give them the more likely declairations with no roll needed.

The one thing you would have to get used to is that the narrative is less one-sided in this game.  Your story telling has to be fairly flexable, one little declairation for role plying effect can take the entre story down a path you never planned, potentially even more so than in other games.

[Jabberwocky]

You seem to be misunderstanding one of the core ideas of FATE. This is not a GM writes a story for the players to follow with some variation as to how they accomplish goals.  This is not a GM designs the world/sandbox the players wander.  Neither of these are bad things, but they aren't what Fate is.

Point made. And thanks to you, guys, I see this too, now. It's really a different approach, a story created more on the fly. I am used to doing things in a more old-fashioned way. Not that I would prepare the story word by word but still I have a prepared, loosely interconnected string of scenes and I modify them according to the PCs' actions. The FATE approach is different, I like the term "cooperative storytelling". The concept is so different, however, that I wasn't able to grasp it at the beginning. Well, I can't say I'm all excited about it - more curious how this actually works. I probably wouldn't pick FATE for me weren't it for the DFRPG. I like the setting ... the system is more of a surprise for me :-) But I'm ready to give it a try. If it doesn't suit me or the group the system can be always modified a bit towards the usual "skill vs. difficulty" and "I am the law" form. On the other hand, when I'm thinking about it, I've done something similar before - in the case of a said warehouse, it's impossible to mention everything, every detail. So the players keep asking during a scene, for example: "Is there something flammable there?" "Is is possible to cross the whole room behind the boxes?", etc. And I make momentary decisions. Sometimes based on common sense, sometimes based on chance (a quick die roll). The difference here is there is an explicit game mechanic that allows the players co-create these circumstances. With the GM always having the option of saying no.

[admiralducksauce]

I've done something similar before - in the case of a said warehouse, it's impossible to mention everything, every detail. So the players keep asking during a scene, for example: "Is there something flammable there?" "Is is possible to cross the whole room behind the boxes?", etc. And I make momentary decisions. Sometimes based on common sense, sometimes based on chance (a quick die roll). The difference here is there is an explicit game mechanic that allows the players co-create these circumstances. With the GM always having the option of saying no.

This is how my group usually uses Declarations, to handle stuff I didn't think of yet. I wouldn't mind them using their more narrative-influencing capabilities, but we play a pretty traditional game despite it being FATE. It can handle just straight modifiers, too, if you want. Not everything has to be an Aspect.

[Mr. Death]

Yeah, I'd say 99% of the declarations in my groups start with exactly that, a player asking, "Is the area _______" or "Is there something _______ nearby?" rather than saying, "I declare there's a ______"

My favorite recent one was a PC wizard taking out the driver in a drive-by shooting by asking the question, "Did the airbag go off yet?"

[Richard_Chilton]

FATE is a paradigm shift away from how D&D adventures are written... The players often have equal control of what is happening.

There's a near FATE game called Houses of the Blooded.  One of the scenarios in the back of the book describe a party that the PCs are at and play opens with "You find a body, anyone want to make declarations?".

I understand that the "plot" has been run several times Cons and it's rarely the same murder victim, let alone the same murderer.   That is, the person running the game knows who the NPCs are but not who the victim and murderer is.  Who decides which NPC was murdered? The player who makes a declaration.  Who decides what clues are there to be found? The players do through declarations.

Richard

[Jabberwocky]

Well, I'm not much into D&D or D20 systems (I do like the Eberron setting, though) and I don't fancy pre-made adventures with every detail prepared and every room having its small map. Improvisation and rich storytelling are GM's best friends, not miniatures being moved on a hex-grid (although it could be fun sometimes). But I'm still a bit uneasy with the declaration and compelling others' aspects system. Up to this day I was used to having the storyline in my hands and as a player letting it in the hands of the GM. This proactive system is ... interesting and definitely worth trying. I'm just not 100 % sure it will suit me and my players. Which is of course a matter of habit and taste.

On a different note (I don't want to start a separate thread for every question I'll ask): What is your experience with the game-time and real-time ratio? I mean does the game-time in your games tend to flow slower or faster than real-time? For example, if I start my campaign in the autumn 2012 I don't want to have the year 2015 in my game after six months of gaming real-time. And vice versa. This is no problem with most settings but with a contemporary campaign it might be. Thanks.

[Tedronai]

Pacing depends a lot on the activities and personalities of the PCs, as influenced by the activities and personalities of the NPCs and non-embodied phenomena.

If there's not much going on, then jumping forwards until something DOES happen (or at least fast-forwarding until the PCs' own plans run into meaningful obstacles) is really only logical.  Of course, you can avoid having to jump TOO far by simply MAKING something happen (or by creating obstacles), but that can seem a bit forced at times if you're not careful.

[JDK002]

Well, I'm not much into D&D or D20 systems (I do like the Eberron setting, though) and I don't fancy pre-made adventures with every detail prepared and every room having its small map. Improvisation and rich storytelling are GM's best friends, not miniatures being moved on a hex-grid (although it could be fun sometimes). But I'm still a bit uneasy with the declaration and compelling others' aspects system. Up to this day I was used to having the storyline in my hands and as a player letting it in the hands of the GM. This proactive system is ... interesting and definitely worth trying. I'm just not 100 % sure it will suit me and my players. Which is of course a matter of habit and taste.

On a different note (I don't want to start a separate thread for every question I'll ask): What is your experience with the game-time and real-time ratio? I mean does the game-time in your games tend to flow slower or faster than real-time? For example, if I start my campaign in the autumn 2012 I don't want to have the year 2015 in my game after six months of gaming real-time. And vice versa. This is no problem with most settings but with a contemporary campaign it might be. Thanks.

As far as time passing goes, that's mostly up to how the GM frames the campaign.  If you're going for an episodic approach you have a lot of control over time passing, because you decide how much time passes between story scenarios.  I frame my stories to take around 20 hours to complete.  This is about 4 sessions for my group.  The tome lapse between scenarios for me is anywhere from a few weeks to several months.

If you're doing a serial method where it's basically one long continuious story then I could see that being a potential problem, but I can't really comment on how big an issue it could be.  You could also do what I do and remain ambiguious about the specific year, all I told my players is that the campaign takes place during the Red Court war.