A few points.

1) While it is a story game, it is not pass the stick stuff, Combat can be quite deadly, and while the PC's will have a hard time getting killed that does not mean that they can't get their butts kicked by even mid level opponents.
2) Players who want complexity can play wizards, players who want simplicity can play pure mortals. And there are nearly limitless options in between.
3) If you ever bought a game just to read the rules BUY this game now, it is a great read, wonderfully put together and damn funny at times.

JesterOC

I think that any creatures drives and ambitions are going to be linked both to what that entity is, and also how he or she sees him/herself. I.e. for me, part of my various drives are biological (sex, food, shelter) and part are linked to how I conceive of myself (student, nurse, writer, RPGer, pet person). If I allow PC's to work from "both" and NPC "monsters" only the former, it makes for a boring campaign. Think about Vampire the Masquerade - much of the ... coolness of that world comes from having a very strong nature that is easily lent to "evil" and transcending it, or shaping it in some way.

If you have read Dresden Files you should know that the main "NPCs" in the stories all have their own agenda. The statement is that the more powerful they are the more typecast they become is a subtle one. It does not mean what you are implying. It means that powerful beings more often than not will react to things in ways that go along with their powers. Much like the old saying... If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like nails.

First point: I run a very ... detailed and low "kill" campaign, so any given group of ghouls probably won't get "killed off" for game months or years, or maybe not ever. so they will most likely end up with (even if they don't start with) many aspects - in the same way as PC's do.

The number of aspects I wrote out was limited to what I thought I  needed to describe, it was not meant as an example of how many aspects an NPC should have.
For all my named NPC's I have a high concept aspect, a goal aspect, and several (1-3) personality aspects.

I purchased Strands of Fate to do the same.. however I found that the changes seem to make the game more like traditional games with combat modifiers.

At the moment I don't want to switch back to that way of doing things, mainly because I feel you have to at least try to embrace the new mechanic to see what it really provides.

Off the top of my head persistent aspect mechanic seems to devalue FATE points.
For instance if you have a pure mortal vs a monster with no fate fighting in an environment that is "On Fire".
The Mortal since he has free will, can adapt to the situation and start using FATE points to use the Aspect to his favor, while the monster (who has no fate points) is bound to use only its powers (because the lack of free will).

If that was a persistent aspect, the cool factor lessened for the pure mortal because now the monster can be using the fire against him as well.

So with this one change, you destroy the theme of the game (free will comes at the expense of power) and lessen the value of FATE points because now there are situations where everyone can have an infinite supply of fate points.

If you find that your players don't use environmental aspects much because of the lack of fate points, I suggest they use the compel mechanic to use the environment to give them points. Meaning the player self compels that he spends his turn dodging the fire in the building instead of attacking. (Bing instant FATE point). Next turn he can describe that he worked out a way to now turn the tables and use that fate point to turn the fire against the creature.
I feel that feels like a better story, with more interesting choices for the players.


JesterOC

Interesting but this seems like it makes attacks with special effects potentially much more powerful that standard maneuvers.

For 5 shifts of power an attack with a special effect can do damage AND place an aspect that the target can only escape from by rolling a 5 on an appropriate skill.  If the target has a bad skill, the maneuver can last a very long time, and they have to use their action to remove it.

With a standard maneuver 5 point of power (against a target with a target attribute of 3 or less) will have the effect last for 3 exchanges and do no damage.

JesterOC

I think the only thing I would stress, is that if you find that your characters are doing the heavy lifting, you really need to award them via the "self" compel rule or you will find that the heavy lifters will not gain the FATE points they need.  While listening to the podcast I got the impression that he feels that he should not use compels in those situations, I would say that instead you issue the points after the choice to make sure they get their due.

This all could be a issue of semantics and that what he meant by not compelling was the same as "self" compelling after the fact, but it was not clear to me during the podcast, and thus I wanted to bring it up.

JesterOC

BTW I loved it. I like how you guys did not sugar coat the difficulty you have with FATE games.  I can see the GM's issue about compels and I think that a suggestion given by one of the players could provide the solution.

If I recall correctly, the issue the GM had with compels where that it it made him feel that it took a tough decision for the PC and ruined it by you putting a game mechanic shotgun to the players head.  Thus diluting the tension of the that decision by adding mechanical negative to the situation (ie they will loose a fate point if they choose to not complicate their characters life).

I suggest that you use the majority of compels as "self compels". Meaning that the player himself/herself(or you if they miss it) should request the fate point for making the tough choice if it aligned with one of their aspects and that it complicated their situation.

Other times, if they have a situation where they have a damned if they do damned if they don't scenario, give them a FATE point for either choice if the situation was keyed to their aspect.

Only use "standard" compel when you want to force a plot point in a way that is needed to make the scenario you have defined get started. Mostly this would be story hooks, and other times it could be used if the PC's start to go off the "rails".

I think this would keep the feel you desire. I would guess that the standard compel mechanism is to help roleplayers who are more tactically oriented and have a habit of only choosing the plot point that is beneficial to the character's story.

Thanks again for the thought provoking podcast.

JesterOC
 

I love your podcast, and I am ready to listen to your Desden files podcast on my way to work tomorrow.

JesterIC