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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Theonlyspiral on February 16, 2013, 07:45:41 PM
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So something I've never heard or read about has been happening at my table. My players have started to compel each other. It's in situations where they feel like there is a more...dramatic choice to be made. Now I will admit every single one of us is either a Drama Major or a Drama Minor when we were still in school. I feel like I'm handing out a lot of FATE points. Even with a refresh rate of 2-5 most people spend their time at 9-14. Now I don't have a problem with this in theory. I'm just concerned that maybe I'm not doing my job of doing enough compelling or creating interesting situations.
Do players do this in other games?
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Nothing wrong with players compelling eachother. It fits the co-op storytelling style of Fate. Just remember all compels still need GM approval. If your players are regularly sitting on 10+ fate points, I would suggest throwing more situations that force them to use FP and/or giving the compels more teeth. Your players will be less eager to go compel crazy if they know they are going to really suffer for their FP's.
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If they're compelling each other shouldn't they be offering their own FP for it rather than drawing from the GM pile?
I mean, player 1 is about to kill an enemy but player 2 thinks it would be more interesting if the bad guy started recurring so he Compels 1's "Not a Killer" Aspect. 1 accepts the Compel and gets the FP from 2, not the GM.
It feels like that's how it should go since when players compel NPCs they pay a FP to the NPC to make it happen.
Then again, maybe it doesn't make much of a difference where the FP are coming from as long as the game stays awesome.
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They are using their own Fate Points. Sorry if I wasn't clear.
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Honestly, if they take time to make a Declaration or Assessment, they shouldn't even need to use their own. This whole thing's sorta built into the rules already...
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They're using each others aspects though...they're not assessing each other or making declarations. They know each others aspects like I do...and they're using them.
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Perfectly fine. I did that in my games. It's fun. We do it that you don't have to be in the scene either. If the compel makes sense then we use it
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How is it that they have so many fate points? You said they all have a refresh of 2 - 5. If they are compelling each other's aspects, aren't they just trading the same number of fate points around the table? How in the world did they all end up with 10+ fate points unless you gave them to them? If you gave them to them, then they didn't come from compelling other players. It doesn't make sense.
What makes sense is that you started giving fate points to the compelled character without forcing the compelling character to give up their fate point.
If that's not what happened, then please tell me how the number of player held fate points exploded. I'd love to know. I'm just a part-time player in a DFRPG game, so I don't know the rules as well as I'd like.
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Self compels, GM compels. He said they are theater majors so they probably get a lot of self compels. He was just starting that they are also starting to compel each other. At least that's what I read
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Players compelling each other is explicitly okay in the rulebook.
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Also the compelled player gets a FP, he doesn't give one up unless he refuses the Compel.
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But the Player that Compels another is the one to pay the Compel point; that's the point (sorry) being made.
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Players compelling each other is explicitly okay in the rulebook.
I must have missed it. I feel much better.
How is it that they have so many fate points? You said they all have a refresh of 2 - 5. If they are compelling each other's aspects, aren't they just trading the same number of fate points around the table? How in the world did they all end up with 10+ fate points unless you gave them to them? If you gave them to them, then they didn't come from compelling other players. It doesn't make sense.
What makes sense is that you started giving fate points to the compelled character without forcing the compelling character to give up their fate point.
If that's not what happened, then please tell me how the number of player held fate points exploded. I'd love to know. I'm just a part-time player in a DFRPG game, so I don't know the rules as well as I'd like.
It's like Laveki said. I try to hand out lots and lots of FP.
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But the Player that Compels another is the one to pay the Compel point; that's the point (sorry) being made.
No, the GM is ALWAYS the one to broker (and pay) Compels.
Players may trigger a compel by invoking-for-effect, paying a FP (or tag) to the GM, but after that, it is between the GM and the Compelled character's player.
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Compelling Other Aspects, YS107.
If you are aware of and can access an aspect on another character or NPC, you may spend a fate point to try to trigger the circumstances of a compel...
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No, the GM is ALWAYS the one to broker (and pay) Compels.
Players may trigger a compel by invoking-for-effect, paying a FP (or tag) to the GM, but after that, it is between the GM and the Compelled character's player.
Exactly. While this may seem like semantics, it's an important point because it means the players can never cut the GM out of the compel interactions. A GM always has the right to veto a compel suggested by any player, and the player who triggered the compel has no further say in the negotiation of the compel. Which if your players have a surplus of FP, I would highly suggest being very strict on the compels until they start sing the fate points.
It s a blind suggestion, but to the OP I would say you way want to curb how many fate points you're handing out. FP surplus means either you create a baloon effect in your game, or the players steamroll everything.
My personal GM method is to generally keep the players below their FP refresh level by the end of the session. If they want to save up FP they have to really hang on to them.
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Compelling Other Aspects, YS107.
Right, but that just triggers it. Once triggered, it's between the GM and that character...which means the GM gets any FP the player spends to avoid it, and the FP doesn't actually go from one player to another per se even if they go with the Compel, the Compelling player gives one to the GM and the Compelled player gets one from the GM. It's, mechanically speaking, not the same FP.
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I've started creating absurdly difficult situations for players to use their surplus FPs on, or give them real incentive to want to REALLY succeed, rather than scathe by.
But my general rule of thumb is, if PCs don't have at least one full stress track or a consequence by the end of a combat, I'm taking it too easy on them.
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A compel should COMPLICATE the player accepting the compel. If they're sitting on all those FP's, they must have a lot of complicated stuff happening because each one of those FP's represents some kind of head-ache the player needs to deal with
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Nah, you can grant them simply for good rping but you can also grant them for if they stuck to their guns really good (ie I have to get to that place by this time but that lady is being attacked and I have the HC Savior)
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Nah, you can grant them simply for good rping but you can also grant them for if they stuck to their guns really good (ie I have to get to that place by this time but that lady is being attacked and I have the HC Savior)
Well, mainly if it's that good roleplaying and sticking to of guns does complicate things--in the latter case, he should only get a fate point if being late to that place cost him something.
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Well, mainly if it's that good roleplaying and sticking to of guns does complicate things--in the latter case, he should only get a fate point if being late to that place cost him something.
Or necessitated effort and rolls to not cost him something, anyway. Compels complicate things...but it's perfectly acceptable to manage to, say, talk your way out of said situation with a bunch of Rapport rolls that you wouldn't have needed to make sans Compel. Or fight your way through a Compel-created fight without a scratch.
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If you're a knight of the Cross, helping a lady in distress isn't really much of a reason to get a FP since that's what you'd do anyways.
Putting yourself at a disadvangtage to help said lady would though:
throwing yourself in front of an attack to defend her or
Stopping to defend her when you should be chasing the bad guy who's getting away.
Also, it's my opionion...but not everyone's, so take this with a grain of salt...that if the players are hording FP's it's because they're not feeling challenged. When I, personally, horde FP's it's because I don't think there's a reason to use 'em. That not using them will have no detrimental effect.
Now, if they're using FP's AND they still have tonnes, then it's because the GM likes to give out lots. But that is a GMing preference and not necessarily good or bad.
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I like to make things go wrong and put my players in difficult situations constantly. They respond by waiting until a "set piece" scene and then going hog-wild. We had a scene on friday where collectively they spent over 20.
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Yeah, and it was really freaking epic.
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Yeah, and it was really freaking epic.
Just wait for Friday. The session starts with the Amps turned up to 11.
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Yeah, and it was really freaking epic.
Everyone is having fun, So it seems to me that you're running it fine.
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That's how I tend to do it--our games tend to run long, so each character generally ends up with one or two compels per session. Some of them are snakebit by the dice and have to spend them like candy, but a couple others get lucky and end the scenario with 7-10 in hand, which either leads to me engineering the final conflict to make them spend them to survive, or things like a cop nearly cutting a Black Court Rukh in half with a shotgun and a wizard vaporizing a local White Court warlord with the heat of 1000 suns.
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We have one player who spends his FP on things that just won't happen...like trying to convince Summer to work hand in hand with winter when going against a social combat machine. He spends the rest buying out of Compels and usually finds himself running at about 0 or 1. Compared to everyone else running around ten.
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We have had a few compels between players in our campaign. But noone has a lot of fatepoints. I think the person with the most availiable has 4. Most of us are at 1 or 2. But then we started at 6 (those of us that write chronicles for the campaign got an extra). We have now in the campaign after 3 long adventures had a major milestone and gotten an extra fp each.
Of course some of the aspects that some characters have make it very easy for us or the gm to create havoc..
* The changeling has "What could possibly go wrong?". I think he also had "I dare you..."
* The genie has "Monkey in the works". Yes she used to have a real monkey as her master...
And so on.
/Ulfgeir