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FATE: Fantastic Adventures in Tabletop Entertainment™
Length: 90 pages
Price: FREE (as a PDF)
Publisher: Evil Hat Productions™ www.evilhat.com
ISBN: none
Okay, let's get this out in the open. I don't like FUDGE. For one thing, it's a pain in the butt to actually create a game with, as it's more a construction kit than an actual game. Plus, the real core of it -- the ladder and the dice-rolling system -- is not fine enough for my tastes (there aren't enough levels of success), ill-defined (I have no idea what a Superb success is, exactly), and mathematically dishonest (it's not really as numbers-low as proponents want you to believe, the ladder just hides the numbers).
Now, you can sort of solve the first problem with a "standard build" of FUDGE. Problem is most of the standard builds, like "Five Point Fudge", are not only still incomplete, but they're boring.
And then there is Fantastic Adventures in Tabletop Entertainment.
I think part of the reason I like FATE is it renders most of my objections to FUDGE irrelevant. First of all, it's a target number -- or "target level", since the FUDGE ladder is used -- system so a Superb success actually means something. It's a complete game -- there isn't much more work required than any other generic RPG engine, such as Big Eyes, Small Mouth. Most importantly, the authors don't pretend there isn't math to FUDGE, and admit that some people might find it easier to write the numerical values of the ladder next to the appropriate skills.
However, the best part of FATE has nothing to do with FUDGE. There are ideas in this game that more games need to incorporate into their mechanics, in a game you can download for free, of arguably higher quality than PDFs I've paid for. For example, the art is better than Dead Inside, which is pretty impressive for a free product.
So, what do you get?
Chapter One is an introduction. It introduces the basic concepts, tho a certain familiarity with RPGs is assumed. Mainly it talks about the conventions of the text, including the way examples and optional rules are set forth.
Chapter Two is Character Creation, and is arguably the most brilliant part of FATE. Character creation is split into a certain number of "phases", set by the GM, and those phases represent periods in the character's life. The first phase might represent childhood, with the second phase indicating college schooling, or, for a game featuring ancient vampires, each phase might represent 50 years of unlife.
Regardless of how it's set up, during each phase, the character gets an Aspect, an element of the character that the character picked up during that phase, like an attribute (like Strong), a descriptor (like Dramatic), an occupation (like Knight), or even something more directly connected to a given setting (like Merry Man of Sherwood). The character then gets four skill points, which have to be spent on skills that are appropriate to what happens in that phase.
What's great about this system is it combines the best aspects of a Lifepath system like in Cyberpunk 2020 and a more freeform system like Over the Edge. You end up with a character with a logical and consistent history and skillset, yet with Aspects that represent who the character is.
The hardest part of the system, as the author states, is the skill pyramid. To quote the text directly: "Players may spend those four skill ranks any way they like with only one limitation: there must always
be one more skill in the next rank down. This means that a character must have two skills at Fair to have a
skill at Good (and must have three skills at Average to have the two skills at Fair!). Because of how this looks,
it is referred to as the skill pyramid. When the rules are observed, the pyramid is considered to be 'balanced.'
The pyramid must be balanced at the end of every phase."
Luckily, not only does the text provide an easy way to keep track of this, but they explain the reasoning in detail, from the perspective of realism as well as game balance.
Once you're done with that, you get a certain number of Fate Points (which are explained later) and you must pick a Goal for the character, indicating what Aspect the character is going after next.
The chapter, like all of FATE, is clearly written, detailed and with extensive examples... yet a breeze to read. I've read a lot of RPG manuals in my day, and I was very impressed.
Chapter Three is basic task resolution. This is pretty standard stuff: aim for a difficulty (i.e. roll a Superb or better or whatever). There is a set of rules for an opposed challenge, where the way FUDGE works (with a strong bell curve, but with some wild possibilities on the edges) being taken properly into account, so "static" (unopposed) and "dynamic" (opposed) tasks work similarly.
However, there is cleverness even here. The rules for extended tasks, Challenges, are very nice, allowing the GM to customize the "feel" of the task so it doesn't feel like just a ton of rolls.
Chapter Four is on Aspects and other metagame issues. Now, as mentioned in character generation, you pick up Aspects during the different phases. You can even pick up the same Aspect more than once. While you can roll Aspects like skills, they have an even more powerful metagame effect.
First of all, in a situation where the Aspect is relevant, the player can check off one use of the Aspect and either reroll an entire roll, or turn one die to the positive. Usually Aspects refresh at the end of the session, so there is a limit to how many times you can invoke your "Strong" Aspect. You can also check off Aspects for an appropriate effect, such as checking off Rich to buy something major.
Also, if the GM feels the character is acting against an Aspect (which comes up mainly for Aspects that are flaws), the GM can engage in "involuntary invocation", which does not check off a box. In essence, the player can either bend in the direction of the Aspect, and gain Fate Points equal to its level, or spend Fate Points equal to its level to continue as before.
These elements of Aspects are not only cool for making the character unique and powerful, but they also balance the "broad vs. narrow" issue that comes up with a lot of freeform trait creation systems. As the designer says in his notes: "The more player-useful an aspect is -- the more likely it is to provide opportunities
to reroll -- the more quickly those rerolls will run out. In a way, this keeps particularly 'powerful' aspects of
characters from taking over the story...
Additionally, the more 'positive' an aspect is, the less likely it is to incur an involuntary invocation from the
GM. This helps to strike the balance against the more negative aspects, in that negative ones are likely to
generate a larger quantity of Fate points for the player."
And this balance is inherent in the system with no point system at all. It's just built into the way the system works. This rocks on toast, and more systems should adopt a similar approach.
There is a brief section on Fate Points, which are a less context-sensitive form of metagame currency. A player can spend a Fate Point for a +1 to a roll (which is a big deal in FUDGE) or for minor narrative control, such as to say: "Oh, yeah, I packed a wrench already for just such a situation."
The rest of the chapter is devoted to options. How to make Aspects weaker or stronger, ditto for Fate Points, how Fate Points are earned and options for Aspects refeshing at times different than every session are all included. There are options for using Aspects, including using them to represent important objects or people, or having catch phrases as Aspects. Very cool stuff -- Aspects are the heart of FATE, and they're a flexible and well-considered tool.
Several small chapters follow the chapter on Aspects. Chapter Five is on Extras, which are "those elements of the character that require some representation
outside the scope of skills and aspects." In essence, this is a solid, tho not exactly inpiring, chapter on how to handle such things, particularly "k3WL P0W3RZ", as it were. Chapter Six presents more advanced character generation options -- again, solid but nothing to write home about. Chapter Seven is a wonderful collection of GM tools, including an easy way to do quick NPCs using only Aspects. Mainly, however the different options for character advancement are discussed -- in essence, skill points are given out every so often, and when a character gets four, he gains an appropriate Aspect.
Chapter Eight is on combat, and builds on what has gone before. There's a simple chart that really makes combat a form of extended Challenge like any other, with details on how to run quick scene-based combats, combats based on exchanges of blows, and extra-slow combats done in a turn-by-turn fashion. While having a specific chapter for combat is always somewhat worrisome to me, as it over-emphasizes fighting when the game might not be about that, the rules are sufficiently generic and related to previous rules that it isn't a big deal, and the same rules could be used for, say, a political debate with some adaptation.
Chapter Nine is on Magic and the Supernatural, and is in essence just a lot of example magic systems, as the opening phrase of the chapter is: "There are few things less satisfying than a truly generic magic system." There's a slow, level-based system, a fast and furious elemental magic system, a highly improvisational system, and a system that's meant as a compromise between improvisational and more structured systems. In addition to those systems, there a system based on how expensive a special effect a given magickal power would be, a very Heroquest-like system where magic is tied to the mundane, rules for shapeshifting, and a cinematic martial arts system.
Chapter Ten is called "Utilities". It starts with a big list of sample Aspects, and goes into how to choose an appropriate skill list for a game. The skill list is the part of the game that reminds me the most (negatively) of vanilla FUDGE, as it requires a lot of consideration and work, but still a lot less than FUDGE, and not much more than picking the skill costs for a game of Big Eyes, Small Mouth. Plus, there are plenty of examples, so you can build a list with a "three from Column A, four from Column B" kinda approach. There's also an interesting set of conversion notes from other systems.
Last but not least, there are four appendixes. Appendix I is called "One Page FUDGE" and gives you everything you need to know about FUDGE in order to run FATE, making FATE a complete game, really. Appendix II gives alternate dice rolling methods for FATE, in case you don't want to use FUDGE dice. Appendix III is the design notes, and it cuts to the quick of why FATE works the way it does, and why it works. Very much worth reading. Appendix IV is called "Sample Creation", and it's a transcript of a character generation session for a particular game.
FATE, is, in essence, a very tight and focused system, that does exactly what it wants, and does it well, and the rest is options and examples. I wish more systems were designed with this level of care, playtesting, and sheer skill. Well worth looking at, even if, like me, you hate FUDGE. And it's not often you get this sort of quality for free -- I'd willingly pay $30 for a hardback book containing this game.
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