Why does?

Why does /tg/ hate FATE and other narrativist games? Is it just meme momentum or an actual problem with the system?

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Go back to whatever hole you've crawled from

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Why so hostile? It's a genuine question. Would you have preferred another cheesecake thread with some vapid prompt?

      Basically this
      Honestly i think there are way better narattive rulesystems around, even risus delivers a better experience, doesn't even need gimpy dice, has lots of optional content and on top of that is completey free.

      I was going to ask about risus. It seems to be the exception to the rule.
      >has lots of optional content and on top of that is completey free.
      FATE's pdf is free, and I think FAE is too. I do appreciate the bonus stuff risus puts out though

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        This is a D&D and D&Dalikes only board nerd! Get the frick out! Normalgays only!

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Anon, Fate has a setting for nearly anything you could ever want to play and 80% of them are free. Wake up already before you sleepwalk to your doom.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >unsubstantiated troll premise
        >legitimate question
        Frick off you dumb troglodyte.

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    And in case of you insisting

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Basically this
      Honestly i think there are way better narattive rulesystems around, even risus delivers a better experience, doesn't even need gimpy dice, has lots of optional content and on top of that is completey free.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I will now disprove this.

      >Average Joe the Fighter
      Not standing out gives him pseudo-stealth.
      Connections in the military may come up to call on help from other vets.
      Farm boy brings knowledge of animals, plants, probably hunting. Good endurance in harsh conditions or during long work.
      Humility makes him more resistant to cursed items that tempt you.

      >Glittergay the Fighter
      Fancy dueling footwork makes him more acrobatic.
      Knows the circles of nobility and knighthood, with allies he can call on and enemies he knows about.
      Classically trained, can identify enemy fighting schools.
      Queer tendencies and fierce individuality to the point of going against all reason could give resistance to some identity-warping curses.
      Glittery weapon makes him better at catching and holding enemy attention while Average Joe slips past.

      You're welcome.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        I don't think you understood what that post was implying.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Is Heroquest/Openquest a better narrativist system than Fate ?
      (asking because I was under the impression that the keyword system allowed for better / more pertinent specialization of the characters, + the masteries/open-ended scores)

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      This is it. FATE operates on too small a scale and there's no true differentiation between characters in the system mechanics. FATE is played more as a narrative-improv-storytelling type game where the emphasis is on "yes and..." and less focus on actual rules. A mechanics-heavy narrative game alternative is Burning Wheel, some of the PbtA games, like City of Mist, Ironsworn, Starforged, even Chuubo's, Nobilis.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        And in case of you insisting

        "NaRrAtAvIsT" systems aren't games.
        The rules are typically threadbare, and rely more on the whims of the referee/group than on skill or luck. Being reliant on whim means rulings can be forgotten or denied for any or no reason.
        The mechanics that are defined often rely on dice, whether it's pass/fail or degrees of success (which themselves have vacuous parameters), so it's either all luck or based entirely on whim, too.
        Games have lines drawn, goalposts erected, obvious and conspicuous frames of reference in which all participants know what the objective(s) are and how to complete them and make the gentleman's agreement to achieve those goals fairly; whether cooperating or competing.
        Narrative systems have none of that, but that's absolutely fine.
        Have fun with your favorite system.
        Play with it with your group, and have laughs and emotions and feelings you all enjoy, every "fun" and "interesting" factor you want to raise as a shield to defend your baby from criticism.
        But don't insist they're games.

        Yeah, this is it. The fact is FATE and games like it are not really Role Playing Games.
        They are storytelling systems that are designed to tell stories. FATE loves its 3 act structure.
        There's no real surprising in FATE. Playing it efficiently is easy. The choices your character make do not matter, instead what matters is how many Fate points you have accumulated.
        Essentially it is a game of tactfully losing and thus accumulating Fate points until you can essentially dictate the plot with your overwhelming narrative currency.
        This does meet its design requirement, it's made by people that think that the goal of an RPG is to Tell A (narratively satisfying) Story and anything that doesn't do that is incoherent.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >Yeah, this is it. The fact is FATE and games like it are not really Role Playing Games.
          You apparently don't know what games are, but alright.

          >They are storytelling systems that are designed to tell stories.
          Through playing roles, dumbass.

          >FATE loves its 3 act structure.
          What's wrong with that? D&D loves its hit points, that don't make it "not an RPG".

          >The choices your character make do not matter, instead what matters is how many Fate points you have accumulated.
          You accumulate Fate points by making character choices. Fate points are the reward for playing your role.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >You apparently don't know what games are, but alright
            Games are competitive, cooperative, or solo tests of strength, skill, and/or luck under an agreed set of rules and clear boundaries.
            Refer to

            "NaRrAtAvIsT" systems aren't games.
            The rules are typically threadbare, and rely more on the whims of the referee/group than on skill or luck. Being reliant on whim means rulings can be forgotten or denied for any or no reason.
            The mechanics that are defined often rely on dice, whether it's pass/fail or degrees of success (which themselves have vacuous parameters), so it's either all luck or based entirely on whim, too.
            Games have lines drawn, goalposts erected, obvious and conspicuous frames of reference in which all participants know what the objective(s) are and how to complete them and make the gentleman's agreement to achieve those goals fairly; whether cooperating or competing.
            Narrative systems have none of that, but that's absolutely fine.
            Have fun with your favorite system.
            Play with it with your group, and have laughs and emotions and feelings you all enjoy, every "fun" and "interesting" factor you want to raise as a shield to defend your baby from criticism.
            But don't insist they're games.

            .
            >Through playing roles, dumbass.
            These roles aren't covered in the rules, and there is no established punishment or disadvantage for being inconsistent.
            Same as with no punishment or disadvantage for being narratively inconsistent.
            Same with inconsistencies with rulings.
            Refer to

            "NaRrAtAvIsT" systems aren't games.
            The rules are typically threadbare, and rely more on the whims of the referee/group than on skill or luck. Being reliant on whim means rulings can be forgotten or denied for any or no reason.
            The mechanics that are defined often rely on dice, whether it's pass/fail or degrees of success (which themselves have vacuous parameters), so it's either all luck or based entirely on whim, too.
            Games have lines drawn, goalposts erected, obvious and conspicuous frames of reference in which all participants know what the objective(s) are and how to complete them and make the gentleman's agreement to achieve those goals fairly; whether cooperating or competing.
            Narrative systems have none of that, but that's absolutely fine.
            Have fun with your favorite system.
            Play with it with your group, and have laughs and emotions and feelings you all enjoy, every "fun" and "interesting" factor you want to raise as a shield to defend your baby from criticism.
            But don't insist they're games.

            .
            >Fate points are the reward for playing your role.
            Given by referee whim, rather than by clear and logical means. Satisfying whim isn't gameplay, just like asking permission isn't gameplay.
            Refer to

            "NaRrAtAvIsT" systems aren't games.
            The rules are typically threadbare, and rely more on the whims of the referee/group than on skill or luck. Being reliant on whim means rulings can be forgotten or denied for any or no reason.
            The mechanics that are defined often rely on dice, whether it's pass/fail or degrees of success (which themselves have vacuous parameters), so it's either all luck or based entirely on whim, too.
            Games have lines drawn, goalposts erected, obvious and conspicuous frames of reference in which all participants know what the objective(s) are and how to complete them and make the gentleman's agreement to achieve those goals fairly; whether cooperating or competing.
            Narrative systems have none of that, but that's absolutely fine.
            Have fun with your favorite system.
            Play with it with your group, and have laughs and emotions and feelings you all enjoy, every "fun" and "interesting" factor you want to raise as a shield to defend your baby from criticism.
            But don't insist they're games.

            .

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              >Games are competitive, cooperative, or solo tests of strength, skill, and/or luck under an agreed set of rules and clear boundaries.
              There are definite games which bend or break some of these parameters. Something like Nomic does not have clear boundaries, for example.

              >These roles aren't covered in the rules, and there is no established punishment or disadvantage for being inconsistent.
              What are the established punishments for breaking character while playing Dungeons & Dragons?

              >Given by referee whim, rather than by clear and logical means.
              This is how roleplayers used to do things. GMs defined the world, and the players played in accordance with those parameters.

              This is as much roleplay as very early D&D.

              >Satisfying whim isn't gameplay, just like asking permission isn't gameplay.
              Satisfying whim is literally the basis of Cards Against Humanity, one of the best selling contemporary games.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >Early D&D did it
                Okay, so it's not a game, then.
                >Cards Against Humanity
                Popularity contests aren't games.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >Popularity contests aren't games.
                It's not a popularity contest. It's a scoring system based on arbitrary rule and free will.

                You do not vote in Cards Against Humanity.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                the rules to your vaunted 3.5, pf1s, and so forth are based upon arbitrary decisions made by gm fiat in 1970 and written in a book. you follow them because you and your group decide to follow this arbitrary scoring system over a different one.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >you follow them because you and your group decide to follow this arbitrary scoring system over a different one.
                There you go. Congratulations. You have officially figured it out.

                Games are whatever ruleset people play. It can come in whatever form people enjoy playing in, whether or not you enjoy it. That your Gamist/Simulationist game of choice does things one way does not mean roleplaying games can't also include games of a Narrativist format. What you call
                >no established punishment or disadvantage for being inconsistent.
                Is where the GM comes in. It's up to them to determine when Fate points are handed out, and thus up to them to rule what counts as "consistent enough".Whether it fits your game is entirely determinant on what genre you are playing.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >Is where the GM comes in.
                Is where you piss on your own shoes.

                You just belabored "ruleset" but then jump to pointing at the very fiat the other poster brought up. Is a book club a game? Is project management? Your supposed rules are so fricking vague I have to step in and fiat lmao.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >Your supposed rules are so fricking vague I have to step in and fiat lmao.
                If it's too hard for you, then you don't have to GM, anon. Find someone else who is interested in doing it.

                Unless you're playing some premade adventure, there's going to be fiat involved. The literal whole world and campaign rests on one person's narration of its existence. If that's manageable, then so are Fate points.

                Fate points are basically railroad points... GMs get to create their favorite ambushes and traps and can bribe players into setting the trap off. It's a good tool for GMs to use to adjust the narration (see? It's not just players that have narrative powers in Fate).

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >If it's too hard for you
                Apparently posing a warrant that doesn't outright refute your desperate claim is too hard for you.
                We get it, you like to tell campfire stories and call it a game so that you can attach yourself to something bigger like a lamprey or a tumor.
                I don't give a frick what you pretend to "play".
                Literally no one does, but your mangled incongruent ramblings are funny and your double-speak is completely fair to point out.
                You barely let the histrionic hyperdefensive nonsense escape your wienerchute before you are arguing against it.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >I don't give a frick what you pretend to "play".
                Ok, and I'm suppose to give a shit about some anonymous c**t's opinion because?

                >You barely let the histrionic hyperdefensive nonsense
                Aw, I hurt your feelings.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >He's making fun of me for not being able to follow my own train of thought! He must be mad!
                You're the one filling up a thread crying at different posters for pointing out that you continuously contradict yourself.

                >it doesnt use fiat! but you need the fiat! but it isnt fiat!
                >anything with any sort of guidelines is a game!
                It's like watching someone drown in a bucket.
                I know that it is technically possible, but you have to be actual human castoff to get to that point.
                By all means, keep sobbing.
                Might make you drown quicker.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                My issue with Compelling player Aspects is that players have to spend Fate Points to refuse them. Players literally have to pay to not be railroaded. That's not collaboration that's coercion.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                From what I recall, the table has every right to slap down unfair or entirely unwanted compels without the use of Fate points. Still, houseruling away the usual requirement does not sound like the worst idea.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >Through playing roles, dumbass.
            No, NOT through playing roles. I fricking just said, the choices your character makes don't matter, because if you don't have Fate points you don't have the narrative currency required to make your choices effective. Contrast with RPGs where it doesn't fricking matter if you have "narrative currency" because it doesn't exist. (Unless the GM is a cheating/fudging butthole).
            >Fate points are your reward for playing your role.
            No, they're the reward for making narrative choices for your character that make the narrative more interesting. And that would be fine except you insist it's the same as other games. IT'S NOT.

            another 'its dm fiat storyshit' vs 'frick off, videogame dopamine addict' thread.

            the true answer is stop being a wrongfun homosexual. i like gming both when i have an appropiate group for them.

            >saying that different things are different is wrongfun
            Frick off.
            >the appropriate group for them
            Yeah and guess what, because everyone insists that this shit is the same, how can I find a group appropriate to my system?

            FATE is a narrativist game. Your relationship to your character is not the same as in other RPGs. And you know? I don't actually mind that. Sometimes I want to do that kind of shit, though I prefer stuff like Microscope for it.
            What I do mind is when homosexuals INSIST that there's no fricking difference between FATE, Microscope, and like, GURPS or Traveller or something because they're All RPGs. There's no fricking terminology for this shit, for the different 'types' of game, except for GNS, but that was made by theatre kids who thought that Narrative WAS the point and everything else was wrong.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              >because if you don't have Fate points you don't have the narrative currency required to make your choices effective
              You did not read the rules of the game.
              Stop writing in this thread until you've done that.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                I have read the rules of the game. I have not played it though. However, one of my players has and has related at length how it works and how they hate it.
                Nothing I said is wrong.
                Want to invoke an aspect (which is almost anything in FATE, since it defines everything as aspects)? You need a Fate point, FATE Core page 12. Want to declare a story detail? Fate Point.
                How do you get Fate points? Compels, which is the GM invoking your PC's against himself. You can prevent a compel by paying a Fate point too. FATE Core page 14.

                You can ALSO get fate points by accepting a foe's Concede, or by conceding a conflict yourself. To prevent/refuse a concede, you need a Fate point, FATE Core p167.
                This is why I'm not fricking wrong, anon. If you don't have enough Fate points to override things, your enemies will concede the conflict and leave. This is intentional. This is the way the game is designed, it's fricking designed to do this. If you like this FINE. But it's not the fricking same as non-narrative systems. The point of FATE is to mediate an intended group narrative and spice it up a bit with the uncertainty of dice. Also yeah, there are dice rolls, but a Fate point gives you +2, which, when the range is -4 to +4 and centers on 0, is a huge bonus.

                Fate points are narrative currency that mediate player and GM control over the narrative. That is what they do, it's how the system is designed, and if you don't have enough narrative currency, you don't get that narrative input.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                They're like inspiration points in D&D. Don't overcomplicate this.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Reread the rules.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                How about you tell me how I've got it wrong?

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                you asked and I am compelled to answer. feel free to cringe from this pun.

                fate is a rpg, not a storytelling device like BOB or fiasco.

                3 act structure is common to any story and any rpg, is not tied to fate specifically.

                without points you can still use aspects and gain bonuses and there are collateral methods to gain points. you can always play tactically, stupidly, etc. the choices your character makes do matter and you have as much input as the narrator/situation gives you, not different from a generic dnd game.

                points are not rewards for making the narrative more interesting, they are just game rules to let you play your pc in a mechanical balance. the main point of rules in a game of fantasy is to limit and balance what you can do. the point economy is there to make you play the game, so to play your character specifically and not a 'generic' actor in a generic vacuum. all of this with specific limits.
                I should underline that for any rpg your character sheet is there to let you know what you cannot do, not what you can do.

                ...cont...1/2

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                [...]

                ...cont 2/2...

                there is no mediation of narrative control between players and narrator, the latter always have the wheel in hand. there is an economy of granular resources (fate points) similar to HP or spells slots, only they are striclty tied to the characters. but the the pcs are defined mostly by narrative elements, so these resources are usually called 'narrative resources'.
                aspects are 'always true', points are just resources for mechanical bonuses and they have to be limited ("you are always a wizard, but you have a limit in your spell slot resources"). the stress track is the same.
                the agency level is not much different from an old game of dnd.
                in this sense, the concede part is just an explicit version of "the enemy defeat you but it does not kill you, you wake up imprisoned, I spent 100 hours of my time writing this campaign and I am not gonna throw it in the garbage because of [x number of reasons]". you may as well complain that downed pcs are usually ignored by enemies in dnd skirmishes or any narrative convention in any rpg on this earth.

                >The point of FATE is to mediate an intended group narrative and spice it up a bit with the uncertainty of dice
                you reframed the concept of rpg missing some limbs, you can push dnd in this definition with as much ease you do with fate. dnd and fate do it differently, but they are the same species. both have 'gamist' elements, if this particular element is your crutch. both are played like a game.

                for the rest it seems to me you quoted the rules correctly.

                >3 act structure is common to any story
                Yes, I am aware of this.
                >and any rpg, is not tied to fate specifically.
                I know that, but the point there, which I didn't elaborate on is that FATE explicitly tries to bring that structure about. It loses something by making this its explicit goal.
                > you may as well complain that downed pcs are usually ignored by enemies in dnd skirmishes
                Yeah, I do. Though I don't GM D&D anymore, but in systems where downed people can get up again easily, combatants tend to try to make sure if given the chance. (That last part is important)
                >in this sense, the concede part is just an explicit version of "the enemy defeat you but it does not kill you
                Yeah, I get that, but I was talking about when the players have their foe on the ropes, but the foe concedes and if the player doesn't have the FATE points they can't stop that.

                What I'm seeing is something like:
                "Points are there to make you only win as much as you're supposed to" is what I'm hearing here. That's technically not wrong, sure. But that is my problem with it. You're not going to get upsets. You're not going to be surprised because Fate points keep things on the rails.
                >spent 100 hours of my time writing this campaign and I am not gonna throw it in the garbage because of [x number of reasons
                I contest that doing this is GMing wrong™. RPGs aren't supposed to be these preplotted rides, and they're easier, faster, and more fun to prep & GM if you don't treat 'em like that.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                you asked and I am compelled to answer. feel free to cringe from this pun.

                fate is a rpg, not a storytelling device like BOB or fiasco.

                3 act structure is common to any story and any rpg, is not tied to fate specifically.

                without points you can still use aspects and gain bonuses and there are collateral methods to gain points. you can always play tactically, stupidly, etc. the choices your character makes do matter and you have as much input as the narrator/situation gives you, not different from a generic dnd game.

                points are not rewards for making the narrative more interesting, they are just game rules to let you play your pc in a mechanical balance. the main point of rules in a game of fantasy is to limit and balance what you can do. the point economy is there to make you play the game, so to play your character specifically and not a 'generic' actor in a generic vacuum. all of this with specific limits.
                I should underline that for any rpg your character sheet is there to let you know what you cannot do, not what you can do.

                ...cont...1/2

                ...cont 2/2...

                there is no mediation of narrative control between players and narrator, the latter always have the wheel in hand. there is an economy of granular resources (fate points) similar to HP or spells slots, only they are striclty tied to the characters. but the the pcs are defined mostly by narrative elements, so these resources are usually called 'narrative resources'.
                aspects are 'always true', points are just resources for mechanical bonuses and they have to be limited ("you are always a wizard, but you have a limit in your spell slot resources"). the stress track is the same.
                the agency level is not much different from an old game of dnd.
                in this sense, the concede part is just an explicit version of "the enemy defeat you but it does not kill you, you wake up imprisoned, I spent 100 hours of my time writing this campaign and I am not gonna throw it in the garbage because of [x number of reasons]". you may as well complain that downed pcs are usually ignored by enemies in dnd skirmishes or any narrative convention in any rpg on this earth.

                >The point of FATE is to mediate an intended group narrative and spice it up a bit with the uncertainty of dice
                you reframed the concept of rpg missing some limbs, you can push dnd in this definition with as much ease you do with fate. dnd and fate do it differently, but they are the same species. both have 'gamist' elements, if this particular element is your crutch. both are played like a game.

                for the rest it seems to me you quoted the rules correctly.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >FATE operates on too small a scale
        I'm not so sure about that part. There's this Fate-powered trans-humanist sci-fi rpg called Mindjammer. Everything in it is constructed from the usual Fate building blocks; aspects, skills, stunts, and so on. That runs from the usual characters and their equipment all the way up to organizations and cultures that can directly act on a much larger scale.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        I install Fate on top of Mutants & Masterminds. They're like peanut butter and chocolate.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          How do you do that? Replace the d20 with Fudge dice, copy the injury system, slap on the Aspects system and that's that?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Close.

            I prefer using 1d20 over 4dF because of the wider range. It gives more value to using Fate/Hero Points to reroll while also making that +2 value about half as potent so stacking Invokes becomes more balanced.

            Stress and Consequences are helpful for making Combat end where the dice and numbers might maintain a stalemate.

            Complications were already basically Trouble Aspects so why not just go all the way and just use the double-edged sword nature of Aspects?

            Importing Aspects wholesale creates new opportunities to spend Hero Points which therefore creates new ways to express the superheroic nature of your characters through character and scene Aspects.

            Refresh Rate set at PL ÷ 2 is more fun than a measly 1 to start like with regular M&M.

            Finally, I import the Create An Advantage action since it helps create more Aspects.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        I think it can help people that like being inventive.

        Also, any amount of "inventory" will lead to "builds" and then you've got min-maxxers like every other game.
        I feel like a lot of people would enjoy this playstyle and realize they don't have to compete with their own party members out of fear of being mechanically irrelevant.

        That said, I am working on a sizeable Fate module for my setting to include some forms of variation because I feel like a setting needs more than the starting number-tweaks to be special. And maybe to add crutches to the creatively inept when combat starts up.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >fit skills and stunts to taste
      Yeah those aspects aren't properly designed and saying "just add some skills" is no better than strawmanning a vtm character by saying "yeah fill in dots for doing stuff" like come on man.
      Is fate seriously too hard for /tg/ to grasp? It's a regular game except you can bribe each other to do shit your character would be dumb enough to do but you know ooc is a bad idea.

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I hate everything you like.

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    It falls in the moronic middle between Freeform Universal, a no-stats non-system where the GM estimates the chances of everything, and something like Prowlers and Paragons that borrows a lot of the structure from Hero but reduces into a narrative game.

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I like a lot of the things Fate does, but it's worth it to remember that it's a house-ruled version of a house-ruled version of a game, and if your players aren't already playing that way, they probably won't enjoy it. The mechanical complexity can be a little high for characters that end up feeling pretty same-y unless the GM and the players go out of their way to seek out scenarios that highlight their differences. There are a lot of things from Fate I like, though, and you can apply bits and pieces of it to other games just fine. Aspects make for an interesting type of characterization in my mind and when done well show the GM the sorts of stories you'd like see. The concept of 'permissions' from Aspects means that certain characters can try things others can't attempt even when they have the same stats. But as an entire package, Fate disappoints in the end. Dresden Files and Atomic Robo do some nice finagling with the ruleset, and some of the settings they've published could be cribbed for other games. Spirit of the Century is one of the things that got me interested in Fate in the first place, and I'd use pulp setting of it outside of the system in a heartbeat.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Based spirit of the century appreciator.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Based spirit of the century appreciator.

      >Spirit of the Century respecters
      I thought we were all dead.

      I almost got the chance to run it during the 5e drama, but WOTC folded too quickly. Had a dope ass backstory, too 🙁

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Where did SotC get the idea that gorillas were a major part of the pulp era?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >spirit of the century
      >400+ pages
      >free
      Nice.

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Grognards can't powergame in it.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      It's remarkably easy to powergame if the players and the GM don't care. You can go through a boost chain, tagging aspects, so that one person gets an unbeatable bonus to a roll. It requires agreement and Fate points, sure, but if no one protests, it'll happen.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Teamplay is not powergaming, grognard.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Being up front about a systems faults and pitfalls does not equate to hating on it, zoomer.

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >make literally any thread
    >"Uhhhhhhhh we have a general for that?"
    When is the /vg/ and /tg/ merge happening? Apparently non-general threads aren't allowed any more.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Wrong thread?

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    What's the difference between FATE and FUDGE?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      FATE is a game built on the FUDGE game-mechanic framework.

      As for OP's question, narrative games basically do what memes say about complex generic systems (e.g. GURPS): they reduce everything to being basically the same. There's no meaningful difference between crossbows, swords, psychic energy blasts, plasma cannons, or giant wieners which ejaculate angry wasps. All the game mechanics are basically just pure game mechanics, unrelated to anything specific.
      FATE is even worse than most, because it is has a moderately large number of rules which add nothing to the experience, and is a 'generic' system without any great setting, genre, etc. stuff to make it worthwhile.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        No meaningful difference in PURE NUMBERS. Narrative systems just assume you have half a brain to use common sense on how things work. A sniper rifle can shoot things far away, and a sword can only hit things up close. I don’t need that codified because only a vegetable could frick that distinction up.

        It’s just two strains of autism. One requiring everything to be codified and the other capable of doing everything in their head using the basic ‘laws of the universe’

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          In traditional RPGs a sword does d6, a club d4. And maybe a sword has different moves compared to an axe. Or maybe just the damage is different and certain things are strong or weak to certain types of damage.
          In story systems that isn't true. Sure, a sniper is far away, a sword up close, but the amount of damage they deal is the same. There's no in built weakness to damage. I can say something is weak, but that's just "hit it with what it's weak an arbitrary amount of hits, or hit it an arbitrary amount of times with something it's not weak to".
          Furthermore, most story systems are so bare bones and without actually statistically significant modifiers (+/-1 or 2 in PbtA is insignificant and +3 is rare) that you may as well not use a system and resolve everything through talking, flipping a coin, or play rock-paper-scissors. Not all. Golden sky stories has a neat resource mechanic where you need to consider how much you want to invest now as opposed to later. WoD/CoD we used to call story games back in the 90s, even the creators did, but is now considered a traditional RPG. V20 and what you need to get on a die is good. 6+ and requesting a number of successes is just coin flips.
          Some RPGs (D&D 5e) are too invested in details. Changing anything requires extreme caution due to balance. In older editions of D&D balance could go frick itself so adding something the system didn't explicitly have, like travel, was easier.
          Some RPGs (Ryuutama) don't care, and allow you to change stuff without being bogged down. Better combat, using it for politics, hell, running a medieval estate and family.
          Then there's simulations. Tables of possible modifiers, from humidity effecting your gunpowder, to the glare of the sun effecting your sight, where every detail matters and you can truly only ever do the thing the system was made for. I only know of one, and am looking for others.
          Power to ya whatever you enjoy. But let's admit what something is good at and not good at.

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I actually quite like FATE. The problem is that they are inconsistent, even with a good GM and players. And most groups frankly, do not have both. Especially when it requires learning a new way to play for most.

  10. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >Why does /tg/ hate FATE and other narrativist games?
    Because.

    >Is it just meme momentum or an actual problem with the system?
    Mostly memery. I used to not be a fan until I found a game I actually liked within it (Mindjammer). Now it's not so irksome, though I do admit that Traveler is preferable in most cases.

  11. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    /tg/ is mostly populated by people who like games, not mutual masturbation using the illusion of a game as a framing device.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Play a board game then you troglodyte moron. If you don’t believe collaborative storytelling to be at the heart of RPGs you are an utter spastic.

      It’s like you people would prefer eating soup with a fork. Sure it would do the job, but that’s not what it’s best at, and what’s the fricking point anyway.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        What if it's noodle soup?

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Fair point, maybe chopsticks?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Go back to the Furaffinity forums, you mongloid. Without a game attached to the roleplaying, its just freeform wankery.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          In fairness to FATE, there is a game there. It just sucks.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            As said here

            /tg/ is mostly populated by people who like games, not mutual masturbation using the illusion of a game as a framing device.

            its an illusion of a game used as a framing device for your pretend.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              >310 page rulebook
              >illusion of a game
              okay

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Page count doesn't prove anything, there's like 1000 pages of D&D core.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              I'd argue the opposite. It's a game masquerading as a narrative system. Players and the GM have to actively avoid the game mechanics to not be playing the game of FATE.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              TTRPGs are literally autism pretend time at it’s finest. Go play a board game homosexual, they are much more balanced than any TTRPG on the market and you can sperg out over your +1 bonuses without being ‘constricted’ by a GM, as you would clearly rather look at a spreadsheet than create any type of story.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                jerking off with a fat hairy man prtendeding to be a lonely milf or highschool girl isn't a game, you frickwit.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Considering you assume all roleplay to be jacking each other off while the GM pretends to be a prostitute is pretty telling about yourself and the group you play with frickhead.

  12. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I like FATE, and other narrativist games. Most of the people who complain about them are pathfinder homosexuals who think getting 10 +1 bonuses to their jerk off skill is fun because they found a way to build the biggest wanker in the land. Basically, people who are better off playing a board game or a video game but are too fricking moronic and/or stubborn to realise that.

    Note that this doesn’t apply to non-gays, if you play pathfinder and find it fun but also realise that TTRPGs are differentiated from other media because of the potential in our brains and not a fricking spreadsheet of numbers then that’s fine but it seems some gayfinder players focus solely on character builds and wanting the GM to be a plank of wood. I’ve heard genuine arguments from some PF/3.5 players that narrative + OSR games are not actually ‘games’ at all because the GM actually has agency instead of being a glorified rulebook lookup system.

  13. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    5e and even pf2e are way easier for me to understand than FATE/PBTA "rules light" type games
    This freeform adjacent shit where everyone claps and gives you good boy points if you do something related to your backstory is just straight up moronic

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >5e and even pf2e
      Yeah because your form of autism is of the ‘set rules no change’ variety whereas PBTA is a different type of moronation.

      > This freeform adjacent shit where everyone claps and gives you good boy points if you do something related to your backstory is just straight up moronic

      You get the exact same shit in 5e when you ‘win’ a ‘fight’ by repeatedly pressing the ‘attack/cantrip button’ or in PF when you look up a build guide on google to get +12 to all wiener sucking rolls. With narrative games at least the focus is on the story rather than arbitrary numbers

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >This freeform adjacent shit where everyone claps and gives you good boy points if you do something related to your backstory is just straight up moronic
        No one has ever described XP as this but it definitely checks out.

        Having mutually understood and agreed upon rules makes it easier to both play and run the game. How fast can a dragon move in a minute? How fast can a wood elf move in a minute? How many times can a level 5 fighter swing his sword in a minute? How much damage does a fireball do? How many minutes can you tread in freezing cold water?

        the answer to these questions just speed up the game

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Narrative games don’t concern themselves with that shit because none of that matters to make a cool story. If you only care about that stuff play a board game, that’s my point.

          The answer to those questions in narrative games would usually be ‘as fast as it has to be to make the story intriguing’. If the dragon can just swoop down and eat you immediately that’s anticlimactic, if it’s too slow it’s boring, things are too easy. It travels at a speed that is appropriate.

          Like I said that’s going to sound autistic to somebody on the other end of the spectrum. Your concern with ‘how many times can I attack’ sounds just as autistic to me as my viewpoint does to you.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            But I already do all that shit, 5e just allows me to keep up the veneer that it's impartial
            I run storyshitter 5e campaigns and FATE would just make it obvious to my players that I fudge shit in their favor to make cool moments happen

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >Having mutually understood and agreed upon rules makes it easier to both play and run the game.
          Sure, but that can be something the GM can figure out on his own. It's not necessary to be in the core rules (though obviously individual games have their own systems).

          >the answer to these questions just speed up the game
          Yes. And nothing says that has to be determined in base rules for the game.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Yeah but also sometimes I don't need any of that shit. The dragon moves at dragon speed and by my estimation you'll be halfway down it's throat next turn at the speed you're both going. A fighter can swing his sword fast enough to hit you, stop worrying about how many times he swings and worry about if they hit you. A fireball does enough damage to leave a mark that you're not going to get rid of if you don't find a way to deal with it's caster.
          It's not always important, or at least not every campaign makes it important, to track the exact square by square speed of a dragon. And I also lose important game time looking that up when I could be narrating and making shit happen and players could be strategizing. That wiggle room also makes it possible to have interesting things happen without me needing to fudge numbers or players ask permission to bend the rules. Maybe a dragon normally movies at 60 feet a round but with that extra 10 feet I can juuuuuuuuuuuuuust have him nipping at the player's heels and sometimes that's more cool than him being far enough behind you that he'll never touch you because the movement speed just doesn't line up right.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >This freeform adjacent shit where everyone claps and gives you good boy points if you do something related to your backstory is just straight up moronic
      No one has ever described XP as this but it definitely checks out.

  14. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    FATE has some OK ideas but the core of the system (point economy) ruins everything it touches since it encourages doing metagamey garbage. The system is designed to play a Joss Whedon show and it really shows. All that said, Aspects are cool and "Create an Advantage" is a good idea that needs more refinement. FATE is at its best when a competent game designer uses it as a sort of inspirational base to build something more usable, like Tianxia.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      > Create An Advantage
      Main issue is that a Success With Style rewards a second Free Invocation where other actions get a Boost. If a SWS with a CAA action resulted in a Boost the system would be more consistent and the "Success Spiral" would be under control.

  15. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I don't need mechanics to generate a narrative

  16. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >narrativist
    threefold or gns?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      It's funny because neither are particularly accurate taxonomies of players or systems.

  17. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Why are you making Template threads?

  18. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    "NaRrAtAvIsT" systems aren't games.
    The rules are typically threadbare, and rely more on the whims of the referee/group than on skill or luck. Being reliant on whim means rulings can be forgotten or denied for any or no reason.
    The mechanics that are defined often rely on dice, whether it's pass/fail or degrees of success (which themselves have vacuous parameters), so it's either all luck or based entirely on whim, too.
    Games have lines drawn, goalposts erected, obvious and conspicuous frames of reference in which all participants know what the objective(s) are and how to complete them and make the gentleman's agreement to achieve those goals fairly; whether cooperating or competing.
    Narrative systems have none of that, but that's absolutely fine.
    Have fun with your favorite system.
    Play with it with your group, and have laughs and emotions and feelings you all enjoy, every "fun" and "interesting" factor you want to raise as a shield to defend your baby from criticism.
    But don't insist they're games.

  19. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    another 'its dm fiat storyshit' vs 'frick off, videogame dopamine addict' thread.

    the true answer is stop being a wrongfun homosexual. i like gming both when i have an appropiate group for them.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >the true answer is stop being a wrongfun homosexual. i like gming both when i have an appropiate group for them.
      The only right answer in the thread.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Tbf, I’m being a hardline story shitter in this thread but I’m the same. What I’m trying to get across is that I fricking hate the morons that want a GM to essentially be glorified rules lookup. The ‘standardised experience’ bollocks from 3.5 carried into gayfinder is what is fricking moronic.

      I don’t mind if a game is crunchy, as long as it isn’t getting in the way of the story and homosexuals priorities lie with that rather than solely their character builds.

  20. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Fate Core made a bad impression.

  21. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Fate operates under a different set of assumptions than many other RPGs and that takes getting used to. Mean while /tg/ doesn't really know what it wants and complaining about things is something people like to do so....

  22. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    FATE is so pointless
    Just do freeform RP with a d6 for luck/degree of success rolls

  23. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Fate is a trad game, not ”narrativist”.

  24. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I love Fate, but it's weird to complain about a nearly dead system. When was the last time a Fate setting got any attention? That shitty Fate of Cthulhu book?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >shitty
      I liked some of the things they did in it. Thought about cribbing how the mutation powers worked represent the Dark Side in a Star Wars game.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Yeah I’d forgotten it existed

  25. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Because most people like to pilot their PCs, not act like a writers' room on a TV show trying hit the Save the Cat! narrative beats.

  26. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    > Why does /tg/ hate FATE and other narrativist games?

    Because /tg/s culture is rooted heavily in two systems: 40k and DnD. One of which is a minatures wargame, and the other is 40k.

    The sort of people who are drawn to /tg/ and dont get shouted out of the room are the people who get a boner from being told that a rulebook has 8 consecutive pages of nothing but tables. They want to balance modifiers to make a build that makes them feel like they are smarter than the game designer and are gaining an advantage by 'beating the system'. They want to focus on the minutia of the resolution mechanic. Narrativist games, on the other hand, focus on what happens AFTER the resolution mechanic, the impact that action actually has on the events of the game.

    Grognards would have you roll 4 identical skill checks for climbing a wall one after another so that it has "difficulty", because the only way they know how to engage with the game is rolling dice at it. And you are not allowed to proceed until you pass all four rolls, the game will come to a screeching halt until you do.
    A narrativist game recognizes that this fricking wall *is not important*, its just an obstacle in your way. Standing for 2 hours at the bottom of the wall arguing about how you can squeeze out an extra +2 bonus on the skinny wizard so he has a better chance of climbing the wall is simply an inferior choice compared to 'the wizard gets stuck on the wall for so long that guards take notice' or 'the wizard is shit at this so his pack falls open and he drops some of his potions'. Both of those have actual impact on the events that follow, instead of just 'roll until you succeed because thats the only way I know how to play games'.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >/tg/s culture is rooted heavily in two systems: 40k and DnD. One of which is a minatures wargame, and the other is 40k
      I'm stealing this line

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >the wizard gets stuck on the wall for so long that guards take notice' or 'the wizard is shit at this so his pack falls open and he drops some of his potions
      Nothing about this has anything to do with narrativist games. This is literally traditional difficulty check die roll gaming.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >Tell us you don't know how 'success with a drawback' works without saying you've never read a narrativist system.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >degrees of success in difficulty checks automatically make a game narrativist
          Clueless.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >estimating the odds of success instead of having hard rules for everything
      >not allowing unlimited retries with no penalty
      >success at a cost
      I don't see how a system that makes the players and GM trade gay points with each other helps with any of that

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      The first sentence is true, /tg/ was born as a containment zone for 40kids and D&Drones. The rest of your diatribe is more moronic than people who unironically enjoy 40k and D&D. My first draft of this post was a line item debunking of every time you were flat out wrong, but then it hit me. You know you're wrong and excatly how you're wrong. You're just a mad little storygamer who hates the idea that the core of what makes RPGs fun is the usage of an agreed upon ruleset to overcome challenges.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >My first draft of this post was a line item debunking of every time you were flat out wrong, but then I realized I couldn't so I wrote an ad hominen attack instead.
        Well, I'm convinced!

  27. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Autists don't understand story, only numbers. Find some friends who can tell a story and aren't social morons and you'll have a lot of fun.

  28. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I'm too interested in mechanics and playing from my character's perspective and maybe one step removed.

  29. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    A lot of people complain about how FATE does things, but no one ever suggests how they'd fix it into something more workable.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Pointing out flaws is easier than fixing them. Players often have an uncanny sense of what doesn't work in a game, and the worst ideas to fix it. Of course, sometimes things simply doesn't work due to personal taste, and sometimes things are broken on such a fundamental level that making something else entirely would be a better use of your time.
      And sometimes, people don't care to fix anything, they'rd rather just laugh at it.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Because they don't actually know what's wrong with the game

  30. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    just bad memes, fate is a good game for its niche: simple, quick, modular, scalable, free.
    requires lots of input and collaboration from players.
    sadly the owners are pozzed, so don't give them money.
    I don't want to mindread people, so I don't know WHY the shittiest inhabitants of /tg/ hate it.
    most of them never read the rules and/or never played.
    try a dresden one-shot with some friends, so you can judge by yourself. but if you leraned to play with DnD or similar games, you'll have to delearn some stuff.

  31. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    in a broad sense, fate is just irrelevant now
    its narrative game design concepts (best described in the book of hanz) was novel at one point
    but years later, those same concepts became pretty basic knowledge in game design
    why play fate, where there are so many other narrative rpgs that are sleeker and more focused?

    also personally, not a fan of the "director" narrative that powers fate
    rpgs are perfectly capable of emergent narrative without meta rules

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >why play fate, where there are so many other narrative rpgs that are sleeker and more focused?
      Most of those focused games are either PbtA or Fate-based nowadays.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        i feel like that's true for pbta, but not fate
        pbta does have the benefit of being 10 years(?) more modern in design than fate

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >pbta does have the benefit of being 10 years(?) more modern in design than fate
          Eh, 5 years. Fate serves a good middle ground between bespoke fiction-driven play and traditional tabletop RPGs. It's basically a half-breed of wargame and storygame.

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