Once you get your head around FATE, it’s easy to want to use it everywhere. It’s a pretty brilliant and vitally important RPG engine.
The core of FATE to me are aspects. Aspects and fate points are easy to grasp (visit the SRD if you need an education) , and disproportionately powerful in delivering fun gaming for how little it takes to build the initial connections with your brain. If you’re an Aspect jedi like Rob Donoghue or Fred Hicks, then you can make the system do strange, wonderful things.
4e fandom overlap snugly with FATE fandom. If you’re a fan of both, you’ve had to consider at least once using them together in some way. FATE offers D&D a lot, but the way to peaceful FATE-4e integration is fraught with peril. I could enumerate all the pit traps I see, but each recounted item would stem from two vital facts:
Fate Points are not Action Points. One of the things that meters the expenditure of fate points are aspects. Aspects are a lot of things, but most crucially they are channels for fate points. Fate points and aspects in this way fit snugly together, with such tight coupling that you really need both to feel the true expression of either individually.
In contrast, look at the action point. Action points don’t synergize unless you are a warlord. Generally, action points are force multipliers. All the awesome your character does is already embedded in its powers and modified by feats. Action points just provide you with a chance to do more of the cool stuff your character already does in a compressed period of time; In a round I use an action point, I get an extra action. The action point then, is supplemental. There are hooks into the action point, but I for one am not really a fan of making action points do much more than they already do (I’ve experimented with them of course ). Trying to use APs as a stand-in for FPs can work, but I generally don’t like overloading the function of an AP.
We Don’t Need More Economies. If you don’t map FPs to APs (don’t do it!) then you are left with making an additional economy in many models of FATE-4e integration. When I speak of economy, I’m thinking of the resources you must track and “spend” in 4th edition already. At this point I want to point you over to the post that inspired me to finally share these thoughts that I’ve been experimenting with for some time.
I envision 4e as relatively balanced network of micro-economies that interplay to create the experience. The characters expend powers to attack (acquiring power inversely proportional to frequency i.e. less use equals more power), use hit points as measure of survivability, spend healing surges for “vitality” or long term staying power. Action points augment this triangle. Feats and skills extend it.
I know that you can find a lot of different house rules and editions on this very site, but one thing I do my best to do whenever designing rules is avoiding extra resource management to the game. 4e is not really complex in terms of rules you need to know, but the vast array of tactical level choices and the amount of “economy” decisions that must be made create for many players a cognitive burden. Should I spend a healing surge here? Is this attack worth an encounter power? A daily? Should I use an action point here or wait? This resource management will weigh on you if you let it, and you definitely shouldn’t add more to this system if you can help it.
All this to say is that I definitely don’t want a system of mapping FPs directly into 4e. Too much stuff! The goal for me is always to add new elements to a game in the idioms and context of the game itself.
Fauxspects
How are we going to use Fate then? The answers start quite a ways back, with a series I started (with many posts from eduty): Off the Grid. The basic premise here is that powers are personality, but I’ve done so much thinking and playing since then that I first need to share the evolution of my thoughts.
We’re creating a character right now, making those initial set of decisions that build our avatar. We choose the race of a character, giving it a cultural context and perspective in our game world. Dwarves differ in perspective in culture from elves, who vary from tieflings or dragonborn.
Next, we decide on class. Most people think that your class is like a job (I used to), but that’s not really true. There are many ways to be a fighter or a wizard. What a class actually describes is your character’s overall approach to resolving problems and overcoming obstacles. The fighter, when faced with a problem, overcomes obstacles by confronting it head-first. The fighter takes what the obstacle gives and endures, using his physical tools and presence to eventually defeat it. The rogue deals with obstacles through deception, cunning, and manipulation. A wizard deals with his conflicts through the proper application of knowledge and intellect.
Classes define our problem-solving approach archetypically, and powers represent a characters approach specifically. Powers are personality, powers are style. Powers are already aspects, basically.
In Off the Grid we see the start of this thought.
I know at least half of you reading this think I’m crazy, but looking deeper into the powers you picked gives you insight to who your character is. Many people disconnect ability and personality, mechanics and story. There is no disconnect between these and in fact they often converge –if you let them.
So….Split the Tree. The flavor text says:
You fire two arrows at once, which separate mid-flight to strike two different targets.
What sort of training did it take to be able to do that? Most importantly, at that moment, what is the shape of your thoughts? Are you supremely focused, taking in two targets and all the variables then releasing both notched arrows to strike with incredible accuracy? Do you go “Zen”, emptying your mind of all thought and letting flow take over?
Let’s assume the former. Your ranger fights with skill and grace, but most importantly, she uses her knowledge and razor sharp wit to make the right choice in confusing situations.
You and your party are lost in a maze. The maze is built to confuse. It’s walls are mirrors and its passages look the same. You stop for a moment. Take in everything that you’ve seen and know about this place. Others don’t remember the pebble on the ground three turns ago, but you do. They also didn’t notice the cracked mirror-wall to your left. While every one else has been confused, you’ve been collecting the tiniest bits of data as landmarks and guides. You turn left twice then right once. You build a path in your mind, seperating out all the red herrings and confusion, holding everything you’ve observed in your mind all at once. You’ve split the tree, and you’ve lead your party out of the maze.
Basically, we can use the same space that a power takes to hold an Aspect. We can then use our powers in a non-combat encounter in a similar way to how we use our powers in combat. You with me thus far? Good. We’re going to put this all to practice in part 2.
A Jack of All Trades ,or if you prefer, an extreme example of multi-classing, Gamefiend, a.k.a Quinn Murphy has been discussing, playing and designing games straight out of the womb. He is the owner and Editor-in-Chief of this site in addition to being an aspiring game designer. As you would assume, he is a huge fan of 4e.
By day he is a technologist.
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Agree on not bringing in more economies, but with the release of Essentials the power economy is no longer equal between characters – any thoughts how to cope with that? I know several players who would be thrilled to get rid of some of the mechanical complexity of current 4e (which the Essentials builds might bring, haven’t tried yet in practice), but who would also welcome the narrative options aspects bring.
If you are going where i think you’re going, that is crazy-freaking-hot.
-Rob D.
@MAK Essentials is a good question. Right now my system is for standard, but I’ll tweak it for Essentials over the weekend (another reason I had to split this into parts) Part 2 will highlight the implementation of this.
@rdonoghue I cannot for sure confirm that we are on the same wavelength, but I feel pretty darned sure we are. Thanks for stopping by, can’t wait to reveal part 2!
This…sounds…really cool.
When I saw this article show up in my reader I shook my fist, certain At-Will had beaten me to an innovation, and when I revealed it to the players of my new game they’d all roll their eyes and tell me the Gamefiend had been there first.
Not sure if it’s better or worse that they’ll now roll their eyes and tell me that I’m burdening them with another economy! I’m very interested to read part two, and now even more motivated to carefully write out my thoughts on Aspects. I love FATE (came into it thanks to the Dresden game) because I tend to start my games at higher than 4th level and encourage players to intertwine their backgrounds with actual, concrete examples of interactions from before the start of the game. FATE’s phased backstory system and its resultant Aspects seemed like a great model for rewarding that type of work.
Your warnings about adding another mechanic to track are well-heard (and I’ve already got a few other things drawn from Gabe at PA’s sandbox thoughts), but I wonder if the additional resources are less of a concern for a play-by-post, which is where my campaign will be run. Players have much more time to ruminate and the record-keeping is integrated into how they interact with their characters, so my hope is that the game will actually become more immersive when they’re constantly eyeing their sheets during skill challenges and social interactions as well as combat, always looking for another way their character can contribute.
Can’t wait for part 2. This seems supremely cool, but it also highlights for me one of my big peeves with 4e. You say “powers are aspects” and in a way they are, but I do not think I have ever seen a power used in a way that really provides insight or depth or anything of the sort to a character or scene. I’ve played in the OP events, done Encounters with various groups, and run my own games, and even though these powers are so rich with description and potential it always sloughs down into the trench of “I hit, I did 14 damage to that one, and 8 damage to that one.”
Makes me want to grab my hair with both hands, pull as hard as I can, and scream at the top of my lungs in a wide-eyed manic rage… nah, think I’ll just roll to hit and cardboard up my next power… sigh.
There’s some very cool potential here. I’ll be anxious to see where you go with it. My reaction was to want to run to my character sheets and start looking for ways to “play” those powers. I’ve lobbied my players to no end to consider 4e powers as roleplaying for combat. Many of them still disdain them, calling them “spells” and such. The idea of stretching the powers further out of combat is quite awesome. Thanks!
@EgoPoisoning Beat you to it
Seriously though, I think you might be ok with a bigger economy with the slower pace a PBP provides. My preference though is to always keep a system lean as possible, but if you have something that works for you, work it.
@Tim See I don’t see that as a problem of 4e but rather a problem of perspectives. I’ve seen that “I hit for 14, I did 8 damage to this guy” in every other edition of D&D and in most games with rich combat systems.
I think that it’s a matter of building a table culture where you work to make each move interesting. You can easily prompt that by asking people pointed questions….”What happened there? What does power X look like?” The killer question in combat is “how does he die?” Ask players how they perform the killshot, and then start building details for other things.
@anarkeith A lot of what I said to Tim applies here too. It just takes some careful asserting to get people out of that mold.
Oooh… Inspired 4e design indeed, sir.
I didn’t really “get” this until the last paragraph, but the idea of turning powers from “this is a mechanical effect with a cool name” into “this is an aspect of this character, which can be used for mechanical or RP purposes” could really change what wrecks 4e for me – I’m definitely with Tim on this one.
I’m currently looking at integrating some kind of AP/FP mechanic into Pathfinder, so I’d be very interested to see where this goes…
Looking forward to part 2!