[DFRPG] Occult Toronto
Erik Weissengruber:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on January 24, 2011, 08:11:58 PM
Erik, where you think your current players stand in this distinction. It seems to me that your implied decision - how hard do I use these rules - is best made by considering the group's collective interests, enthusiasms, and modes of enjoying play.
Not just considering: talking about it is necessary.
Before we go on I will lay out the Compel options.
The source material has some pretty fierce Compels: Harry's fae patron completely immobilizes him during a meeting at his office and can do this because of a number of unfulfilled promises he has made her. Wizards are subject to a number of compels on their behaviour and, unlike mortals, have little or no FP at the start of a game to resist them.
I will see what kind of response I get. The current PCs have fairly high refresh. I would like to seem them deal with the payoff between greater magical power and greater exposure to compels. No magical power without a price. (Say, somebody should write a game about that).
Erik Weissengruber:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on January 24, 2011, 07:52:05 PM
More analytically, I think some attention should be leveled toward FATE regarding its incoherence in Creative Agenda terms, and the predictable (and striking) lack of enthusiasm I have observed about playing it, after people get over their excitement about having purchased shiny books.
A pal of mine ran a long-running extra pulpy "Terry and the Pirates" SotC game. No idea what he actually DID but I suspect it was the right balance of challenging opponents, intrigue tailored to PC Aspects and player interests, and just-tough-enough use of Compels. (This is a guy who has also made a functional hack of Weapons of the Gods!)
I get the feeling that there are best practices out there that keep FATE games going. The Dresden book has tons of good advice along these lines. I just appreciated Diaspora's clarity about what a compel can do and why. That game evokes old Traveler experiences and offers the sub-systems as games that can be played on their own without GMs. So it has to have clear definitions of what exactly a compel does.
Maybe there could be a "dials" or "levers" feature in FATE games, where we set how hard we want everyone's compels to be. The players and GM could have different settings.
Erik Weissengruber:
Here is me hammering out an agenda in order to define my use of Compels in this game
- we gathered to have fun in a fictional world we like (Dresedenverse), in a real place we inhabit (Toronto), and to have gonzo supernatural stuff happen
- we made this city and would like to explore as much of it as possible
- we want to know what happens next and to have scenes of cool colour
- challenges are enjoyable 'cause they tell us about this cool place and the gonzo supernatural stuff in it
- one of the things that happens in this place is that bad ass opponents put heavy whammies on us: we need to feel the whammy but be allowed to make our way around it so that we can explore some more
- the book says: Compels LIMIT a course of action but do not dictate what a PC does in response
- bring that advice down to the level of resolution: an in-conflict compel (from an NPC's pool and reflecting that NPC's goals or from the GM maintaining long term fiction integrity of the city, or the short-term fictional integrity of a scene, or just highlighting PC Aspects) can FORBID one of the TYPES of actions (Move, Assess, Declare, Attack, Block) but will not shut down ALL action.
Or the players might say "bring it one" and we start dishing out hardcore Compels at each other. But even in that case, we are just upping the intensity of the implicit agenda, not changing it. Our Occult Toronto could be a place where all characters (PCs and NPCs) are capable of delivering and taking serious whammies to get what they want.
Erik Weissengruber:
http://www.faterpg.com/2011/the-core-of-fate-core/
Here is what Fred Hicks says about compel.
"A compel is a decision to set aside the dice and focus on the dictates of drama instead."
I can see how the FP system works before were are in a Conflict. But what happens when someone busts out a compel in the middle of a Conflict? The dice are rolling, we are now in dice land.
I may be drifting my FATE but FATE contains a serious self-contradiction.
Frank Tarcikowski:
I’ve been wondering for some time why there wasn’t any substantial discussion of FATE at the Forge. So, Erik, thanks for bringing this on the table. It’s a little early for me personally because I haven’t had a chance to play FATE yet, and have only read Free Fate (and forgot half of how it works). I definitely find this interesting and important and I hope I can pick up on it later.
- Frank
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