FATE Actual Plays: How Differently Does Diaspora Play Out
Erik Weissengruber:
The social conflict in negotiating for the trade post was made on a metaphorical map, representing proximity to achieving a social goal.
[Chief]
[[[Usk wins trade post B]C]] [[[Rhone maintains monopoly A & Br]]]
The aim was to pull the chief into the "centre" of one domain.
Clair was 1-step away from centre. In free-play before the social conflict, Claire narrated something about "going foreward with an open hand" which, to me, suggested he was approaching the chief with some concessions and thus, on the map, should be 1 step away from his centre and 1 step closer to the chief.
Compells in social conflicts are easy to run. A Compell means "that action does not happen." One may also take proactive steps like moving an opponent to another space. Doing so at range, like shooting a target at range, has increased levels of difficulty.
Worked like a charm.
And using maps corresponding to in-game physical spaces works in the identical manner.
Alternating between rounds of social and physical combat -- with their minor differences -- brought out the procedures (compells, aspects, setting up boundaries) governing all FATE interactions.
Erik Weissengruber:
Given that I did not use Compells to bring in plot points later in the session, I didn't really approach the coherence between unfolding fiction and currency exchange that he did.
Players did use FP to push for results when they needed them, or accept mid-conflict Compells to build up FP for later use.
What didn't happen was using Compells to push PCs into a corner -- or to really put them in interesting places during the sub-games. Frex: the greedy character could have been Compelled to make a crass move that hampered his negotiations with the locals. Saying "you either give up some influence on future die rolls, or you will face some challenging fictional positioning" with the offer and rejection or acceptance of a Compel never happened. During the post-game chat I explained that the game really encourages this but that I had soft pedaled things in the interests of teaching.
I also pointed out this is a game where Players can Compel each other's PCs, can hold forward a FP and say "if your guy really is only in it for the money, he won't mind if I sell our captives into slavery, will he?" -- a Compell that another player might not even have enough FP to buy his way out of. And I didn't receive any objections when I said that most players aren't used to other players looking across at thier character sheets and saying "oh really, you really think your character is about that?"
At least Diaspora doesn't dodge the possibility of that happening.
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