Interest Check: Fate for Dummies- Can you do it?

Back in the days when I memorized the Fiend Folio completely rather than memorize a single word of my High School Bio textbook, I got myself massively into FUDGE.

I'm not really sure when it happened, or how. Online I just saw Fate emerge like an fungal ooze from under Fudge and I tried to read it, got confused (yeah, me the guy that could spew the lore of AD&D in a better time) and abandoned the attempt.

Now getting back into Fudge, I see a lot of people talk about that Evil (Hat) offshoot and I would like to see what the hubba hoo ha is all about.

Let me warn you. Those thrilling days when we played dungeons and dragons at the back of Chemistry lab, with an open door frog lying between us all (damn we camouflaged our game well) are long gone. These days I am a full-time tired Daddy so this is going to have to be a one-shot game that is made for those Paleolithic minded people.

Explain to me, not like a ten year, but like the kind of person that walks into a convenience store at 3am.

I don't know FUDGE all that well, so I'm not going to compare the systems. I'll try to explain Fate the best I can though.

The goal of the Fate system is to emulate a narrative flow of events, like how the narrative flows in books and movies.

This is accomplished through "aspects", short phrases that describe something, like "Rocks on the Road", or "Hero of the West". Whenever the someone wants these aspects to become narratively relevant in whatever action they take, they pay a Fate point to invoke that aspect, which helps improves their rolls by adding a bonus.

For example, imagine a scenario where players are chasing a car through a canyon road. There's an aspect called "Falling Rocks", which reflects the fact that there are rocks falling from the canyon walls. A player wants to try to shoot the car. They decide that they want "Falling Rocks" aspect to be relevant in the action. They reason that the driver of the car is distracted by a falling rock, making the shot easier. This improves their roll accordingly.

The reason that the player has to invoke the "Falling Rocks" aspect is that it's not mechanically important until it's narratively important. It's important to state again that this attempts to emulate fiction, so things are only mechanically important when they're narratively important.

I've skipped out on a lot of stuff, such as Stunts and compelling. But the important part is how Aspects work, and that it takes a different mindset than what is normally expected from most other RPGs.

Uhm more confused, who has the aspect "Falling Rocks"?

In other news, here is the original schism document I remember. I remember those silhouettes!

Fudge Adventures in Tabletop Entertainment

I’ll try and read it. Though the brain is not what it was 18 years ago!

By the way, I’ll game it too.

Aspects can be placed on people, objects, places, or the current situation itself. It's attached to whatever it describes. In this case, it's attached to the situation, since it's a phrase that describes the current situation.

I think the online SRD is pretty good (fate-srd.com). It's how I learned. If you click on fate core, it takes you through the basics pretty quickly with links to the details if you're interested to delve further into a given topic. If your interest is piqued, then it takes you through all the details of setting up a game, character creation and how to play with great examples that are pretty clear and concise.

I've only just tried fudge (at least fudgelite) in the game you're running, but it's very similar to fate as they both rely on the same core mechanic for resolving actions: the ladder, the 4 +/- dice, and a skill grid/pyramid/columns (whatever you want to call it depending on the version).

On top of that core mechanic, fate includes a few additions/modifications, the most important being Aspects, which saevikas described. There are various ways that these Aspects weave into the core mechanic but they are all relatively straight forward. The Aspect mechanic is balanced by a point system, called fate points. Everyone starts with 3 (typically), if you want to use an Aspect to gain a bonus, you have to spend a fate point. In order to regain fate points, an Aspect needs to cause your character to fail an action or cause a dramatic twist. This is usually at the "suggestion" of the gm and is called a Compel, but the players can also suggest it too, this often happens when they are out of fate points. It's a clever way to encourage both the advantages and disadvantages of a character trait (or element of the setting, as in saevikas's example of "falling rocks") to influence the story. Typically, the players decide on the Aspects associated with their characters and the GM labels NPCs and the environment, but it's sometimes collaborative. There are also mechanics for adding Aspects to a scene as the scene unfolds.

In fate, the skills are a defined list decided before character generation (climb, drive, lore, fight, etc) and you choose where they go in your grid/pyramid. Aspects are a phrase that you make up, often a cliche/trope/race/class (saevikas gave some good ones, some others might be "Loyal Knight of the Roses", "I would die for the rebellion", "Bearer of the One Ring"). Typically, 4-5 are chosen for a character. The best aspects have both advantages and disadvantages, so they can be invoked for bonuses and be compelled to regain fate points. Like fudge, you can start with only a few skills/aspects chosen and fill the rest as you play.

Another big difference is how health is tracked. Fudge uses hp and takes the spot of a skill on the grid, but fate typically uses two stress tracks (physical and mental) and Consequences which tie into the Aspect system.

The other differences, like Stunts, you can learn about from the SRD if you're interested. A lot of fate is modular, so you can use the bits you like and ignore the others. The first game I played we didn't use Stunts to keep it more simple and it was still great fun.