Would ditching Fate Points ruin Fate?

I really like the way the Fate system allows for creative usage of the character aspects to play to your character's strengths and weaknesses. But I'm not happy with the way Fate Points work. Especially in PbP, the negotiations and the back-and-forth of adding another reroll or +2 or ... is annoying to me.

Does anyone know of a good solution for that? If I remove them all together, then I need a different way to encourage using character aspects.

Alternatively, is there a system that does the same thing without meta currency?

Your thoughts are appreciated :)

I totally get where you're coming from—meta currencies like Fate Points can be clunky in PbP, especially with all the negotiation. That said, from my experience, removing them fundamentally changes the feel of the system.

I recently tried ditching Plot Points from Cortex Prime here in Gamersplane, and honestly, it stopped feeling like Cortex at all. The whole dynamic of getting into trouble, and using that trouble to your advantage just wasn’t there anymore. In my experience, PPs were the fuel for the system’s engine.

Fate is even more tied into its meta economy, IMHO. Without Fate Points, Aspects lose a lot of their mechanical weight. For some players, the incentives for leaning into a character’s flaws or complications really hinge on that reward loop. If you remove the points, you'd probably need a new mechanic to restore that balance—or else Aspects just become flavorful traits with no teeth.

So yeah, IMHO, Fate without Fate Points would play very differently. Not necessarily bad, but definitely not the same game. =)

That's kinda what I was fearing, indeed. :(

I'm not too familiar with Fate, but just from looking at the SRD, maybe you can streamline the process by having players declare IF statements in advance? Something like "if I roll below X, I'll do a reroll, otherwise it's a +2". I often do this with reactions in D&D or roll-dependant action results in general so I don't need to edit the post. :D

There are loads of ways to delete the Fate Points and still have a good experience.

◻ Allow X number of invokes (for the +2) per scene.
◻ Allow invokes with no cost.
◻ Allow invokes with no cost but limit the bonus to +1 per aspect.
◻ Allow invokes with no cost but limit their effect to +1 to the MoS if you win the skill roll. (Kind of like some forms of damage in Fudge and Fate)
◻ Speaking of Fudge, it's the skeleton and some of the musculature of Fate... and runs fine with no Fate Points. It's a different, but pretty related, game.
◻ Dump the idea of invokes and instead allow one '-' to be turned into a blank. (Etc., I think Balsera and others mused about this on their blogs at one point.)

You'll want to look at what Compels do, perhaps... offering XP to PCs in the form of minor milesones, etc.?