Sunday, December 9, 2012

Very Preliminary Thoughts On FATE Core

We have been watching with great interest this week as FATE Core's Kickstarter blasted through numerous goal levels. As of the time of this post, there have been 645 new posts on the FATE RPG listserv in the last seven days: this is a tribute to how much interest and enthusiasm there has been for the new FATE Core system since the working draft was released on Tuesday for Kickstarter donors.

I have had a very busy week, so I have not gotten very far into the PDF. I'm about 15-16 pages in so far.

So far, so good, I'd say. Simplifying definitions and rules, and expanding the potential applications of the existing FATE system seems to be at the heart of this initiative.

That's healthy.

Hopefully FATE Core will support conversion of existing FATE products and campaigns to the new system, for people who want to move in that direction. Hopefully it will also inspire lots of other kinds of conversions.

For example, who doesn't get excited about fun ideas like playing FATE Core in Glorantha?

I hope FATE Core also opens up a number of simple ways to revise how one can modify already-published implementations of FATE at the gaming table. I hope there will be examples, and practical how-to's for all this in the FATE Core Toolkit and/or Worlds expansions. That will increase the value of the new system, and further demonstrate its adaptability.

But modifying what you already use may or may not even be necessary, depending on your appetites and interests. Each of the existing FATE games is interesting, fun, and playable in its own right. They aren't invalidated by what comes next, however much FATE Core inspires some of us to adopt the new system in its entirety, or tinker with using it to modify the versions of FATE that we are already using.

On that note, we'll be continuing our series called FATE Library this week with a review of Diaspora.

3 comments:

  1. After reading all of it I must say that it´s good. It is by far the most concise version I've read, and it has slimmed the rules.

    Things I lika a lot are:
    Only 5 aspects
    Simplifying how skills are used
    A lot of support for the GM
    Extras (you'll have to read it to know what I mean).

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  2. Thanks for stopping by, Kosta. I like the reduction in Aspects too, as well as their flavoring of a couple (e.g., Trouble). I think this came out of Dresden (for Evil Hat) but it is a great feature of Strands of Fate as well. I haven't read the Extras rules yet, but I understand they've created quite a buzz.

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  3. I'm excited about FATE, as I loved the idea of FUDGE, but have never played it. I'm in the Kickstarter.

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