Cinematic FATE

[Ed the Hammer]

Hello everyone, i'm new around here. I don't really have much experience with Indie games; i've been gaming since I was eleven (now 24), and it's always been more traditional games. My first rpg was D&D, but I never got that much into the fantasy setting and all that. I shortly bought Heroes Unlimited 1st Ed. from Palladium Games, because Supers was more my thing. I've since bought, owned, and played several different games and systems including (but not limited to) : Shadowrun, BESM, Feng Shui, the old WOD, Exalted, the HERO system (which is too crunchy for me and my friends), and most recently, Mutants & Masterminds (which I like alot, but my friends are worried about it).

I'm both a gamist and a narrativist. I'm a gamist in the sense that my group and I like fights. We like action movies, anime, and comics. We like high-powered characters, and powerful weapons. I'm a narrativist in the sense that the rules and the mechanics take a back seat to the thematic presentation. Every game I have ever played, I've had an extensive House Rules sheet (more like a document!), steamlining the rules and making it easier for the characters to do whatever they want, as long as it looks cool. I'm a big fan of the Golden Rule: if a rule bothers you, ignore it.

The story always comes first to me. My group and I like to have these big, neat conflicts, but Dammit, we want a good reason for it! As much as we like for the action to be turned up, we also go for hours just role-playing, not even picking the dice up the rest of the night. We like our characters to be real people, except for the fact they can do this-or-that.

Sorry for going on and on like this, but I think it's important to lay these things out there, so that you (you being anyone who wishes to reply to this post) know where it is i'm coming from, and where i'm trying to go.

I said i've not had much experience with indie games, and that's true. The exception though, is FUDGE. I bought Gatecrasher years ago, and was very interested in the mechanics. The game never really got off the ground, but I realized even then that it could be adapted to a number of things. Imagine my surprise when I found the generic FUDGE rules, without the setting and flavor of Gatecrasher!

I tinkered with it for a while, but eventually got into the HERO sysytem, thinking it could do pretty much anything I wanted it to. And really, I think it could, but there's just too much to keep up with. So I wandered for a few years, waiting for something that I could really use to make my own game with, one that wouldn't boggle me down with rules and a lot of stuff I didn't feel I needed to tell the story.

Just last year, I rediscovered FUDGE, and set back out to try to create my own game with it again. However, like many others, I felt that while it offered a lot of potential, it didn't have enough to really build off of, particularly for someone like myself, with no game-writing experience. It just seemed daunting. Once again, I felt I had lost the hope that I could make the game my friends and I wanted to play.

Until just recently (like in the last couple of days), when I found, downloaded, and printed the FUDGE edition of FATE. You all already know all about it, so I won't go into how it's loaded with options, but offers plenty of examples, and is more or less just amazing.

Now, i've been reading around, finding out as much as I can about other people's experiences with FATE, as that is what led me here. It seems to be the general consensus that FATE doesn't do Supers well, and I guess i'm fine with that. I'm not looking to make a game with a tightly-defined set of powers, or a strict guide-line of who can do what better than who. I want every character to be truly unique, and with a real sense of being able to impact the story and setting. I want to have a game where we can narrate our characters doing this or that, and not have the rules saying "Oh, well, there's all these modifiers for that," or "roll so many dice and add this, then subtract this, blah, blah, blah." In short, I just want to play a game that let's me and my group feel like we can do whatever we wanted with a cinematic feel, like a high-powered anime, but be stream-lined with the rules and dice-mechanics. I just want my players and I to feel like bad-asses without the system keeping us from doing what we want, or making it so complicated that it becomes a bore.

So, tell me, please, is FATE what i'm looking for? I really like the character generation, the aspects, the stunts, just about everything. I'm pretty hopeful about it. I'm just wanting hear to from some others who may have used the system for something similar to what I have described, and how well it works for them.

Oh, and once again, sorry for going on like I have. I really didn't mean to rant like I did.

[iago]

Have you had a chance to look at the free SRD of Spirit of the Century?  I think you'll find a lot of answers in there; but I'm a guy who's liable to try to sell you the game, so I want to go light on you here.   Maybe you could ask this question on RPG.net -- we've got a lot of fans, who don't have a publisher's "I must sell to you!" desires -- this forum doesn't see a lot of traffic.

[oliof]

Spirit of the Century already has a lot of stuff in there that allow for what I'd call medium-powered supers, especially if you look at the gadget rules (which have been discussed at length on the fate mailing list, with some variant rules, IIRC). The Fudge Edition of FATE probably is Fate 2.0, whereas Spirit of the Century is the first implementation of Fate 3.0, with the SRD leaning heavily on that.

[Ed the Hammer]

Thanks guys. Yeah, I've heard nothing but good about SotC, but i'm probably gonna wait for The Dresden Files. I've read a couple of the books and really got into it. I'm looking forward to seeing the changes in FATE 3.0.

Keep up the good work, Fred!