My Issues with Fate

I know that title is a bit like click bait, but I do have a few niggling issues with Fate. The issues I have are nebulous and difficult to pin down. This is why I have been hesitant to bring these issues up so far. I play a lot of Fate. I have even designed games and systems for Fate. Heck looking through this blog's history is kind of like looking through my history with Fate. Needless to say I really dig the game. I think that is why I have difficulty nailing down what exactly my issues with Fate are. A lot of this is going to be stream of consciousness and me working through  these issues and trying to nail down what it is that I am really feeling. I apologize if it comes out a little garbled.

Compels
I think my issues with compels is this. They are individualistic in nature, yet they often affect more than one person. So you end up giving points to everyone hit by the compel whether they have the aspect or not. Which can make the character aspects feel less individual. I guess you could then only give fate points to the person with the aspect, but I could see that causing the others affected by the compel to get a little upset by having all the downsides of the compel with none of the upside. I am not certain if this is a real issue, or if it is just my brain going around in circles breaking things down to such a point that I get neurotic about piddly little things that no one else runs into.

Hostile Invocation
I am not of fan of GM side invocations. They make the game feel off to me. This is hard for me to properly express, so let me try and work through my issue with this. So when a GM invokes a player character aspect to add to an antagonist's rolls can feel...off to me. Sometimes(not always, just sometimes) it feels more like a tax on the players for taking their actions. I guess maybe its the GM scene fate point budget. Either it is too much or not enough. I am not sure. I know that a certain amount of hostile invokes are needed to balance in a conflict or contest. I am just not sure if I like this method. I think their might be a solution, though I am not fully sure of that. I think this could be reworked as a series of one use stunts that only NPCs can take.

Stress & Consequences
I think consequences are pretty spiffy in concept, but I have found that they can sometimes be an issue. I occasionally run into a situation where I have to get into a negotiation over a chosen consequence, as the GM will think it is not "bad" enough, or they think it is too "bad". This negotiation tends to take people out of the game and really feels awkward. It doesn't ruin consequences, i really like consequences. However it does occasionally come up in my games, and I am not sure if it is a big enough issue to really matter. I am becoming more and more fond of conditions as I go forward with Fate. They are more narrowly focused and predictable and I think are a really spiffy for a lot of situations I have run into in the past. I have kind been falling in love with conditions as the years have gone on. The other issue I have is Stress. Every time I see stress I keep thinking it needs to be more versatile, and I have the urge to make it do more. However each time I do that I end up using up the domain of fate points. SO my issue with stress is more an issue with me, I have an urge to fiddle with things and make them do other things. Not sure if that issue is fixable, come to that.

Concessions
I love the concept of concessions. I have never had them work in game in a satisfactory manner. I am not sure what exactly is the issue with concessions, but I know they are never satisfactory. This one keeps coming up in my game, and I have no real solution or even the hint of one. Of course I have yet to really nail down what feels off about concessions in play, I just know it feels off to me.

And those are my big issues Fate. As I said at the beginning of this post I love Fate. I love it. However I have these niggling issues that I can't seem to shake. I think I have solutions for some of them, but I am not sure if they will make the game more to my liking or if they will make the game unplayable to those who like Fate as is. Maybe both. Anyway, I will keep tweaking, hacking and designing and maybe I will get to the perfect game for me and people like me, provided there are people like me. You can check out my latest Fate game design right now. Its a game all about demigods dealing with godly factions and the inevitable magical destruction of the world.

A Far Off Land