Fate Point Economy – Random thought
I’ve been reading some posts recently mostly expressing dissatisfaction on the Fate Point Economy for the Fate system.
I was wondering if it would be interesting if instead of a certain number of Fate Points for each character, that players could invoke as many aspects as many times as they’d like, but each time they do, they throw a fate point into the “kitty.”
The GM uses invokes from that kitty, so the more the players are using their aspects, the more the GM can amp up his own opposition.
Maybe there’s a limit (probably on NPCs) for how much awesome a mook can be by invoking, so what was refresh before became an “invokes per scene” limit.
I’ve never played a real game of Fate, so I don’t know if the point economy is the greatest thing ever or something that would make me run screaming. I’ve been intrigued by the system as a result of looking at it for Violent Resolution.
What alternatives, if any, to the Fate Point economy have you used? Where are people missing the point if they’re complaining about it, or what concurring opinions exist?
As always, keep it polite.
I like the FATE point economy, it allows players more flexibility when creating their character. As you purchase stunts and powers your refresh goes down, which allows you less FATE points in game, so if you create a character with less powers they have more FATE points to use and can be more flexible. In my opinion this allows players to create the character that they want and play them that way.
I'm dubious about the fate point economy as it feels as artificially limiting – not in your choice of actions, but in how often you get to do well with them – in a way akin to D&D 4e with their Daily and Encounter powers.
Either the GM hands out the fate points like candy and the point of the economy is lost, or characters can only do certain things in an awesome way so many times before they turn into everyone else.
fate points feel like meta gaming and thus cheating in a RPG. I give them a fate point for trying but the meta gaming involved was found to be unappealing.
Throw it into your GURPS game and try it:
http://livingmythrpg.wordpress.com/2015/07/25/adding-fate-aspects-to-any-game/
The fate point approach is bad for consistency. Just as with the GUMSHOE system and its requirement to spend points off one's investigative skills to get clues, it's a way of enforcing spotlight-sharing and stopping one PC from dominating the narrative. But this means that when you've been, say, making brilliant forensic deductions, you can't forensic any more for a while. That's what you might see in a TV show where someone else gets a scene, but it's not consistent with real life. The sort of story you want to tell in your games determines whether this will work for you.
Right now I'm running GURPS TORG (see tekeli.li), where spending possibilities does make things better… but if you have a high skill in something, you always have that high skill. That's more the sort of balance I like.