FATE Numenera/Doing stuff
In normal FATE, you say you want to do something, the GM gives you a target number, you roll some dice and add your skill, and try to beat that TN. If you do, you succeed. If you don't, you fail and nothing happens. Or, rather, something bad is supposed to happen, but often this gets forgotten and nothing happens. Or you can 'succeed at a cost', but in practice this hasn't come up that often in our group.
In the new 2nd edition 7th Sea game, you declare what you want to do, the GM tells you how expensive it is to do that, then tells you how expensive it is to avoid problems happening while you're trying to do that. Then you roll, and spend your points achieving your goal and/or avoiding the problems. This seems like a potentially much more interesting system to play with, since 'success at a cost' is baked into the system more. If you have interesting costs, it seems like this would also achieve much more interesting tactical decisions on the players' part.
So, this is my attempt at re-working the basic FATE system so that success at a cost happens more frequently, and the only time 'nothing happens' happens is by deliberate player choice (i.e. they choose explicitly to avoid the problems but fail the task they set out to do.)
Any time you try to accomplish something where there’s a risk of failure and/or of something going wrong, the following happens:
- You declare what you want to do and what skill you’re using to do it
- The GM tells you how much it’ll cost to accomplish the thing without failing, plus how much it’ll cost to avoid something going wrong.
- You roll the dice (four FUDGE dice; -1/0/+1). Add your roll to your skill level, and make adjustments based on stunts or conditions. The amount above zero that you total is the amount of ‘raises’ that you have to spend on accomplishing the task, and avoiding something going wrong. If your total is less than zero, you have no raises to spend, but nothing 'extra bad' happens.
- Spend your raises to accomplish your task, and/or avoid the problems. Sometimes, you’ll have enough raises to do both, sometimes, you’ll only have enough to do one or the other, and sometimes you’ll not have enough raises to do either!
Let’s say your character is being pursued by an army, and you come to a river. You declare that you’re using your Athletics skill to swim across the river. “OK,” says the GM. “That’s one raise to cross the river, one raise to avoid it being obvious where you came up on the other side, and one raise to avoid your stuff getting water damage.” If that sounds too risky, you can change your mind about your intentions, but in this case, you have an Athletics of 3, so you feel you’re pretty safe. You roll 4dF and get +1 -1 0 -1: a -1, bringing your total to 2. That’s not enough to accomplish your task and avoid all the danger, so now you have a tactical decision to make: keep your stuff safe, but make it obvious how to pursue you? Damage your stuff, but throw your pursuers off the trail? Suddenly, you have a different idea. “I struggle in the water a bit, but realize the current is too swift to make it across and still keep the journal from getting water damage—not much use getting away from the army if the reason they’re chasing me is lost! As the sounds of pursuit get louder, I slip back on the bank behind a rock a ways downstream, hoping they’ll assume I crossed anyway.” The GM grins. “Sounds good to me! From your vantage point behind the rock, you see the army break through the underbrush. ‘Find a place to ford this river!’ shouts the commander, and one small group breaks off upstream, and a second downstream to search. As you watch, the group of three soldiers gets closer… what do you want to do now?”
What if I don’t have enough raises to do what I really want to do?
There are a few options:
- Tag an existing ‘free’ Aspect in the scene to either re-roll the dice, or give yourself a straight +2.
- Spend a FATE point to activate a character Aspect (or non-free scene Aspect) to either re-roll the dice, or give yourself a straight +2.
- Ask the GM to increase the severity of an existing consequence, or introduce a new consequence, in exchange for an additional raise. The GM states what that would be, and you can accept it in exchange for the raise, or reject it and receive no raise.
- Get help from a fellow player: in the same round as your attempted action, one of your fellow players may spend two raises as a Maneuver to introduce an Aspect on either you personally or the scene itself. If successful, you may tag that Aspect to either re-roll the dice, or give yourself a straight+2. Note that your teammate’s action may come with its own risk (for them).
- Get help from a fellow player, v2: in the same round as your attempted action, one of your fellow players may spend a FATE point or two raises to activate one of their character Aspects (or a non-free scene Aspect) to let you either re-roll the dice, or give yourself a straight +2.
What if I have extra raises?
- Narrative flair: describe yourself succeeding at your action *really well*.
- Perform an extra Maneuver: spend 2 raises to perform a Maneuver directly related to the action you were performing, to place an additional Aspect within the scene. Check with the GM to see if this new Maneuver would come with its own risks—it might be necessary to spend more raises (or suffer new conseque
