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Fate Point Cap
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Author:  Sarish [ Sat Sep 28, 2013 1:37 am ]
Post subject:  Fate Point Cap

With a new forum comes a new official ruling for the Legends of Arcanis Campaign.

For those of you who don't know, I'm Anthony Nijssen, the current Interim-Campaign Director of the LoA Campaign. This is my "official hat" account. Anything posted under this account falls under the auspices of official statements that do affect the campaign. Anything posted under my other account (Njal val'Assante) are personal thoughts, random comments, etc..., all of which may be taken with a grain of salt and debated ad nauseam as we are prone to do as Arcaniacs.

With that in mind, I introduce the new Fate Point Cap.

The amount of Fate a character can have at any given point will max out at their Fate Score x 3. Since the Fate Score is determined by your lowest Attribute, this means that most players will have a Fate Cap between 6 and 15, plenty of Fate to play with.

Please take this in the spirit it is intended: To enhance the fun of the game. Players, please try and spend your Fate points to make the games more interesting and fun for everyone. GMs, please remember to reward players for good roleplay, good teamwork, and for anything else they do that makes the experience of yourself and the other players more enjoyable.

Author:  val Holryn [ Sat Sep 28, 2013 2:57 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Fate Point Cap

Huhn. Okay. ...Eisener would have a max fate of 12. He's rarely (if?) ever been above that so it doesn't really effect him or me (Tukufu caps at 9 which still doesn't seem like a problem). But I'm curious what the internal logic is for creating this fate cap. Fate already "recycles" between Teirs (ie "you can't take it with you") and you can't spend more in one round of play than your Fate score.

So I'm curious, why does the campaign think its a problem if I somehow bank 20+ fate points? If there is an underlying goal can I ask what it is? Either so I can better support it or if I disagree with it at least start a conversation about it? At a guess I suspect that either there is a descepancy between how much fate judges are giving out and/or campaign trying to encourage players to engage in a more swashbuckling style of game play? If so my free advice is to either put guidelines in modules for possible fate awards or just not worry about it and let players run their PCs the way they want to (quiet bookish investigator who eschews being flambouyant?...not what I'm currently playing but as fine by me as the that guy over there talking trash and swinging on chandeliers).

Or am if off in my guesswork? Is a surplus of Fate somehow causing problems that I am not aware of?

Thanks for any clarifications!

Eric Gorman

Author:  acurrier [ Sat Sep 28, 2013 3:27 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Fate Point Cap

I know at the last BI I heard at least one guy bragging about dropping 20-30 fate without running out. Generally speaking though, I agree that it sounds like a non-issue.

Author:  Nierite [ Sat Sep 28, 2013 9:49 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Fate Point Cap

I recall hearing of someone with over 50 Fate points at Origins (not sure if he was there, but that is where I heard of it). This greatly affects what those players can do at Cons compared to those who had less-generous GM's.

Basically, you cannot really police GM's who give out fate, but you can limit how much a player has at any given time. This way you also encourage people to 'use 'em or lose 'em', which can make for more entertaining games.

Author:  Njal Val'Assante [ Sat Sep 28, 2013 12:17 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Fate Point Cap

Let me try to explain to the best of my poor ability.

First a correction:

val Holryn wrote:
Fate already "recycles" between Teirs (ie "you can't take it with you") and you can't spend more in one round of play than your Fate score.


Actually, this isn't the case. The actual text reads: "[T]he Hero gains a number of Fate Points equal to his Fate Score at the start of each Tier of Hero advancement." (A:RPG, pg. 320) Fate points to do not reset. Rather, you get an additional amount equal to your Fate Score when you reach a new Tier. It's intended to top you up and let you do more cool things, instead of being a reset button.

For the people who are using Fate as it is intended (spending and receiving a couple points each mod, the net gain or loss never more than -2 to +2) this is a non-issue as you have already pointed out. You will likely never reach the cap, nor will you ever run out.

That said, then there are the other cases: As acurrier and Nierite both mentioned, there are those in the campaign who end up with not just 10s but 100s of Fate Points. There are GMs who just give 5 away at the end of every module to every player, just for being there. And in an average module, with the limit on how much Fate can actually be spent, it's also a non-problem. But when it comes to big events, where we will often remove the limit on points being spent, and some people have 100+ Fate to spend (and yes, some people did), it can be a game breaker. We don't want to have to counter that by Fate-locking climactic battles every time.

To your specific suggestions: We considered guidelines in modules, but rejected it for a couple reasons. First, it puts more effort in for writers and editors, and we're already having trouble getting both. Trying to anticipate not only what the players will do, but how they will do it adds a lot of complications and makes modules sizeably larger since each case would have to be handled individually (i.e. something that is Heroic in one module might not necessarily be in another depending on circumstances). Second, putting guidelines in modules would have a lot of Chroniclers thinking "Oh, I can *only* give Fate out if they accomplish exactly this". It's similar to the problem we're having with experience points, where some GMs feel they have to accomplish the letter of what we put in, and some just give all the experience regardless of whether the players actually followed the plot or just blundered around it ignoring the story hooks.

In regards to PCs running them the way they want to, absolutely we want that: But a quiet bookish investigator can use Fate points just as effectively as a flamboyant duelist (Fate point: Do the Impossible to randomly select the exact right book off the shelf while researching in a library? Boost an attribute to easily make a logical leap that would otherwise have been a very difficult roll? I can think of other examples if you like).

<Redacted>

Author:  val Holryn [ Sun Sep 29, 2013 4:16 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Fate Point Cap

Cool. That makes sense to me!

Author:  PeteZero [ Sun Oct 06, 2013 2:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Fate Point Cap

I can understand the proposal somehow, may I make the suggestions to say it is the highest plus the lowest attribute? With this, most people, who want to have a low attribute (and maybe not for minmaxing) get a double hit. Feeble attribute, or just staying at 2 isn't worth it at all, as the penalties get too high. Just my thoughts when I read about the fatepoint cap.

Author:  Nierite [ Sun Oct 06, 2013 3:23 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Fate Point Cap

In defence of the suggestion: Flaws are flaws for a reason, they are supposed to hurt. If you consciously min-max in a game seemingly designed to punish min-max'ers (not sure if it was consciously designed as such, but that is my view), then you get the penalties that go with it.

Author:  Eric Hughes [ Sun Oct 06, 2013 4:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Fate Point Cap

I have to agree with Cody, low stats and flaws are supposed to hurt. I play a shaman with an avoidance of 14. Trust me it hurts every time the mobs swing in my direction. But I knew that going in. I surely don't expect fate to save me

Author:  PCI_StatMonkey [ Mon Oct 07, 2013 9:32 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Fate Point Cap

hey they are being nice

I wanted the cap to be your fate score.... use it or lose it.

:twisted:

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