In case you missed it, I wrote a moderately long post about Fate Core. To be totally honest, I hadn’t intended to write that post, but as I was writing this post, I realized that it would make a whole lot more sense if I gave folks a look at Fate Core before tackling Fate Accelerated Edition.
So, what’s Fate Accelerated Edition? Here’s how they pitched it during the Fate Core Kickstarter. Basically, it’s the quick-start rules for Fate Core, pared down to a 32-page ((Though I should note here that the .pdf pre-release candidate I received as a Kickstarter backer is currently 48 pages. Some of that is index, cheat sheets, and art.)) book. Describing it that way doesn’t really do justice to what Clark Valentine and the rest of the Evil Hat team has accomplished here.
FAE is not just an introductory game, or a set of quick-start rules. It is a fully functional implementation of Fate, tweaked for getting people playing fast even if they’ve never gamed before. It’s not just the kids’ version of Fate ((Though it slants towards that sort of feel with the wonderful, cartoony art that Fred has been previewing.)) – it’s certainly as welcoming to younger gamers as it is to beginners, but there is an elegance and refinement to the system that will, I think, appeal a lot to older, more experienced players looking for something light and flexible.
I haven’t played FAE yet, but it may be my favourite implementation of the Fate rules yet.
Now, that statement is not intended to denigrate any of the other Fate games I love. I’ve just found that, as I’ve gotten older, I look for different things in game systems. There was a time I was deeply enamoured of complex, simulationist games and of rich, detailed rulesets, and elaborate sub-systems, but that time has passed. Now, I look for simple systems that will make it easy for the GM to improvise and supports player creativity without imposing too many mechanical constraints on their choices. Fate games fit that requirement, but FAE fits it best of all.
FAE runs on the Fate Core engine, but they’ve made a number of changes to simplify things, and to focus the play style in certain ways. If I don’t comment on something below, you can assume that it works just like in Fate Core.
No Skills
One of the biggest differences in the game is that there are no skills. The things your character can do are decided by the type of game you’re playing and the aspects your character has. So, in a game about mystical martial artists with control over the elements ((Just for instance.)), it’s reasonable to expect characters to be able to do fun, cinematic wuxia moves, like leaping up on to an enemy’s sword and kicking him in the face. And, if you have the aspect Wizardly Honour Student, you should be able to cast some basic spells ((Hell, even some advanced spells; you’re an honour student, after all!)) and tell people all about the history of your magical school.
This covers the kinds of things you can do, but it doesn’t cover how well you can do it. That part is covered by approaches.
Approaches
Approaches replace skill ranks in determining how good your character is at any given thing. They don’t talk about what you’re doing, but about how you’re doing it. There are six different approaches: Careful, Clever, Flashy, Forceful, Quick, and Sneaky ((Shadows of Esteren uses something kind of like this, but the how is paired with a skill in a more traditional way.)). Characters get one at Good (+3), two at Fair (+2), two at Average (+1), and one at Mediocre (+0). So, when you’re trying to do something that you may or may not be able to do, you decide what approach you’re using, and make your roll using that.
I love this approach ((Though I can certainly see why others might not; I’ll be talking about that, too.)) because of the way it makes you think about your character’s actions in play. If my highest approach is Careful, I’m probably going to be doing things in the game that reflect that – planning, finding things out, fighting defensively rather than charging blithely in, etc. On the other hand, if my highest approach is Forceful, not only am I going to be front and centre in any fight, I’m going to resort to intimidation or stubbornness before persuasion and compromise.
Example? Sure! Let’s say we’re playing a pirate game, and three characters are fighting off some boarders. Anna has Forceful as her highest approach, Beaumonde has Clever, and Clement has Flashy. Anna’s best bet is to dive in, pressing the enemy hard, and trying to drive them back. Beaumonde is probably going to look around for ways to trick his opponents without actually engaging them – gaining advantage rather than attacking. And Clement is probably going to be swinging from ropes, rallying the defenders, and maybe dueling the enemy captain one-on-one. Three different characters, three different styles – all supported and reinforced by the mechanics of the game.
Quick Game and Character Creation
The process outlined in Fate Core for creating the game setting and characters is streamlined in FAE, with the goal of getting people up and playing in half an hour. Game creation especially is pared down – basically, it comes down to having a quick conversation to decide some very basic parameters of the game world. Things like, “We’re playing kids attending a school for wizards,” or, “This is a game set in a 19th-century steampunk world with zombies.” Just enough to give everyone a starting point for thinking about the game world.
The biggest change to character creation ((Other than use of approaches rather than skills.)) is the removal of the story phases . Players pick a High Concept aspect, a Trouble aspect, and between one and three other aspects, depending on how many good ideas they have for aspects at this stage. If you leave an aspect blank, you can fill it in during play. Character aspects in FAE take on even more of the duty of filling in details of the world, thanks to the pared-down version of game creation, which helps put the characters even more solidly at the centre of the game.
After the aspects are chosen, everyone gets to pick their approaches, as described above. One of the nice touches is that the book provides six archetypal distributions of the approaches, so you can quickly grab the approaches for, say, the Brute or the Trickster or the Swashbuckler. Then everyone picks between zero and three stunts – again, stunts you don’t choose can be filled in during play.
Simple Stunts
Stunt creation is simplified in FAE, boiling it down to a very clean way of coming up with your stunts. It uses the fill-in-the-blank approach that clarified compels in Fate Core, and I think it’s just brilliant. There are two categories of stunt, the first using the following sentence:
Because I [describe some way that you are exceptional, have a cool bit of gear, or are otherwise awesome], I get a +2 when I [pick one: Carefully, Cleverly, Flashily, Forcefully, Quickly, Sneakily][pick one: attack, defend, create advantages, overcome] when [describe circumstance].
Now, this leads to stunts like:
Swashbuckling Swordswoman: Because I am a swashbuckling swordswoman, I gain a +2 to Flashy attacks when crossing blades with a single opponent.
The other stunt type uses the following template:
Because I [describe some way that you are exceptional, have a cool bit of gear, or are otherwise awesome], once per game session I can [describe something cool you can do].
This gives you stunts like:
Gadgeteer: Because I am a gadgeteer, once per session I may declare that I have an especially useful device that lets me eliminate one situation aspect.
You can have up to three stunts for free. Each stunt after that costs a point of refresh.
No Extras
In Fate Core, extras are the special powers, magical gear, and other things that make your character different from the rest of the world. There are no extras in FAEÂ – that role is filled by character aspects. So, if you have an aspect like Weather Witch, you don’t need an extra like Meteorological Magic to be able to whistle up the wind. You have the Weather Witch aspect, so you can try to do that. The GM will ask you how you do that – i.e., what approach you use – and tells you to roll.
Potential Issues
Okay, I really love this iteration of Fate, but I can see some things that might be problematic for some people, so I’m going to call them out here. These are not problems with FAE ((Really, I see most of them as features rather than bugs.)), but they are points to consider as you try and decide if this game is for you. You need to think about these things.
- It may not provide the level of mechanical detail you want. Using approaches instead of skills means that carving out a niche for your character based on what he or she is good at doing ((Rather than how he or she is good at doing things.)) doesn’t work too well. You can use aspects for this, but for some people, that may not be satisfying. And you may find approaches just too broad in what they cover.
- Unless you’re trying to emulate a specific world – The Legend of Korra, or Harry Potter, for example – you may find yourselves having to do a lot of improvisation to fill in details of the world you decide to play in. If you’re good at that sort of thing, that’s not a problem, but if you’re not, it may demand a bit more prep time to create those details between game sessions.
- The removal of the story phases from character creation means you lose that handy tool for tying the characters together from the outset. Maybe they’ll do it anyway, but you may have to spend the first part of play getting the characters together and pointed in the same direction.
- The lack of extras, and the reliance on aspects, makes it very easy to play like a munchkin. As with all rules-light systems ((I don’t think Fate in general is rules-light, but FAE certainly is.)), communication and trust between GM and players is vitally necessary to prevent one character stealing the spotlight from everyone else by taking advantage of the openness of the rule set and ignoring the implied understanding of co-operative play between the players.
So, think about those points when you’re deciding about this game. I think FAE is a great game, but it is not the perfect tool for every game or every group. Understand what it does well, and what it doesn’t do well, and you’ll have a better chance of getting a good play experience out of using it ((This advice, of course, applies to every game system. I want to mention it explicitly here because of how much I’m gushing. Gotta be balanced.)).
Mix and Match
I’ve been talking about FAE and Fate Core as if they’re two different games, and they’re not, really. One of the things that make me so excited by FAE is the way it shows how you can hack Fate Core, to tweak the play experience in very specific ways ((The Fate Toolkit and Fate Worlds books coming from the Kickstarter will help with that, too.)).
It also gives you a number of modular pieces that you can pull out and add to Fate Core, or vice-versa. Want an FAE game that has more developed original setting? Use the game creation rules from Fate Core. Folks in your Fate Core game having trouble coming up with stunts? Give them the two-page stunts section from FAE. Tack the extras system onto FAE to standardize weird powers. Use the approaches in Fate Core to simplify the skill system. Mix and match and blend until you have the mixture you like best.
So?
I think that FAE is my favourite implementation of Fate. I like Fate Core hugely, but the simplification of FAE appeals to my aesthetic sense a little bit more. It is a beautiful, elegant, clean system that makes it easy for folks to get into Fate games, and has me wanting to launch a new campaign – any new campaign – with a group of players to try it out.
Oh, and it’s only gonna cost you five bucks when it comes out. Did I mention that? Thus you have no excuse not to buy it and try it. But don’t do it just because it’s cheap.
Do it because it’s awesome.