I might not be done with Fate after all

About a year ago, I wrote a post about how I decided Fate was not for me. I’ve struggled with the game for quite some time, loving it on the one hand and having trouble really getting it on the other hand. So in last July I decided it wasn’t worth my time wasting it on that struggle anymore.

Now a year later, I’ve changed my mind. In the midst of my self-chosen GMing hiatus, I am eager to make a break to give Fate another chance. I have hand-picked a few players, who are open to giving it a try. Instead of going into it totally unprepared, this time I plan to do some more research first. I have started by watching a couple of actual play videos to get a better feel for how other people play Fate.

There’s a lot about Fate I love: the skill system, stress and consequences, the way how advancement is handled. Aspects sometimes still give me headaches and some of the more meta aspects (no pun intended) of the mechanics are sometimes hard to swallow for me. But I am not willing to give up that easily.

Instead of using a setting of my own design, or adapting something from a book, movie, or TV series, this time I plan to use one of the official Fate Core settings from Evil Hat. I am especially tempted to run either Dresden Files Accelerated or Atomic Robo. It might be a one-shot adventure or a short campaign with only a couple of sessions, but a longer campaign is definitely off the table.

It’s meant as an experiment to me. I am trying to see if I can get Fate to work for me, and I want to see if I am ready to take on the GM’s mantle again. If this works out fine, I might ask the same players to try a couple other indie games with me, particularly some PbtA games, HeroQuest 2nd Edition and perhaps Other Worlds. These are all games I am very interested in, but which I want to try with a smaller, more dedicated group first. Wish us luck!