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FATE - abstraction ...maybe too much for EP ??

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GRAAK GRAAK's picture
FATE - abstraction ...maybe too much for EP ??
Hi guys, 1st post here! I've played a few FATE games and I liked them but sometimes the level of abstraction seems too much for my tastes. FATE abstracts things in order to maximize narration and getting free of mechanical details and "useless" rules, and it's OK for me. But things like equipment and weapons are not useless hindrances in a sci-fi games: they are part of the atmosphere. Choosing between plasma rilfes, coil/rail guns, shotguns, power or tactical armor is something I would miss in a pure FATE sci-fi game. I've read the playtest rules but I haven't seen weapons table with damage values, am I missing anything? Damage values and armor rates are not so heavy as game hindrances. Nova Praxis, IMHO, makes a very good example of compromise between a pure Fate system and weapon/armor/body upgrades stats and rules. I wish that EP-FATE would be similar in that regard. :) Just my 2 cents. What do you think about?
bblonski bblonski's picture
Well one of the nice things
Well one of the nice things about Fate is that you can add detail where you want. There are a number of weapon systems from the Fate System Toolkit that can easily be bolted on. One of my favorite weapon/armor systems is the one from Diaspora. Stunts are always an option for powerful gear. You might even able to pull stuff from Nova Praxis. One thing to keep in mind is that Fate and especially Eclipse Phase is not good at keeping equipment away from the characters. Which means it's likely that they will simply print the best gear first chance they get. If everybody is running around in the best gear then it quickly becomes a zero sum game. The weapons add extra damage and the armor negates it all so it's a lot of extra math for no real mechanical change. I agree that I'd like to see at little more focus on actual gear though. Nova Praxis is too much in my opinion. The v1 playtest divided gear into light/medium/heavy with specific mechanics for each. It wasn't a bad approach. I've been playing Dungeon World recently and I like how tags work even though all weapons do the same damage for each class. A plasma rifle will behave differently than a shotgun narratively. Shotguns could attack two adjacent foes where a plasma could melt through a steel door. You could just make notes about what weapons and gear characters have and use that to inform what they can do in game. Gear should be more than just damage ratings.