I have been tinkering with a rules summary sheet for the Fate tabletop roleplaying game for a long time. A sharp-eyed forum commentator caught my earlier version describing the award of Fate points a little misleadingly, which made something belatedly fall into a place in my understanding of how invoking & compelling aspects fits into the Fate point economy.
I now want to try a different practice for tracking Fate points at the table, using three different counters. I like those little colorful glass “gaming stone” beads.
Use three different colored tokens. In play, all tokens come from and go to the infinite bank.
During a scene
White — Fate points
−1 spent for …- declaring a story detail
- invoking any aspect
- refusing a compel against a character aspect
- PCs proposing a compel against another character (with the GM’s approval)
- powering a stunt which requires Fate points
- borrowing a stunt one lacks to use a skill in an extraordinary way
- accepting compels on character aspects
- suffering complications from situation aspects
Black — hostile invocations tally
+1 received when …-
a character has their own aspect
invoked against them
Red — reward for conceding a conflict
+1 received when …- any character takes a condition from an attack
Outside a scene
Starting a scenario
Players get White tokens — whichever is greater:- their character’s Refresh
- Fate points carried over from the previous scenario
Starting a scene
- +1 White / PC to the GM
- +1 Red to each player & the GM
Ending a scene
- if a PC left the scene any way other than conceding a conflict, the player discards their Reds
- if any GM character did not leave the scene by conceding a conflict, the GM discards all of their Reds
- exchange Blacks & remaining Reds ➞ Whites
The logic
Blacks prevent confusion about Fate points from invokes which one “has” but cannot use during the current scene.
Reds imply that conceding a conflict is the normal way to end a scene, supporting the defeat-defeat-comeback pattern of fiction which Fate tries to emulate. Having them on the table should inspire loss aversion; if one ends the scene another way, it feels like sacrificing Fate points which one already has waiting.
Reds also suggest strategically accepting a condition. Taking a mild condition from an attack — even if one still has stress boxes free — pays off with a Fate point which will only require a pretty easy skill check (plus fun team bonding roleplay!) to clear.
Seeing Blacks & Reds piling up should tempt players to get on to the next scene to cash them in, encouraging fast-paced play.
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