Thema: Paranoia mit FATE (Turbo)?

[ComStar]

FATE gibt den Spielern ja durchaus gewisse Einflussmöglichkeiten auf die Spielwelt, während die Charaktere in Paranoia ja dem Computer, bzw. die Spieler dem SL quasi ausgeliefert sind.

Könnte Paranoia also überhaupt mit FATE funktionieren?

[SeldomFound]

FATE gibt den Spielern ja durchaus gewisse Einflussmöglichkeiten auf die Spielwelt, während die Charaktere in Paranoia ja dem Computer, bzw. die Spieler dem SL quasi ausgeliefert sind.

Könnte Paranoia also überhaupt mit FATE funktionieren?

Klar, du musst es nur entsprechend anpassen und mit der Gruppe absprechen. Ich denke, was dir helfen könnte, wären die Vorschläge, die man zum Leiten eines Horror-Spiels mit FATE gemacht hat:

http://fate-srd.com/fate-system-toolkit/horror-paradox

Die kannst du versuchen auf Paranoia anzupassen.

Aber grundsätzlich sollte es kein Problem sein, denn deine Spieler würden ja nicht Paranoia spielen wollen, wenn sie nicht selbst Spaß an der Willkür des Computers hätten. XD

[ComStar]

Super, danke für den Hinweis.
An das Toolkit hab ich gar nicht mehr gedacht.
Der Link kommt mir wie gerufen. Hatte grad in nem anderen Forum die Diskussion (mit einem eher "klassischen" SL der wohl auch gerne mal railroadet um seinen Plot durch zuziehen und FATE nur sehr theoretisch kennt), dass FATE und (seine Art) Horror (zu leiten) nicht vereinbar scheint, weil die Spieler zuviel Einflussmöglichkeiten hätten...

Ich habe in der Google+ Community etliche Beiträge zum Thema "Horror in Fate" geschrieben – vieles davon kann man denke ich sehr gut auf Settings wie Paranoia umlegen.

Frech wie ich bin zitiere ich mich einfach mal selbst (zwei Kommentare zu diesem Post):

I don't see why Fate shouldn't be able to run horror games, even serious ones.

• Compel the heck out of them.
• Veto declarations of story details that are out of the genre's scope.
• Remember that to do something, you must actually be able to do it – it has to make sense in the fiction.

In a horror game, don't allow the players to simply spend a Fate point and declare there's a gun within reach, if it hasn't been established that it makes sense that it is (like, if they're in a gun store). That is, if having a gun would be a game changer ('cause now you're able to actually defend yourself and even fight back). Why? Because a game-changer is more than a story detail. If all a gun could do is buying yourself some time (like, if you're fighting something like a Terror From Beyond Time, then yeah, it's pretty much a story detail, go on and declare it.

Don't let them just Create an Advantage that says something like I Got a Drop on the Monster, if there's no way they can simply get a drop on him. Always ask how they are actually going to do that. If the players cannot give you a satisfying explanation, veto the action.

Don't let them capital-a Attack a monster if they don't have the means to actually hurt it. If you have established that a werewolf can only be killed with silver bullets, and they lack them (and remember: they cannot simply spend a Fate point and declare they have, they have to acquire them in an interesting way), they cannot kill him, period. Sure, maybe they can fend him off, but that's probably a Contest, not a Conflict.

And while Fate characters are always competent, being a competent archeologist or soldier doesn't always save you from the terrors the horror genre throws at you. You don't get into problems because you fumble, as the characters are competent. But they get into problems because the circumstances truly suck. While Fate characters are competent doing the stuff they're about, there's still stuff even the most competent character isn't used to. Like, even if you're a seasoned and hard-boiled P. I., facing Great Cthulhu is probably causing you some troubles.

And so on.

Narrative permissions are a very powerful tool for horror games in particular.

[...]

That said, I'd still advocate for the GM and the players working together in a horror game. That's why it's so extremely important in Fate to talk about your expectations upfront, before you even start the actual gaming.

If the GM wants to play a gloomy horror game, but the players want something more lighthearted, there's just no way this is going to work.

During "real" gaming, the examples I gave in my post above shouldn't come up too often, provided that the players did the talking before gaming. If the players know they're going to play survival horror, and they're okay with it, they'll know the "genre framework" and probably will act according to it to create an interesting story _together_ with the GM.

Only if the players are not okay with the genre expectations, there are going to be major disagreements. Like, the GM sets up a scary chase scene, and a player tries to be clever and Declare himself having a BFG, trying to bowl the Bad Guy down.

Sure, there's "nothing against it in the rules" (declaring a story detail being a part of the rules), but it's against the spirit of the genre. In an action game, finding a bazooka behind the counter could be totally okay (in terms of "being in genre"). In a horror game, it's probably not.

If you want to play horror in Fate, all the players (including the GM, of course) must be on board. They have to be agree on genre expectations, and they all have to have fun with playing a game like that.

If there's a single player who doesn't like the premises of survival horror, and doesn't want to play along them, there's going to be loads of disagreement, and he'll experience the mentioned "genre expectations" as a despotic GM enforcing stuff. If all the players are on board, on the other hand, they'll use the Fate mechanics to help them experiencing a great survival horror story – together.

In a Fate horror game, you can declare story details, you can  create advantages, you can play competent characters. You'll only have to do it in ways that fit the horror genre, as agreed on during the Game Creation phase.

Und ein Kommentar zu diesem Post:

Do not forget that aspects not only provide numerical boni, they also establish facts that are "always true", as the saying goes.

They do so not in an impartial, absolute sense, but relative to genre conventions: Fate doesn't do "objective reality", it does kind of genre emulation.

For example, in a Buffy-esque monster kicking game something like "All Lights Out" might just mean some minor hindrance – imagine how night is portayed in monster-of-the-week serials, mostly "simulated" using Day-for-Night techniques ("Nuit Américaine"/"Hollywood Darkness", see http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HollywoodDarkness). Sure, you've maybe got a free invocation or two, but that's it.

In an angsty survival horror game, on the other hand, All Lights Out might mean almost pitch-black can't-see-my-hands-in-front-of-my-face darkness. Without an artificial source of light, you just cannot see, and therefor cannot reliably do anything vision-dependent, full stop. The GM will probably set some debilitating passive opposition or even outright forbid certain actions.

The same is true for consequences. In an action game, a Twisted Ankle is no really big deal – the GM will once invoke it against you for free, than it mostly stops annoying you, beside occupying a consequence slot for one scene or two. In a survival horror game, on the other hand, even a Twisted Ankle is pretty bad, as you simply cannot run away, at least without first beating an overcome roll to defy pain or something the like (and failure as well as success at a cost can become quite nasty).

Oh, and as I'm already speaking about success with a cost: that one's really essential for a horror game. Make it nasty, and make it have to take that option often. Don't fear to crank up opposition ratings. While in "traditional" horror games that would often lead the game to a halt, in Fate the characters can still succeed – if they are willing to pay the costs, of course.

And yeah, like others before me said, consider discarding stress tracks. They are primarily pacing mechanisms, and in most survival horror games, fights are not supposed to drag on for long. Either you are well-prepared and lucky, or you're in trouble, big-time. But you are not supposed to confront the monsters in an extended kung-fu scene.

Und von hier

You cannot declare or create stuff that you can't.

Or a bit more elaborate: If you establish story details and create advantages, they have to make sense in the context of the already established narrative.

That's why in a slasher horror scenario, for example, you cannot simply declare to draw a shotgun from under the dinner table and shoot the psycho down. You can, however, say you're looking for a knife in the kitchen shelf or something like that, to have at least some puny little weapon that's at least better than nothing. Or you could tell you're looking in the barn for a hidden self-defense rifle, but the GM is fine to compel you that, unfortunately, the ripper was predictive enough to prep it with a trap, which goes wrong when it doesn't  go off when you pull the trigger, but does go off in the wrong moment.

Players in Fate have a big amount of agency, but only within the boundaries of genre expectations and fictional consistency. It's all about narrative permission.

Hoffe das hilft irgendwie weiter, trotz des schamlosen Copy/Paste