From: Rick Russell Organization: Rice University Subject: IMHO: Fate Points To: WFRP Mail List ************************************** THIS IS MY INTERPRETATION ONLY. ************************************** I've been following this discussion of fate points with some interest, since I've been playing games with fate points of one kind of another for 10 years now. (Remember TSR's original Top Secret? Fame and Fortune points? I got into plenty of arguments over those, I can tell you.) My *personal* opinion on the situation is this: Question: 3 opponents gather behind the character and attempt to behead him/her. How many fate points should he/she use? Answer: None. The character is *dead*, unless (by some miracle of dice rolling or particularly incompetent executioners) the character manages to survive being hit three or more times. Let's face it folks: Call 'em fate points, or call 'em "fame and fortune points": they're *not* a cure-all for bad judgement on the part of the player/character. Any player who gets themselves into this situation deserves to get hurt or even killed. The only real time fate points should come into play is when a character actually has a fighting chance to survive, but through particularly unlucky dice-rolling he/she ends up defeated (or worse, dead) anyway. That's when a lucky character can save him/herself with fate points. There are still plenty of ways to keep the character alive while factoring fate points out of the equation. Maybe the opponents aren't really there to kill the character at all, and instead they _Strike to Stun_. In that case, the character would still go unconscious and the player would not know what was going on... resulting in some truly interesting suspense as the other characters search for their lost compatriot, fearing the worst. Realistically (as far as that goes in a fantasy game...:), the players shouldn't even *know* how many fate points they have, and they might not even know when the GM decides to use one for them. Their character is the beneficiary of several "lucky breaks", which may or may not have anything to do with fate, or the gods, or the player's decision. It seems to me that any game where the GM and players are arguing over "how many fate points to use in XXX situation" has begun to degenerate into something resembling... dare I say it... AD&D! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Rick Russell wruss00@ricevm1.rice.edu ^^ Those are zeros, bud! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -