Condensed Stress
In the Fate Condensed Rules you get one bonus stress box at +1 or +2 of the appropriate skill, and a total of three bonus Stress boxes at +3 and +4 of the skill.
I'm considering for my Fate hack the house rule of you just a bonus stress box at each rank of the skill: one at +1, two at +2, three at +3, and four at +4. In my hack, no one is getting a +5. It strikes me as much simpler and very similar. Can anyone think of a reason this might be a terrible idea?
Posted Feb 24, 2021, 4:14 PM UTC
414
It dramatically makes characters tougher and harder to inflict consequences on or take out. Not saying that is good or bad but it is an effect
Except it's basically the same number of stress boxes. One at +1, and Three at +3. I'm just making it more consistent by putting Two at +2.
But isn’t the rule that say the physical stress tracker, you start with 2, and get a bonus +1 if you have Endurance at +2, then you get a another +1 stress box if you have Endurance at like +4 or something and then it stops there are 4 stress. The way I read your statement it sounded like bonus stress = skill, so if your Endurance was +5 you’d have 7 stress instead of 4 and that’s a pretty big bonus. Or have I totally misunderstood you or the rule?
Well I was starting with the condensed rules. So they are all single point stress boxes. You start with three physical at +0 Endurance. They give you a fourth at +1. Then they give you a fifth and sixth single point stress box at +3. At +5 they give you a spare physical mild consequence.
My rule is starting with 3 at +0 and then just adding one per step in the skill. Which works out the same if you have a +1 or +3 bonus, but does give you one extra stress box at +2 or +4.
I may cap it at six total stress boxes. Which means my only change will be to give the +2 Endurance players one extra stress box. Which I suppose is really inconsequential.
Ok I see what you are saying. I’m more familiar with Core. I mean hey, worst case scenario you give it a shot and it doesn’t work.
This. Except, I'd say more stress boxes may not be bad, but it certainly isn't good.
I have never played Fate but I picked it up recently and really like the concept. I am thinking of running a campaign with it soon so I have not seen the consequences of increasing stress and what it would do but my gut says it is not a good idea. Since all the numbers being used are low and stress is inflicted by the difference between attack and defense, it seems that increasing stress effectively negates the danger and since stress resets after each scene, basically characters potentially become immune to consequences. Is my thinking right?
There is certainly the potential for that, yes.
If you're applying this same rule to NPCs, it could also mean that conflicts take longer to be resolved.
If it seems like it takes too many "hits" before the target actually seems to be injured, that can also change the feel of a scene. Similar to how in D&D style games with high HP totals it can take many, many, many attacks to bring a target down.
The appeal of not having too many stress boxes is that it takes fewer attacks to start seeing measurable results. If the attacks are resulting in injuries - i.e. new aspects that the opponent can see and exploit, it feels like each attack is meaningful instead of just repetitive grinding.
At least in my group, when someone takes a condition or makes an opponent take one it's a much bigger deal vs. just losing a couple of stress boxes.
That makes sense. Thanks for the explanation!
Yes. Stress is a pacing mechanism that determines how long it takes for characters to suffer consequences that really affect the fiction. Everyone is going to have different preferences for how much stress they want in the game, but you can have a perfectly functional Fate game with no stress at all and there's going to some amount of stress that is too much. Beyond that, it's hard to nail down.
That's one of the reasons why they reworked stress for Fate Condensed. You get more flexibility this way and the amount of stress that can be taken isn't necessarily as high.
You can also reduce the amount of stress characters have to make fights go faster and more serious. Fate is a game of dials, meant to be customized to suit the setting.