One of the reasons I like Fate is it has tooling to avoid that kind of anti-climax without it feeling like an asspull.
The BBEG is sitting in his office and the players, through hard work and planning, get the jump on him. Their first attack roll is net +8 stress. That’s enough to kill almost anything! I as GM decide the BBEG is going to take a consequence (“Covered in Acid Burns” or whatever), and then concede.
Conceding is at the player level, not the character level. This is where you as a group decide on how the BBEG survives, but loses this scene. Maybe he teleports away, but leaves his computer unlocked. Maybe he drains the life force of his favorite second in command to save himself, damaging morale and loyalty. It’s up to the group.
Some people hate this style of play, and want to be told a story rather then tell one as a group. That’s fine. But it’s hard for me to take off the GM hat, so I like when players also have a lot of say in the story.
I love collective storytelling elements as a gm, hate them as a player though – I wanna relax, pretend to be a person and explore the world, not think about what makes a better story.
Blades in the dark which has a similar thing (I think) is fun but not in a usual carefree manner.
Ironsworn in gm-less mode is an extreme version of that
One of the reasons I like Fate is it has tooling to avoid that kind of anti-climax without it feeling like an asspull.
The BBEG is sitting in his office and the players, through hard work and planning, get the jump on him. Their first attack roll is net +8 stress. That’s enough to kill almost anything! I as GM decide the BBEG is going to take a consequence (“Covered in Acid Burns” or whatever), and then concede.
Conceding is at the player level, not the character level. This is where you as a group decide on how the BBEG survives, but loses this scene. Maybe he teleports away, but leaves his computer unlocked. Maybe he drains the life force of his favorite second in command to save himself, damaging morale and loyalty. It’s up to the group.
Some people hate this style of play, and want to be told a story rather then tell one as a group. That’s fine. But it’s hard for me to take off the GM hat, so I like when players also have a lot of say in the story.
I love collective storytelling elements as a gm, hate them as a player though – I wanna relax, pretend to be a person and explore the world, not think about what makes a better story.
Blades in the dark which has a similar thing (I think) is fun but not in a usual carefree manner.
Ironsworn in gm-less mode is an extreme version of that
I dislike FATE for exactly this reason - it breaks my immersion too much