Two little bits from my FATE spy game last Friday demonstrated a
couple of game mechanics working quite nicely.


THE CASE OF THE LOOPY LIPSTICK

Gina, undercover in the Bad Guy's house, makes her move to take him
captive. She goes to his door, knocks on it, and, when he opens it,
attempts to get him in a clinch with her knock-out poison lipstick.

My initial thought when this came up was concern. I guessed at first
that would be hand-to-hand, but how do I judge how to handle the
lipstick damage, and what would the bad guy use to counter it (since I
wasn't tracking individual skills with him, just aspects)? I was very
much into a traditional combat way of thinking ("How would I do this
in D20?").

As it turned out, it was a matter of determining the goal -- Gina
wanted to get enough lipstick on him to cause him to go unconscious.
He, in turn, was suspicious of her showing up at his room late at night.

So she drew on her Charm (skill) vs. his (suspicious) Arms Dealer
(aspect). She got a +2 circumstance advantage with the lipstick,
since any of it on him would begin to make him woozy. She used her
Femme Fatale (aspect) to make a reroll on him with that first clinch
at the door, and ended up Hurting him in the initial exchanges there
(getting enough lipstick on him to cloud his mind temporarily). Next
exchange, she was going to Injure him further, based on the roll, but
she used her Quick (aspect) to die-flip the die roll up to an
Incapacitate (before he can object further, she gets one good lip-lock
on him and he's down like a pile of bricks).

It felt really good -- using the conflict mechanics progressively to
go after a non-combat kind of activity, with the result being
something other than injury (had he succeeded, it would have meant him
ushering her firmly but decisively from his room, with some
roleplaying ramifications the next day).


THE CASE OF THE TORRID TEENS

Two other agents on the team are a 16-year-old computer prodigy and a
young hit-woman around age 20. She'd been having fun teasing him as
part of their "cover" on the mission. He, on the other hand, had hit
on the idea of their pretending to make out in the huge swimming pool
at the bad guy's estate, where they were guests -- it would be
reasonable cover, and they could have a quiet conversation unobserved.

It was a lot of fun then involuntarily invoking his L33T HAXX0R aspect
(in conjunction with how the character was being played) to be the
geeky teenager whose hormones get the better of him and lead him to
forget about (or postpone worrying about) the mission whilst he has
this hot chick in the pool with him.

The player of the young lady, in turn, was going to bring the kid back
to reality -- before I involuntarily invoked her Flirty Goodness
aspect (hey, if she's a tease, then she might very well decide it's a
lot more fun to *keep* teasing him), and the two of them were
effectively hors d'combat for the evening's mission activities.

The players had enough fun with the idea (roleplaying it, so to speak,
to the hilt) that they didn't mind in the least (and didn't feel they
had to buy off the invocation). And that it will have some campaign
implications down the road just makes it all the better.

The only problem I have with how that mechanic worked is that, if I
restart the FATE points at the start of each session, then an
involuntary invocation that takes place near the end of the session
doesn't really have any gaming effect (the players didn't gain
anything for the FATE points they were paid). I've been having my
doubts about resetting all the Aspects and FP each session (largely
because it does make them cheap to spend and offers little in the way
of (dis)incentives I can apply), and may very well start reining that
in -- resetting only some Aspects, or none of the FP, etc.

*** Dave
*** http://www.hill-kleerup.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/FATE/FATE