Gateway to FATE

As a fan of the pulp genre, I was quite aware of the Spirit of the Century RPG when it came out. As awesome as it seemed, I've avoided that game. It was the FATE system that freaked me out. I hadn't played, read or owned any games like that so I hand-waverly dismissed it.

FATE is a variant version of the 1990's FUDGE RPG and has since powered some very highly regarded and successful RPGs, such as the Dresden Files RPG. FATE is currently in it's 3rd edition. This is one of those games that has special dice. More special than the funny polyhedrons. Just d6 with two faces marked with a +, two faces marked with -, and two faces left blank. The thing about FATE that was so different to me was there aren't the standard set of attributes that define a character's abilities. This game system is much more story driven, so the things that define a character are their attributes. There are a lot of meta-gaming aspects to this system. Also some very loose free-form aspects. (puns not originally intended, but then I decided to go for it!).

So why did I shy away from it? FATE is completely thinking outside the box compared to most other games.  Kurt Wiegel's fantastic reviews made me even more nervous about how the game works. As a traditional gamer, I wasn't ready for something so out of the norm. I can see as someone who wasn't into gaming or new to it, this could be seen as exciting.

See for yourself what he says:




So last year I started seeing the very attractive cover (attractive to me, hit all the right espionage buttons of style) of a new game called Agents of S.W.I.N.G. Alas, as it was a powered-by-FATE game, I dismissed it. Oh my, we've been here before! Another FATE game in one of my very favorite genres. That's fine.

Then suddenly a new suppliment appears for Agents of S.W.I.N.G.- Gosh, Spies! Come on! Its as if James Desborough knows I've been trying to find the perfect game setting for gaming with my teenage step-daughter!

Gosh, Spies! is 120 pages of information for your Agents of SWING games, expanding the scope of the game into the realms of Saturday Morning Adventure cartoons with a particular emphasis on girl’s adventures.

The book has information and ideas on running SWING games for children and particularly for girls. While the book itself is not necessarily for kids and younger teens, it should help you create and run games for them.

More generally Gosh, Spies! contains rules for creating child characters, some new child/teen oriented stunts, background for two boarding schools, information on the teen subcultures of the 60s and 70s and an introductory, Saturday Morning style adventure called ‘Field Trip’

So I broke down and ordered the paperback of Agents of S.W.I.N.G. from Lulu and plan on picking up the other supplements soon. Especially Gosh, Spies! What won me over was basically reading this entire thread at RPG.net over the weekend. Somewhere around page 6 or 7 I went and ordered my copy.  In the meantime I'm reading up all I can about FATE 3.0. I've been really enjoying the free PDF of 2.0 and looking at the SRD when I can.

Looking back, I know now that FATE was inevitable for me. And Agents of S.W.I.N.G serves as my gateway.