Star Wars FATE: Initial Campaign Houserules

I will be using the Bulldogs! rules system for this campaign (Trouble level), with a few additions/modifications from the Starblazer system that I will detail in the next post. It's a system that uses the FATE mechanics, much like Spirit of the Century and Starblazers. Before we begin, let me introduce a few discussions regarding the system.

Mechanics & Mullings
There are three major faults in the FATE system, as I've noticed in the system and heard from actual campaigns. Please note that FATE points are important, where gaining or using them draws the spotlight to the player.

• Attention Whore This isn't the Drama Queen, who insists on bizarre back-stories to justify why they don't have any of the skills expected of their role, as this system actually handles those people much better than games such D&D. No, the problem is in the player who actively locks down the situation with their flaws. Failure from compels earns the specific player FATE points, but the consequences are communal. As a result, once everyone is captured, the player that caused the trouble is the one with the lion's share of FATE points, and is thus the most equipped to save the party.
• Wall Flowers If you don't speak up and act with your character, then you'll face an appreciable lack of FATE points. The system encourages you to get involved to earn FATE points, but there is a sizable number of players who genuinely require turns and lists of what they can do. Boundaries create freedom for these people, and while they are not to be pitied, one must acknowledge that free-form rules do not encourage involvement for these people.
• DM's Girlfriend (Favoritism) The difference between a player whose ideas are not approved and a player whose are is stark indeed. Every game suffers from this to an extent, but when benchmarks are fluid in a rules-lite system, this issue only explodes.

The problems of the Attention Whore bring up another facet of the system that I disapprove of; the Refresh Economy. Let's freshen ourselves up on the nature of FATE points first. It's a fact that compelling and invoking aspects are important to the flow of the game, and thus the act of moving FATE points create focus on the story to their events. When you focus on something actively being done by a player, gaining or losing a FATE point, then that player is enforcing their will on the game and ending up the center of attention.

With the Refresh Economy, you change how many FATE points you start with by choosing fewer or more stunts and special abilities in the reverse. Stunts and abilities are objective increases your power and ability to influence the narrative in specific ways, and having them lowers how many FATE points you start with. Note, this is only for beginning rates. Compelled aspects, trait activation, and other sources of FATE point acquisition are unchanged.

What the Refresh Economy does is encourage high-competency players to have more hijinks in the beginning of the session to gather FATE points to offset their deficiency. This means they're encouraged to hog the spotlight in the beginning, which leaves them on par with everyone else, but with more powers and abilities. A Lower Refresh "requires" you to monopolize the story more, and more and better powers allow you to monopolize the story more. What this creates some players who can't advance the narrative as much, at the 'benefit' of having the narrative focus on them less. Last I checked, that's what you do with NPCs.

Solutions
Favoritism and Wall-Flowers are difficult problems to overcome, especially as my S.O. actually is going to be one of the players. The primary solutions to these issues is to move away from rules-lite systems entirely, which the sacrifice is currently not worth. The thing I can do about "DM's Girlfriend" syndrome is to be aware of such and make an active effort to watch my behavior. Wall-Flowers I'm hoping to mitigate with a house-rule I'm going to instate to handle the Attention Whores and Refresh rules.

What I'm going to create is a communal FATE pool. Whenever a player is compelled, the earned FATE point goes toward a pot that any player can choose to draw upon as if it were their own. Therefore, the player whose foibles bring down consequences upon the party does not subsequently gain the monopoly in the ability to control the narrative to handle the consequences. What this ideally does is also provide the Wall-Flowers a resource to use FATE points without having to interject to gain them; which I am aware is not ideal, but it's at least a gentle nudge so they do not face undue resistance.

Next, I will raise the Refresh of every player to 12 and instate mandatory character creation to buy abilities and stunts until their Refresh becomes 6; no more, no less. Some characters will be wizards or own spaceships, while others will have iron will and steely gazes. I cannot think of a concept that would truly be expected to have [i]less[/i] stunts than others without that player asking to be an NPC, which isn't what the system is about.