Rules / Game mechanics for things that in other systems would provide static bonuses

Hello all, I have been using Fate for about 2 - 3 years now and it has become my favourite system. In generally I have no trouble running any situation using Fate but there are some situations that constantly end up causing me to feel that the only way to run the thing properly is to pretty much ignore the Fate approach completely. These are almost always related to situations that would in other systems provide automatic static bonuses / penalties. A classic example is cover. My question is: "How do you handle things like cover in Fate?" The proble with cover is that according to Fate, cover doesn't mean anything (game machanically) unless you make it into a mechanic. The obvious way is to make it an Aspect. The problem is that unless a character uses an Action to create "In Cover" or similar, the only way to benefit from it is to use Fate points, which makes it very expensive. And even if you get a the Free Invoke, it's only one time deal. After the Free Invoke, the character is still behind the same Cover but now it doesn't matter anymore. One Free Invoke is pretty usesell against, let's say 3 opponents, shooting you each turn. Another method could be to say that unless you are behind cover you don't get to roll Defend. This feels a lot better except in the way that the "bonus" doesn't vanish suddely, but now the the effectiveness of the cover is fully dependent on the Skill level of the character, which can mean that one character benefits from the cover by 4 and another doesn't benefit at all (the relevant Skill is Mediocre). One could also see it as an Stunt, one gets whenever in cover. You get +2 to Defend rolls when in Cover. Great, problem solved, except where does one stop. If cover provides a static modifier then why not "Prone" or "Stunned", etc. and suddenly you have forgone the whole Aspect / Create Advantage system of Fate. In short, how to provide an incentive to characters to get behind cover in ranged combat using RAW Fate mechanics?

The Stunt way sounds great! Just spit the reward on the same system +3 for full cover, +2 for half cover, and like a +1 on prone for shoot based stuff and -3 for fight

Well,  there are a handful of ways that the base game handles Cover with the right spin: If players are specifically trying to take cover behind something for an advantage in combat, this is a use of Create an Advantage as specifically called out in Fate Core.  Yes you need to spend Fate Points or keep on taking the Create an Advantage actions to continue getting the advantage, but this is reasonable as most foes would just wait to shoot until you come out of cover to attack or vary their shots to hit you through the cover.  One additional thing to remember is that you can Invoke AFTER the applicable rolls are made so you only end up using the Free Invokes when you would actually need them rather than every single shot. (Pros: +2/reroll to defense per success, applies only when required, Can be stacked with itself. Cons: Takes an Action, Can be invoked against you for Fate Points) Defense rolls can also be themed as ducking behind cover to get out of the way, this provides no specific bonuses but also requires no effort from the players. (Pros: Free to perform. Cons: No actual bonuses) Full Defense also works for cover as if you are doing nothing besides trying to not get hit you get the flat +2 bonus to defense rolls. (Pros: +2 bonus against ALL attacks until next turn. Cons: Takes an action, Only applies until next turn) Non-Standard Combat actions can also be used to create obstacles that would prevent enemies from attacking until the obstacle is overcome though these would also block the players from attacking the enemies. (Pros: Prevents attacks until obstacle is removed. Cons: Requires an action and applies to both sides of a fight. Ultimately the issue with the suggested Stunt based approach is that they inevitably just slow down combat as both sides hide behind cover and try to generate advantages to overcome the artificial boost in Defense rolls to hit each other. Generally speaking the way I tend to handle things in theme is that If there is an uneven split of cover between the sides in a fight, it is almost certainly the result of Opposed Create and Advantage checks prior to the conflict allowing one of the two sides to get the element of surprise against the other resulting in an advantage like "Ambush" with a few free invokes.  As the Free invokes run out this just represents the surprised side getting into better positions and figuring out where their foes are.

Thanks for the replies. Emprah: Like I wrote in the OP, the Stunt approach has the problem of if X provides a "free" modifier then why not Y and you pretty much end up doing what all other systems do and thus ignoring Fate's own mechanics lite approach. The cover was just an example which I used because it is probably the one that comes up most in my games. Zargon: You more or less repeated my examples with two sub-examples. But it seems that the approach you personally prefer is just to ignore what is in the zones the characters are in and thus making cover irrelevant. Which is of course a valid approach in itself. The problem is that I feel that it is a problem that the system pushes players to roleplay badly because the mechanics simply don't support 'reality'. If we keep using the cover as an example, a player will easily ask her-/himself "Why on earth would I use my move let alone an action (moving multiple zones) to get behind that wall in a firefight against an opponent standing in an open field since it doesn't affect anything in any way." Ps. My examples are very short on purpose because I assume that the people reading them can relate easily due to experience with Fate. Please let me know if you feel I'm not describing the situation or examples enough.

There was some discussion relating to cover rules here.&nbsp; It's by an Evil Hat designer, so he naturally advocates that you stick to the systems as written. <a href="http://www.faterpg.com/2013/richards-guide-to-bloc" rel="nofollow">http://www.faterpg.com/2013/richards-guide-to-bloc</a>... To resolve issues, think more of what a character is INTENDING rather than what they are DOING. A piece of cover like a plascrete science-fiction structure might be invulnerable, that is a permanent location Aspect.&nbsp; But you still have to make an Athletics roll to move&nbsp;behind it if it is more than 1 Zone away. If you want to cringe behind it forever you won't be hit, but in fact your character may have to peek around it once in a while to see what is going on, to keep your options open to get somewhere else, so that's why the bonus may only be +2 overall.&nbsp; The opposition may find a way to destroy the cover after all, or flank you so it is useless. Can you zip to some other cover?&nbsp; Are they firing at you during the move?&nbsp; Then you need a new Athletics roll (dodge?) as Defense, maybe&nbsp;topped off&nbsp;with an all-out Defense (+2) if you are doing no other actions or attacks.

Hmm... That does raise a few interesting points, though to a degree I would argue that the example is at least partially due to how the GM sets up the encounter. Conflicts are intended to only have 2-4 zones, and generally speaking something of interest should be within 1 zone of the players otherwise there isn't much of a point to having the zones split in the first place, and as the GM you had better have a very good reason why players would need to take an action to get somewhere useful in combat in the first place. As the GM, if you don't want players standing in a zone where you explicitly stated that there is no cover, give it a situation Aspect "Out in the Open" or something similar and if poor rolls led the players into an ambush or they players are attacking on the enemies' turf you can encourage them to move even more by adding Free Invokes to the aspect for the enemy. On the opposite, if you want to encourage your players to move into a zone where the cover is better, add situation aspects that they can invoke for defense rolls If even those solutions don't get your players to make the bare attempt at roll playing cover you can even further prod them in the right direction by giving the enemies stunts that help them against targets out of cover. At least the way I view Fate, the game is more intended to be there as a system supporting the Roleplaying taking place rather than driving how the Roleplaying takes place. &nbsp;If your players are not willing to roleplay things that do not directly provide mechanical bonuses, I would suggest having a discussion with your group about what everyone is looking for in the game, as it sounds like either you and the player are looking at the setting in a different way, or the player is looking more for a Tactical RPG rather than Fate's narrative style.

Pierre S. said: There was some discussion relating to cover rules here.&nbsp; It's by an Evil Hat designer, so he naturally advocates that you stick to the systems as written. <a href="http://www.faterpg.com/2013/richards-guide-to-bloc" rel="nofollow">http://www.faterpg.com/2013/richards-guide-to-bloc</a>... To resolve issues, think more of what a character is INTENDING rather than what they are DOING. Thanks for that link. Most of it is not relevant, but the part " Situation Aspects can be used as a passive Defence " is. It says: "Characters can create advantages with situation aspects to obtain a passive defence against certain kinds of action as long as this is internally consistent with the fiction." And the example makes an Aspect “Piles of packing crates” provide a static Defense before Invoking it. This is kind of like the Stunt option with the exception that originally you still have to use the Action to create the Aspect but after creating it, it keeps on providing that static benefit for free (it doesn't have to be invoked). Have you been using this? If yes can you give examples? Also do you feel it also applies to Active Opposition or should the Passive Opposition from the Aspect always replace the Defend roll all together? I didn't quite understand what you meant with that intending vs doing though. Can you elaborate? Zargon said: Hmm... That does raise a few interesting points, though to a degree I would argue that the example is at least partially due to how the GM sets up the encounter. Conflicts are intended to only have 2-4 zones, and generally speaking something of interest should be within 1 zone of the players otherwise there isn't much of a point to having the zones split in the first place, and as the GM you had better have a very good reason why players would need to take an action to get somewhere useful in combat in the first place. Maecto: I never create scenes with game mechanics in mind. Most of the times when a conflict erupts, it is due to something the PCs did or didn't do. I also don't artificially limit interesting items/elements/etc. in the scene (that could be Situational Aspects in the scene). Whatever is in the scene is in the scene and that is decided by what makes sense. This sentence doesn't probably make any sense but you made it sound like I should plan everything within a scene to the last detail to make sure the scene is fun from game mechanics point of view. If a scene should have buildings then it has buildings. If a scene should have tables it has tables. If the scene should be in dim lighting it is in dim lighting. I don't plan these from game mechanics point of view. I also don't plan scene's number of zones based on game mechanics, I use what makes sense. If they go into a house, probably each major room is a scene. If the scene happens on a football field, there are more that just 4 zones, because I don't feel it's reasonable that people should be able to move (on foot) 100 meters before anyone has a chance to react to what they are doing. And so on. The smalles scene is 1 zone the larger ones can be 20 zones. For example in the previous session of a Fate game I'm running the PCs entered a large temple. A Conflict erupted in one very large room. I decided to split that large room into 9 zones (of which only 8 were actually in use because the center one was filled by a huge statue). But I didn't limit the Conflict to that room. So technically the whole "map" was probably something like 30 zones, most of those were just not used because the whole Conflict happened in the largest room. Does any of this make any sense to you? As the GM, if you don't want players standing in a zone where you explicitly stated that there is no cover, give it a situation Aspect "Out in the Open" or something similar and if poor rolls led the players into an ambush or they players are attacking on the enemies' turf you can encourage them to move even more by adding Free Invokes to the aspect for the enemy. Maetco : That's an interesting idea, instead of providing positive Aspects, providing negative ones. I'll definitely have to steal that idea in general. But why Free Invokes to characters who didn't use an Action to create it? Isn't that against Fate's basic rules? On the opposite, if you want to encourage your players to move into a zone where the cover is better, add situation aspects that they can invoke for defense rolls Maetco : This is exactly what the current situation is. The problem is that Invoking those costs Fate points. They might want to use them for something else instead and therefore there is no incentive to seek those Zones with Situational Aspects that would provide cover. If even those solutions don't get your players to make the bare attempt at roll playing cover you can even further prod them in the right direction by giving the enemies stunts that help them against targets out of cover. Maetco : Techically a solid idea but feels very forced. Why wouldn't it be easier for everyone to shoot targets that are not behind cover? At least the way I view Fate, the game is more intended to be there as a system supporting the Roleplaying taking place rather than driving how the Roleplaying takes place. Maetco : I concur 100 % and that is why I feel that the system should not push the players' roleplaying towards anything. Now sometimes my players feel that they have 2 options, either to roleplay well and shoot themselves to the knee or be smart and roleplay badly. And I don't mean that Fate is the only system with similar problems. I also don't mean that we are not having fun using Fate. This is just the *only* problem I'm still having with Fate and no matter how much I have been thinking about it, I haven't found a solid solution / figured out how Fate wants me to handle it (assuming that Fate's approach to it is as good one as it is for so many other things).

Character intention vs. character action is a point that was made in that link, or in Fate&nbsp;System Reference Document&nbsp;somewhere.&nbsp; There is a rush to classify character action into one of the Skills and Actions.&nbsp; But the game invites players to think first of what characters INTEND to do, then sort that intention into the proper Skill and Action. Is&nbsp;your character planning to dive behind some invulnerable cover and stay there until bigger help arrives?&nbsp; Or are they ducking from one cover to the other trying to get somewhere?&nbsp; Knowing that stuff can mean different Actions.&nbsp; One may mean a single Athletics Overcome roll to get to the cover, and then the cover is treated as a monolithic Aspect that simply is impermeable, no one can Shoot at you while you're behind it.&nbsp; But if you must move from one cover to another, you may be shot at but you can treat it as a Creating an Advantage of being Behind Cover for, not a perfect defense, but a +2 to defense rolls. If there's a lot of cover around, movement is harder anyway so it breaks things up into smaller Zones.&nbsp; You move to the next zone for "free" where the next cover is, but can you make it an Advantage? I'm not the best at Fate Core philosophizing but you can judge if this take is workable.

Okay, that explains a lot. In your particular case you are not actually having a problem with cover but instead are having issues with using Zones incorrectly encouraging players to ignore roleplaying. &nbsp;Zones are meant to cover significantly larger areas than what you are using and are mostly for the sake of compartmentalizing the types of scenery and portions of the fight. For a pair of examples: The Mob Warehouse The Loading Dock - &nbsp;A fairly large open space for trucks parking. &nbsp;It is somewhat unreasonable for a character to run clear from one end to the other, but remember we are keeping this abstract so normally we assume characters are sticking somewhat to the middle or have been moving as part of previous actions. The Aisles - Again, this is technically a number of many similar locations, but for the sake of flow we assume it is fairly simple for a character to get from one portion of the area to another. &nbsp;If we go splitting this into 10 zones it becomes difficult for the players to justify even going over here when they can just take potshots from a different area. The Manager's Office - A raised room over the Aisles that is definately small enough to be a single zone and only accessible from the Aisles. &nbsp;It definately makes sense that a character attempting to get here from the Loading Dock would need to make an extra effort, but given the abstract locations within the Aisles it should be fairly reasonable for a character to travel between the two. If you go splitting this example up significantly more you end up putting alot more emphasis on moving around the space rather than the actions taking place in the space at which point players who are able to will just let the action come to them. The Colliseum The Arena 1 - Most of the action in this scene is focused in the arena, and for this example I am going to be saying that there are 2 significant zones here due to the scenario. &nbsp;In this half you have a portion of your players fighting off the lions that they were supposed to be fighting. The Arena 2 - Pretty much identical to the other half, except this is the portion of the arena where the players started facing off with the Roman soldiers breaking off into two mostly distinct fights which characters can swap between The Stands - Not intended for actual use, but given the type of game you can block off the stands as a single zone as there is a decent chance that at least a few of the participants are going to end up here. &nbsp;This covers a lot of area, but that is fine as generally speaking all of the combatants will end up in roughly the same spot anyway and if you truly need more distinction just create additional zones as needed. In this example I show an example of where it does make particular sense to split a zone in half, as there are two distinct sets of foes which the players are split between and this makes a good way to identify Who is fighting which set of foes. &nbsp;If I split the arena and the Stands into a ton of different zones, it just discourages players from moving between the fights which are going to gravitate towards two zones anyway.

Pierre: Thanks for the clarification. I now understand what you meant with the intenting vs doing and it is exactly how Fate sees rolling. People tell narrative "Zark shoot the Ewok with his ultra-lazer" [roll for Shoot, fail due to an Invoke to his Consequence -&gt;] "but misses due to his support arm being broken and Zark can't keep his ultra-lazer steady." A bit oversimplification of the matter: People tell the intention and rolls tell the doing. Zargon: That's a good point. The examples in the Core book use fairly small Zones but the Scenes also take place in smaller places. I have two "problems" with using very large Zones: Ranged combat easily becomes ridiculous since the distance between you and the melee character is fairly irrelevant. An exaggerated example: there is a Sniper ambushing a Target. The Sniper is unable to kill the Target during the surprise Exchange. Exchange 2, Target wins Initiative. Now the number of Zones is crucial to how things will play out. If we choose that there are only 2 Zones, Target can practically teleport right next to Sniper and hit him. If we choose that there are a lot of Zones between the two because Sniper took the shot from a large distance, Target doesn't have any other choice but to try and get away. Area effects are usually based on either the number of targets or Zones. If something affects a Zone, it is crucial whether that Zone is roughly 5 x 5 meters or 100 x 100 meters.

Well, with #1, you can teleport anyway unless you use variant movement rules using the sprint action. &nbsp;Generally I would say that in particular a Sniper is better used as a plot device than an actual foe in a conflict rather than making an absurdly large map. &nbsp;You are certainly able to use larger number of zones, its just that if you don't actually want to follow Fate's general assumption that there is at least some form of cover in every zone you will need to either live with poor player choices, Aspect based approaches, or odd swingy modifiers unless you decide to make major reworks to the conflict system.&nbsp;

So the conclusion seems to be that we were not able to remove the problem. Regardless of how one wants to perceive it or what approach one wants to use, it is an unsatisfying (for me) compromise. But I really feel that this thread has become too much about "cover" because it was just an example of the actual problem. So far the only 'new' RAW approach presented here is the combination of Silver and Bronze Rules (my own interpretation since the blog refers to different pages other than the pages where these two rules are written about) where an Aspect can provide Passive Opposition "for free" if it makes narrative sense written in the blog (or whatever it is) Pierre S was kind enough to link. The biggest question I have considering it is should one use it for Active Opposition situations too and if yes how? Like I wrote, the point of my OP was not to have a conversation about cover but the situations where it would make narrative sense that a certain thing (usually an Aspect) should provide an effect "for free" all the time for as long as it is in play. Concerning the Passive Oppostion from an Aspect "for free", let's use hiding in dim lighting as an example. It makes perfect narrative sense that it is easier to hide (use of Stealth or similar Skill depending on the setting dependent Skill-list) in dim lighting compared to perfect daylight, right? But according to Fate it isn't unless you pay a Fate point to Invoke the Situational Aspect describing the dim lighting. Using the blog's idealogy it would be ok to say that the Aspect would provide a Passive Opposition to noticing the hiding character which is great for characters that aren't good at hiding. The situation could change from the hiding character rolling with +0 to the character who tries to notice him/her would instead roll against a Passive Opposition of eg 2. But what if that hiding character is really good at hiding with a Stealth of 4. Are we back in the situation where it makes no difference what so ever whether the hiding happens in dim lighting or in daylight (unless a Fate point is paid)?

So, if you want an aspect to provide passive opposition to an action a player would normally actively oppose, I find it best to treat the static passive opposition as a "floor" on the roll. Effectively you get the better of your roll or the passive. To touch on your hiding example, being in the dark room does not make it easier to hide (unless you spend a Fate point), but the darkness might cover for you on a particularly poor roll.

The Fate Adversary Toolkit, in the section discussing Blocks, implies partial cover should be modeled as Armor. When someone’s using a block as cover, decide whether it mitigates or negates the attack. If it negates it, the attack simply isn’t possible. If it mitigates it, the defender gets an Armor rating equal to half the block’s skill rating (rounded down, minimum 1). So, if the evil wizard used the Animate Statue as cover, he’d get Armor:2. Armor passively reduces the shifts of a successful hit.** &nbsp;And weapons passively increase the shifts of a successful hit.&nbsp; So the Weapon/Armor/Block rules do seem to provide a precedent for passive shift bonuses/reductions that don't require Fate Points to activate. The dark room could be modeled as a bonus to hide ("Weapon") and/or a reduction to attempts to detect you ("Armor"). **(Also, if the target’s Armor reduces the shift value to 0 or below, you get a boost to use on your target but don’t do any harm)

Arcosus said: So, if you want an aspect to provide passive opposition to an action a player would normally actively oppose, I find it best to treat the static passive opposition as a "floor" on the roll. Effectively you get the better of your roll or the passive. To touch on your hiding example, being in the dark room does not make it easier to hide (unless you spend a Fate point), but the darkness might cover for you on a particularly poor roll. That's an interesting idea. LC said: The Fate Adversary Toolkit, in the section discussing Blocks, implies partial cover should be modeled as Armor. When someone’s using a block as cover, decide whether it mitigates or negates the attack. If it negates it, the attack simply isn’t possible. If it mitigates it, the defender gets an Armor rating equal to half the block’s skill rating (rounded down, minimum 1). So, if the evil wizard used the Animate Statue as cover, he’d get Armor:2. Armor passively reduces the shifts of a successful hit.** &nbsp;And weapons passively increase the shifts of a successful hit.&nbsp; So the Weapon/Armor/Block rules do seem to provide a precedent for passive shift bonuses/reductions that don't require Fate Points to activate. The dark room could be modeled as a bonus to hide ("Weapon") and/or a reduction to attempts to detect you ("Armor"). **(Also, if the target’s Armor reduces the shift value to 0 or below, you get a boost to use on your target but don’t do any harm) Do you use or have you played in a group which used or have used these kind of things?

Maetco said: Do you use or have you played in a group which used or have used these kind of things? I just picked up the Fate Adversary Toolkit, and when I came across that part I remembered this thread and thought people might find it interesting. :) I haven't played in games that used Armor/Weapons in this way though I have seen them utilized in some of the World Books I've read. &nbsp;(So many Worlds, so little time!) I have had GMs use bonus/penalties in this manner though. &nbsp;Basically in similar use cases and for the exact reasons you mention in your original post.&nbsp;

Maetco said: Do you use or have you played in a group which used or have used these kind of things? The old version of the Dresden Files RPG had an option similar to this for Blocks created with Evocation magic. You could put shifts of power in a blocking spell 1-for-1 into creating passive opposition (which, as an aside, layered with active defenses in the same way I described above) or 2-for-1 to produce Armor ratings.&nbsp;