anyway.

Yeah, I think I agree with you.

Figuring out when Fate expenditure is optimal is probably a solvable issue, too. I don't know where it should be, though. My guess is, you take a hit or two and use Fate to avoid preventing you from getting Glory. Avoiding long term tactical hits is probably worth spending Fate, but the short term hits probably aren't.

But the reality of Fate is that people spend it after battling a monster for ages, taking all the hits and getting just to the point of gathering hard-core glory, only to watch their trash talking glory-hounds fellow players get it.

THAT is when math goes out the window and you spend that fate just for fucking spite.

And yes, I have seen it happen, no doubt.

That's okay with me, call it borderline or call it squandering.

Also, I'm absolutely certain that I would never play in such an undisciplined way. Please.

I mean, pretty certain.

I mean, well, kind of certain, a little. I think. Maybe.

Trash talking glory-hound fellow players are PUNKS.

Then in Agon, we are all punks.

Wait.

I read your post as saying that if there were no Fate points, then your game experience wouldn't be any different (or not much different) than if you played it with the Fate points.  The result is that your hero is completely at the mercy of Fate (i.e. the dice rolls).

If that's the case, then your last sentence could just as easily be re-written as:  "You play the game to find out how far your Hero can get before bad die rolls bring him down".  In that sense, it doesn't seem terribly revolutionary.  The same could be said for D&D.

or am I missing something?

Judd, no, only our FELLOW players.

Tom, yeah, that's not what I'm saying. Fate in Agon accumulates steadily, plus there's some semi-optional additional accumulation if you feel like dodging some consequences. It's when your fate goes off the top of the scale that your guy dies.

You hasten your demise, but you get to be more effective until then.

Like I say, it's semi-optional. I bet that most of the time when you do it, you do it because you OBVIOUSLY do it.

This thread makes me happy.

I know all about the sub-optimal Fate burnin'. When I play, I am a Fate burnin' machine. I have yet to win a game of Agon, and my heroes usually die forgotten and alone.

So... yeah.

Makes me want to play it totally, unflinchingly stingy. Like screw you, fate, come and GET me stingy.

Wouldn't that be Ulysses?  And look what happened to him.

yrs—
—Ben

Yeah! We still remember his name!

Bring it ON, fate.

Don't tempt Fate, Vincent.

The fickle finger of Fate might flip you off, and then you'd be fucked.

(alliterative moment. over now. sorry.)

There is no happiness where there is no wisdom;
No wisdom but in submission to the gods.

—Sophocles, "Antigone"

Stingy! Yes. I don't need to spend Fate! Ever! Even when the other heroes do it and steal the Glory that should have been mine. NOT EVEN THEN. I am a rock. Rock, I say!

Fate smiles.

Hey, speaking of all this stuff: does Agon have rules for hubris and tragic flaws, and things of that nature, like the Greek chorus?  Because that would be cool.

PS. And also, a rule for someone saying every two seconds, "Yes, Socrates, that must be true"?  Because that's about all I remember from Greek drama.

Yes, Roger, and see how wonderfully that worked out for Antigone in the play.

Sorry, you pushed a pet peeve of mine, which is when people attribute the quotes of fictional characters to the authors, even when those fictional characters are clearly intended to be WRONG.

Ulysses, on the other hand, *hot damn*  He starts out as, basically this random nobody, one of the many second fiddles to Achilles, and sits around for the whole Trojan war doing basically nothing.  But then afterwards, suddenly, he's the only guy with any Fate left ...

yrs—
—Ben

Tom: If that's the case, then your last sentence could just as easily be re-written as: "You play the game to find out how far your Hero can get before bad die rolls bring him down". In that sense, it doesn't seem terribly revolutionary. The same could be said for D&D.

Vincent: that's not what I'm saying. Fate in Agon accumulates steadily, plus there's some semi-optional additional accumulation if you feel like dodging some consequences. It's when your fate goes off the top of the scale that your guy dies.You hasten your demise, but you get to be more effective until then.

Having never played Agon, I must quiver with glee as I point out: It's all about the feedback loops.

In D&D, the longer you avoid the bad die rolls taking you down, the less likely it is that any one bad die roll will take you down, which means the longer you can go avoiding bad die rolls taking you down. It's a positive feedback loop as you level up and get more powerful. At the real-human-being-playing level, which is (lumpley principle/Big Model) all that really matters, what you get is only one incentive: get stronger, live longer. No dilemma.

In Agon, apparently, it's a complex kind of negative feedback loop, with Fate expenditure having only beneficial effects in the short run but leading to catastrophic collapse in the long run—which means you have conflicting incentives and are torn between "I want this thing right now" and "I want these other things later on." That's a dilemma.

I think dilemmas—choices for the real person playing about things the real person cares about, even if it's only game points of some kind of fictional characters, and where a best-of-both-worlds solution cannot be easily optimized—are the heart of both "gamist" and "narrativist" play (ugly terms that they are). I suspect they're simply in the way for "simulationist" (ugh) aka "celebratory" play, where they keep forcing the focus back on the real person and forcing stop-and-think choices, when the point of this style of play is to focus on the fictional world and characters for their own sake and immerse so smoothly you never have to "break character" and think "what next?"

Well...

I agree up to your final paragraph. Stop-and-think choices are a technique, not a strong indicator of creative agenda.

I can't speak to the variety in gamist play, but if you asked me, I'd estimate that at least a third, maybe more of my narrativist play has been wholly absent character-breaking decision making in play. I'd also estimate that at least a third of my simulationist play has included character-breaking decision making. (Most common: "we're all working together as a group despite the fact that there's no earthly in-character reason for it.")

So you're talking about trends in design, not about anything essential to the creative agendas.

(This is pseudo-Marginalia for Ben; everyone else can probably safely ignore it.)

Ben, I'm totally with you on the pet peeve.  Bugs me too.

However, I've reason to think that the Greeks, by and large, generally really did feel that way about fate and destiny.

But I'm no scholar on the subject, and it probably doesn't really help Agon one way or the other, so I'm willing to mostly smile and nod and let it go away if you are.