| This page explains why I'm moving from Spycraft to FATE as my system-of-choice for my IDC campaign. |
While I think Spycraft is a faboo adaptation of D20 to the spy genre, I find aspects of it problematic:
- The gear-up phase is interminable. We could finesse around this, maybe, but the gear/budget/item mechanics are all pretty rigid and interlocking. Genius stuff, really, but too complex and time-consuming for my taste (and fill in "for my taste" throughout this page).
- Rules (and this is a D20 thing) are bound more around what you can't do than what you can. Each revision of errata comes out with more and more details and what-ifs and conditions to better and more accurately simulate things. Some of these simulations are interesting -- the vehicle chase rules, for example -- and others are simply thorough in their complexity -- the page-and-a-half of grapple stuff we now have, for instance. We spend an appalling amount of time (for how long we've been playing now) checking rules, each and every game.
(To be sure, that's at least in part my own responsibility. If I were willing/able to adjudicate stuff that feels right more quickly, we could work around some of that. By the same token, it's still a matter of working around it, and doing so consistently.)
- The collection of Spycraft books continues to grow, and the ability to find what the frell one is looking for in rules, feats, skills, etc., continues to shrink.
I want something a bit less mechanics-driven, but that still allows for tactics, some minor player narrative control (action dice, etc.), and for shortcuts to some of the simulationist mechanics. I want something less complex, but still enough of a simulation to satisfy genre needs.
I
think FATE is what we're looking for.
UPDATE:
Doyce comments (accurately).
