I Think I’m Done With Fate

I’m finally back from being in the hospital for over 5 weeks where they treated me for my depression and anxiety issues. Now I feel a bit better than before and hopefully I now have new strategies for dealing with stress in the future.

I also had a lot of time to think about the roleplaying hobby, about what worked for me and what doesn’t. One thing I realized over the last weeks was that I probably shouldn’t bother with Fate anymore.

Yes, I said it: I am done with Fate. While I always tried to like it, it never really clicked with me. There were moments when I thought I got it, but then I realized that my approach to Fate was not as the designers intended it. For some reason Fate also feels a bit too “meta” for me. I don’t like the idea of having to write down situational aspects on index cards and laying them onto the table for everyone to work with. But if I avoid those, I remove a large aspect (sorry, no pun intended) from the game.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t say Fate is a bad game. It’s definitely well written and a lot of people enjoy it tremendously, but for me it always felt like a struggle. Yes, there were sessions where I had a blast with it, but then there were situations when I felt that it just didn’t work for me. In the end the game actually caused stress for me.

So, long story short, I think I’m done with Fate (for now at least). Perhaps I’ll give it another chance in the future, but for now I prefer to stick to games which work better for me.