The book in this case is Fate Core, Fate Accelerated, or Fate Condensed, the book which literally contains the game we’re talking about here.

It is with mounting horror and depression that I watch post after post after post after post after post over on Reddit ask “How do I do <x> in game?” or “Can I run a game set in <setting>?” as if there isn’t a chapter in each book (well, maybe not Accelerated) explaining in detail how to implement pretty much any damn concept you need for whichever game you want to run. The best place to look for that stuff is Chapter 11 in Fate Core, “Extras.” Have they not read that far?

Hearing someone else complain about Fate’s magic system, I came up with the “Terry’s Hardware Store” Analogy.

Imagine a hardware store. The lumber yard in back has pretty much any kind of wood you might want for your project, and the team on the saws can cut it into whatever shape you need to make that project happen. There’s an incredibly wide assortment of paints, pigments, stains, lacquers, and finishes you can pick up to transform the wood into any smooth dreamy surface you could imagine.

Toward the front, there’s hardware of every sort. Hinges, pulls, rings, slides, hammers, saws, nails, screws, drill bits… anything you might want or need to connect those pieces of wood together in whatever way you see fit. In short, if you have a woodworking project, you can make anything with the parts here. Anyone could be satisfied, right?

Then Terry walks in.

He goes from aisle to aisle, tut-tutting and clicking his tongue, and finally when he reaches the last shelves, he turns to someone and says, “I’ve looked all over this store, and there isn’t a single table to buy. This is the worst furniture store I’ve ever been in.” Then he gives it a one-star review on Yelp and walks out without any further interactions with anyone.

That’s how I see some people approaching Fate, as if it’s supposed to have exactly the thing they need without having to assemble anything. And if they can’t find the thing they need, just these leftover character parts that don’t seem to do anything on their own, they claim it’s the game’s fault, that it should have known what they wanted and actually catered to them.

Someone, please tell me I’m being unreasonable here, and that the evidence of my own eyes has read something wrong. Because it looks like there are a whole lot of people who expect a specific experience from Fate without putting a single iota of think-work into leveraging its various systems (all four of them) to pull off that experience.