I love Fate. I am using it to run what I’m calling my “sedition sandbox” campaign (there’s an evil empire, you’ve been sent to its capital as spies and saboteurs, now tell me how you bring it down from the inside).
It’s been working great. On our best nights, we hit a tone reminiscent of Andor as my players hit key targets, turn their enemies against each other, and grapple with just how far they are willing to go in the name of the cause.
Check out Kingdom! It’s a less traditional game, but it strips away just about everything except for the power, politics, and intrigue, and does it rather well, in my mind. It can handle scopes as broad as a galaxy spanning empire or as narrow as an after school fan club.
Do note that it focuses primarily on internal politics, in that all the players are expected to be members of the same organisation and want it to succeed. But they should have very different ideas about how to accomplish that or what success looks like, which drives the ebbs and flows of power
Yeah, it works well enough. I haven’t had any issues, at least. On Linux, I prefer something along the lines of Workspace Matrix to get a proper two dimensional layout, but on Windows, the built-in workspaces have been at least sufficient for game night and don’t require any additional setup
I use LogSeq to organise all my notes. My group meets in-person, but I use Foundry to put background art, NPC portraits, etc. up on a screen, as well as to manage any NPC character sheets.
It may stretch the definition of ‘tool’ a bit, but the other thing I do is set up my laptop with four desktops/workspaces (notes, Foundry, music, rules) so I can switch between them with Ctrl+Windows+Left/Right. It’s a minor thing, but I am constantly surprised by how many people I run into who don’t know that you can do it. Switching desktops feels like much less friction to me than Alt+Tabbing between windows for some reason.
Seconding Fate, the rules do a good job of supporting the fiction rather than encumbering it. I felt it very much supported that feeling of “I can do anything I can reasonably imagine.”
To help with the tyranny of the blank page, I’d recommend coming up with a pregenerated character to demo how it all works. Then, encourage her to change or adjust anything she wants to on the sheet. My players initially found it easier to modify something to their liking than to come up with something from scratch.
Magic can be as simple as “Roll your Lore skill” if you want or you can look up several more detailed add-ons that are out there, like Fate High Fantasy magic.
The rules are freely available here: https://fate-srd.com/fate-condensed.
Man, we ended up setting up a wiki for all the ones from my last campaign… it’s down at the moment, but here are a few I have saved on my phone:
“My companions and I are professional adventurers”
“Some of us more professional than others…”
“For no sexy reason, what does the pope look like?”
“Also, I’m not doing terrible! But I definitely just got stabbed.”
Bard: “No, this is wholesome [Bard] moment! Anyway, how much money do you have?”
Sorcerer: “[Ranger], we are about to do some wacky-ass magic”
Ranger: “In that case, I would like to watch it from over there.”
Sorcerer: “I will not be doing it. I will be joining you.”
GM: “Divine and wild magic start pouring into and it’s like… Have you ever licked a battery?”
GM: “Divine, chaos, and dragon magic flows through you—”
Bard: “And bardic from the inspiration!”
Ranger: “Oh I can add some ranger nature!”
Sorcerer: “And I have one that can help! I cast minor illusion to make a “do not disturb” sign.”
“If I take one more step, it’ll be the furthest I’ve ever been from home…”
“You didn’t even have to step.”
“If I take one more interdimensional vortex…”
“Your left or my left? You’re an orb.”
“I am.”
“Float like a flowerpot, sting like a school bus.”
Ahhh, loads of them!
D&D adjacent stuff like Pathfinder 2e.
PBTA and kin like Dungeon World, Monster of the Week, Ironsworn. Blades in the Dark.
Delta Green.
I have a whole folder of freeform, GMless stuff like Microscope, Kingdom, Follow, Archipelago, Dawn of Worlds, Dialect, Intrepid, The Quiet Year.
Gonzo one shot stuff like Paranoia, The Sorcerer Supreme, Ten Candles, peace was never an option (think untitled goose game: the rpg).
I recently had a test run or two of Fate Condensed and got completely hooked.
Most of those I’d be content to run or play, but the game I really want to GM myself is a campaign I’ve been dreaming up for about year now that I call the “sedition sandbox”. The scope is focussed to a single city, the capital of a hostile foreign empire. The PCs are an elite team of saboteurs and infiltrators, sent by a nation desperate to turn the tides of a losing war. Their only objective is to bring down the empire from within. Intrigue, plots, rebellions, sabotage, faction politics, assassinations, propaganda, blackmail, anything the players can think of to achieve that goal is fair game. How far will they go to stop the greater evil?
I think it would be a blast (naturally, I guess), and one or two players in my local network have expressed a little interest, but I’ve yet to rally the kind of commitment I think I’d need to really get off the ground. And the inexorable march of time makes it less likely with every passing day, as my friends either move away or are subjected to all life’s little tyrannies of responsibility ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Seconded! OP, in a similar vein as the world building games you already mentioned, you might find Intrepid interesting. I could see it being used to do world building + history of some of the major players and nations therein.
I could also imagine the relationship map it uses being hacked a bit to allow for some Disco Elysium style personality skills / thought cabinet shenanigans if you were interested in leaning into that in particular.
It’s an excellent game, hope you get to try it out even if you don’t pick it for this particular venture.
Forgive some unsolicited advice, but if you ever do get around to it, the bit that was trickiest for us to wrap our heads around was the Touchstone role. They don’t have quite as many mechanics to interact with as Power and Perspective, so it can be easy for them to feel a bit sidelined.
The truth is, though, Touchstone wields an enormous amount of power. Played right, they decide if the Kingdom lives or dies. Power and Perspective should absolutely be trying as hard as they can to court/persuade/win over/cater to Touchstone at every turn, because that is the only way to get the people on your side. Perspective could be throwing out softball predictions with a clear right and wrong answer, but all Touchstone has to do is throw their weight behind the “wrong” choice and it still turns into an agonising dilemma for Power. Can’t rule over ashes.