Making it fun

I'm turning ideas for Gettin' Away With It over and over. There's a system and a flow for it all but I'm stuck with a key hurdle. 

Is it fun?

Is every part of the game fun or do I have components which exist only as support for the parts which are fun? The game itself should produce stories like Breaking Bad, either with a serious flavour or a fiasco-esque flavour. At the moment, however, there are parts which seem like a drag to play through just to reach the fun parts. 

Every part of this game has to be fun or engaging, otherwise it's getting the chop. 

My GM Style

It was just last week that I found myself explaining my GM style. Reflecting on that I think I use this style more than I realise. 

I like to put a cookie (macguffin) in the middle of the group and see what happens. Some characters want the cookie for themselves. Some want the cookie recipe. Some taste the cookie and discover it tastes terrible, or that it's poisoned. The best cookies are worth fighting about and the best stories I've experienced as a GM are the ones that the players drive by trying to sort out what they should do with the cookie. And from time to time I put it other cookies (or, to mix metaphors, other tasty treats).

This style might come across as a bit last to some but it seems to be ideal for the "play to find out what happens" style. It uses a lot of Bangs but needs me only to prepare concise points for a game session. 

How about you? How would you describe your GM style?

Fate Core of Course

My first experience with small press games, indie games, free games was when I stumbled onto FUDGE. My head spun. I wondered whether the system was any good. I mean, it was free, for goodness sake. At the time all the free RPG content I knew was from the Palladium Mailing List and had almost no guarantee of being any good.

I read it, though it was weird, and then found FATE 2.0. And then the bug bit. I bought dice, even before I had a reason to roll them. I made up a strange Matrix-esque scenario just to try it out. Since then I've treasured that free PDF. And I've paid for Fate games. Spirit of the Century and Diaspora are both on my game shelf, and I've had such fun playing them.

It's with joy that today I held in my hands my signed copy of Fate Core. Such a long time after that free PDF, today I have a book. A hardcover book. A book that was refined and polished, with high quality art and editing and layout. A book that is the result of years of hard work from the developers, with countless hours (months? years?) of actual playtime in the wild.

Fate Core is here. My heartfelt congratulations to everyone involved in its production. Thank you for a great game system.