Approaches In Fate, And Some Ideas On Drifts

I was looking back at articles about other ways to use approaches in Fate.

HERE Fred Hicks offers - Detect, Fight, Know, Move, Sneak, Talk

HERE Fred talks about several other facets of the approaches question.  Default approaches are adjectives that describe how and can be used as adverbs to take an action - Careful, Clever, Flashy, Forceful, Quick, Sneaky.  Alternatively, what can be done can be dealt with through approaches like the old Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma; or who through professions like Hitter, Hacker, Thief, Grifter, Mastermind.  Or why as with Duty, Love, Glory, Power, Truth, Justice, or Anger, Joy, Disgust, Sadness, Fear.

Cortex Plus does two column stats based on pairs of questions, e.g. "who am I on the team/what are my strength", or "what are my values/what do I care about".

HERE is a discussion that poses the proposition of determining approaches by using the rubric of "good, fast, cheap - pick two".

Here Rob Donough discusses his two column FAE approach.  Examples include approach+crime (Careful, Clever, Flashy, Forceful, Quick, Sneaky + Hitter, Hacker, Thief, Grifter, Mastermind); or style+passion (Force, Wits, Resolve, Grace+Loyalty, Love, Hospitality, Honor); or action+necessity (Mind, Money, Muscle, Moxie+Quality, Speed, Efficiency).  Vincent Baker also does something similar in his separate game In A Wicked Age, with his set of: Covertly, Directly, For Myself, For Others, With Love, and With Violence.

These are interesting articles, because I have thought several times since I first read Fate Accelerated and the description of approaches suggested that if you can do what and how, you should also be able to do when, why, where, and who.  Of course, this would depend on the game, and they would have to be chosen as the best way to thematically reinforce the setting.  So I read these links, and it got me thinking enough to give it a stab... here are several drifts dealing with other ways of refocusing what a particular Fate game is about.

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WHAT
These are pretty much the default for games since skills were introduced as a thing.  Heck, even old D&D had proficiencies in weapons or thief skills for instance.  This one bears less discussion, wanting only the refinement of what skills fit a setting and how broad.  GURPS goes with very narrow skills, Fate with very broad; for every one skill in Fate Core, you could with little effort pull out 5-10 of that skill set from an exhaustive GURPS skill list.

HOW
As dealt with in FAE, many different actions can be taken with any given approach.  You can fight or persuade both either Forcefully, or Sneakily.  Again, ground covered by Fate.  This seems to lend itself very well to hyper competent characters in very iconic settings.  Star Wars and supers settings are good choices.  You never wonder if any given character can fly a star-ship or engage in a shoot out, only the details of how they do so.  With supers, it is assumed that they live hightened reality lives and if they need to fight, drive in a high speed chase, or hack the villain's lackey's computer, there is no real question that they can, though individuals might differ in how.

These then, are new ground (at least for me... undoubtedly someone else, somewhere has already written these into a game).

WHEN
It seems that this would obviously only be just the thing where time is a major thematic element.  For example, off the top of my head, a time travel game might use when approaches, or Tenses.  A verb tense is about action... that is doing things.  For a drift that plays with time, Tense could be a way of doing things that works like the Resources skill in that, it has a stress track of it's own and reduces by one for every successful use until refreshed.  They could include Past, Future, Manifold, Synchronous, Timeless (+3/+2/+1/+1/+0).  This could easily be included with a two column Fate approach as well which allows up to four professions (+3/+2/+1/+0), though it might be more fun just to have a stunt progression that gives bonuses which assume that the time traveller has all the time they need to have become expert in many professions and can invoke stunts to justify expertise as needed.

WHERE
This one is I think the toughest nut to crack.  However, here is my thinking... the critical question, is what kind of stories make where you are matter to the story?  Journey stories?  If so, then perhaps the Positions might be: At Home, On The Road, In Camp, At Market


WHY
This seems to lend itself to motivations or ideals.  Truth, Justice, Duty, Love, Glory, Power; these have already been noted from Cortex Plus games.  Here is a drift of a similar kind that includes these Motivations: Righteousness, Courage, Benevolence, Respect, Sincerity, Honor, Loyalty, Discipline (+3/+2/+2/+2/+1/+1/+1/+0).  An alternative set might be: Loyalty,


WHO
Myself, Friends, Loves, Foes, Strangers two-columned with Love, Hate, Fear, Sadness, Anger

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Need to think more on these...