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Fate Points are here to solve a number of problems.
RPG games have had a number of ways of dealing with damage.
D&D has characters getting damaged, but then healing with magic. This presents a number of problems:
- Healing magic is fundamentally tied to the game. GMs must find reasons for a party to always have healing potions on them, or have to demand that someone in the party play a priest.
- Wounds are not serious, because no matter how badly damage, nobody imagines they will take a wound with them through the coming encounters - everyone heals shortly.
- It's thematically difficult to replicate the idea of a serious wound which then remains with a character for some time. Any story about a wounded hero is dead before the concept begins.
- Characters change Hit Points, so the same healing spell can have radically different effects upon a characters' wounds.
White Wolf ignored these problems by having most damage heal instantly, and some rare damage healing slowly. It's a good tactic for supernatural creatures, but not appropriate for this kind of fantasy.
No Healing was the solution for a number of RPGs, but this leaves the problem that once PCs are damaged - as dramatic as this is - they're incapacitated for the rest of the game. Even those systems without wound penalties leave characters on the verge of death, and the sensible solution is to retire the character until healed, meaning that the sensible solution isn't fun.
You can hear the guards clanking down the stairs once again.
Can I climb above the door? When the captain enters, I'll drop and slit his throat.
No, he's like 8th level, and your backstab ability isn't high enough.
Players in this scene are well within their rights to imagine that they could kill someone by dropping down from a door and opening an opponent's throat, but the rules prohibit it outright. Similarly, dragons may be tough, but it's reasonable to imagine that an arrow shot in just the right location could kill one with a single shot, but again, rules can outright prohibit this.
The solution here is Fate Points. They allow characters to take wounds with them throughout encounters, without the persistent danger of immediate death. Someone with 7 HP and 11 FP can take up to 18 Damage before death. If the character takes 14 Damage, they go down to 4 HP - a serious wound has been inflicted.
The character can later heal the 11 Fate Points, and with the 3 HP, that's 14 in total. The character is effectively at 14/18 HP, so the wound is serious, but the character is still functional.
Many GMs feel a need to save plot-important NPCs, but this all too often results in overly contrived means of letting them escape. Giving a few Fate Points to those NPCs gives GMs a fair and understandable mechanic by which to save those plot-important characters, without forcing the decision.
Fantasy literature does not take healing spells as a given by any means. By removing healing spells, it's once again plausible to have classic herbs-and-bandages healers enter a scene, or to receive a serious wound, yet persevere throughout a dungeon or siege.
For opponents without Fate Points, one-shot kills once again become possible. Basilisks are unlikely to be felled quickly due to their thick hide, but with enough damage a character could swing and decapitate the creature in a single swipe. This not only makes a compelling scene, but means that low-XP parties might have a drawn-out encounter trying to kill a basilisk, then later (after gaining a lot more strength) a single member could slay a basilisk in a single shot.
The notion of a divine blessing is retained here, with Fate Points serving as a tangible benefit of the blessing. However, priests are no longer necessary, as a full party of nothing but classical warriors, or one consisting only of magic-users, becomes possible again.
It's hard to feel any fear of battle when sitting at the gaming table. Fate Points can also function as a limited pool of 'courage points'. With a full 15 Fate Points, characters have almost no chance of death, but once they reach 0, fleeing the battle, and letting one's companions deal with a problem becomes a tempting solution.