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Fate Points are here to do a number of things.
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 Damage 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 not to play, meaning that the sensible solution isn't fun.
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. They can later heal the 11 Fate Points, and can take up to 15 points of Damage before death. The wound is long-lasting and serious, but the player can play on. Even characters with a single Hit Point left can have a reasonable expectation of survival.
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 taking healing spells as a given by any means. By removing healing spells, the scenes from classic tales such as A Wizard of Earthsea, or Lord of the Rings become something plausible. Characters can get damaged, yet continue a mission.
The notion of a divine blessing is retained here, with Fate Points serving as a tangible benefit of the blessing.
It's hard to feel any fear of battle when sitting at the gaming table. Fear 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.