This might be a case of a simple misunderstanding, but as it is, the player in question has effectively put my FATE session on hold while we try other systems (I can't GM systems I don't know, so basically another friend was sort of forced to GM the next session).
Now, I have nothing against another system, but I cannot for the love of me grasp that players arguments, so it feels a bit weird. Again – this might be a communication problem, or perhaps I'm the problematic one, unable to grasp some fundamental concept.
The player feels there's absolutely no character progression in our sessions. On one hand he'd rather get "XP or something", but when I asked him if all he's really into is an arbitrary number he said "no". Admittedly, I haven't really given the characters in my FATE game a chance to "level up" and gain new stuff, but than again the story is still in its infancy. I feel mechanical character changes should follow something happening in the story, not an arbitrary "you've killed 10 goblins, you're now a level 2 wizard" style of thinking. But, again, I feel I need to stress that when asked if it's experience points he's after, he said no.
The strangest bit is that his character seemed to have changed the most – during the first session, given his actions, he gained a "brutal" aspect. In the next session, he was beaten up a bit and got a "cut and bleeding forehead" aspect which later became a "bandaged forehead" aspect.
Any idea how to approach this situation?
We've had 3 sessions playing FATE thus far. We don't have much time, so these happen roughly once every two weeks on average (given that some weeks someone cannot make it), and we have roughly 3 hours per session.
Best Answer
When I read this:
My immediate reaction is to think "Of course he doesn't want an arbitrary number! He wants a meaningful number. That's the whole point of a progression mechanic."
So, your misunderstanding may be based on asking an innocent question that had a detail that wasn't important to you, but made the difference between a "yes" and a "no" for this player. Psychologically, arbitrary numbers are not rewarding nor feel like advancement, as there is no connection between one's actions and the outcome.
If the player is looking for "XP or something", they are quite probably looking for meaningful numbers in response to their actions and accomplishments during the game.
I understand this, being a huge fan of both strongly-narrativist play and of XP- and loot-rewarded dungeoncrawling. They're distinct flavours that have their own motivations for playing them, and the motives for one can't substitute for the other. If your player has only ever played a game with a tight action-reward loop, they probably feel lost with the lack of the familiar feedback system. They may quite enjoy a story-centric game, but like a missing limb, the lack of a reward mechanic will itch and be distracting.
So, concrete steps to take: