In playing Fate (Dresden Files, Fate Core), one problem has reared it's ugly head more than once. And I'm not sure if it's something that I'm doing wrong, if it's the way that the players are approaching the situation (same players in all iterations), or it's just the way that things are supposed to be.
My players do things to avoid the risk of failure. And that's quite easy to do in Fate, because of the position of the roll in resolution of tasks, and the small window that the dice present, i.e. -4 to +4.
They will not invest in the Fate point system at earlier, non critical points in the narrative, or even worse, invest in it only to the point of increasing their Fate pool, i.e. putting themselves in positions to fail or get a less than optimal result in return for increasing their pool.
Then, at the critical juncture in the adventure, i.e. defusing the bomb, interrupting the ritual, etc., the dice roll is almost an after thought. They roll the dice (re-rolling if it becomes too much of a problem), and use the pool that they have amassed to make the desired outcome occur through the use of aspects.
And it's awesome and a point of triumph- but that feeling of the possibility of failure on those circumstances is gone. They no longer roll to find out what happens… they roll to find out a starting point.
How do I bring back that tension of the possibility of failure, when dealing with players that are pretty much masters of risk mitigation?
Best Answer
My initial suggestion is to attack the problem from a different angle.
You say that in the early part of the encounter/investigation/episode, the players will not invest resources or better yet, garner points by putting themselves in situations to fail. That essentially means that they find the decisions they're making in the beginning of these sessions inconsequential- otherwise they would care about failing them.
If the session is to end on a note where the players are defusing a bomb, that doesn't mean that the bomb's defusing should be the only tense moment in the session. Let those little decisions that build up to that point matter.
Have a failed negotiation result in a well-liked NPC getting jailed or even killed! (Taken out, if you will.) A botched interrogation leaves the players with an opponent who now has dirt on them.
Essentially, make the little failures hurt. Not in such a way that they're as bad as the big problem they face "oh no, my friend is in jail" is leagues better than "oh no, this bomb blew up in front of me and all my friends". But they should make the players concerned about failing. It should at least stay their hand from intentionally failing because they know they're just saving their FPs for the big problem at the end.