I have to echo @Lordof1’s question from the end of Session 1 - why is Fudge so easy and Fate so hard? Fate 2nd ed (the one before Spirit of the Century) was the last one I was able to grok and run really successfully.
Yes, I agree! I was talking about Spirit of the Century with @Agemegos many years ago now, and we both agreed that we kept “bouncing off” the text. It presents as a rules light game, and a lot of people seem to believe that it is rules light, but it most definitely is not!
Thing I tend to say: it’s light on rules that emulate verifiable reality, e.g. how much will it hurt you if I shoot you with a pistol and you’re wearing body armour, but while it’s cut away all that complexity it’s replaced it with complexity in areas that do not so emulate. So you can’t do the research and say “it doesn’t work like that”. I think that for some people that really does feel simpler—but for a player like me, who starts with a model of the world of which the rules can only ever produce an imperfect image, my footing is gone because there’s no “reality” to test against when a rule presents a result that seems unreasonable.