The Ladder
| The Fate Ladder | |
|---|---|
| Legendary | +8 |
| Epic | +7 |
| Fantastic | +6 |
| Superb | +5 |
| Great | +4 |
| Good | +3 |
| Fair | +2 |
| Average | +1 |
| Mediocre | +0 |
| Poor | -1 |
| Terrible | -2 |
Most things in the system are rated according to the ladder on the left. (When we say "the ladder" throughout the text, this is what we mean) Usually, the adjectives are used to describe things – someone might be a Good Merchant or Poor at Riding. The adjectives and numbers are interchangeable, so if a player or GM is more comfortable with numbers, it is equally valid to say Merchant: +3 or Riding: -1. The best compromise is often to use both, as in a Pilot: Good (+3) or a Academics: Poor (-1). On this scale, Average represents the level of capability that someone who does something regularly and possibly professionally, but not exceptionally.
Most people are Average at the things they do for a living, like Lore for a sage, and are Mediocre or Poor at most other things. It is only when they are driven to excel that they surpass those limits.
Characters
Characters in Fate have skills and aspects. Optionally, characters may also have stunts. Skills represent what the character can do. Examples might include Fighting or Lore. Aspects paint a picture of who the character is, what he’s connected to, and what’s important to him. Stunts are special abilities that make a character unique.
Skills
Nearly every action that the character might undertake is covered by his skills. When a character rolls the dice, he usually is rolling based on his skill, that is, adding the total of 4dF to the value of the relevant skill.
Aspects
All characters have aspects. Inanimate objects can also have aspects, as can a scene, or a place. An aspect is simply a word or phrase describing the character, object, place, or idea that it applies to.
For characters, aspects can be relationships, beliefs, catchphrases, descriptors, items or pretty much anything else that paints a picture of the character. For examples see the character creation page.
Stunts
Stunts are those things that a character can do which stretch or break the rules. They are the special tricks the character has up his sleeves. Magic powers are stunts, but there are many mundane stunts. Not every character has stunts. Stunts are listed on the stunts page.
Actions
For most things characters do, there’s no real need for rules. Characters can stand, walk, talk, go shopping and otherwise do normal things without needing to roll dice. They can even take actions that use their skill, like driving to work, without worrying about the dice. The dice only come out when there is an interesting challenge with meaningful consequences.
The Dice
When you attempt an action in Fate and there is a degree of random chance involved you'll want to roll some dice to find out what the outcome is.
When you need to roll the dice, roll four Fudge dice (abbreviated as 4dF) to generate a result between -4 and 4. When reading the dice, a + equals +1, a - equals -1 and a 0 equals 0.
If you find yourself without Fudge dice, then roll 4 six-sided dice. Any die showing a 1 or 2 is treated as -, and any die showing a 5 or 6 is treated as +.
The total of the dice is then added to an appropriate skill to get a result. This result can be referred to as the effort made.
On the simplest level, when a character rolls the dice, if he matches or exceeds the difficulty, he succeeds; if he doesn’t, he fails. When the issue is simple, then this may be all that’s necessary, but sometimes you also need to know how well a character did or did not do. Clearly, if a character rolls three higher than the target, that’s better than rolling only one higher.
The result of the roll is called the effort. Each step of effort over the difficulty is one shift. If a roll is below the target difficulty, it’s a failure and it generates no shifts – there are no negative shifts (if you flip the perspective, the opposition could be said to generate shifts against you – but this is rarely relevant). If a roll matches the target difficulty, it is a success but generates no shifts. If it beats it by one, it generates one shift; if it beats it by two it generates two shifts, and so on. The number of shifts generated by a roll is used as a measure of many elements, and is referred to as the effect.
Simple Actions
Simple actions are rolled against a difficulty set by the GM and are used to simply see if a character can do something, and possibly how well he can do it. The GM describes the situation and the player chooses a skill to apply to it, and rolls against a difficulty determined by the GM (by default, Average).
Example: Simple
Contests
Contests are very much like simple actions, except the action is in direct opposition to someone else and easily resolved one way or another. Rather than setting a difficulty, each party rolls the appropriate skill, and the outcome is resolved as if the high roll had beaten a difficulty equal to the low roll. A tie means both succeed, but whether that means the outcome is a tie or if it calls for another roll depends on the situation.
Using Shifts
Shifts may be spent to affect the outcome of a roll. Often, the GM will implicitly spend shifts in accordance with the player’s description of his character’s actions. Sometimes, players may explicitly spend shifts as well. Basic uses for one shift include:
| Reduce time required: | Make the action take less time. |
| Increase quality of outcome: | Improve the quality of the job by one step. |
| Increase subtlety: | Make the job harder to detect by one. |
| Follow up action | Make an extra, minor action. |
Example: Shifts
Combining Skills
Sometimes the character needs to perform a task that really requires using two or more skills at once. You never know when a character is going to need to throw a knife (Fighting) while balancing on a spinning log (Athletics) or when he’s going to need to explain common law (Lore) to one of the Dread Gods (Resolve).
In severe cases, you roll against the lesser of the two skills. There may be additional modifiers as well. In a conflict, the other skill use can count as a secondary action.
When one skill is clearly the main skill, and the other is secondary, roll the main skill with a modifier. If the secondary skill is higher, roll with a +1 bonus. If it's lower, roll with a -1 penalty.
Conflicts
When an action is too complex or dramatic be resolved in a single action, it becomes a conflict. See the conflicts section for details.
Fate Points
Fate Points can represent the extra luck and inner strength that heroes (like the PCs) have. More than that, they are a measure of the Player's control over the direction of the game.
You can spend a fate point for a +1 to any skill. (Sometimes +2, see aspects, below.) You can do this after a die roll to improve the results. Fate points can do more than just improve die rolls. You can also spend a Fate point to make a declaration. The GM can always veto excessively improbable or boring bursts of luck.
Refreshing Fate Points
Characters have a refresh rate. You start each adventure with that number of Fate points. This applies even if you had more at the end of the last adventure. More powerful Player Characters have fewer Fate Points and vice versa.
Aspects
Aspects magnify the power of Fate points. When spending a Fate point, you can invoke an aspect that will work in your favor in this situation. The skill bonus becomes +2, and the subjective range of declarations is broader.
Example: Invoking an Aspect
Aspects also come with drawbacks. The GM can compel a character to take an action in accordance with his aspects. If the player accepts, he earns a fate point. Alternately, the player can spend a fate point to resist the compel. Sometimes a player, in playing his character,
Example: Compel
Instead of invoking your own aspects, you can tag other aspects. This includes aspects on other characters, the scene, or the campaign. The benefits are usually the same as invoking your own. Against other characters, you can tag for effect, which basically compels another character.
Examples: Tagging, Tagging for effect
Under certain circumstances, you can get a free tag on an aspect. Like the term suggests, you can tag the aspect without spending a fate point. This applies whenever a character works to reveal or create an aspect, and you must take advantage of the free tag in the same scene. Using skills to create an aspect is called a maneuver, and revealing an aspect is called assessment. The skills section describes how each skill can be used for maneuvers and assessments.
Example: Free Tag
Declarations
Players have a great deal of power in Fate. A player can make declarations about the game, just like the GM does. A declaration can add an aspect, or affect the game in a more concrete way. Real heroes are luckier than normal people, so strange coincidences are entirely appropriate.
Most declarations require the player to invoke or tag an appropriate aspect. Keep in mind that free tags can be used this way. The GM can (and will) veto an excessively improbable declaration. Less significant (or extremely awesome) declarations don't need an appropriate aspect.
A player can sometimes make a declaration with a successful skill roll. This is basically a player-driven assessment. See the skills section for more on how each skill can allow declarations.
Declarations: Free, FP, Tag, Skill check
