How to play Fate Core

How to play

Aspects: Your character has five aspects, short phrases that are true about them: a high concept (who you are), a trouble (what keeps going wrong for you), and three more built with the other players by describing your first adventure and how you crossed paths with two other characters. Spend a fate point to invoke a relevant aspect for +2 or a reroll, or to give +2 to another character's roll. When an aspect would complicate your life, the GM or another player can compel it: accept the complication and gain a fate point, or pay a fate point to refuse. You start each session with fate points equal to your refresh, usually 3.

Skills: Rank your skills as a pyramid: one at Great (+4), two at Good (+3), three at Fair (+2) and four at Average (+1). Anything else is Mediocre (+0). The default list has 18 skills, such as Athletics, Fight, Notice, Rapport and Will, and groups can change it for their setting. Physique and Will also add stress boxes.

Dice: Roll four Fate dice, each marked +, − or blank, and add them up for a result from −4 to +4, then add your skill. Compare the total with the opposition on the ladder, from Terrible (−2) to Legendary (+8). Lower is a failure; a tie gets you what you want at a minor cost; beating it by 1 or 2 shifts is a success; and 3 or more is a success with style, which adds a bonus.

Four actions: Overcome an obstacle. Create an advantage, which makes or discovers an aspect and puts a free invocation on it (two if you succeed with style). Attack to harm someone in a conflict. Defend against an attack or an advantage aimed at you.

Stress and Consequences: A hit's shifts must be absorbed. You can check one stress box per hit (you start with a 1-point and a 2-point box in both the physical and mental tracks), and take consequences: mild (2 shifts), moderate (4) and severe (6). A consequence is an aspect your opponent can invoke once for free. If you can't absorb a hit you are taken out, and your opponent decides what happens to you. Concede before the roll and you choose how you lose, gaining a fate point plus one for each consequence you took. Stress clears after the conflict; a consequence needs a recovery action and then a scene, a session or a scenario to heal.

Stunts: A stunt changes how a skill works for you, often +2 in a narrow situation. You get three free and can take up to two more by lowering your refresh by 1 each. Refresh can never drop below 1.

Strategy

Fate Core rewards players who engage with aspects and the fate point economy rather than treating it as a plain dice game. Keep fate points flowing: Fate points let you invoke aspects, and the GM pays you fate points to accept compels. A player who refuses every compel soon runs dry; a player who accepts them has points to spend when it counts. Treat your trouble and your other aspects as story tools, not just descriptions. Create advantages: The create an advantage action is the most underused in the game. Examine the room, and on a success you might add an aspect like Scattered Debris with a free invocation on it. Free invocations stack with a paid invocation on the same aspect, and you can hand them to a teammate. Several players setting up one big roll can produce an overwhelming bonus. Invoke after you roll: The rules suggest waiting until after the dice are down to invoke, so you only spend when the +2 changes the outcome. Save the reroll for a −3 or −4 on the dice; otherwise take the +2. You can invoke several different aspects on one roll, but not the same one twice (except by stacking a free invocation). Treat compels as offers: A compel is the GM offering to pay you to make your character's life more interesting. Accepting makes a better story and funds your next big moment. Pay to refuse only when the complication would derail something that truly matters. Concede with purpose: When a conflict is going badly, conceding before the next roll lets you decide how you lose and pays out a fate point plus one for each consequence you took. Being taken out gives your opponent the final say. Manage stress and consequences: You can check only one stress box per hit, so a big hit may force a consequence. Remember that every consequence hands your opponent a free invocation against you. Build the world together: Fate's game creation has the whole group decide the setting's big issues and faces before characters are made. Players who contribute here end up with a world that belongs to everyone.

Tips

- Accept compels generously: they are where your fate points come from. - Create an advantage before the big roll: free invocations stack with a paid one and can be passed to an ally. - Invoke after you have rolled, and use a reroll only on a −3 or −4; otherwise take the +2. - You can invoke several different aspects on one roll, but not the same aspect twice. - Your high concept says who you are; your trouble says what goes wrong for you. - Concede before the dice hit the table, not after: you get a fate point plus one for each consequence you took. - Write every aspect in play on an index card so everyone can see what can be invoked or compelled. - The GM starts each scene with one fate point per player character in it, so the opposition's budget is limited too.

Players and time

Fate Core calls for three to five people: one GM and two to four players. Game and character creation happen together at the table, often in the first session, and the system suits both one-shots and long campaigns.

Fate Accelerated and Fate Condensed

Fate Accelerated is a slimmer version of Fate that replaces skills with six approaches (Careful, Clever, Flashy, Forceful, Quick and Sneaky), rated one at Good (+3), two at Fair (+2), two at Average (+1) and one at Mediocre (+0). Fate Condensed (2020) is a compact, stand-alone version of Fate Core with a few refinements, such as one-point stress boxes and a new turn order, and it is compatible with Evil Hat's other Fate products. Both are good ways into Fate's ideas.

Setting supplements

Evil Hat publishes many complete games and toolkits built on Fate, including Dresden Files Accelerated (urban fantasy), Fate of Cthulhu (time-travelling cosmic horror), Tachyon Squadron (space fighter pilots), Shadow of the Century (pulp action), Uprising (dystopian resistance) and Masters of Umdaar (sword and planet). The Fate Adversary, Horror, Space and Accessibility Toolkits add rules options. Many other publishers also make Fate games under its open licence.

Common beginner mistake

Playing Fate like a traditional RPG by ignoring aspects and never invoking or accepting compels, which reduces it to a simple dice game. The aspect and fate point economy is the game, so engage with it fully.