# Fate Core System tags: #game/rpg/fate ![[Fate Core System (cover).jpg|600]] **Fate Core System** is the generic, setting-agnostic roleplaying engine from Evil Hat Productions, and the current face of the **Fate** family — the one that grew out of **[[Fudge]]** and decided that your character's backstory should be the actual rules. It's the hobby's favorite "play anything" pitch: no default setting, no genre, just a pile of narrative permission and a currency to spend on it. Fate Core is the 2013 fourth edition, crowdfunded off a $3,000 ask that ballooned into over $433,000 and a small empire of world books, toolkits, and hacks. The cynical read is that it's a system that sells the hobby its own improvisation back as a virtue. The fair read is that it's remarkably well-built for what it does. ## Core Resolution Mechanics **Fate dice.** You roll four six-sided dice (Fudge dice, each marked with a +, a −, and a blank on two faces apiece), sum the result from −4 to +4, add your skill rating, and compare the total to a difficulty. That difficulty lives on the **ladder** — a scale of adjectives and numbers running from Terrible (−2) up through Mediocre (+0), Average (+1), Fair (+2), Good (+3), Great (+4), Superb (+5), and on to Legendary (+8) and beyond. You're trying to match or beat the opposition, whether it's active (someone rolling against you) or passive (a fixed rating on the ladder). **Four actions.** Every skill roll is one of four actions: **overcome** (get past an obstacle), **create an advantage** (make a situation aspect or claim a benefit from one), **attack** (harm someone), or **defend** (keep harm off you). The roll resolves into one of four outcomes — fail, tie, succeed, or succeed with style — each with its own cost or bonus attached. **Aspects.** Phrases describing something noteworthy about a person, place, thing, or situation. The load-bearing rule is that **aspects are always true** — they grant or withdraw permission for what can happen in the story, whether or not anyone spends a point on them. A monster that's **Pinned in a Hydraulic Press** is actually pinned; it doesn't get to move until something removes that aspect. Invoke an aspect for +2 or a reroll; have it **compelled** against you to earn a fate point in exchange for a complication. **Fate points.** The economy. You start each session with your **refresh** (default 3) and reset to it. Spend points to invoke aspects; earn them by accepting compels or by conceding a conflict. It's the currency that makes the narrative machinery go around. **Character creation.** Five aspects (a high concept, a trouble, and three more from the "phase trio"), a skill pyramid of ten skills (one Great, two Good, three Fair, four Average), three free stunts, stress tracks, and three consequence slots (mild, moderate, and severe). Consequences are the interesting bit — they're lasting aspects that stick to your sheet and can be invoked against you until they heal. **Stunts and refresh.** Stunts are special tricks; each one beyond the first three costs a point of refresh. Since refresh is also your starting fate-point total, the more powerful you make your character, the fewer fate points you begin with — a neat little tax on being too cool. ## Editions and Changes **Fate 1.0/2.0** (2003) was the original Fudge-based generic, where FATE stood for "Fantastic Adventures in Tabletop Entertainment." **Fate 3.0** arrived with *Spirit of the Century* (2006), the pulp version that introduced aspects and the modern shape of the system. **Fate Core** (2013) streamlined the whole thing into the 4th edition and released it under the Creative Commons and the Open Game License — which is why the SRD is free and why a whole ecosystem of "Powered by Fate" games exists. **Fate Accelerated Edition** (FAE) is a lighter build that swaps skills for six "approaches" (Careful, Clever, Flashy, Forceful, Quick, Sneaky). **Fate Condensed** (2019, by PK Sullivan, Lara Turner, Fred Hicks, and others) is the compact, standalone single-book version — about 50 pages against Fate Core's ~300, complete enough that you need nothing else to play. It's the same system, iterated: one-point stress boxes replace Core's variable ones, "Balsera Style" popcorn initiative is the default instead of skill-based turn order, advancement drops significant milestones (major ones become "breakthroughs"), active opposition folds into the defend action, and Create an Advantage is tightened around discovering unknown aspects. It also runs a slightly longer default skill list (19 to Core's 18) and states the "aspects are always true" principle more explicitly than Core does. If you're picking up Fate today, Condensed is the cleaner on-ramp; Core remains the bigger, more discursive toolkit. ## The Ecosystem: Worlds and Codex Since Fate Core ships with no default setting, the ecosystem exists to fill that gap. **Fate Worlds** is the "Worlds of Adventure" line — ready-to-run settings, each with custom mechanics, NPCs, and story elements bolted onto Fate Core. **Volume 1: Worlds on Fire** collects five: *Tower of the Serpents* (divesting an evil cult of its idol), *White Picket Witches* (small-town supernatural), *Fight Fire* (the lives of firefighters), *Kriegszeppelin Valkyrie* (WWI mechanical monstrosities), and *Burn Shift*. **Volume 2: Worlds in Shadow** adds six more — *CrimeWorld* (getting on the grift), *Timeworks* (time travel), *The Ellis Affair*, *No Exit*, *Court/Ship* (alien invaders at the court of Louis XV), and *Camelot Trigger* (knights in giant robot suits). The line later kept going with *Worlds Rise Up* and *Worlds Take Flight*. **The Fate Codex** is the community's mostly-monthly e-zine of Fate material, anthologized by Magpie Games and released under Creative Commons — a rotating cast of contributors churning out articles, essays, new systems, and quick-start adventures. Volume 1 alone runs from Leonard Balsera's game-creation tips and Brian Engard's ammo rules to Ryan Macklin building a Survival skill from scratch, essays on the fate point economy and running inclusive games, and quick-start adventures like *Silicon City*, *Dark Star*, *Arcane High*, and *The Pilots of Eden*. ## References - [Fate SRD - Fate Core, Accelerated, and Condensed](https://fate-srd.com/) - [Fate Condensed - Fate SRD](https://fate-srd.com/fate-condensed) - [Fate (role-playing game system) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fate_(role-playing_game_system)) - [Fate Core System - Evil Hat Productions](https://evilhat.com/product/fate-core-system/) - [Fate Core System - DriveThruRPG](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/114903/fate-core-system) - [『Fate Core System（フェイト・コア・システム）』解説 - note（日本語）](https://note.com/sibkin_astr_jf/n/n3e61e7d3085f) - [Fate Worlds: Worlds on Fire - DriveThruRPG](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/119383/fate-worlds-worlds-on-fire) - [Fate Worlds: Worlds in Shadow - DriveThruRPG](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/119384/fate-worlds-worlds-in-shadow) - [The Fate Codex Anthology, Year One - DriveThruRPG](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/149318/the-fate-codex-anthology-year-one)