Fate RPG Essentials: Fiction-First Gaming in 10 Minutes
Fate has been rattling around my head lately. It’s so different from what I usually run, but something about it keeps pulling me back. Let me break down what makes it tick.
Fiction First, Mechanics Second
Most RPGs have mechanics that structure challenges, and story emerges from that. Fate flips it. The mechanics exist specifically to create story. Everything serves narrative.
Players don’t just create characters - they help build the world. During play, they can inject things into the setting. For some GMs that’s terrifying. For me? That’s exciting.
Aspects Are Everything
An aspect is a descriptive truth. They apply to characters, scenes, locations - anything. And they’re the engine that drives everything.
Your character might have the aspect “Sun Caller of the Andel Desert.” That single phrase creates:
- A place (the Andel Desert)
- A role (Sun Caller - clearly unusual, probably magical)
- Potential enemies (who hates Sun Callers?)
- A skill set you can invoke
Aspects work for and against you. “Cast Now, Ask Questions Later” gives you power when you need quick action. But the GM can compel it at the worst possible moment - and you get a Fate Point for accepting the complication.
The Fate Point Economy
This metacurrency is brilliant. Spend Fate Points to invoke aspects and boost your rolls. Earn them by accepting compels that make your life harder.
Drive your character like a stolen car. You’re not here to protect them - you’re here to tell cool stories.
Ridiculously Flexible
No classes. No setting baked in. You can run literally anything:
- Space opera
- Urban fantasy
- Western
- Superhero
- Whatever you can imagine
The character sheet stays the same. You just create different aspects.
You can get everything for free. Fate Core, Fate Condensed, Fate Accelerated - all available as PDFs. I printed mine as booklets because of course I did.
The Dice
Four Fudge dice - d6s with two plus sides, two minus sides, two blanks. Roll them, add them up, add your skill or approach. Meet or beat a target number.
Fate Accelerated simplifies further: instead of skills, you have approaches (Careful, Clever, Flashy, Forceful, Quick, Sneaky). Same idea, faster character creation.
Combat and Consequences
Take too much stress and you start taking consequences - aspects like “Broken Leg” that enemies can invoke against you. Your broken leg becomes a narrative target until it heals.
This creates a loop: damage becomes story becomes more tension becomes more story.
What’s Got Me Hooked
I’m putting together a game using The Aether Sea - basically Spelljammer meets Firefly. That pitch alone should tell you everything about the kind of stories Fate enables.
Also picked up Fate of Cthulhu for my birthday. Evil Hat Productions (who also made Blades in the Dark) keep putting out gorgeous, well-designed games.
Bottom Line
Fate isn’t for every table. If you want tactical combat with precise positioning and resource management, look elsewhere. But if you want collaborative storytelling where the mechanics fade into the background and narrative drives everything? This is it.
And it’s free. No excuse not to try it.
Get it. Fate Core