CHEAT SHEET

The Ladder (p. 9) Skill Roll (p. 130)

+8 Legendary Roll four Fate dice and add to skill rating. Compare to
opposition. For each step on the ladder greater than your
+7 Epic opposition, you earn a shift.
+6 Fantastic
Opposition Types (p. 131)
+5 Superb
Active: another character rolls against you
+4 Great
Passive: a static rating on the ladder
+3 Good
+2 Fair Four Outcomes (p. 132)
+1 Average Fail: fail your action or succeed at major cost

+0 Mediocre Tie (0 shifts): succeed at minor cost

Succeed (12 shifts): succeed with no cost
1 Poor
Succeed with style (3+ shifts): succeed with addi-
2 Terrible
tional benefit
Game Time (p. 194)
Four Actions (p. 134)
Exchange: time for every-
one to get a turn o Overcome: get past an obstacle
Scene: time to resolve a
situation c Create an Advantage: invoke an aspect for free
Session: a single sitting
Scenario: an episode
a Attack: harm another character
Arc: a season d Defend: prevent attacks or advantages on you
Campaign: the entire game
in a particular setting Mitigating damage (p. 160)
Fill in one stress box greater than or equal to the value of an
attack, take one or more consequence, or fill in one stress
box and take consequencesif you cant do one of these
three things, youre taken out.

Consequences (p. 162)

Mild: 2 to attack value
Moderate: 4 to attack value
Severe: 6 to attack value
Extreme: 8 to attack and permanent character aspect
Recovery (p. 164)
Mild: overcome Fair (+2), one whole scene
Moderate: overcome Great (+4), one whole session
Severe: overcome Fantastic (+6), one whole scenario
Aspect Types (p. 57) Challenges (p. 147)
Game aspects: permanent, made Each obstacle or goal that requires a
during game creation different skill gets an overcome roll.
Character aspects: permanent, made Interpret failure, costs, and success of
during character creation each roll together to determine final
Situation aspects: last for a scene, outcome.
until overcome, or until irrelevant
Boosts: last until invoked one time Contests (p. 150)
Contesting characters roll appropriate
Consequences: last until recovered skills.
If you got the highest result, you score
Invoking Aspects (p. 68) a victory.
Spend a fate point or free invoke. Choose one: If you succeed with style and no one
+2 to your skill roll else does, then you get two victories.
Reroll all your dice If theres a tie for the highest result, no
Teamwork: +2 to another characters one gets a victory, and an unexpected
roll versus relevant passive opposition twist occurs.

Obstacle: +2 to the passive opposition The first participant to achieve three

victories wins the contest.
Free invokes stack with a paid one and each
other. Conflicts (p. 154)
Set the scene, describing the environ-
Compelling Aspects (p. 71) ment the conflict takes place in, cre-
Accept a complication for a fate point. ating situation aspects and zones, and
Event-based: You have ____ aspect establishing whos participating and
and are in ____ situation, so it makes what side theyre on.
sense that, unfortunately, ____ would
Determine the turn order.
happen to you. Damn your luck.
Start the first exchange:
Decision-based: You have ____ aspect
in ____ situation, so it makes sense On your turn, take an action and
that youd decide to ____. This goes then resolve it.
wrong when ____ happens. On other peoples turns, defend
or respond to their actions as
Refresh (p. 80) necessary.
At the start of a new session, you reset your At the end of everyones turn,
fate points to your refresh rate. If you ended start again with a new exchange.
the last session with more points, you keep
the extra. At the end of a scenario, you reset Conflict is over when everyone on one
to your refresh rate no matter what. side has conceded or been taken out.

Earning Fate Points (p. 81)

Spending Fate Points (p. 80) Earn fate points when you:
Spend fate points to:
Accept a compel
Invoke an aspect
Have your aspects invoked against
Power a stunt you
Refuse a compel Concede a conflict
Declare a story detail
 VETERANS GUIDE
This is a new version of Fate, which we developed to update and streamline the
system. Heres a guide to the major changes to the system from previous versions like
Spirit of the Century and The Dresden Files Roleplaying Game.

Game and Character Creation

Game creation is a variant of Dresdens city creation, but very pared down. At
minimum, you only make two aspects called issues to define your game, with the
option to drill down if you want to add aspects to faces and locations.
There are fewer aspects in this edition than other Fate games. We cut down the
number of phases to threea significant adventure, and two guest appearances.
We found that its easier to come up with five good aspects than seven or ten.
And because there are game aspects and you can make situation aspects, you
shouldnt be short of things to invoke or compel!
If your game is going to use a lot of extras, or you have specific elements in your
game that you want every character to describe with aspects (such as species
or nationality), you can raise the number of aspect slots. We dont recommend
going higher than seven character aspectsafter that, weve noticed that many
of them dont tend to pull their weight in play.
If youve played The Dresden Files RPG, you know that we use skill columns for
that instead of the pyramid. In this build of Fate, we wanted character creation
to be as quick and accessible as possible, so we went with a Great (+4) pyramid
as standard. If you want to use the columns, go aheadyou get 20 skill points.
The skill column didnt completely go away. Its just reserved for advancement
(p. 258).
3 refresh, and 3 free stunts. Stress boxes work exactly like The Dresden Files RPG.

Aspects
In other Fate games, free invocations were called tagging. We thought this was
one bit of jargon too many. You can still call it that if you wantwhatever helps
you and your table understand the rule.
You might have seen player-driven compels referred to as invoking for effect.
We thought it was clearer to just call it a compel, no matter who initiates it.
Free invocations now stack with a regular one or stack together with other free
invocations on the same aspect. Further, an aspect can hold more than one free
invoke at a time.
Invoking an aspect attached to another character gives them a fate point at the
end of the scene.
Compels are subdivided into two specific types: decisions and events. This isnt
a change in how compels work, so much as a clarification, but its worth noting.
Scene aspects have been renamed to situation aspects, to clear up some confusion
over how flexibly they can be applied.
Actions and Stuff
The list of actions has been greatly reduced from previous Fate games down to
four: overcome, create an advantage, attack, and defend. Movement is now a
function of the overcome action, create an advantage subsumes assess/declare/
maneuver from previous games under one banner, and blocks can be handled a
number of different ways.
The game is no longer based on a binary pass/fail. Now there are four outcomes:
fail or succeed at cost, tie (succeed at minor cost), succeed, and succeed with
style. Each outcome now has a mechanical or story-driven effect, based on what
action its attached to. Succeeding with style is basically taking spin from previ-
ous versions of Fate and applying it across the board.
Challenges and contests have been greatly simplified and redesigned.
Zone borders have been replaced by the use of situation aspects to determine if
its even worth rolling for movement. Moving one zone with an action is always
free if theres nothing in the way.
On that note, supplemental actions and skill modifiers are completely removed
from the system. Either something is interesting enough to roll for, or it isnt.
Teaming up is greatly simplified from previous gameseveryone who has at
least an Average (+1) at the same skill adds +1 to the person with the highest
skill level.

Scenario Creation
The advice is way better.

Extras
These exist. Whereas each previous Fate game had a specific way of dealing with
powers and gadgets and stuff, now there are a variety of options for you to choose
from (as befits the toolkit nature of the system).