CHEAT SHEET

The Ladder (p. 9)

+8

Legendary

+7

Epic

+6

Fantastic

+5

Superb

+4

Great

+3

Good

+2

Fair

+1

Average

+0

Mediocre

Poor

Terrible

Game Time

Skill Roll (p. 130)

Roll four Fate dice and add to skill rating. Compare to

opposition. For each step on the ladder greater than your
opposition, you earn a shift.

Opposition Types (p. 131)

Active: another character rolls against you
Passive: a static rating on the ladder

Four Outcomes (p. 132)

(p. 194)

Exchange: time for everyone to get a turn

Scene: time to resolve a
situation
Session: a single sitting
Scenario: an episode
Arc: a season
Campaign: the entire game
in a particular setting

Fail: fail your action or succeed at major cost

Tie (0 shifts): succeed at minor cost
Succeed (12 shifts): succeed with no cost
Succeed with style (3+ shifts): succeed with additional benefit

Four Actions (p. 134)

o Overcome: get past an obstacle

c Create an Advantage: invoke an aspect for free
a Attack: harm another character
d Defend: prevent attacks or advantages on you

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

during game creation

Each obstacle or goal that requires a

different skill gets an overcome roll.

Character aspects: permanent, made

during character creation

Interpret failure, costs, and success of

each roll together to determine final
outcome.

Situation aspects: last for a scene,

until overcome, or until irrelevant
Boosts: last until invoked one time
Consequences: last until recovered

Invoking Aspects (p. 68)

Spend a fate point or free invoke. Choose one:

+2 to your skill roll
Reroll all your dice
Teamwork: +2 to another characters
roll versus relevant passive opposition
Obstacle: +2 to the passive opposition
Free invokes stack with a paid one and each
other.

Compelling Aspects (p. 71)

Accept a complication for a fate point.

Event-based: You have ____ aspect
and are in ____ situation, so it makes
sense that, unfortunately, ____ would
happen to you. Damn your luck.
Decision-based: You have ____ aspect
in ____ situation, so it makes sense
that youd decide to ____. This goes
wrong when ____ happens.

Refresh (p. 80)

At the start of a new session, you reset your
fate points to your refresh rate. If you ended
the last session with more points, you keep
the extra. At the end of a scenario, you reset
to your refresh rate no matter what.

Spending Fate Points (p. 80)

Spend fate points to:
Invoke an aspect
Power a stunt
Refuse a compel
Declare a story detail

Contests (p. 150)

Contesting characters roll appropriate
skills.
If you got the highest result, you score
a victory.
If you succeed with style and no one
else does, then you get two victories.
If theres a tie for the highest result, no
one gets a victory, and an unexpected
twist occurs.
The first participant to achieve three
victories wins the contest.

Conflicts (p. 154)

Set the scene, describing the environment the conflict takes place in, creating situation aspects and zones, and
establishing whos participating and
what side theyre on.
Determine the turn order.
Start the first exchange:
On your turn, take an action and
then resolve it.
On other peoples turns, defend
or respond to their actions as
necessary.
At the end of everyones turn,
start again with a new exchange.
Conflict is over when everyone on one
side has conceded or been taken out.

Earning Fate Points (p. 81)

Earn fate points when you:
Accept a compel

Have your aspects invoked against

you
Concede a conflict

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 previous 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).