The Basics

Welcome to Fate!

If you’ve never played a roleplaying game before, here’s the basic idea: you and a bunch of friends get together to tell an interactive story about a group of characters you make up. You get to say what challenges and obstacles those characters face, how they respond, what they say and do, and what happens to them.

It’s not all just conversation, though—sometimes you’ll use dice and the rules in this Web site to bring uncertainty into the story and make things more exciting.

Fate doesn’t come with a default setting, but it works best with any premise where the characters are proactive, capable people leading dramatic lives. There is more advice on that under Game Creation.

New To Fate

If you’re a new player, all you really need to know is in this chapter and on your character sheet—the GM will help you figure out the rest.

If you’re a new GM, this is just the tip of the iceberg for you. You should read and get familiar with the whole core rules.

For Veterans

You might be reading this because you’re familiar with Fate from our other games, Spirit of the Century and The Dresden Files Roleplaying Game. Several other popular RPGs, like Galileo Games’ Bulldogs! and Cubicle 7’s Legends of Anglerre, also use the Fate system.

This is a new version of Fate, which was developed to update and streamline the system. You’ll recognize some of what’s in here, but some rules have changed as have some terminology. You can find a guide to all the changes that have been made.

*[GM]: Game Master