Fate Condensed

by P.K. Sullivan, Lara Turner, Fred Hicks

The Essence of Fate

Fate Condensed is a compact, stand-alone version of the Fate Core System streamlined for clarity and ease of reference.

Fate Condensed gives you easy-to- digest rules in as few pages as possible, letting you get to the table and roll the dice, fast. It includes a few simple refinements to the Fate Core engine honed over a decade of active play and development. And best of all, it's 100% compatible with every one of our 90+ Fate products already published.

Fate veterans will appreciate the concise layout, minor refinements, and additions to Fate’s rules (see below for the details).

New to Fate? Fate Condensed can drive any game, any scenario you can imagine. Unleash your creativity! Fate's flexible rules make it easy.

You can adapt your favorite movie or tv series, or create an original world uniquely tailored to your group. Players populate that world with proactive, capable characters leading dramatic lives. The Game Master challenges them with crises tied both to the world and to their personal troubles.

Fate Condensed gives you the flexibility and power to bring your vision to life!

Refined. Streamlined.
Fate Condensed.

Genres: Role Playing Games, Gaming, Nonfiction

64 pages, ebook

Published January 1, 2020

Reviews

[Blair · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally, a book that explains Fate so that I can easily and quickly understand it. I recommend reading it with the SRD or Fate Core, so you can reference in-depth explanations or examples if you want them.

Great guide, good price. Get it.

[Oriol Foix · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un manual útil per a fer jocs de rol. El sistema és senzill i permet moltes modificacions. A partir d’ara toca fer més històries i treure’n tot el potencial!

[cauldronofevil · Rating 5 out of 5]

FATE Condensed is supposed to be distillation of FATE Core into it’s simplest expression. Which is what FATE Accelerated was supposed to be.

My personal view was that it was not. Hopefully, this version is the complete game, "condensed".

I’m looking at this game for two reasons: 1) I saw He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and thought it might be fun to run a game in that style and 2) Probably not coincidentally, Umdaar was just released and is very impressive. And is written for FATE.

FWIW, currently reading Starblazer Adventures has convinced me that it might be possible to run a game in FATE.

I’ve explored FATE before (and FUDGE, it’s predecessor) but have never played and have never met anyone who has played,

The inside flap of the book covers what is new, but if you are already familiar with FATE then you’ll see that these are not minor tweaks to the rules. I’ll assume they are improvements, but they do not seem insignificant.

"Define Your Setting" is two paragraphs. It mentions collaboratively creating your setting, but mentions other methods as well. Talking to people on-line they seem to think collaborative setting building is mandatory.

"Create Your Characters" is next and starts with Aspects. You have a High Concept, Trouble, Relationship, and two Free Aspects.

Your High Concept is ‘how you would open your pitch for the character when telling a friend about them.’ Do you really pitch a character to your friend?

Trouble is what most games would call a Disadvantage. There seems to be no potential for taking extra Troubles if you wish.

Relationship is strictly defined to be with other player characters. I can see this being either good or bad.

Free Aspects are anything else you want. I can see this being a long discussion without some kind of definitions set.

"Skills" puts us back on normal RPG ground. It is also the closest link between FATE and its predecessor FUDGE.

Choosing your skills rankings seems to be much more complicated than it needs to be. You choose one +4, two +3s, three +2s and four +1s. Every other skill is at +0.

"Th Adjective Ladder" is particularly large 13 ‘rungs’ from +8 to -4.

"Skill List" consists of only 19 named skills. They are all very broad. Academics includes history, science AND medicine.

With Contacts, Deceive, Empathy, Provoke and Rapport there is a very high percentage of non-combat skills. This is very good.

Resources is treated as a skill. I’d be interested to see how money works in practice.

There is absolutely no discussion of narrowing the scope of a skill. Presumably this is something that Stunts can/should do.

"Alternative Skill Lists" is a page suggesting ways to change customize the skill list.

"Refresh" is the number of FATE points you start each session with. 3 unless you saved some from the last session. If you spent some, you get up to 3 next session.

"Stunts" are special tricks, equipment or techniques. You start with 3. You can have up to two more if you reduce your Refresh (to a minimum of 1).

I can’t possibly see how that trade would be worth it, and seems like a rule that could be cut for simplicity.

"Writing Stunts" is a page I wish they had done for Aspects. It shows you how to write one in a ‘Mad-Libs’ manner.

"Stress and Consequences" deal with how you take damage and it has been greatly simplified from all previous versions. The number of consequences has also been drastically reduced as well. Only one mild, moderate and severe. I think this will make consequences more meaningful.

"Taking Action, Rolling the Dice" explains the basic die rolling mechanism for FATE dice.

"Invoking Aspects" has a very appreciated rule. On of the biggest issues for me in any game is if the rules are vague enough or illogical enough to have the game stop dead so everyone can argue about it. This rule greatly lessens that risk - especially with a game where so much is player defined.

What is and isn’t justified is subject to the BOGUS RULE—anyone can say "that’s bogus! To invoking an aspect. b>


It also points out something unusual. You can modify the results of a roll doesn’t achieve the result you want, you can modify it after the roll by spending a fate point.

"Outcomes" explains the results of die rolls: Fail, Tie, Succeed or Succeed with Style. Note that these simple results are expanded in later descriptions.

"Failure" gives Simple Failure, Success at a Major Cost or Take a Hit as possible failure results. Though it seems to indicate that Simple Failure still has repercussions, so it really seems as though Simple Failure is Failure And…or Failure at a Cost. Take A Hit means suffering either Stress or Consequences. A fail with Create Advantage means you either fail to create the advantage or that it is created and the enemy gets a free Invoke on whatever aspect was created.

"Tie" also had two different variations. Success at a Minor Cost and Partial Success. Also a Boost for Overcome and Create Advantage rolls. Though it count’s a "few points of stress" as a Minor Cost which is odd, because on average you only have three points of stress.

Actions discusses the four dice rolls you make it FATE: Overcome, Creating an Advantage, Attack, and Defend. Overcome adds Boost to a Tie and a Succeed with Style. Create Advantage means creating an Aspect with a free Invoke and two free Invokes with Succeed with Style.

"Create an Advantage" explains this as though it really meant Create Aspect.

It also makes the peculiar distinction between using Create Advantage on an existing or unknown aspect.

"Attack" describes how to take out an opponent.

"Defend" is the only reactive action in FATE.

"Aspects and Fate Points" describes what Aspects are.

"Character Aspects"

Even the examples are suspect. Obviously "Leader of My Band of Survivors" is way more powerful, flexible and interesting than "I must protect my brother". Are we supposed to not notice that because it’s all about the roleplaying? Or figure that these are only NPC Aspects so they are bound to vary? Or just feel sorry for the sucker who chose protecting his brother over being actually useful in the game?!

"Situational Aspects" seem suspiciously like what other games refer to as Conditions. No one marks a ‘Bright Sunlight’ condition because the setting makes it obvious. ‘Crowd of Angry People’ doesn’t really seem like it should be an Aspect at all because it’s either the situation or not.

Again, the examples don’t explain why these are treated as equivalent but obviously not.

"Consequences" are a little more straight-forward but since none of them have any mechanical effect (unless you already understand Invokes and Compels) it’s a little too compact to be useful.

"Boost" really feel like what most RPGs call Modifiers. Either positive or negative.

"Invokes" describes one of the two major uses of Aspects.

What is the point of a Hostile Invocation?

Why complicate it with paying the enemy a FATE point rather than just paying a FATE point as usual?

What makes the game more fun by making the distinction between who the Aspect came from?

"Compels" explains the other use for Aspects.

It also notes that for more ideas about what does and does not work as a Compel, see the Core rulebook or the on-line rulebook, which seems like a cop-out to me!

"Challengers, Conflicts, and Contests" describes different resolutions types.

"Setting Up Scenes" describes what is essential for the GM to create, starting with Zones, the different areas marked on a map.

"Situation Aspects" is a page devoted to Aspects that may be part of a scene. Strangely it seems that the Invokes of those Aspects may optionally be free.

"Turn Order" seems to be a major change to what is usually called "Initiative". I’ve heard of this kind of initiative before however and it does seem to encourage more coordination between players and less sitting around and waiting for your turn!

It has an internet link to find out more information about the technique, but it is of course gone now.

"Teamwork" discusses the ways that multiple team members can contribute to a success. Challenges discusses another method.

"Contests" discusses opposition where there is not likely to be harm exchanged.

"Conflicts" describes combat, but also any non-violent or other type of conflict. Taking Harm describes damage.

"Stress" explains the use of the Physical and Mental Stress boxes used to keep track of harm. Consequences are ways to absorb harm that do not remove Stress boxes.

"Conceding" is explained next. It is sort of a ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card for when you are about to die horribly.

"Ending a Conflict" and Recovering From Conflicts is next. It states that Stress is instantly healed if you survive, but consequences take longer to heal. It states that after a successful roll to heal a Consequence you can change the Aspect. For example:

"A Broken Arm may be rewritten as Arm in a Cast, for instance."

But really, what the hell is the difference between Broken Arm and Arm in a Cast? How can you Invoke or Compel in any way different from both. I suppose you sign a cast but not a broken arm but should you get a Fate point for that? In cases like this I don’t think even the authors have figured it all out yet.

"Advancement" is next. They call it Milestones but it’s really ‘We stopped the game tonight’. The end of a session at which point you can switch the ranks of two skills, rewrite one stunt, and rewrite any aspect except your High Concept. Breakthroughs are "If the GM feels a major plot development has concluded and it’s time for the characters to ‘power up,’…." Which allows them to make even more changes.

This seems really arbitrary and random to me. It also seems like being able to practically rewrite your character every session will lead to chaos pretty quickly. Especially when even the ‘High Concept’ can be subject to interpretation.

"Improving Skill Ratings" explains that if you improve skills, you must always make sure every skill increase may not have more skills than the step below it.

This is another ridiculously fiddly bit. If you find that you don’t use a skill as much as you thought you would, but you use another all the time, you can’t improve the skills you actually use in the game?!

Let’s face it, if you improve all your +3’s to be +4, so what? Next time you’ll have +2’s and +1’s to improve. It seems like it will all come out in the wash.

"Sessions and Arcs" explains the assumptions on Milestones and Advancement and encourages you to change if they don’t match how you play or the speed you want advancement to occur at.

You know, all those things Experience Points made so much easier to manage.

"Being the Gamemaster" is pretty straight-forward GMing advice.

"Setting Difficulty and Opposition" is fairly reasonable, but there is one sentence that gives me pause.

"Darkness is darkness regardless of whether or not you decided to make it an aspect on the scene."

This seems to indicate a weird relationship between things written down as ‘Aspects’ and things that are logically already existing Aspects. How does this work?

NPCs is a page on Major NPCs, Minor NPCs, and Monsters.

"Your Fate Points" explains how many Fate points the GM has and how they can use them.

"Safety Tools" is the standard suggestion of using internet ideas for not offending any snowflake players.

"OPTIONAL RULES" is a surprising addition, but I’m glad to see it.

"Conditions" describes substituting Conditions for Consequences - something I suggested doing on-line yesterday! I’m glad to see this here!

"Changing the Skill List" is a page on alternative ways to change the skill list.

"Alternatives to the pyramid" includes another suggestion I made on-line - simply giving the players a number of skill points and letting have whatever levels they can afford. A few skills very high level, a moderate amount at moderate levels or a lot of skills at low levels.

"Character Creation As You Play" talks about choosing your abilities as you play.

"Countdowns" talks about creating non-Stress boxes the add tension.

"Extreme Consequences" adds an optional forth consequence that reduces the stress taken by 8. But has a huge cost.

"Faster Contents" adds optional rules for making contests faster.

"Full Defense" adds +2 to defense rolls and a boost on your next turn in exchange for doing nothing but defending yourself.

"Obstacles" describe non-combat enemies. Hazards can attack PCs.

"Blocks" are another abstraction and can attack, but usually provide passive opposition - the don’t come after you unless you come after them.

"Distractions" are either/or decision points. After that are a list of examples but there are only 2 each of Hazards, Blocks, and Distractions. They’re generally enough however.

"Scale" is a very interesting optional rule which deals with beings of much greater power than most player characters. The example they give is Mundane, Supernatural, Otherworldly, Legendary, and Godlike. This gives simple bonuses for interactions at different levels, but can still seem very useful.

"Time Shifts" are a clever way to measure how long something takes by the number of ‘shifts’ rolled.

"Ways to Break the rules for Big Bads" is advice for ways to handle opponents that are worthy of the whole group.

"Ways to Handle Multiple Targets" suggests methods for making one attack hit multiple targets, using the Effort concept (your total role results).

"Weapon and Armor Ratings" gives ideas on making weapons and armor distinctive (as opposed to ignoring them completely!).

"What Version is This?" talks about the evolution of FATE - and I warn you this is important because while all FATE is similar, not every FATE is the same!

Well, that’s FATE Condensed and overall I am impressed with it. I’ve looked at FUDGE (and even reviewed it) and while I’ve always liked, I’ve always come to the conclusion that it was a ‘build-your-own-RPG’ kit rather than a complete game.

The problem there is I can already build my own RPG if I wanted to. And I don’t.

FATE is not exactly that. It’s a much better foundation for building your own RPG.

But as such I think it still needs some things added to it for the flavor of whatever you want to get out of it. This I can do and am interested in doing. If you are, I think you’ll like this game, and the investment of $8 is little enough to make it worth a try.

5***** (for presenting itself in the best way, not neccessarily a perfect game)

[Jaye Card · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clears up a lot of the things that got too glossed over in Core, but I figure it will still be difficult to get a game running smoothly with only these rules if you GM Fate for the first time. This is partly due to the flexible nature of Fate, and the difficulty of stuff like making good compels (not that anyone agrees on the matter either), but the explanations are solid and it's an overall upgrade. I'd recommend this in combination with Fate Core and someplace online where you can ask for advice if need be if you're a GM. If you're a player, this is perfectly sufficient and will give you a solid idea of how the game works too.

If you want to use this in place of Fate Core for a Fate supplement, the conversion is usually very easy. Note that hitboxes are different in this version, that will likely be the most glaring difference.

[Justin Beeh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a reboot of the original Fate Core, and Fate Accelerated Edition. It is a nice blending of the two systems and felt like it held the spirit of the game in place while boiling it down to the best parts of the both. Little changes made the game more accessible to new players removing some confusion when involving health/damage.

I would of likes to see more examples of aspects and stunts, yet the formula for those are included and ought to suffice to help build your own game worlds and settings.

[寿理 宮本 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually have a physical copy; I don't want to go through the effort to add a Goodreads entry for the physical edition, though. Sorry (not sorry).

This looks like an interesting tabletop RPG, but unfortunately I can't gauge by myself how well it plays—I don't have the "Fate" dice/"Deck of Fate" cards, nor players to play with.* I do like the structure and the artwork. This genuinely seems well-thought-out, and I wish I could try it in earnest.

*I realise there are online forums for exactly this, but my sister-in-law, who regularly serves as Game Master for various parties, expressed a lot of disgust at constantly being bailed on/dealing with bad players she didn't even know ("randos"). Also, I would want to play with my friends, and getting together with enough of them is hard enough to do without spending most of our time learning a new game none of us even know when we've already spent LITERAL YEARS just trying to finish Pandemic Legacy.

[Jon Thysell · Rating 4 out of 5]

More of an abbreviated "for FATE experts" version of the game. I don't think you'd get very far with this one book if no one (esp. the GM) had any FATE experience. But I definitely see how one could use this as the basis for a more fleshed out, focused game.

[Joac Castro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mejor que Core, aún siendo un destilado de él. Direcciona mucho mejor las reglas, las explica y resume: ¡Vale la pena revisar!

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

great system but i still dont have it all figured out yet.

[Patrik Gustafsson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like this version of Fate even more.