Fate System Toolkit

Gadgets and Gear

Equipment in Fate Core can be as simple as an aspect, like Magnetic Grapnel Gun, or a stunt, like “Magnetic Grapnel Gun: +2 to overcome with Athletics by climbing or swinging when there’s a metal anchor around.” But for a little more depth, you can combine those into a single extra as a gadget.

Functions and Flaws

Gadgets come with two aspects for free—a function aspect and a flaw aspect. The function tells you the gadget’s purpose, and the flaw tells you what’s wrong with it. You can think of its function as its high concept and its flaw as its trouble or a consequence that never goes away. These do not take up any of your character’s personal aspects.

Magnetic Grapnel Gun


Function: High-Powered Electromagnetic Swingline
Flaw: Still Working Out the Bugs

Stunts

Give the gadget one or more stunts to reflect the reliable mechanical advantages it confers on its user. These stunts cost one refresh apiece.

Magnetic Grapnel Gun

Aspects

Function: High-Powered Electromagnetic Swingline
Flaw: Still Working Out the Bugs

Stunts

CLANG!: Spend a fate point to secure the magnetic grapnel to a metallic object in a dramatic way, grabbing a swiftly moving vehicle, a falling pulse rifle, or the wall on the other side of a yawning chasm in an oddly built space station.

Trick Shots: +2 to create an advantage with Shoot when you use the grapnel gun to swing around, disarm an opponent, or create a barrier.

Cost: 2 refresh

Gadgets don’t have to be literal “gadgets,” either. For example, you can just as easily use these rules to create magic items in a fantasy setting.

The Ring of Truth

Aspects

Function: Magical Lie Detector
Flaw: Wearer Is Cursed to Tell the Truth

Stunts

Pierce the Veil of Lies: Spend a fate point. Three times during the scene, you can ask the GM if someone is lying, and she must answer you truthfully.

Cost: 1 refresh

Additional Flaws

You can take additional flaws to reduce a gadget’s refresh cost, at a rate of one refresh per additional flaw. The minimum cost for a gadget with any stunts is 1 refresh, regardless of how many flaws it has.

GMs, it can’t be some weaksauce flaw, either, like Kinda Glitchy on the Ocean Floor. And if you do let something like that slip by, make sure the player knows they can expect to spend a surprising amount of time underwater. Deep, deep underwater.

An additional flaw for the Magnetic Grapnel Gun might be Heavy and Unwieldy.

The Ring of Truth could have an additional flaw of Hunted by the Servants of Ssask, God of Lies.