Introduction

Why We’re Here

Think of Fate as a machine, built to produce a specific outcome. Like many machines, Fate can be adjusted to produce other outcomes; it contains a system of dials, a network of rules that can be adjusted up, down, and to the sides to achieve the result you’re looking for. It’s robust, flexible, and—most importantly—hackable.

What does that mean, that it’s “hackable?” First, it means that you can change rules. This is true of any game—if you’re playing Monopoly, allowing players to collect money when they land on Free Parking would be a hack. It changes the nature of the game’s economy and makes the game a little more forgiving, so it’s a little harder to lose the game early due to lack of funds. Fate is like that—it can be altered. Do you want the GM to have more fate points? The players to have higher skills? Want to change the way aspects work? All of these things are possible with a little effort on your part.

The second part of being hackable is that Fate doesn’t resist your changes. In fact, it’s adaptable enough that it can take smaller changes in stride without anything breaking, and even major changes require only a few tweaks to other parts of the game. It’s not just that you can hack Fate, it’s that Fate is easy to hack—if you’re willing to do the work.

To get the feel you want, some changes may be necessary. Fate is a system of dials, and Fate Core presents default settings for all of those dials. Maybe those settings aren’t right for your game. Maybe you need to adjust some of those dials or even add new ones, but you’re not sure what changes to make, or what other parts of the system those changes might impact. Don’t worry—that’s why we’re here.

The Fate System Toolkit is about how to hack Fate, what happens when you do, and what you can do when you start monkeying with the way stuff works. If that sounds like your kind of thing, then this toolkit is for you.