About The Fate Codex

by Mark Diaz Truman

In many ways, the first volume of The Fate Codex was a crazy experiment. Would people want to read short pieces about Fate systems, new settings, and game theory? Would we be able to find writers and developers who would provide innovative and interesting ideas on a mostly-monthly schedule? Would we be able to produce all this work at a level that would let it stand next to Fate Core System, Fate System Toolkit, and everything else Evil Hat puts out?

As we start Volume 2, I’m still blown away by the answers to those questions; even in my wildest dreams I didn’t think we would be able to put out over 350 pages of awesome Fate content last year. We’ve been able to work with over two dozen unique contributors, writing about everything from lesbian noir to professional wrestling to zombie relationship mechanics to bringing culture to Fate in interesting ways. Undoubtedly, The Fate Codex has been some of the best work we’ve done here at Magpie Games.

As I look over our plans for the rest of 2015, I’m excited to see The Fate Codex grow and mature. We’ve become a place where Fate developers and writers—new and old—come to strut their stuff, and where new Fate ideas start to percolate up into the next generation of Fate designs. Right now we’re working with Randy at the Fate SRD to get our first wave of content up there for public access, and we plan on pushing the envelope even further in 2015 with new content.

That starts this month with Heather Beauregard’s piece updating the Dresden Files RPG to the Atomic Robo era, but it continues with new ideas for using the Deck of Fate, a new Quick Start from Brendan Conway that features crossover with our Dungeon World project, The Last Days of Anglekite, and Jacob Possin’s awesome tips on running short games of Fate. We hope you find the start of Volume 2 to be as interesting and useful as we find it.

Overall, the future of The Fate Codex is incredibly bright. I’m excited to serve as Editor in Chief for each and every issue, and I can’t wait to see what our contributors come up with next. Thank you for helping to make this work possible, and thank you for continuing to read, discuss, debate, and play with the contributions we publish.

Editor in Chief
Mark Diaz Truman