A Fate universal skill variant
Fate & Providence (F&P) is a universal skill variant designed to fall between Fate Condensed skills and Fate Accelerated approaches. It is intended to respect Fate philosophy, be setting agnostic, flexible and symmetrical.
This manual will only cover the differences between F&P and Fate Condensed.
The basis of F&P is a list of 10 skills, which should cover all possible actions. Their starting scores are identical to Fate Condensed:
- one great/+4 skill
- two good/+3 skills
- three fair/+2 skills
- four average/+1 skills
- no mediocre/+0 skills
To decide if someone can use the skill rank in a certain context, it needs a narrative license check: does the described action match the user's aspects / stunts ? If so use the skill rank, if not use a score of mediocre/+0 instead.
If narrative license is partly applicable the skill rank may be used, but
- On overcome actions the difficulty should be increased (suggested +2)
- On opposed actions the opposition will get a boost, which can be compelled for free once. The boost can be negated by spending a fate point.
Narrative license can increase gameplay diversity in several ways:
- Background like aspects and stunt families define what your character does most of the time, skills define the approach they prefer doing it.
While a boxer and a lawyer with a great/+4 Force rank can be considered formidably combative, they won't stand a chance on the other's turf.
- Even though a character can use skill ranks in his chosen field, he won't be equally good in all aspects.
Scientists should do more than just roll Lore all the time: He can Enhance to teach his field, Control to debate theories, Notice to spot an anomaly. No rule-changing stunts necessary. He won't be able to do all just as well though, making for more interesting gameplay.
There is no direct relationship between stunts and skills in F&P like in Fate Condensed. This adds more flexibility in skill use, but demands stunts to have a defined narrative scope.
F&P uses Fate Core stunt families for this: every stunt must be part of a family. The stunt family grants narrative license, but cannot be invoked and does not grant bonusses.
Aspects can not be used as a skill family, since aspect loss or change would conflict with stunt development. Aspects are also encouraged to be combinations, while stunt families should be very broad but distinct entities. Stunt families can mirror distinct partial aspects.
Brian the Monster Slaying Accountant has narrative license to use his skill ranks when Monster Slaying or Accounting. When he wants to add a doctoring the books stunt to his repertoire, he needs to create an Accounting or Administration stunt family first.
Stunt families can have a point tracker to limit the use of specific skills belonging to the family. The description of these skills should include the point cost per use. The tracker should contain a description of the consequences when filled up, as well as how points can be replenished.
Broad stunts give a +1 bonus on actions within a specified scope that covers a sixth of the family scope at most. Broad skill bonuses do not stack with more specific bonus-granting skills or other broad stunts.
Rule changing stunts work mostly identical to Fate Condensed except for:
Narrative license and stunt families cover most of these cases, which means a bonus-granting skill or rule-changing swap skill would be more effective.
observe by power: spot / scan / empathize
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In passing notice the presence or superficial state of a target. Only roll when failure or success are equally interesting.
-
Notice covert
create an advantageactions.
observe by mastery: search / study / analyze
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Interact with a target or its situation to reveal information or an aspect.
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Interact with a target or its situation to reveal a structural or situational strength or weakness.
achieve by power: exert / know / charm
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Surmount an obstacle by applying force, without degrading its structure or situation.
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Enhance your situation by applying force without degrading another's structure or situation.
achieve by mastery: maneuver / reason / influence
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Surmount an obstacle by applying skill, without degrading its structure or situation.
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Enhance your situation by skill, without degrading another's structure or situation.
enhance by power: reinforce / source / rally
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Introduce an already existing target from supplies. Extra or lacking shifts influence price, quality or time.
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Enhance a target's structure or situation by applying supplies to it.
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Determines the amount of resource stress boxes by offset (default: 2) + resist skill
enhance by mastery: craft / plan / counsel
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Create a new or original target. Lacking time and components / conditions influence difficulty.
Restore the structure of / remove a condition on a target.
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Enhance target's structure or situation by skillfully modifying it.
impair by power: assault / cite / coerce
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Degrade the structure of a target by force.
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Degrade the situation of a target by force.
impair by mastery: aim / argue / deceive
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Degrade the structure of a target by skill.
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Degrade the situation of a target by skill. Can be done covertly.
uphold by power: block / focus / brave
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Defend against an action by withstanding its effects. If the effect is shifts of stress, a proxy (like a shield) is needed to absorb them.
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Determines the amount of personal stress boxes by offset (default: 2) + resist skill.
uphold by mastery: dodge / disprove / reject
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Defend against an action by evading its effects.
Every skill in the list has a mirror: one governed by power, one by mastery. If it is ambiguous which applies to a stated action (like a short sword attack), you can use the highest of the two.
Since skills are tied to specific types of actions, they might turn one roll skill checks in core Fates into consecutive ones / challenges in F&P. Use these as opportunities for narrative instead of extra busywork. If some become routine and lack tension, suggest either the player make it a bonus-granting +2 stunt tied to the higher skill, or offer the table to make it a free swap stunt only tied to the higher skill.
For teamwork to apply, both characters need to have narrative license to use a skill. If the narrative licenses of participants are in opposition (like a faith healer assisting a surgeon), the table decides.
Character creation and progression follow Fate Condensed like the rest of the rules except for the following:
A new character gets his first stunt family for free. Every extra stunt family needs to be bought: the second costs 2 refresh, the third and final costs 4.
There are two stress tracks: one for personal and one for resource stress, governed by a default (+2) with added resist and support skill ranks respectively, up to a maximum of 6.
Rewrite one stunt includes moving a stunt to another family.
A new action can be performed at a breakthrough:
- Rewrite a stunt family that does not contain any stunts, if you care to.
A simpler variant without Skill Families is this predecessor two-column variant of Fate Providence:
| Act | Origin |
|---|---|
| Observe | Brawn |
| Achieve | Grace |
| Enhance | Data |
| Impair | Logic |
| Uphold | Presence |
| Tact |
Each column gets assigned 4 3 2 1 0 0 ranks. Every action has an act and an origin component, and is restricted to the lowest of the two scores. When progressing ranks within a column, the maximum difference between adjacent ranks can be just one. Stunt families are not necessary.
Enhance is used for improving targets (power) or restoring targets or creating them from scratch (mastery). Yield is used for introducing new targets from reserves: extras, resources or contacts.
Some people found the above two column list too large, or taking the minimum of two scores contrary to the Fate mindset.
Splitting up the origin column into realm (material, conceptual, spiritual) and style (power, mastery) columns made it possible to abstract away most of the realm axis with the use of narrative license. This left only a reduced act column and style column cross-product for a total of 10 skills.
| Act | Power | Mastery |
|---|---|---|
| Observe | Notice | Inspect |
| Achieve | Apply | Handle |
| Enhance | Support | Create |
| Impair | Force | Control |
| Uphold | Resist | Evade |
The original table and axes can still be useful as categorization for scoping stunts. The canonical names for the original 36 skills are still in use as skill examples in the format act by style: material / conceptual / spiritual
| power | mastery | power | mastery | power | mastery | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| material | material | conceptual | conceptual | spiritual | spiritual | |
| Brawn | Grace | Data | Logic | Presence | Tact | |
| Observe | spot | search | scan | study | empathize | analyze |
| Achieve | exert | maneuver | know | reason | charm | influence |
| Enhance | reinforce | craft | imagine | design | rally | counsel |
| Impair | assault | target | cite | argue | coerce | deceive |
| Uphold | block | dodge | focus | rebut | brave | slight |
| Yield | provision | procure | source | infer | summon | appeal |
This work is developed, authored and edited by Menthalion, and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
This work is based on Fate Core System and Fate Accelerated Edition (found at http://www.faterpg.com/), products of Evil Hat Productions, LLC, developed, authored, and edited by Leonard Balsera, Brian Engard, Jeremy Keller, Ryan Macklin, Mike Olson, Clark Valentine, Amanda Valentine, Fred Hicks, and Rob Donoghue, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.