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 Strands of Fate features:

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Where did Strands of Fate come from?

Strands was born out of a desire to use the FATE game system to run games of different genres. Before Strands, if you wanted to use FATE, you had to get Spirit of the Century, Starblazer or Diaspora; strip it (them) down and tweak it (them) to fit the game you wanted to run. If you wanted a detailed and robust system for supernatural powers, cybernetics etc, you had to piece it together yourself. You may have also had to come up with your own weapons and equipment, and a dozen other things. It was a lot of work.

What was needed was a book that seperated the core rules of FATE from the setting and revised them to more effectivly function as a universal toolkit. The end goal was to create a FATE core rulebook for any and all genres, allowing GMs to run any kind of FATE powered game with minimal prep time.

If you want to play a fantasy game with elves and dwarves, this book will give you what you need. If you want to play psychic special forces soldiers infiltrating the caves of Afghanistan, you got it. If you want to play super heroes in a far future dystopia, battling against the horrific forces of the elder gods, Strands of Fate provides everything you need for that too.

How is Strands of Fate different from Spirit of the Century?

FATE has evolved a lot since its first “3.0” incarnation in Spirit of the Century (SotC), and even more with Starblazer Adventures and Diaspora and the Dresden Files RPG. And with Strands of Fate, it has evolved again.

Below you will find a quick overview of how Strands of Fate differs from the version of FATE found in Spirit of the Century, the father of modern FATE games.

No Adjective Ladder/Fewer Confusing Terms

Spirit of the Century attributed an adjective to different numerical values. For instance, 0 was “Mediocre”, 1 was “Average”, etc. However, the terms “Average”, “Fair”, “Good”, really didn’t seem to mean much, and in some ways were a bit of a barrier for new players who felt they had to memorize the adjectives to “get” FATE, and they really didn’t. In Strands of Fate, these adjectives have been removed for simplicity. 

Things are still given ratings in much the same way, but we have dispensed with the adjectives for numeric values. If a rating is "1", we call it "1".

We also removed some other FATE terms we felt we unneeded, such as "shifts", "tag" and "effort". We felt the addition of these new terms to the common role-playing lexicon was unneeded, and often just made it more difficult for new FATE players to grasp the game.

Skills = Abilities + Aspects + Advantages

Spirit of the Century defines characters with a number of Skills such as “Guns” and “Drive”. These Skills represent a mixture of natural ability and training.

In Strands of Fate, we’ve replaced Skills with a combination of Abilities, Aspects and Advantages. Abilities serve the same mechanical function Skills do in SotC and other FATE games, but cover much broader ground. The Abilities you find listed are equally important in a fantasy, modern, or sci-fi setting. However, being good at a specific use of an Ability, such as sowrd fighting, carpentry, or computer hacking is modelled by taking Advantages and Specialty Aspects that make sense for the setting.

You’ll also note that Strands of Fate characters tend to have lower Ability ratings than SotC characters have in Skills. This is because of the sheer number of specific fields an Ability covers. The difference is made up with Advantages and Specialty Aspects. For example, a brain surgeon may only have a Knowledge of 3, but have the “Doctorate: Surgery” Advantage and the Specialty Aspect The Hospital’s Best Brain Surgeon.

Character Aspects and Specialty Aspects

Unlike other FATE games, Strands of Fate breaks a character’s Aspects down into two separate categories; Character and Specialty Aspects. Character Aspects tell you who a character is, where he is from, and what his place in the world is. Specialty Aspects are more focused; telling you in greater detail what a character is especially good (or bad) at, or they define certain types of relationships with other people. places or things.

Persistent Aspects

Strands has evolved the concept of the persistent Aspect to cover things like extreme darkness and taking cover in a firefight; things that greatly impact the situation to such an extent that they are considered “always on”. You don't have to pay a Fate Point every time you want it to matter that you are in a "Pitch Black" room, or are "Behind Cover".

Stunts = Advantages

Advantages similar to Stunts from SotC, and come in three tiers.

• Tier 1 (Expert Advantages) - These Advantages represent special training, and generally just offer a flat bonus to dice rolls in certain situations. Strands of Fate provides the guidelines for creating your own and offers about 40 samples. Players can either pick a few they like, or use them and the provided guidelines as inspiration to create their own. In a more down-to earth style game, these are all you need.

• Tier 2 (Heroic Advantages) - Indiana Jones, John McLane, Rambo... these are some of the guys that might have some Heroic Advantages. Heroic Advantages are more powerful than Expert Advantages, and usually require a Fate Point to activate. Strands provides about 45 sample Heroic Advantages for the budding action hero.

• Tier 3 (Power Advantages, or just “Powers”) - The most powerful and complex Advantages. Powers covers a very broad range on "unnatural" powers, such as ritual magic, teleportation, cybernetics, clairvoyance, gravity control, magic fireballs, shapeshifting, etc. In all, Strands offers around 90 fully fleshed out Powers that, right out of the box, provides you with a fully functioning system for building and playing wizards, psychics, mutants, aliens, fantastic creatures and cybernetic warriors. 

Stress Tracks, Conflicts and Consequences

The system breaks down into a Physical, Mental, and Social conflicts; each with a corresponding stress track. Physical handles actual wounds. Mental handles emotional stress, psychological damage, and fear. Social handles reputation, social and legal status.

Strands also offers a system and advice for creating new stress tracks to handle any form of expendable resource. Wealth and Mana stress tracks are provided as examples.

The actual application of stress is very different from the system used in SotC, though optional systems are provided. And since the rest of the system is agnostic toward which stress system you use, included so you can use the one you prefer. You can even use different types of stress sytems with different stress tracks if you want.

Equipment

Strands of Fate features a far more in depth look at equipment, weapons and armor than SotC provides. In addition to modifying relevant dice rolls, equipment may also grant Aspects that your character has as long as he has the item. For example, a dagger has the "Small" Aspect, which might be invoked as a bonus to hit while grappling or hide the weapon on your body, but your enemies may compel that Aspect if you are using it to defend against heavier weapons like a war hammer.

That said, this additional level of detail regarding equipment is optional. Advice for more simplified weapons, armor and equipment is included.

What else?

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