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FateLess RPG
FateLess RPG
FateLess
For we have no Master, and we make our own Fate!
Ashcan Edition 2016.06.26
This version counts 63 pages in A5 format with no pictures but
spacious (and hopefully clear) formatting.
This game by Alessandro Piroddi is licensed under a
Creative Commons
AttributionShareAlike 4.0 International License
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00 Introduction 03 Action Phase
What You Should Expect Living World subphase
What You Need to Play Scenes & Framing
FOCUS + Learn this game FAST FOCUS + Don’t Describe!
Fundamental Concepts FOCUS + The Awkward Silence
Reading the Dice FOCUS + In Between
The Ladder Playing a Scene
Fate Points Play Your Character
Aspects Flesh out the Scene
Quoth the Die
01 Ritual Communication Damn Your Luck
Perspective is Everything Aspects Explained
The Rituals of Speaking Invoke
FOCUS + Getting Along Compel
Pause Taking Action
Veto The Test
Disagreement 1) Clarify Situation
2) Clarify Type
02 SetUp Phase 3) Set Difficulty
World Pitch 4) Choose a Skill
Issue Creation 5) Roll the Dice
Character Creation 6) Check for Opposition
High Concept 7) Modify the Roll
Meeting a Stranger 8) Outcome
Trouble 9) Wrap Up Description
Other Starting Aspects Action Types
Personal Goals Difficulty
Skills Outcomes
Other Elements Soft / Hard Opposition
Connection Multiple PCs in Action
Example Character Creation Opposition Explained
Skills Explained Soft Opposition
FOCUS + What is Special Hard Opposition
Clarity Explained Not All Is About You
Consequences Explained Progress & Personal Goals
Taken Out ? The Progress Test
Give In ? Milestones & Development
Recovery End of Session Phase
Appendix I Setting in a Box
Appendix II Color Hacking
A rose by any other name
Complex Stuff
Appendix III Tactical Ops
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00 - Introduction
Fate is defined as forces outside of your control that make things happen.
FateLess is a GMLess game of adventure and personal struggle
that can be set in any kind of fictional world. You and your
friends will play the role of dramatic characters facing
unique challenges, investigating mysteries and overcoming
obstacles. In one word, you will enjoy amazing stories.
What You Should Expect
You play this game to pursue the personal goals of your
Protagonist Character (PC), to see what happens when she acts
and reacts to the events unfolding during the game, and to
explore both her personality and the world around her.
Expect your PC’s life to be eventful and dramatic, to be
called to action, make difficult choices and face challenges
presented by the game in a way that rewards creative thinking
and roleplaying, rather than sheer numbercrunching.
None the less, a minimum of rulessavviness is expected. This
is not a ruleslight game you can pickup to kill one hour of
idle time. The rules are few and simple, but they require a
bit of practice and creative effort from all participants.
If everyone is familiar with the rules, a quick oneshot game
is possible; but the PC’s stories will fully develop only over
a longer period of time.
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Fundamental Concepts
Some things you need to know in order to understand how this
game works: Reading Dice, the Ladder, Fate Points, Aspects.
- Reading the Dice
I advise using dice of different color. One will always be the
positive die (+d6) while the other is the negative one (d6).
Whenever you roll dice for a Test you add them together
getting a result from 5 to +5.
- The Ladder
After rolling dice you usually
add an appropriate Skill 7 ...
rating and maybe a few other 6 Fantastic
modifiers; the end result can 5 Superb
be evaluated and described 4 Great
using this Ladder > 3 Good
2 Fair
1 Average
0 Mediocre
1 Poor
2 Terrible
3 ...
- Fate Points
Fate points represent your influence over what happens to both
your PC and the game world in general. How you earn and spend
them is explained in detail in a later chapter, but mainly you
use them with Aspects. Use tokens to represent how many points
each PC has at any time during the game.
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- Aspects
An aspect is a “thing” that describes something noteworthy for
the game. It can be as simple as one word or sentence, or it
can be a placeholder for a more complex description, and even
introduce special rules.
They’re the primary way you spend and gain Fate points, and
they influence the story by modifying rolls, complicating a
character’s life or highlighting parts of the fiction. Aspects
usually last for as long as it makes sense in the fiction or
are removed through an Overcome action; check them often to
clear obsolete ones that might clatter the table. FateLess
distinguishes between three Aspect types:
Game Aspects are attached to the game in general, expressing
anything from items, people, places, transient features of a
situation and the salient elements of all such things.
Character Aspects highlight important elements of a PC or NPC
(Non Protagonist Character).
Consequence Aspects express long lasting negative conditions a
PC may befall, such as injuries or other kinds of hurt.
EXAMPLE
Let me introduce here the group of players I’ll use as
example in this book. They play in a cyberpunkish setting
with mystery undertones.
Alex plays Veronika Zemanova, a CORParchaeologist.
Claudia plays Lazlo Horvat, a city cop.
Maysa plays Mr Ormandy, a highclass “cab” driver.
Julian plays eLain, a robot geisha.
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01 - Ritual Communication
This game is all about a group of people telling stuff to one
another around a table, producing a shared Fiction. How they
do it is what turns a chat into a game.
Perspective is Everything
This is Rule Zero, the cornerstone of the game: you strictly
play from the PC’s point of view. You can only describe what
any PC is perceiving right here and now by sight, smell,
touch, etc. Or what your own PC thinks and feels. Nothing
else. Ever.
This makes PCs different from NonPlayerCharacters (NPCs) as
you can describe how an NPC looks and acts in the presence of
a PC, but no one can ever say what NPCs think or feel, or tell
their story “offscreen”.
This means that all the fiction in the game represents what
the PCs have perceived so far. People can lie, things may not
be as they seem. Whatever you describe at the table is not
true in an absolute sense.
EXAMPLE
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These rules are a tool designed to help you and your
friends get along and have a fun game experience, but
external problems may still arise.
Someone might not like to play this game. Or doesn’t feel
like playing at all, today. Or is hell bent on “testing the
game limits” (aka: sabotage) for some reason. Or abuses
the rules to boss the other Players around. In such cases
the only possible solution is to stop the game and honestly
talk with your friends: what do you want to do? what do
they want to do? can we find common ground?
Remember, not everyone is comfortable saying “no” to his
gamehungry friends. Try being the sensible one and help
others speak their mind and have their say, they deserve to
have fun as much as you do.
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- Pause
Sometimes the game conversation can get a bit hectic and the
resulting fiction unclear. Or someone may try to fasttalk her
way through the game. This is not fun, so at any time you can
raise your hands and say “Pause!”.
The game must stop so that everyone has time to ask questions
and clarifications, offer ideas to the table and generally
clear the air. The fiction established just before the Pause
must be renegotiated to account for any misunderstanding and
incomprehension. Pause ends when everyone agrees to resume.
Don’t debate! Ask questions and offer answers, but if an
actual argument arises stop it using the other Ritual Words to
cut the crap and properly handle the conflict among Players.
EXAMPLE
Claudia Lazlo points the gun at the punk and shoots him
in the leg, yelling “You won’t run away this time!”
Maysa Wait, Pause! Wasn’t the punk behind a car? How can
you aim at his legs? And didn’t we say that silence was of
the essence? A gunshot is damn noisy!
Claudia I forgot about the car! Let’s say that Lazlo
shoots him in the shoulder. And I know it’s noisy and
dangerous, but I want him scared and bleeding. Sounds ok?
Maysa You’ll get us all killed.. Yes, let’s move on and
see what kind of crap hits us.
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- Veto
Each piece of fiction you describe is subject to everyone’s
approval. This is always true, even in “off game” moments such
as character creation; your PC’s name, looks, Aspects and so
forth are all subject to this rule right from the start.
If something that has been described feels inappropriate or
rubs you the wrong way, rise your hands and say “Veto!”. This
instantly nullifies the offensive narration with no discussion
or vote; now you must briefly explain the motivation of your
veto to help others come up with something more acceptable.
Veto can only affect how things look in the fiction, not
prevent them from existing or happening. If your PC asks a
favor to an NPC a Veto can turn “Fuck no!” into “I’m really
sorry, no.” but it can not turn a NO into a YES.
There is no limit to how many times Veto can be used.
EXAMPLE
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- Disagreement
While Veto helps establish how the fiction looks, Disagreement
is used to solve any dispute about how things should be:
Can this action be performed at all?
What character gets to act first?
Is it ok to place this one Aspect into play?
Raise your hands and say “Disagreement!”, say briefly what
your opinion is, then bid one Fate point to support it. In
clockwise order the other Players can either Pass, leaving
definitively this matter to others, or Bid, offering an
opinion of their own and rising the last bid by +1. Continue
until all but one have passed; she is the winner. Now all
Players who made a bid must pay the amount of their last bid.
You can bid more points than those you have; any Fate point
earned from this moment forward will be instantly spent to
clear your debt.
Disagreement can’t be used to ignore or change the rules of
the game, nor twice in a row about the same issue.
EXAMPLE
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