Fate Core is a generic RPG system published by Evil Hat. It seeks to emulate the shape of stories, rather than any sort of objective reality. Actions are performed by rolling four Fate Dice, which are d6s with two minuses, two pluses and two blank faces. This means that characters tend to be as competent as they should be, more or less. There are only four actions, which are all very abstracted: Overcome an obstacle, Create An Advantage to give yourself a bonus, Attack an enemy and Defend against an attack. But the most important part of the game are Aspects and Fate Points. Aspects are descriptive tags which are applied to everyone and everything thing, from the very literal ('on fire') to personality traits ('wouldn't hurt a fly') to events ('Count Von Blood wants me dead.') Characters can spend a Fate Point to invoke an aspect when it would be relevant, giving them a significant bonus to their action. Characters can also gain fate points by letting these aspects mess with them. The result is a character-driven game with powerful, competent protagonists whose qualities alternately empower them or trip them up. After becoming disenchanted with Dungeons & Dragons, my current game shifted to Fate Core, and I like it a whole lot more: it's a lot faster and a lot freer and a lot more story-driven. Also it has an excellent SRD and community resources!
Character Creation: I've made so many characters so far, but I haven't made a superhero yet! I'm definitely more of a Marvel fan, so my goal is someone low-powered who could have a team-up with Spider-Man or Ms Marvel. As a librarian, I decided to do a super-powered librarian. Introducing Mark Melville, a.k.a. the brilliant Bookworm! Mild-mannered Mark Melville comes from a poor working-class background. The library was always his refuge when growing up because it's free and welcoming to all. During a part-time shift at the library, it was attacked by the super-villain Book Burner! Mark risked his life to save the books. Trapped in the basement, he discovered the mystical Book of Thoth which chose him as its champion. Mark gained the ability to gain the skills of any book that he touched and was able to use it to stop Book Burner and save the day. Now he works three part-time jobs by day while also fighting to protect libraries and their users!
Mark gets five Aspects, which can alternately help him or trip him up. I gave him the high concept 'Superpowered Library Shelver.' I'd add the library's name to this, but I'm leaving it for a hypothetical game - imagine it's somewhere in the greater New York region, True Believer. His Trouble is 'Struggling to make ends meet' which I can imagine applying variously to Mark, his family, or the library itself. The next three aspects are meant to be chosen collaboratively with the other players as you weave their origin stories together. Since I don't have any other players, I went for some other superhero tropes. I put 'Chosen by the Book of Thoth' (the source of my powers, but it will totally have its own agenda), 'Secretly in love with Aster Achari' (the NB immigrant children's librarian, an ally or someone who might need to be saved) and 'Arch-Enemy of Book Burner.' I'm also imagining other villains called Censor, Manifesto, and Mr. Toad, but they'll show up down the line.
Next up, I get to pick a skill pyramid: one skill at +4, two at +3, three at +2 and one at +1. These are all relative to other superheroes: Mark is only Fair at fighting (residual memory from using his powers to learn martial arts) but that's still a lot better than that classic superhero punching bag, a street thug. I choose Will as his Great power, Empathy and Lore for Good, and so on.
Next are Stunts, which are special moves. The game encourages you to invent your own, but there's also a whole lot of examples and to save time I've used them. The main one is 'I've Read About That', which gives me a big bonus if I spend a Fate point and have read a book. In this case, I'm asking the GM (me!) if that can be my super-power. I'm also taking Strength From Determination and Indomitable to go with that epic +4 Will. I think it's my real superpower, and it's why the Book of Thoth chose me.
Stress and Consequences come next - these are like my hit points. I get an extra box of physical stress for my Fair Physique, and two extra boxes of mental stress for my Great Will.
Finally, there are Extras, which cost Fate Points and act as permanent power ups. A superpower would usually be an Aspect. Since mine is sort of already included under 'I've Read About That!' I'm using mine as an extra aspect with a short description of how it works and how it can backfire. I figure with it being more of a clarification and having a built-in weakness, it's probably more like an extra Aspect than a fully-fledged Extra, so I haven't charged myself a Fate Point for it.
And that's Mark Melville, the battling Bookworm, done!
Final Thoughts: I really like Fate Core so far, and I really like what I've seen of Evil Hat as a company. I don't think I'll ever enjoy a generic system as much as I enjoy a really good bespoke system aimed at specifically emulating a particular thing, but of the generic systems I've seen - GURPS, TriStat dX, and I guess at this point the d20 System counts as well, though it really shouldn't be one - Fate Core is easily my favourite.
Also, Bookworm might be my favourite character I've made for this, not counting system, and I look forward to doing something with him in the future!
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