Tuesday, December 4, 2012

FATE Core Kickstarter

Well Another Kickstarter that promises amazing stuff.

FATE CORE kickstarter

The buy-in to get 'something' is $1. That means you get the advanced draft copy of the Core rules. Before the Kickstarter end concludes in 60 days. Luckily I'll have time to scrounge up some cash, cuz this is going BIG!!!


Fate started as a "house rules" project for the Fudge system during a car ride Rob Donoghue and Fred Hicks had back in 2001. After seeing some success with it in their home games, they created a free, downloadable version for anyone who cared to grab it. They figured a few dozen people would have a look. Instead, hundreds did, and it fast became one of the most popular variants of Fudge out there, spawning its own thousands-strong discussion list and eventually helping to launch Evil Hat as a commercial game company.
From there, Fate grew into new revisions and iterations, showing up in Evil Hat's own Spirit of the Century in 2006 and the Dresden Files RPG in 2010 (each one leading to a temporary shortage in the supply of Fudge dice as demand spiked), as well as dozens of third-party Fate games and a few other popular games that borrowed ideas from Fate, if not the whole system.
Today, Evil Hat is proud to bring you Fate Core: the latest evolution of the Fate role-playing game system. Inside you'll find refined, clearer language about every part of the game -- ranging from streamlined language about aspects and skills, to a unified approach for game actions and outcomes, to our trademark, rock solid GM and player advice.
Simply put, Fate Core is the best version of Fate we can possibly make, built upon over a decade of play and design experience by Evil Hat, and with the Fate player community at large, taking the best lessons from all of gaming and distilling them into a cohesive, compelling whole. 
With Fate Core, you'll be able to drive right to the heart of your characters, using simple-yet-deep rules to make the most of those stories. Throughout, you'll use Fate Core's mechanics to model how fiction, not physics, operates, producing an experience that's better than "realistic" -- it's authentic
After the kickstarter campaign concludes and the game's text, art, and layout are finalized, the PDF of Fate Core will be made available to everyoneon a "pay what you like" scheme. We'll also be selling a printed version of the game, and will use the system to power upcoming games like the Atomic Robo RPG
Upon publication  we'll place near to 100% of the Fate Core text into the Open Gaming License as open content, once again continuing our commitment to supporting third party efforts to build the Fate games everyone wants to see.
In the meantime, as a backer of this Kickstarter campaign, you will get immediate, early access to the laid out text of Fate Core as it currently stands (see the link right below the video). You will have the opportunity to tell us what you think, and help us determine the final shape of the game. 
It's an exciting time for Fate, and for Evil Hat, and we hope you'll join us as a backer, a fan, and a member of the Fate community. Let's rock this thing!
cover art by Kurt Komoda
We've set the project timeline on this to the maximum because we want a solid two months for our backers to have a look at the Fate Core preview, give it a whirl, and let us know what they think. We'll be iterating through the feedback you give us in that time to make any necessary tweaks to the text and the layout.
As project funding progresses, we'll continue our efforts to get the art buy and execution put together for Fate Core. At launch time we don't expect to have all of our art done, of course -- but we believe in getting a head start when we can afford to do so. Depending on complexity and speed of execution, art creation and placement into layout may run past the end of the Kickstarter campaign; we're giving it about a month.
Once the art is in and the text and layout are final, we'll charge hard on getting the print run complete. We'll be going with one of our established, fast-on-execution-and-quality domestic book printers for this. Setup and proofing will eat a week; manufacture shouldn't run much longer than a month, if that.
After that point, it's all about shipping, which is probably the most potentially elastic part of our timeline. But we'll be shipping out the copies we owe to all of our backers before we put the book on sale anywhere else. 
Signed copies, consultations, and fudge dice will take a bit longer to get out there, due to the added steps involved.
The PDF: As a backer of this project at any level, you'll get immediate access to the early preview PDF (see the link at the top of this page, under the video) before the kickstarter campaign even concludes. The final PDF that will be released after the conclusion of the kickstarter will be available on a "pay-what-you-like" basis -- which includes free for those so inclined. (But folks who don't back this project will have to wait a few months before they'll get to see that.) We're doing this because we want you to see what's already been done -- and for you to get a chance to provide us critical feedback that will improve the game in its final form.
The HARDCOVER Book: Those backing at $30 and higher will receive a6"x9" formatted hardcover, black and white interior version of the Fate Core rule-set, with a page count somewhere in the lower 300 range.
The Digital Expansions: Backers at $10 or higher will get access to adigital expansion pack that starts with a fantasy adventure playable with Fate Core. Our stretch goals on this kickstarter will add more expansionsinto that pack at no additional cost to the backers! The higher we soar, the more awesome the expansion set gets. After the kickstarter concludes, each individual PDF in this expansion pack will sell for about $5 each, so this has a chance of being a real steal.
Fred's Fudge Dice Stash: Folks who pick a reward that includes Fred's Stash will get four fudge dice of one random color (i.e., all four dice will be the same color, and that color will be picked randomly) included with a signed-by-Fred copy of the Fate Core book. The six colors include the three bronze, copper, and gold tones of Grey Ghost Games' Olympic Fudge Diceset, and the translucent red, translucent blue, and glow-in-the-dark yellow-green of the no-longer-available Wizard Fudge Dice set that Evil Hat produced.
Fred's stash includes the largest quantities of the front row pictured here (the Wizard dice), and a smaller number of the back row (the Olympics). We will try to take requests if it seems feasible, but can't offer any guarantees about the color you'll get. Supplies will dictate!
The Consultation: Got a particular thing you want to do with Fate Core for your home game? We'll pair your ideas with an Evil Hat approved expert who will help you sort out your Fate Core implementation for your home game, and will also write up to 2,000 words so you'll have an official reference document to work from. Part of your contribution will be used to pay the experts for their time and wordsmithery. You'll share rights to the document with Evil Hat, or we can simply agree to enter it into the available open content surrounding Fate Core (assuming it's viable for us to do so) -- your call. This will be carried out either by a Skype call or an exchange of emails (or a mix of both), as fits the schedule of those involved. If it turns out your ideas exceed what's feasible in 2,000 words, consider this a starting point rather than a total solution -- but we'll do our best to cover the essentials!
We have a number of stretch goals in mind. Below, we reveal some of the ones that lie ahead. Stay tuned for updates as the project continues to learn of more!

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