I checked Itch.io this morning to find the Fate Core book had just been made available on a pay-what-you-want basis. Needless to say, I jumped right in, and made it a fifth of the way through before writing these lines. Don't panic! Game mechanics are fully explained in the first chapter, leaving the rest of a 310-page PDF to deal with the creation of compelling characters, worlds and adventures.

Speaking of which: this is a tabletop RPG that knows what it wants, namely high adventure and drama, with complex heroes battling their personal demons along the road to saving the world. Not just game masters and designers, but also aspiring writers will find invaluable advice between its pages. Which is a lot more interesting to me than the rules proper. Well, it's nice to see how they evolved since they were called Fudge, growing refined and focused, yet giving players much to work with. In more traditional RPGs, player characters often feel like paper dolls, fun to equip with medieval weapons and gear within their starting budget, but after that they just sort of sit there. In Fate Core, they're mostly made of hooks: friends, enemies, goals and so on. By the time you have to figure out what they're wearing, the adventure is already well underway.

Which, come to think of it, is a fitting conclusion. Highly recommended.