THINGS YOU WILL SEE ON YOUR CHARACTER SHEET:

ASPECTS: These are quick, snappy phrases that outline aspects of your character. You can invoke them for bonuses if you're doing something related to these things - so, if you had the Aspect "Fastest Sword in the West", and you were trying to attack someone with a lightning-speed sword attack, you could invoke that Aspect to get a roll bonus.

APPROACHES: These are how good you are at approaching problems via certain methods - you always add one of these to a roll, depending on how you're trying to do what you're doing. So, if you have "Forceful +3", then you get +3 to your roll any time you're trying to brute force a problem.

STRESS: You have a Stress Track, which represents how good you are at soaking up physical or mental damage. It has a length of three. More on that later.

STUNTS: Special things your character has a knack for. They usually mean you get a +1 or +2 bonus to a certain kind of action under a certain specific situation - for example, one Stunt might mean you get +2 to Attack rolls when you combine the attack with a witty one-liner.


THE CORE FATE MECHANIC:

When you try to do something, you roll four Fate Dice, and add your Approach to the result. A Fate Die is a die that can land on 0, -, or +; the final roll is your Approach rank, +1 for each + you rolled, -1 for each - you rolled. So, if I have Forceful +3, and I roll +, +, -, 0, then the total result is 4.

We run on roll20, so to use the dice roller to roll fate dice, the command is "/r 4dF+3".

You have a number of Fate Points that you can use to boost your roll in an emergency, too! After you see the result of a roll, you can invoke a relevant Aspect (as explained above), and spend one Fate Point. This will allow you to either reroll the roll, or add 2 to the result, at your choice. So, in the above example, if 4 wasn't good enough, but I had the "Olympic Athlete" Aspect, I could spend a Fate Point and Invoke that to boost the roll to a 6.

If your roll beats the target number, you succeed. If it doesn't, you fail. If it's a tie, then it's a tie. If you succeed by 3 or more, it's a Success With Style.


APPROACHES:

There are six Approaches - five of these are as per standard FAE, but the sixth is specific to this campaign. When making a character, you distribute +0, +1, +1, +2, +2, and +3 between them.

FORCEFUL: Acting aggressively, directly, and hitting head-on with brute force.
Attack with Forceful: Knee to the face. Throw a car. Magically or physically, eschew strategy and hit with uncomplicated force.
Defend with Forceful: Take the hit. Refuse to fall over. Block the fist with your face.
Create Advantage with Forceful: Hold someone down. Intimidate them with an overpowering presence.

FLASHY: Acting with dramatic flair, ensuring that you remain firmly in the center of the spotlight.
Attack with Flashy: A strike and a witty one-liner. Over-the-top shouting and attacks with long, dramatic names.
Defend with Flashy: Jump away from an explosion in slow motion. Divert a line of questioning with a sudden, dramatic accusation.
Create Advantage with Flashy: Feint with a big flashy attack while preparing a subtler, more dangerous one. Distract your enemies from your sneakier allies.

QUICK: Acting with decisive haste, without giving any chance for the enemy to react.
Attack with Quick: A hundred kicks in a single moment. Overwhelm your opponent with a rapid-fire barrage of questions, never giving them the chance to gain their footing.
Defend with Quick: Doooooooooooooooooodge.
Create Advantage with Quick: Fast-talk someone into not realizing they're being duped. Leap and vault into a more advantageous position.

CAREFUL: Acting with caution and deliberation, only after taking into account all factors.
Attack with Careful: Wait and hold back until you see an opening, then put everything into striking all at once.
Defend with Careful: Keep your eyes open, and be ready for an attack from any direction.
Create Advantage with Careful: Plan your operation or attack at great length. Wait for the right moment to strike. Anticipate problems before they arise.

CLEVER: Acting with shrewd tactics and intelligence, turning disadvantages into advantages as if they were all part of your plan.
Attack with Clever: Identify a flaw in the enemy's defense, and exploit it to maximize damage.
Defend with Clever: Spot the weakness in the enemy's attack pattern, and use it to avoid their attacks with minimal effort.
Create Advantage with Clever: Figure out what you can use to your advantage in the area, or what the enemy hasn't noticed that you have.

EARNEST: Acting with an open heart, to forge new friendships and protect that which is dear to you.
Attack with Earnest: Seldom physical, but magic can change that. Attack not their body, but their will. Soften their resolve to lash out at the world, and reveal the heart within.
Defend with Earnest: Endure. Bear pain so that others don't have to. Remember why you're still fighting, and who you're fighting for.
Create Advantage with Earnest: Talk to them. Come to a greater understanding of what drives your enemy, and why they're fighting.


HOW COMBAT WORKS:

1. Whoever ICly initiates the fight gets the first turn. Then, after they finish, they decide who goes next, and then that person decides who goes third, and so on, until everyone has acted.

2. The battlefield is often divided into a few Zones. On your turn, you can freely move from your Zone to any adjacent Zone and still take an action.

3. When your turn comes up, you can either make an Attack, or you can try to Create an Advantage (both explained in detail below). Either way, you make a roll, and the victim of your action rolls to defend, and the action is resolved depending on who rolls higher. Sometimes there will be things other than Attacking or Advantage-creation to do, but they are special cases.

4. Continue until one side concedes.


ATTACKING:

You can use any Approach to attack, or any Approach to defend - it just has to match how you're fighting narratively. You describe the attack, then roll the Approach you're using to attack, and the defender describes their attempt to thwart your attack, and rolls their Approach to defend.

If you succeed on an attack, you inflict a hit that does damage equal to how much you succeeded by. If the enemy succeeds, you inflict nothing. If you tie, then you do no damage - however, you get to name and create a Boost you can use later. Boosts are essentially temporary Aspects that can be Invoked once for free before disappearing. For example, if I get a tie on an attack with Forceful, I might create a Boost called "Knocked Off Balance". Then, on my next turn, I could attack with Forceful again (or any other Approach, if it makes sense) and invoke Knocked Off Balance to get +2 to the roll, but then the Boost would disappear.

If you fail so badly that the defender Succeeds With Style, then they get to inflict a Boost on you as a counter. If you Succeed With Style on an attack, then you can either do full damage, or reduce your damage by 1 shift and also inflict a Boost to go with the damage.

CREATING AN ADVANTAGE:

This covers just about anything you might do in a fight to get the upper hand other than simple attacks. You can use any Approach you care to justify for this action, and the enemy can use any Approach they can justify to defend against it. You both roll, just like attacking.

If you succeed, you name and create an Advantage. This is a full Aspect unique to the scene, representing whatever it was you just did to give yourself an edge - "Sand in the Eyes", "Shaken Resolve", "Full Nelson", etc. Later in the fight, you can Invoke it as if it were one of your Aspects to get +2 to a roll - the first time you use it, it's free, but after that, it costs one Fate Point, just like a normal invoke.

If you tie, you get a Boost, same as attacking. If you fail, nothing happens. If the defender Succeeds With Style, they can put a Boost on you. If you Succeed With Style, then the Advantage you create can be invoked *twice* for free instead of just once.

TAKING DAMAGE:

Stress isn't just HP - when you take a hit that does 2 damage, you don't lose 2 stress, you instead mark off the 2nd stress box. That box now can no longer be used to absorb damage - if you take another 2-damage hit, then you can't mark it off again, so instead you look to the right, and mark off the 3rd box. If you ever take a hit that you don't have enough unmarked boxes left to handle, you are defeated.

Example time! I have three physical stress boxes:
[ ][ ][ ]
Someone hits me for 2 damage, so I mark off box #2:
[ ][X][ ]
Someone hits me for 2 damage again, but box #2 is already marked, so I look to the right, and mark off box #3:
[ ][X][X]
Someone hits me for 1 damage, and box #1 is still unmarked, so I just use that:
[X][X][X]
Someone hits me for 1 damage, but box #1 is already marked, so I look to the right. Boxes #2 and #3 are already marked as well, so I have to use box #4 - but I don't have a fourth box. I am defeated.

In addition to this, you have four Consequence slots! One is Mild (2), one is Moderate (4), one is Severe (6), and one is Extreme (8). Any time you take damage, you can choose to gain a Consequence of any severity - but only if you don't already have a Consequence in that slot. If you do, the damage of the attack is reduced by 2, 4, 6 or 8, depending on the severity of the Consequence. So, if someone hits me for 5 damage, I could take a Moderate Consequence, and then it would be reduced to 1 damage. However, when you take a Consequence, it becomes an Aspect, and your enemy can Invoke it once for free. Also, Consequences can take time beyond one scene to recover - the heavier the Consequence, the longer it lingers. Extreme Consequences are special - they actually replace one of your Aspects, fundamentally changing who you are. Be careful with using that one, and be aware that sometimes it's better to concede for the scene than to eat another Consequence.

Combat is mental and emotional as well as physical. Attacking need not be a punch - you can also try to shaken your enemy's resolve or convince them to stop fighting, and that's an Attack, too. You can even do both in the same action, since Stress is a combination of Physical and Mental pressure.