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Inheritance Gambit

Is This The End Of Humanity As We Know It?

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Invoking Aspects

The primary way you’re going to use aspects in a game of Fate is to invoke them. If you’re in a situation where an aspect is beneficial to your character somehow, you can invoke it.

In order to invoke an aspect, explain why the aspect is relevant, spend a fate point, and you can choose one of these benefits:

  • Take a +2 on your current skill roll after you’ve rolled the dice.
  • Reroll all your dice.
  • Pass a +2 benefit to another character’s roll, if it’s reasonable that the aspect you’re invoking would be able to help.
  • Add +2 to any source of passive opposition, if it’s reasonable that the aspect you’re invoking could contribute to making things more difficult. You can also use this to create passive opposition at Fair (+2) if there wasn’t going to be any.

THE REROLL VS. THE +2

Rerolling the dice is a little riskier than just getting the +2 bonus, but has the potential for greater benefit. We recommend you reserve this option for when you’ve rolled a –3 or a –4 on the dice, to maximize the chance that you’ll get a beneficial result from rerolling. The odds are better that way.


It doesn’t matter when you invoke the aspect, but usually it’s best to wait until after you’ve rolled the dice to see if you’re going to need the benefit. You can invoke multiple aspects on a single roll, but youcannot invoke the same aspect multiple times on a single roll. So if your reroll doesn’t help you enough, you’ll have to pick another aspect (and spend another fate point) for a second reroll or that +2.

The group has to buy into the relevance of a particular aspect when you invoke it; GMs, you’re the final arbiter on this one. The use of an aspect should make sense, or you should be able to creatively narrate your way into ensuring it makes sense.

Precisely how you do this is up to you. Sometimes, it makes so much sense to use a particular aspect that you can just hold up the fate point and name it. Or you might need to embellish your character’s action a little more so that everyone understands where you’re coming from. (That’s why we recommend making sure that you’re on the same page with the group as to what each of your aspects means—it makes it easier to justify bringing it into play.)


Landon is trying to win a contest of wits with a rival in a tavern, and the skill they’re currently using is Rapport, which they’ve described as “attempting to shame each other as politely as possible.”

Lenny rolls badly on one of the contest exchanges, and says, “I want to invoke The Manners of a Goat.” Amanda gives him a skeptical look and replies, “What happened to ‘as politely as possible’?”

Lenny says, “Well, what I was thinking about doing was making some kind of ribald but not vulgar innuendo about the guy’s parentage, in order to get the crowd at the bar to laugh at him, perhaps despite themselves. I figure that bawdy put-downs are precisely my cup of tea.”

Amanda nods and says, “Okay, I’ll take that.”

Lenny spends the fate point.


If you want to see more examples of invoking an aspect, we’ve scattered them throughout the book—they’re so integral to how Fate works that they naturally end up in many examples of play. Check out here, here, and here.

If the aspect you invoke is on someone else’s character sheet, including situation aspects attached to them, you give them the fate point you spent. They don’t actually get to use it until after the end of the scene, though.


THE ELLIPSIS TRICK

If you want an easy way to ensure you have room to incorporate aspects into a roll, try narrating your action with an ellipsis at the end (“…”), and then finish the action with the aspect you want to invoke. Like this:

Lily says, “Okay, so I raise my sword up and…” (rolls dice, hates the result) “…and it looks like I’m going to miss at first, but it turns out to be a quick feint-and-slash, a classic move from the Infamous Girl with Sword” (spends the fate point).

Ryan says, “So I’m trying to decipher the runes in the book and…” (rolls the dice, hates the result) “…and If I Haven’t Been There, I’ve Read About It…” (spends a fate point) “…and I easily start rambling about their origin.”


Free Invocations

You don’t always have to pay a fate point to invoke an aspect—sometimes it’s free.

When you succeed at creating an advantage, you “stick” a free invocation onto an aspect. If you succeed with style, you get two invocations. Some of the other actions also give you free boosts.

You also get to stick a free invocation on any consequences you inflict in a conflict.

Free invocations work like normal ones except in two ways: no fate points are exchanged, and you can stack them with a normal invocation for a better bonus. So you can use a free invocation and pay a fate point on the same aspect to get a +4 bonus instead of a +2, two rerolls instead of one, or you can add +4 to another character’s roll or increase passive opposition by +4. Or you could split the benefits, getting a reroll and a +2 bonus. You can also stack multiple free invocations together.

After you’ve used your free invocation, if the aspect in question is still around, you can keep invoking it by spending fate points.


Cynere succeeds on an attack, and causes her opponent to take the Cut Across the Gut consequence. On the next exchange, she attacks him again, and she can invoke that for free because she put it there, giving her a +2 or a reroll.


If you want, you can pass your free invocation to another character. That allows you to get some teamwork going between you and a buddy. This is really useful in a conflict if you want to set someone up for a big blow—have everyone create an advantage and pass their free invocations onto one person, then that person stacks all of them up at once for a huge bonus.


FOR VETERANS

In other Fate games, free invocations were called “tagging.” We thought this was one bit of jargon too many. You can still call it that if you want—whatever helps you and your table understand the rule.

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Enhancements

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  • Master Illusion
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  • Master Item Summoning
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Drawbacks

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  • Accident-Prone While Indoors
  • Always Freezing
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  • Bright Green Skin
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  • Illusions Don’t Show Up on Video
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  • Inhuman Visage
  • Intensely Sleep-Deprived
  • Involuntary Bursts of Energy
  • Involuntary Energy Field
  • Involuntary Mimicry
  • It Has a Mind of Its Own
  • It Looks Like a Living Nightmare
  • Kept Alive by Your Own Devices
  • Leaves You Weakened
  • Lethargic
  • Limited Fuel
  • Limited Fuel
  • Limited to Organic Materials
  • Limited to Terrestrial Mammals
  • Lots of Collateral Damage
  • Machinery Tends to Fail Around You
  • Massive Bursts of Ill-Smelling Smoke
  • Modern Tech Just Doesn’t Like You
  • Must Maintain Physical Contact
  • Need a Hardline
  • Need a Mask to Protect Those Around You
  • Need a Spark
  • Need Solid Anchor Points
  • Need to Concentrate to Stay Solid
  • No Empathy
  • Not Useful Indoors
  • Not Very Useful Indoors
  • Often Arguing with Yourself
  • Only Effective While Indoors
  • Only Good Up Close
  • Only Live in the Cold
  • Overflowing Light
  • Overwhelming Animal Instincts
  • Power Drain
  • Power-Hungry
  • Psychic Feedback
  • Quite Frail
  • Racked with Guilt
  • Radioactive
  • Reality Kind of Hates You
  • Require a Prop
  • Require Complete Concentration
  • Requires Physical Contact
  • Requires Sustained Physical Contact
  • Restless
  • Shabby Equipment
  • Short-Range Control
  • Slow
  • Slow to Form
  • Slowed Reaction Time
  • Sometimes Things Drop Right Through Your Hands
  • Sticky-Fingered (Literally)
  • Subconscious Made Real
  • Surrounded by Admirers
  • Sympathetic Weather Patterns
  • Tend to Abuse Your Power
  • The Machines Never Stop Talking!
  • Touch-Activated
  • Trail of Random Stuff
  • Unpredictable Superpower Misfires
  • Unwanted Feedback
  • Unwanted Feedback (Hacking)
  • Unwanted Menagerie
  • Up, up and away
  • Very Noticeable
  • Visibly Corrupted
  • Water Shorts You Out
  • Weak
  • Weak and Frail Body
  • Weakened by Daylight
  • Weakened in Ordered Environments
  • Weighty
  • You Can’t Breathe While Phasing
  • You Can’t Feel Much of Anything
  • You Can’t Turn It Off
  • You Don’t Look Quite Human
  • You Have Trouble Seeing the Present
  • You Think You’re Better than Everyone

Collateral Damage

  • “DIE!”
  • Armor Piercing
  • Army of Me
  • Bad Ride
  • Balloon
  • Battle Plan
  • Berserk
  • Black Blessing
  • Blizzard
  • Bulking Up
  • Bulletproof
  • Charged Shot
  • Come to Me!
  • Deadly Ivy
  • Decay
  • Deflection
  • Demonic Gaze
  • Direct Control
  • Dramatic Entrance
  • Earthing
  • Escape Plan
  • Eviscerate
  • Expected Backup
  • Extra Copies
  • Flaming
  • Flashburn
  • Foreign Objects
  • Future Echoes
  • Gravity Manipulation
  • Grounded Discharge
  • Hair-Trigger Reaction
  • Handmade Off Button
  • Highly Experimental Device
  • Hold Fast
  • Holding Pattern
  • Horror Show
  • Hyper-Mode
  • Hyper-Visibility
  • Hyperfocus
  • Interception
  • Invulnerability Charge
  • Jaunt
  • Killing Disguise
  • Killswitch
  • Mass Empowerment
  • Mass Hysteria
  • Mass Illness
  • Mass Slowing
  • Megaton Punch
  • Mental Map
  • Micro Singularity
  • Mighty Bound
  • Missed Me
  • No More
  • Noble Sacrifice
  • Overload
  • Pacifist Aura
  • Pawn Interception
  • Perfect Evasion
  • POW!
  • Psychic Lockdown
  • Psychic Maelstrom
  • Puppetry
  • Quantum Tunneling
  • Rapid Fire
  • Rapid Reforestation
  • Ravage
  • Replicated Collateral Damage
  • Rubber Vengeance
  • Shadow Beast
  • Shield Bubble
  • SMASH!
  • Speed Demon
  • Stegosaurus
  • Sturm und Drang
  • Super-Power Strike
  • Sweet Ride
  • T-Rex
  • Take Up Arms
  • Through the Grid
  • Timeless Zone
  • Unstoppable Telekinesis
  • Untouchably Airy
  • Virtual Possession
  • Whirlwind
  • Winds of Change
  • Wormhole

News

  • Adrien Thomas has been approved for Roleplay 29 Dec 2018
  • Nate Forgeson has been approved for Roleplay 5 Dec 2018
  • Lincoln Fox has been approved for Roleplay 24 Nov 2018
  • Miranda Moore has been approved for Roleplay 22 Nov 2018
  • Lilli Remilliard has been approved for Roleplay 18 Nov 2018
  • Ivara Lee Armstrong has been approved for Roleplay 9 Oct 2018
  • Website Updates 15 Sep 2018
  • Kyle Jaxon has been approved for Roleplay 2 Sep 2018
  • GINIE has been approved for Roleplay 10 Jun 2018
  • Guillermo Martinez has been approved for Roleplay 31 May 2018
... more news

Scenes

Extraordinarily Helpful

IC date: February 12, 2052 | Cast: GINIE, Harvey, Kamila Novac, Liam Whelan | NPCs: JARVIS

Chaos Protocol

IC date: February 10, 2052 | Cast: GINIE, Harvey, Kamila Novac, Liam Whelan | NPCs: A troop of Tonys

Search and Destroy

IC date: February 05, 2052 | Cast: Harvey, Kamila Novac, Liam Whelan

Just A Concussion

IC date: January 28, 2052 | Cast: Cailean (Kaylee) Simmons, Jericho Trent

Out of Time

IC date: January 28, 2052 | Cast: Cailean (Kaylee) Simmons, Ian Owenshire, Jericho Trent, Samantha Margaret Carter

... More Scenes

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