Mechanical Summary of Fate Core

There are many resources for reference sheets to help people understand Fate Core. Evil Hat has several downloads available.

Baroque Space Opera has an important difference: Notice is not a Skill but an Action that can be undertaken with a variety of personal or spaceship Skills, depending on the nature of the thing to be Noticed. From the rules: "Notice does not usually cost you your exchange action when the GM asks for a roll, but you may be required to use your action if you are actively trying to discover something."

Skill Rolls

Fate Core is not meant to be a rules-heavy game, but you may write a Macro in the following form for each personal or spaceship Skill in B.S.O. There are 22 personal Skills and 8 spaceship Skills. There is a Skill named "Stealth" of each type; this will appear twice since they are distinct. "Stealth" does not operate the same as "+Stealth-(Pilot)". Name the character Skill "Stealth" but the ship Skill "SStealth" in the macros.

(The basic macro is courtesy of Nick T.):

"Athletics"

@{selected|token_name} uses Athletics Skill:
/roll 4df + @{selected|Athletics}[Skill] + ?{Modifier?(click Submit for 0)|0}[Mod.]

"+Stealth-(Pilot)"

The Good Ship @{selected|token_name} uses Stealth Skill:
/roll 4df + @{selected|SStealth}[Skill] + ?{Modifier?(click Submit for 0)|0}[Mod.]

For spaceship Skills, put a "+" in front of the Macro name so they will alphabetize first in the button panel. Then when you click any Token, player or NPC, a set of buttons will appear at the top for each Skill. It is necessary to create a set of Attributes for all the Skills, on the character or spaceship's sheet. Even zero-values must be represented (or occasionally spaceship Skills less than zero.)

Note that, if you use the offered Fate Core fillable Character Sheet, it will tend to introduce a lot of junk-boxes in the Attributes column filled with words. We just made a Blank Character in the Journal where those are moved to the bottom. We move our 22 Skills, Fate Points and Refresh to the top of the Attributes column. Then we recopy this sheet for every character, either PC or NPC.

You can similarly make a Blank Spaceship Sheet with 8 spaceship Skills in the Attributes, and recopy for every ship favorable or unfavorable to the PCs. The Spaceship Skills have character equivalents (mentioned on the Macro titles). A character with a Skill exceeding the corresponding spaceship Skill may add +1 to ship performance. Only one character may add +1 to a Skill at a time, must be actively involved in the ship and doing nothing else.

Be sure to update the Attributes column when Skill levels change after a Milestone.

The roll will pause to ask for an optional Modifier (if you have a particular Aspect, Stunt or Boost good for +2 to a Skill, for example, or if a character is enhancing a spaceship Skill by +1.) Just click to skip that (default +0).

For these Macros check the box "Show as Token Action" and make them visible to "All Players".

For the system to work, this presumes you are using Tokens. We found we had to drag-and-drop the names of Characters with assigned Tokens onto any map we were using, even large-scale geographical maps, just in case someone has to figure out something with a roll. We lined up character and NPC Tokens on the edge of the map if we had to! Players may still opt to make manual rolls in the Chat if they wish (/r 4df + Skill + Modifier).

Initiative System

Fate Core compares Notice Skills for determining Turn Order (when a Physical Conflict starts), or compares Empathy Skills (when a Mental Conflict starts), and looks at other Skills to break ties. That's it.

However, in B.S.O. the initiative is a Fate Roll plus Tactics (for characters) or a Fate Roll plus Navigation (for spaceships). The first one with the highest initiative gets to pick the next character, PC or NPC, to act, and so on, with the last player (or GM) choosing who goes next round. The rolls will still be put up on the Turn Tracker, but the actual order will depend on the choices of the participants and the GM can switch them in the Turn Tracker accordingly. Again, the form of the macros are courtesy of Nick T.

"Initiative-Characters"

@{selected|token_name} rolls for Initiative:
/roll 4df + @{selected|Tactics}[Tactics] + ?{Initiative Modifier?|0}[Mod.] &{tracker}

For Spaceships:

"+Initiative-Spaceships"

The Good Ship @{selected|token_name} rolls for Initiative:
/roll 4df + @{selected|Navigation}[Nav.] + ?{Initiative Modifier?|0}[Mod.] &{tracker}

For both of these, check "Show as Token Action" and make the macro visible to "All Players".

Map Use

For Fate maps, select a standard square-grid Scale like 1 unit = 5 feet. Select Diagonals to be measured in the "Euclidean" fashion. You may draw lines on the map to show a couple of Zones according to the Fate Core rules.

In our game, we prefer not to have lines drawn all over our lovely maps, but to let the Tokens move assuming they can move 20 feet for free in an Exchange (turn), using the Ruler tool with the Alt-key held down to figure out about where they can move. This is our standard "Zone". If clutter or conditions make movement tougher, we shorten the allowable movement per "Zone". A player may make an Athletics roll (this spends their Action for the Exchange) for their character to move more than one Zone.

For space maps, the scale can be made up of Zones which are about 10,000 miles or 10,000 km wide each, so units of 2,500 per square may be used if using a square-grid system for spaceship movement and combat.

Numbered Dots for Stress Boxes

For GMs at the Pro subscription level, there is an API script to produce numbered dots for Stress Boxes on your Token. It uses the colored dots from the Token Markers. You will also need to install the API as well (to identify the GM for access). For more info on the API script, see Script:Fate Dots

Baroque Space Opera has highly variable Stress box patterns, not just 1-2, 1-2-3 or 1-2-3-4. Characters may go to 2-3-4-5 and above, and various genetically enhanced NPCs, aliens and monsters may have patterns like 3-3-3 or 3-4-5 and so on. Large voidships and loomships may start with very high Stress boxes, soaking up a lot of damage on the spaceship scale!