GMs and players each have a pool of fate points that you can use to influence the game.

Players spend them in order to be awesome in a crucial moment, and they get them back when their lives get dramatic and complicated. So if fate points are flowing the way they’re supposed to, we’ll end up with cycles of triumphs and setbacks that make for a fun and interesting story.

Players start with a certain number of points every game session and at the start of any given scenario, equal to your character’s refresh.  (ie. your Fate Points reset to your Refresh between scenario arcs.)  You might end a session of play with more fate points than your actual refresh. If that happens, you don’t lose the additional points when you start the next session, but you don’t gain any either.

You will spend and earn fate points when your aspects come into play.  If you earn a fate point at the end of a session or scenario, it will generally be added to your pool _after_ your refresh is applied.  Sometimes, when you earn a fate point for doing something dramatic or awesome, you get it immediately and can spend it right away.  Other circumstances may earn you a fate point that goes into a standby pool to be awarded to you at the end of the scene.

GMs get a budget of fate points to spend in every scene.  Typically one for every PC involved in the scene, but sometimes more.

Spending Fate points

You spend fate points in any of the following ways:

• Invoke an Aspect: Invoking some aspects can cost a fate point, especially situational aspects. Some aspects may manifest with a free Invoke or two.
• Power a Stunt: Some stunts are very potent, and as such, cost a fate point in order to activate.
• Refuse a Compel: Once a compel is proposed, you can pay a fate point to avoid the complication associated with it.
• Declare a Story Detail: To add something to the narrative, spend a fate point and explain how it relates to one or more of your aspects.

Earning Fate points

You earn fate points in any of the following ways:

• Accept a Compel: You get a fate point when you agree to the complication associated with a compel. This may sometimes happen retroactively if the circumstances warrant.
• Have Your Aspects Invoked Against You: If someone pays a fate point to invoke an aspect attached to your character, you gain their fate point at the end of the scene. This includes advantages created on your character, as well as consequences.
• Concede in a Conflict: You receive one fate point for conceding in a conflict, as well as an additional fate point for each consequence that you’ve received in that conflict. (This isn’t the same as being taken out in a conflict, by the way, but we’ll get into that later.)

GM Fate points

The NPCs under GM control have a limited pool of fate points to use on their behalf. Whenever a scene starts, the GM gets one fate point for every PC in that scene. These points can be used on behalf of any NPC, but the GM doesn’t earn fate points when NPCs take a compel, like PCs do.

The GM’s pool resets to the default total, one per PC, at the beginning of every scene.

There are two exceptions:

• An NPC accepted a compel that effectively ended the last scene or starts the next one. If that happens, there will be an extra fate point available to the GM in the next scene.
• The GM conceded a conflict to the PCs in the previous scene. If that happens, take the fate points normally earned for a concession into the next scene and add them to the default total.

If the immediate next scene doesn’t present a significant interaction with NPCs, the GM can save these extra points until the next scene that does.