Fate Core vs The Wildsea
Compare Fate Core and The Wildsea side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Fate Core | The Wildsea | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Universal | Fantasy |
| Tags | Narrative, Fiction-First, Character-Driven, Collaborative, Tag-Based, Toolkit, Worldbuilding, Rules-Light, Social Combat, Strong GM Support | Exploration, Narrative, Ship-Based, Worldbuilding, Character-Driven, Collaborative, Fiction-First, Tag-Based |
| Core Mechanic | Roll four Fate dice and add a skill rating to compare with the opposition. Spend Fate points to invoke a relevant aspect for +2 or a reroll. Accept an aspect-based complication to gain a Fate point. | Roll a d6 dice pool: 6 is a full success, 4–5 is a partial success, 1–3 is a failure. Doubles of any value trigger a Twist: something unexpected happens. Characters are defined by Aspects (gear, abilities, cultural traits) with associated damage tracks. Progress clocks (tracks) are used universally for combat, crafting, healing, and journeys. Drives give characters personal goals that earn advancement. |
| Dice | 4dF | d6 dice pool |
| Complexity | Low | Low |
| Availability | Free core rules | Free quickstart |
| Runnability | 5 of 5 book tools | 5 of 5 book tools |
| License | CC BY 3.0 (SRD) | Proprietary |
| Third-Party Publishing | Commercial publishing allowed — Open license | Not yet researched |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Publisher | Evil Hat Productions | Mythworks (Felix Isaacs) |
| Year | 2013 | 2023 |
| Languages | English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian | English, Italian, French |
| Best For | Groups who want to build their own setting and follow capable heroes through personal complications and dramatic conflicts. | Groups who want exploration-driven campaigns in a wildly original setting: sailing chainsaw ships across living treetops with a diverse crew of humans, cactus-folk, spider hive-minds, and moth-people. |
| Highlights | Compels turn character weaknesses into story complications that earn Fate points. Creating advantages gives allies free aspect invocations to combine for decisive actions. Conceding a conflict preserves some control over defeat and earns Fate points for later scenes. | Seven playable species including cactus-folk, spider hive-minds, and moth-people, track system unifies combat, crafting, healing, and journeys under one mechanic, Silver ENnie winner for Best Writing, character creation uses modular Aspects (gear, abilities, cultural traits) |
| Considerations | Aspect use depends on agreement about which fictional details apply. Full character and setting creation can take an entire session. Magic and other extras require group decisions about permissions and costs. | Track-based resolution uses the same clock mechanic for all conflict types, d6 dice pool with doubles-as-Twist is the only resolution mechanic, equipment and aspect lists lack a comprehensive index, setting-specific: tied to the treetop-ocean world |