As the GM, you are the director of game sessions. Note that you are not the boss. Fate Condensed is collaborative, and the players have say in what happens to their characters. Your job is to keep things moving by doing these things:

• Run scenes: A session is made up of scenes. Decide where the scene begins, who’s there, and what’s going on. Decide when all the interesting things have played out and the scene’s over. Skip over the unnecessary stuff; in the same way that you don’t roll dice if the outcome of an action won’t be interesting, don’t have a scene if nothing exciting, dramatic, useful, or fun will happen during it.
• Adjudicate the rules: When some question comes up about how to apply the rules, you can discuss it with the players and try to reach an agreeable consensus, but you get final say.
• Set difficulty: Decide when rolls are necessary and set their difficulties.
• Determine the costs of failure: When a character fails their roll, you decide what the cost of success at a cost will be. You can certainly take suggestions from the player—they may know just how they want their character to get hurt—but you ultimately decide.
• Play the NPCs: Each player controls their own character, but you control all the rest, from cultists to monsters to the Big Bad itself.
• Give the PCs opportunities for action: If the players don’t know what to do next, it’s your job to give them a nudge. Never let things get too bogged down in indecision or lack of information—do something to shake things up. When in doubt, think about your Big Bad’s tactics and goals to create a spot of bother for the heroes.
• Make sure everyone gets the spotlight: Your goal isn’t to defeat the players, but to challenge them. Make sure each PC gets a chance to be the star once in a while. Spread around compels and challenges tailored to the characters’ different abilities and weaknesses.
• Complicate the PCs’ lives: In addition to throwing monsters at the characters, you will be the primary source of compels. Players can compel themselves and other characters, of course, but you must ensure that everyone gets opportunities to experience the negative repercussions of their aspects.
• Build off player choices: Look at the actions the PCs have taken during play and think about how the world changes and responds. Make the world feel alive by presenting the PCs with those consequences—good and bad—in play.