Create A situation aspect or gain a benefit from an existing aspect.

You can use the create an advantage action to change the course of the story. By using your skills to introduce new aspects or add invokes to existing aspects, you can stack the deck for yourself and your teammates. You might change the circumstances (barring a door or creating a plan), discover new information (learning a monster’s weakness through research), or take advantage of something already known (such as a CEO’s taste for scotch).

An aspect created (or discovered) by creating an advantage works like any other: It defines the narrative circumstances and can allow, prevent, or impede actions—for instance, you cannot read a spell if the room has been made Pitch Black. It can also be invoked (page XX) or compelled (page XX). In addition, creating an advantage gives you one or more free invokes of the created aspect. A free invoke, as the name suggests, lets you invoke an aspect without spending a fate point. You can even let your allies use free invokes you have created.

When you roll to create an advantage, specify whether you’re creating a new aspect or taking advantage of an existing one. If the former, are you attaching the aspect to an ally, opponent, or the environment? If you’re attaching it to an opponent, they can take the defend action to oppose you. Otherwise you’ll usually face a difficulty, but the GM can decide if something or someone opposes your efforts with a defend roll instead.

Your outcomes when creating a new aspect are:

• If you fail, you either don’t create the aspect (failure) or you create it but the enemy gets the free invoke (success at a cost). If you succeed at a cost, the final aspect may need to be rewritten to benefit the enemy. This may still be worth it because aspects are true (page XX).

• If you tie, you don’t create an aspect, but you do get a boost (page XX).

• If you succeed, you create a situation aspect with one free invoke on it.

• If you succeed with style, you create a situation aspect with two free invokes on it.

With an existing known or unknown aspect the outcomes are:

• If you fail, and the aspect was known, the enemy gets a free invoke. If it was unknown, they may choose to reveal it to get a free invoke.

• If you tie, you gain a boost if the aspect was unknown; it stays unknown. If the aspect is known, you get a free invoke on it instead.

• If you succeed, gain a free invoke on the aspect, revealing it if unknown.

• If you succeed with style, gain two free invokes, revealing it if unknown.

Ethan is face-to-something with a shoggoth, a massive and tireless fleshy beast. He knows it’s too powerful to attack directly, so he decides his best bet is to distract it: “I’d like to make a Molotov cocktail and set this thing on fire!” he announces.

The GM decides that actually hitting the shoggoth is trivial, so this is a Crafts roll—how quickly can he find and weaponize something flammable? The difficulty is set at Good (+3). Ethan has Average (+1) Crafts but rolls [0][+][+][+], giving a Great (+4) effort.

Ethan cobbles together the Molotov and tosses it at the beast. The shoggoth is now On Fire, and Ethan has one free invoke on that aspect. The shoggoth is definitely distracted, and if it does try to chase him, Ethan can use that invoke to help himself get away.