Evil Hat Productions has enjoyed success converting the free Fate role-playing system into a series of fully published games, including the hit title The Dresden Files Roleplaying Game.

The Dresden Files Roleplaying Game was published in 2010, and was a surprise hit at that year’s Origins Game Fair. The core rulebook, Your Story, and the first supplement, Our World, were both nominated for Origins Awards in their categories. The game continues to be supported by PDF-format adventure modules, and The Paranet Papers, a printed supplement featuring the latest of Butcher’s books as well as new, original material, is planned for later 2011.

Originally designed ten years ago by Fred Hicks and Rob Donaghue, Fate grew out of the older FUDGE game system, created by Steffan O’Sullivan. Fate is designed to be simple enough for novice gamers, while offering enough depth to satisfy experienced roleplayers, and is flexible enough for a wide variety of genres and gaming styles. Fate combines elements of traditional RPGs with more contemporary style games.

Originally offered via the internet for free, Fate became popular enough that Jim Butcher, the author of the Dresden Files series of books and a friend of Fate’s designers, approached them and offered them the RPG license for his books. At that point, it was decided to make Evil Hat Productions a true game publisher.

The rules have been further refined and developed by Evil Hat, and is currently available as Fate 2.0. It drives not only The Dresden Files, but also the popular pulp action RPG Sprit of the Century, and the science fiction title Diaspora, both also published by Evil Hat.

Evil Hat Productions offers the core Fate 2.0 rules for free on its website. Print versions of its products can be purchased through Indie Press Revolution, and are available through Alliance Game Distributors.