Fate is a generic role-playing game system based on the Fudge gaming system. It has no fixed setting, traits, or genre and is customizable. It is designed to offer minimal obstruction to role-playing by assuming players want to make fewer dice rolls.

Fate is derived from the Fudge system, primarily that earlier design's verbal scale and Fudge dice, but most versions of Fate eschew the use of mandatory traits such as Strength and Intelligence. Instead, it uses a long list of skills and assumes that every character is "mediocre" in all skills except those that the character is explicitly defined as being good at. Skills may perform one or more of the four actions: attacking, defending, overcoming obstacles (a catch-all for solving problems) or creating an advantage (see below). Exceptional abilities are defined through the use of Stunts and Aspects.

An aspect is a free form descriptor of something notable about either the character or the scene. A relevant aspect can be invoked to grant a bonus to a die roll (either adding +2, or allowed a re-roll of the dice); this usually costs the player or GM a fate point. Aspects may also be compelled to influence the setting by offering the person with the aspect a fate point (which they can refuse by spending one of their own) to put them at a disadvantage relevant to the aspect. An example given in the rule book refers to the GM invoking a player character's Rivals in the Collegia Arcana aspect to have said rivals attack them in the bath so they don't have access to their equipment. Situational aspects describe the scene, and may be created and used by the GM, or by players using the create advantage action with a relevant skill.

Stunts are exceptional abilities that grant the character a specific mechanical benefit; these may be drawn from a pre-defined list of stunts included in the rules, or created following guidelines provided by the authors. Aspects, on the other hand, are always defined by the player. For example, a player may choose to give their character an aspect of "Brawny" (or "Muscle Man" or "Wiry Strength"); during play, the player may invoke those aspects to gain a temporary bonus in a relevant situation. Aspects may also relate to a character's possessions, e.g., the character Indiana Jones for example, might have the Aspect "Whip and Fedora".

Fate was written by Fred Hicks and Rob Donoghue and was originally released through a dedicated Yahoo! group in early 2003. A much more polished edition was published by Evil Hat Productions in the summer of 2003.

A 3rd edition of Fate is used as the rules system for the RPG Spirit of the Century, which is set in the pulp magazine genre. It was nominated in 2007 for an ENnie award for Best Rules.

The 3rd edition rules also are used for the RPG Dresden Files. Several other role-playing games are built on the game mechanics of Fate 3.0.

A 4th edition called Fate Core (again a generic version) was published in 2013, funded by a successful crowdfunding campaign, and released under two free content licenses: CC BY 3.0 and the Open gaming license. To release the new version of Fate, Evil Hat Productions ran a Kickstarter campaign that initially asked for $3,000. At the end of the campaign they raised $433,365 and expanded the product line significantly, adding two world books and a system toolkit.