Session 0

In this thread we will discuss the characters, the setting, almost everything :) All of the players will have some ideas in mind but they will be detailed according to the discussions here. At first, two things come to my mind: what kind of a person do you want your character to be (specialized in which areas, good at what etc.) and what is the relationship between the characters in the group? Fate has a built-in aspect called "relationship" in which every player needs to decide the nature of the their character's relationship with at least one other. You don't have to be all interconnected, just one connection is enough. Once we start discussing these, we will then in the process decide on the specifics of the setting.

By the way, it would be super if everybody says how familiar they are with Fate system. I tend to overexplain things, so if you tell me hhow much you know I will adjust myself accordingly.

I have no experience with Fate so you will never overexplain things to me.🙂

Re character and setting, I have a few ideas.

If we are a research group working for a government, my character could be a spy for a rival group/government/company. If we are a group of highly motivated adventurers I think it would be fun to be a reckless explorer looking for a good time with discoveries being incidental to the mission. Or my character could be a driven geeky scientist obsessed with discovering a new species, not for riches but for the advancement of science.

So three entirely different concepts of which I am happy to play any of based on the rest of the group's desires.

First of all, I want you to know that you can ask anything, no matter how basic. Here is a one-page cheat sheet for Fate Condensed. It nicely sums up all the important stuff. Also, The official SRD and Evil Hat Wiki (Evil Hat is the company producing Fate materials) will help a lot, especially during character creation.

Alright, these are some nice thoughts for your character. In addition to that, we may discuss the world we will play in. I mentioned it will be similar to Star Trek. However, that was only to emphasize the technological development of the world and the situation with different species coming in contact with each other. It may not be a neat, organized and fundamentally optimistic world like Star Trek, we may also play in a more chaotic, cyberpunk-ish world. I'd like to hear your opinions on ths too.

Great! Those resources will be useful. Thanks.

Chaotic and pessimistic sounds fun to me. Allows for more interesting things to happen and more unpredictability I think.

Hi Campers! And thanks for the invite! I'm really looking forward to this. In terms of Fate experience, I've played in a few games, both Accelerated and Core, so I'm comfortably familiar with the system - but by no means an expert. I think Condensed is my favorite iteration so far, so I'm particularly pumped about giving it a spin.

In terms of the setting concept, I think I'm leaning towards either a sort of Star Trek kind of crew on a mission, or a Traveller/Firefly concept where we're specialists that have been contracted by *someone* to do a job.

In any case, I'm open to any role except commander. I'd probably lean towards security, xenosociologist, or engineer/techguru the most, but I'm up for filling whatever crew needs we might have.

In terms of aspects and such, I'll tailor those to the role once we have those figured out. Hope this helps!

Just sharing my current thinking, I'm leaning towards playing a Xenobiologist. She's a bit nutty (I feel like sane people don't blast off to worlds unknown, in sure danger of risk of loss of life and limb). She's the sort who would appear blissfully unaware of danger, trusting her instincts to get her out of danger just in the nick of time. Picture her giving a throat swab to a crocodile, pulling her hand free just as the jaw snaps closed. Perhaps she's a bit of an adrenaline junky, pushing the limits because it makes her feel more alive. She laughs all the time, but maybe her jokes have a bit of dark edge to them. Think of the class clown who tells jokes because that's the way they've learned to get along with others. I think she might conceal it, but she cares a lot about other people and volunteers for dangerous missions so that they don't need to take the risk. I think she might have trouble accepting failure, and would always be encouraging everyone to give a mission another try, or to try a new angle.

I'm digging this "sent on a mission by a private contractor" idea. It has elements from both ends: you can be an organized group with specialists and you don't need to be overly official like Enterprise on a mission. As you may recall, I wanted this group to have worked with each other at least a couple of times. Maybe you were a group of specialists (an engineer/mechanic/tech guy, a xenobiologist, a leader with more charismatic and athletic capabilities etc.) who were doing business some time ago but haven't seen each other in years. This "private contractor" has reached out to all of you and made you an offer (we'll need to work on the details of this offer, I believe the reason why this group is working/travelling together is an important issue). So the gang reunites. In this scenario, you may not even be the only group sent to this planet. Federation has some loose control over the issue but by no means they can prevent independent groups from entering the planet.

naelick, I really liked how you proceeded to develop your character. If you have more definite ideas like this, you can go on and start looking for stunts and aspects of your character from here.

Lastly, I've realized that you don't need to submit a blank character, it is sufficient for you to apply to game and be approved. It was ignorant of me to ask that :)

Yeah, that was mostly a stream of consciousness thing. I'm trying to refine it into aspects.

This is just my personal style, not a recommendation, but I like to wait until I've played a bit to define my stunts. I find that if I rush to define them at the start, I don't end up using them or use them in ways I didn't expect.

First thoughts: My character would be a nerdy engineer type. Young and driven to get ahead, trying to prove himself. I like the idea of "sent on a mission by a private contractor" as well. Maybe my character would latch onto Naelick's because he wishes he had a personality more like them and gets that vibe vicariously through them. My character is a planner and not at all spontaneous so kind of a stick in the mud quite bound by convention.

Ok, so we've got a xenobiologist and an engineer. It sounds like we might need someone with a few more mundane, less esoteric skills to fill some gaps like planetary survival, weapons & defense, and maybe a bit of hands on experience dealing with other not-necessarily friendly life forms. Possibly a former military man who's served a number of terms as Security / Tac Ops shipboard and groundside on various planets. Now he's in his middle years, not really fit for frontline duty anymore, but not the officer type either (think a career NCO), he's become a security consultant for xenoexploration teams.

Definitely going to take an Aspect from Danny Glover in the Lethal Weapon series: "I'm getting too old for this." Of course he'd use that to push through insurmountable odds and impossible situations. But it could be compelled in interesting ways.

I can move away from an engineer because as I think of it, those two are somewhat close to each other and I don't want to stifle your character, FluxCapacitor. What do you think? As long as I can keep the nerdy concept I'd be open to something else. Maybe security.

Hi Windyridge, I'm totally down with the security specialist. He's already coming together in my mind and I'm very happy with where he's going so no worries at all.

Hi everyone! Thanks ireneofunyes for inviting me in... cool game brewing from the looks of it! I'll give a character some thought, though I admit I generally usually like to at least have the backdrop roughly sketched in a sci-fi game before I think about making a character for Star Trek, Star Wars, Traveller, Alien, or Flash Gordon. ;)

Old hand at Fate. Have run and played in 2.0, Core, FAE -- not Condensed. Will refresh on that...

Looks like an engineer, xenobiologist, and security specialist. Anything specific folks think we're missing? Pilot / operator? Commander? Doctor / Medic? Android?

Welcome Harrigan! Glad to see you with us, though the idea of GM’ing an experienced player makes me nervous :D

I’m having internet issues lately so I cannot post as much as I like, sorry about that. I hope that it will be fixed today.

I think a charismatic leader character is missing. I’m not saying you should add it, if one of you wants to play an android assassin etc., it’s fine. But if you’re trying to equally distribute skills, I guess a more socially skilled character is missing from the picture at the moment.
I’m the same. I liked how you all proceed with the characters but we should also start discussing the background of the world. I’m currently working on sketching out the draft of your general journey.

By far we have established that this is not an ordered world like Star Trek. There is a Federation-like organization representing the humanity (it may not be restricted to humans, all of your characters don’t need to be human as well) in space, but it is by no means an omnipotent power. We are still in early development in terms of space exploration. Though meeting with this new alien species you were going to meet is a big thing, since rumour has it that it is the first species in decades to have an advanced civilization. Not much is known about them, Federation is trying to keep the negotiations a secret but they cannot keep people away from the planet. There are even some Federation-backed non-official scouting groups sent to investigate.

These may be good starting points. If there are any parts you like to pick up and develop I’m eager to listen. Finally, especially those who are relatively new to Fate, I suggest you to start thinking in terms of Fate rules when you develop your characters. Like how can I describe this character generally in one word (high concept)? Or which skills can I use to evaluate this character? Again if you have any questions you can ask me, or ask it directly here since Harrigan joined us, he will be more knowledgeable than me.

I have an idea if no one wants to be full-time ship's captain. The expedition leader could be the lead scientist, diplomat, or something like that, and ship's "command" could be delegated to a dedicated AI NPC. It could have an acronym for a name even, like HAL. Hmm, maybe not HAL...

Since we're not a military type expedition, we don't necessarily need a strict command hierarchy - which could also lead to some interesting character dynamics if no one person is totally in charge.

Don't be nervous! You'll do fine, and I'm happy to sit back and watch you do an awesome job, just answer questions and provide advice, or actively help you out. Whatever you prefer.

For those new to Fate, this is a fun primer...

The Condensed sheet that our GM shared is awesome, but dense. Here's a quick take on things...

Fiction First -- always just describe what you want to do. Don't try to match it with one of the four actions.

The Four Actions -- Attack, Defend, Create An Advantage, Overcome. Every action in the game that's mechanically important will slot in here. But see above!

Outcomes -- whenever you bounce dice on one of the actions above, you'll succeed with style, succeed, tie and get a minor advantage called a boost, fail or succeed at a cost.

Aspects -- the bit everyone talks about. These are just facets of things that matter in the game. Characters have them, objects can have them, scenes have them, even the campaign as a whole can have them. They are touchstones and narrative beats that we will reference to make things easier, harder, and more interesting for our PCs. They are almost always two-way, positive for some reasons, negative for others. If you're a "World Class Boxer," you're good at fighting. But people want to challenge you and you might have lingering injuries, etc.

PCs have a High Concept, a Trouble, a Relationship, and two Free aspects. These can be Invoked to help or hinder your rolls, they can be Compelled to make the narrative more interesting, and they really should lay out there the things you want to explore about the character in the game.

Stunts -- think of these as Feats. Things you're really good at. They often break the rules in minor ways.

Stress -- think of these as plot armor / hit points... they are used to absorb various kinds of harm. You'll have a few, and they refresh between scenes. Not a huge deal to take stress, but next up is...

Consequences -- once your stress boxes are gone, taking further harm is going to give you a Consequence. These are injuries, illnesses, lasting damage of various sorts that takes long to heal... and that acts like a new aspect that can be Compelled or Invoked. You can usually take three of these before you are Taken Out. (Knocked unconscious, killed, really sad, left behind, etc.)

Fate Points -- metacurrency used to Invoke and Compel aspects. You'll generally have three, and earn more by having your own aspects compelled. Also note that some aspects come with a free invoke, and don't need a Fate Point to activate for the first time only. (Once a free invoke is used, it's gone).

I'll shut up now, but I know that some of these concepts can be a little different than what you see in most trad games. Will give my PC some thought today...

This is all very helpful. I watched a video first, then read the Fate SRD, then the comic which is great, and lastly the most excellent summary. Looks really fun. I am excited to play.

So in thinking about my PC, some questions for our GM and the whole crew:
Sweet, and far preferred personally... unless we are playing Star Trek!
This sounds like both advanced aliens and FTL travel exist. True? If so, we should flesh out both a little.

o Aliens One alien race or many, what's their disposition towards humans, what is their tech level, etc.
o FTL - jump gates that ships pass through or warp / hyper drive integrated into the ship? Are there 'lanes' which make travel easier and safer? How long does a jump / trip take, and does it consume dwindling resources / fuel? There's great discussion on this is in the Fate Space Toolkit.
Ah, here's the detail on the aliens. I'm cool with this. Though "first species in decades" seems to indicate there are others...

PC-wise, yeah, I'll go with a face-type leader / pilot.
I like the idea of an AI aboard, perhaps one installed by the company we're working for. So the ship might be ours / my pilots, but we've had to install this black box to take the job...

What do others think?

I like the idea of the mandatory Black Box install. Thing would probably be hermetically sealed and super encrypted - what exactly does it do? But tampering with it would void the terms of our contract, so the mystery remains.

You can think in terms of Star Trek on that area. It means that there are various alien species, some of them friendly, some of them hostile and some of them unknown. But I realized that we should at first decide on the advancement of humans. I keep calling the governmental organization "the Federation" but a federation that consists of various alien species that has made their peace with each other is very different from an organization that is only led by humans (and of course organizations that are run by different species as well). The second option would lead to a much chaotic world, which I like. What's your ideas?
I may offer a third option on that: like FTL drives, ships can teleport but much shorter distances compared to FTLs. There may be official transportation lanes but considering the vastness of space and the unordered circumstance of our world, illegal transportation spots also exist. We could give the ship some aspects and each time you try an illegal transportation, you roll a dice. Or any time you make any kind of unusual maneuver with the ship, you can use some feature of the ship to make the roll and ship also can have Fate points etc. I should say, making the ship a character is not an original opinion of mine, we have used it in a past game of mine that we had to finish early. But it is a nice idea to play around, I wonder your opinions on this also.

I also liked the Black Box idea. I'm stroking my evil GM beards right now :D