Session 0

I prefer complex interstellar politics, so mostly humans-only in our group, but maybe with back-room deals, alliances that have gone sideways, border wars. But I am *literally* okay with anything here, and be aware the deeper we get with this stuff at the start, the slower we'll be to actually get going. Fate's really good at starting in flight from a sketch, then coloring in between the lines as you go.

FTL -- yeah, there are dozens and dozens of ways we can model this. It is, IMO, one of the few things we should figure out before we start since it affects travel times, the sizes of ships that can travel, and sort of the whole vibe of a space setting.

I like the idea of a mix of races in the federation but I'm not so attached to the idea that I wouldn't enjoy a federation of just humans.
Me too on the black box idea!

Let me hear your opinions on ship being a character and needing a roll to perform certain actions. That way you can choose a Milennium Falcone type of ship with more agility or if you want, a stronger ship with a solid hub but slower etc. However, as Harrigan said, there is no need to decide on every little detail of the game before we start. I will open an Out of Character (OOC) thread when we start the first session to further discuss these issues. Also, this mystery of "where are we and why don't we remember anything" will be a self-contained story, in terms of content I imagine it to be a prologue to the game, so we won't be using many things related to our game world in the first session, we'll have plenty of time until and after that to sketch out details, too.

Since I am new to Fate I'm not sure I'd have a good opinion on the ship being a character or not other than to say it sounds like a neat idea.

If we're starting in the scenario where we all wake up... we don't need to decide on the ship being modeled as a full character right away. If it were up to me, I think I'd make the black box / AI a character, not the ship. Depending on how you're modeling gear, equipment and vehicles in this game, it might just have a couple of aspects, stunts, and stress track. Let me know if you wanted pointers on how some other Fate games handle these things.

Okay for the AI, it can have an experimental setup that, if succesful, can grant you a boost (faster travel, faster maneuver, more accurate weapon aim etc) OR if fail, there may be negative consequences depending on the context and the amount of failure (your FTL may malfunction, you may be transported to an unknown area without accessing FTL for a while, the ship can take a damage as a whole etc.). Or would you like a more detailed and organized AI character with all the aspects and stuff?

@Harrigan, maybe you can share some sources on how Fate incorporates these kind of stuff and we can all read and think about them as we go along. As I said, until the end of Session 1, this thing won't be much of an issue.

@FluxCapacitor, I have a few questions for your draft. Your free aspect seems fine as it is open to many possibilities. For your high concept, it seemed a bit narrow unless you want to base your character completely on its military background. Remember, high concept is a broad enough description that will describe your character as much as possible. If you want the ex-soldier thing to be a background thing only, you may want to modify your high concept a bit. And for the trouble, can you give examples on how this aspect may cause you trouble? I'm not asking this to criticize you, just to understand how it can be used. For example, will your character be overly-sensitive to any novel and potentially dangerous thing?

Ok, bear with me since Fate is a very different game than I am used to. My concept is something like this: Leda is a tenacious and innovative engineer. I figure tenacious can go both ways. It's both great in certain circumstances and bad in others. As a student, she was so driven that she would miss meals and often sleep and work on a project until it was completed. She's very much a nerd and introvert and wishes she could be more outgoing and comfortable in social situations.

So for aspects, I have this so far:

- High Aspect: High Tech Engineer
- Trouble: Tenacious to a fault
- Aspect: Shy introvert

How does this look? Any and all suggestions are welcome.

Little pressed for time here... busy days at work. Budgets are in review, peers are about to be fired, we're hiring a new Chief Operating Officer, and we're about to buy two or three companies...

Anyway. Next week will be better.

o For the AI, I would literally model it as a character. Give it a few aspects, stunts, some mental / social skills. It can help or hinder us like any other active character in the game, creating advantages, etc.

o The best advice I can offer on aspects is this: make sure they are interesting to play. They should reflect something you want to explore about your character. And then, include some example invokes (positive uses) and compels (negative uses). Like this aspect for a mechanic / fixer character I once played:

Machines Are Easier Than People
AJ likes to get lost in her technical work -- she loves nothing more than to spend time alone, fine-tuning, adjusting, and attempting to improve systems, equipment, engines, weapons, sensors and the like. But she sometimes she can do this to a fault, taking it too far, ignoring her relationships, duties, and emotional needs by focusing exclusively on some technical problem.

Typical Invoke: To relieve stress.
Typical Compel: To complicate her life by having her nose in a datapad, missing some wonderful opportunity or connection.

Hope to post up the beginnings of my own PC later in the week.

Okay, if you want the AI to be a mysterious device that is put without your consent by your connarctors, then probably I should start preparing it.

@Windyridge, your high concept seems fine. Let me emphasize that aspects are always true in Fate games. So if you're a high tech engineer, it literally means that you are a very skilled and experienced engineer and you won't even need to roll a dice to perform certain actions. So, for example, if you're a mechanical engineer, then to dismantle a mecanical device is a child's toy to you, so Fate does not expect you to roll dice in that circumstance. I think it's one of the powers of Fate, it is a narrative driven system and let's you create characters you like. If you are more familiar with DnD, you can think your Fate characters as being at least level 7-8.

Trouble aspect is very good to complicate a scene. When you use your trouble aspect to cause some trouble to yourself or the group, you earn a Fate point. It shouldn't be thought as a simple device to earn Fate points though: it both adds complexity to your character and it adds fun to the game. So Leda will be a perfectionist, I assume? Conceptually I liked it but you can change the wording so that it is a small sentence like the example Harrigan gave or FluxCapacitor's free aspect. Something like "No errors on my watch", you'll decide of course, this was just a silly example. Your free aspect (which you can make at most two and it is not necessary, you can decide it after a minor or major milestone) is kind of vague. Try to think how you can incorporate this aspect of your character into the story. You will spend one Fate point each time you want to use (or in Fate terminology invoke) this aspect and Fate points are important, they drive the main economy of the game. I personally couldn't come up with an example where you can use "shy introvert" in the narrative.

@FluxCapacitor no need to change the aspect or the wording. As long as you can explain why one aspect is meaningful to use in one situation, you can use it and I liked the idea.

Not quite a perfectionist although that could certainly come of it. She's more of a go-getter. In other words she wouldn't quit until she found an answer or completed a task, or won an argument. Once her claws have sunk in, they stay in until the end.
Sure. How about I never give up?
Fair enough. I'll change her personality a bit. She is no longer shy, just a nerdy introvert. How about, Can't be hurt or swayed as my skin is too thick? This could make it hard for others to persuade her, or bully her.

So that leaves me with:

- High Aspect: High Tech Engineer - the concept I had visualized is pretty much what Harrigan's mechanic/fixer was except with less hands-on physical stuff, and more brainy smaller stuff like a systems and/or electrical engineer. She'd be diving into motherboard circuitries, ship systems and possibly weapons too. Once she's in, she's hard to get out, and it's as if she has blinders on to the world outside her project.

- Trouble: I never give up - this plays into her tenaciousness. She doesn't quit. This can earn her enemies as she pushes too far for answers, or results, but on the other hand, she gets the job done.

- Aspect: Can't be hurt or swayed as my skin is too thick. But I am also happy to wait for a milestone on this.

By the way, I realized that @naelick has not posted for quite some time. Hope you're okay and still with us.

@Windyridge, "I never give up" still seems like a more positively oriented aspect than a trouble. How about "it's done when I say it's done" or something along these lines since if I didn't misunderstood you, your character will have her own opinions about how things should be done and proceeded so she will act accordingly. This opens up lots of ways for her to be stubborn or complicate the issues just because it she's not comfortable leaving thing as they are. For the free aspect, it seemed more like a passive trait than an active one. I'm not sure how to incorporate that into the story. I'll look into some sources to understand how to approach this passive-active issue. In the meantime if he has the time maybe @Harrigan can comment on this.

"it's done when I say it's done" works for me. Harrigan's input would be appreciated for sure.

Killer week at work and then a busy weekend. Hoping to catch up here in the next day or two!

Firstly I want to thank Harrigan for letting us know beforehand he will not be participating for some time. Although we haven't technically started the campaign, Session 0 still counts as game and I would like everybody to participate regularly, or if they won't be able to, inform us that they won't. It's been more than two weeks and we haven't even sketched out all the characters, let alone starting the game. I hope you don't have some personal issues and everybody is okay. If that's the case, please work a little bit more to develop the story and characters.

This works for me as the Trouble aspect "it's done when I say it's done."

For skills, how do these look:

• One at Great (+4) - Investigate
• Two at Good (+3) - Crafts, Notice
• Three at Fair (+2) - Will, Drive, Lore
• Four at Average (+1) - Contacts, Rapport, Athletics, Provoke.

I'd wait on stunts until I have the skills firmed up.

Yeah it seems fine. For the stunts, you can use Evil Hat Wiki to see some examples. Stunts are maybe the most important thing towards creating a unique character designed by you. They can distinguish between Mike Tyson and Kratos from God of War (both of which are good fighters, thus will probably have similar skills but their strength are on entirely different levels). They usually don't require fate points to be invoked, however some stunts, if too powerful, need invocation.

Sorry to be quiet the last few days. I want more free time in my life lately!

So if this is about the "Shy Introvert" aspect, I go back to this:

o It's a truth - that means it'll help guide your character actions, and it will color how other people in the game see you.
o How can it help you in some instances? That is, what skill roll will you be making, action you're performing, where you say "wait, being shy and introverted helps with this!"
o How can it be used against you, to make your life harder or more complicated?

Windy's PC having this as an aspect is basically her planting a flag saying "I'm am shy and introverted. It's important to me, so please engage with it, everyone."

I admit I think there are stronger free aspects -- maybe you could add a little to it and flesh it out? Something about him not liking to draw attention to himself, something about him having trouble making conversation... or is it like *crippling* introversion?

This would mean not only do you like seeing things through to conclusion, but also that you're a control freak and have trouble letting things go. ;)