Interest Check- FATE Arabian Nights

A FATE-based game of adventure set in a small Arabian city. We'd use FATE core with a few amendments:

-skills pyramid topping out at 4, 5 aspects and just 3 stunts at start
-limited advancement between adventures
-invocation of aspects limited to one, perhaps two each turn to prevent bonus bloat
-some other house rules relating to weapon damage and such

Premise
The City of Spires is a small but lovely city perched on a bay of the Azure Gulf. After a long period of upheaval, the city's rule has been restored to a legitimate young prince who seeks to govern wisely and fairly. The new ruler also seeks to rid the city of of the evils that have come to afflict it during its period of misrule. To assist him, he has assembled a semi-secret band of companions to hunt the sorcerers , vagabonds and monsters that afflict the prince's subjects. The band might include (as suggestions only--new ideas welcome!):
--the idealistic prince himself, perhaps in disguise
--a courageous exiled princess
--an awesome acrobat or juggler
--a street magician
--a man of might, a giant wrestler or such
--a (reformed) thief
--an agile dancer
--a physician
--a bedouin
--a master of weapons (falchions, scimitars and such)
--a humble but intrepid goatherd

There might also be one exotic member. Perhaps a :
--a Mongol/ Turkic steppe rider
--a sorcerer
--a fakir/yogi
--a transformed ape/ cat/ lion/ leopard (human changed into animal form by sorcery)
--a genie

Some expectations for the game would be:
-posting every other day, regularly and including weekends
-easy going application of FATE rules, not sweating the technicalities so much
-rounded character design, so everyone can fight, interact, solve puzzles
-shared responsibility for decision making, even (or especially) when decisions are hard or less exciting

If you are interested please let me know below --please include a character concept as well as an indication of interest. I still haven't mastered creating custom sheets (!) so if there are any recommendations for a template that'd be welcome.

When you mention Arabian Nights, does that mean the campaign is set in the place and times of the Achaemenid Empire (or a simplified expy thereof)?

Regarding the exotics, what are the jinn and sorcerers like in your vision of the setting, or rather, what are the boundaries of ideas within which players considering such concepts should put those concepts, in terms of unusual features (whether innate traits or learned sorcerous abilities)?

Always wanted to try FATE but never got a chance to do so and the idea of some Arabian Nights themed game has been living rent free in my head for a while now. But I do have the same questions as vicky.

I understand the AN tales to be a mash up of periods, probably harking mostly back to the Golden Age Abbasid period but with plenty of anachronisms. Including pre-Islamic folklore and a few items— coffee shops, gunpowder—that were introduced closer to the period of their translation. Like the Tales we can refer to major cities like Cairo, Baghdad, etc. but deliberately handwave the current Caliph’s name. Having said that, in a previous game I had some Turks , wild bowman steppe riders, as exotic mercenaries of the Caliph. So we can at least fix it as before the Ottoman period.

As for genies and sorcerers, I’m open to different presentations of their appearance (I imagine a genie to appear as an unusually handsome man or maid). But the key thing is not to make them overpowered in relation to the core, normie cast. A suggestion would be to use stunts for powers like changing form, brief invisibility or flight. A sorcerer might have greater flexibility in that they could learn new spells and do minor tricks at will, perhaps keyed to their Will skill. A genie would be immortal in that they would vanish , rather than die when grievously hurt. I’ll likely nerf powers in review that look too scary!

I hope the response above answers some of your questions. I do want a party balance that favours non-exotic characters, so that a genie or sorcerer appear genuinely magical. Also so we get more core tropes to centre the setting. But I guess we could stretch to a genie and a sorcerer, say…

I'm trying to understand the blend (or lack) of anachronisms in the cultural department. Is it more like the more multicultural-leaning Achaemenid-era mosaic, where there's a bunch of different peoples and religions coexisting with relatively little tension locally, and thus none of them is too exotic? Or is it closer to the Golden Age, and being, for example, a non-reverted Bedoiun, or fire-worshipper, or the like, is a valid social Trouble Aspect, and might make such concepts count as exotic?
Ah, Stunt-based powers. That's elegant and simple to understand. (I'm not quite sure how the Will-based spell-learning is meant to work, but Stunt-based gets more interest due to the clearity of what one gets.)

So i’d answer this by saying that the setting is not a specific period of history , but the fantastic milieu of the Tales of the Arabian Nights. The Tales do refer to other faiths, iirc one is called the Christian’s Tale or similar. Using the Tales as a test, a Persian zoroastrian magus might definitely exist as a character. Feared for a reputation of sorcery rather than their faith. But probably also admired for their Persian sophistication and such. Just keeping things light— religious friction isn’t a thing in the Tales cos Islam is ultimately just true, in the same way that Christianity is true in the (also highly anachronistic) Arthurian Tales.

I'm happy to see FATE getting some love, but this not a game for me

Huh? Why post in an interest thread that you are not interested?

Have you misunderstood something in my post about the game setting and think I'm promoting a religion? I'm actually trying to take religion out of the picture so we don't end up making it a feature of the game. It's just a great (the greatest of all fiction?) fantasy setting!

I am interested. I do not have a character idea yet, but she would be a "normie"

Great, thanks for the show of interest. No rush with the concept.

Hey, I have 0 knowledge of Fate, but am currently reading the Arabian Nights, so I'd certainly be interested. At first thought, I'd like to play a sage: a polymath that mostly studies astrology, medicine and philosophy; I'm torn between he being a local Arabian (maybe a court astrologer?) or either Persian/Greco-Roman.

It’s a great idea. I’d prefer the guy to be Arabian or Persian to stay close to the core of the setting. They can anyway have extensive knowledge of Greco-Roman and other scholarship and perhaps have studied in Athens or such.

Ok, here is my first base idea

High Concept: Illegitimate Princess raised in the shadows, as a rooftop runner

Trouble: The palace wants me forgotten — permanently

Sounds good obviously. Referring to the brief setting notes in the first post, the present city ruler is a good ‘un and potentially even a member of the party. So it would have to be a foreign ruler that wants rid of her. Perhaps a pretender in a nearby city who supplanted the princess’ family there.

I applaud you for setting up a FATE game. They are far and few between. :)

Why I'm not interested: I am game capacity, and the Arabian Nights theme has never really caught my interest. But I wish you a great game

Ok, thanks. The intention of the post was hard to read, but I appreciate the clarification and good wishes.

Here's an early idea/draft. What do you think of it?

----

A Harranian mercenary who gradually rose to become a leader of his own company, infamous for an uncanny quality: a trend of often being unaffected by horoscopes, prophecies, or events that are deemed to be destined, for good and ill. Ended up joining the prince's service because this offered a more comfortable life than going on another campaign.

ASPECTS:
HC: Destiny-Defying Mercenary Commander
T: For Frill and Fortune!
A3: Lightning Bruiser
A4: Master of Hearts and Minds
A5: ???

SKILLS:
+4: Athletics
+3: Fight, Rapport
+2: Empathy, Resources, ???
+1: Will, Physique, Stealth, Crafts

STUNTS:
Good Show!: When you show approval of a job well done, you encourage your allies to achieve greater success. Once per scene, if an ally successfully creates an advantage, you can grant another free invoke on the same aspect if you are close enough to issue encouragement or congratulations. This does not require an action.
Lie Whisperer: +2 to all Empathy rolls made to discern or discover lies, whether they’re directed at you or someone else.
???: ???

@vicky-moloch
Looks fun. I like the high concept and the distribution of skills. Looks like a swashbuckler character so that’s highly appropriate.

We just need the high concept and the trouble aspect to start with, as we’ll generate 3,4 and 5 using the core cooperative rules. I’m not sure what ‘for frill and fortune ‘ means exactly.

A strength is that he has some social skills alongside martial prowess.

I’ve no idea about Harranians as a group— do they have a distinctive look or style that makes them especially dashing?

Well not a swashbuckler - I have a swashbuckler already in another campaign, so this one will be different, less graceful, more brutish/crude than the swashbuckler archetype. Also, the Commander part of the HC is there to imply being part of the merc company, presumably working for the prince together.

Ah, so we're using Core edition. I wasn't entirely sure if it was Core or Condensed. I guess I might need to be ready for the Aspects to end up being not quite what I wanted initially.

Frill and Fortune means comfort/luxury and money, as a motivation.