New Fate Core game ideas

Hey all, I was thinking about starting up a new game using the Fate Core rules. I'd first like to see how much interest there is, and if there's enough interest discuss possible settings before creating a new game. I'd like somewhere between 4-6 players at least, and would expect players to be able to post rather frequently. One stipulation I would like to make though is whatever the setting and themes are, I would like to make the game very combat light with the focus being on intrigue, exploration, inter party relations, diplomacy and such.

I am always interested in an intrigue and diplomacy type game! I've never played FATE core rules but if you're open to a new player, I'd like to join!

Awesome, it would be great to have you. Fate's a really good fit for play by post I think. The mechanics are simple and very flexible, to the point where it's less of a game and more of a framework for collaborative story telling. I'm going to throw some ideas out there to indicate what kind of settings I have in mind. The first step of the game would be to take a concept like this and flesh it out a bit, then we would collaboratively create characters, determining how they relate to each other and the world. These are just quick suggestions though, if anyone has something else in mind, or want to completely veto one of these let me know.

Ghost Ship
Science fiction setting where you're on the crew of a ship that discovers a massive derelict of alien origin. Plot might bend in a 'haunted house' direction with heavy Alien / Dead Space / Blame! / Event Horizon themes.

Faerie Court
A return to old school faerie tales focusing on the machinations between the Seelie and the Unseelie Courts. Players would be mortals brought into a strange world, needing to learn the rules of the world to survive. Very Pan's Labyrinth / Return to Oz.

Grimdark Edgelord Hellscape
Warhammer 40K is too subtle and refined. Let's go full on Heavy Metal, anything goes Mad Max in hell.

Wizard School
Pretty much Harry Potter, but entirely different.

I'd like to stay away from established fictional universes too. It's just too messy running into characters from other IPs or determining how the characters' actions effect an already existing plot. For instance, I wouldn't want to run a Harry Potter game, where you're at Hogwarts during the time of the books, but a "Wizard School" setting would be essentially that but with all different characters and places and an entirely different plot that would unfold as we play.

Hi folks,

I'm an experienced RPG player and GM looking to join a PbP game, as I've hit a slump in my real-life RPG opportunities. I've played several games in the FATE family (Dresden Files, Spirit of the Century, FATE Accelerated) before, so I'm solid on the rules and playstyle.

Of the four proposals you've listed, Faerie Court appeals to me the most, though I could have fun with any of them. For the Faerie Court setting, it could be fun to play a mortal who seeks power through deals with members of the courts.

My biggest question to start out: how much are you planning on customizing the FATE Core rules? I find that I enjoy FATE more if there are some setting-specific stunts, extras, or special mechanics for me to engage with, either pre-made or developed in collaboration with the GM.

Yes definitely. Anything like that would of course be character and setting specific. Stunts especially should fit your character concept and should be made to be as interesting as possible I think.

For the settings where magic is involved I think the mechanics behind how magic works would have to be drastically different. With the wizard school idea for instance magic would have to be pretty mechanical and predicable. I really liked how Mage The Ascension handled magic with having to invest points in certain 'spheres' of influence and you might need to tap into multiple spheres to get the effect you wanted. That would be pretty trivial to adapt to Fate.

The Faerie Court setting would be on the opposite side of that where magical effects are more unpredictable. The world is more dreamlike where a caster is trying to express his will, but the world itself has a bit of a mind of its own and pushes back. Something like asking the trees to step aside so you can pass would be easier than throwing a fireball because it 'feels' better to the world. In a way this might be a more traditional view of magic where you need to use ritual and correspondence.

A science fiction setting wouldn't necessarily have magic, but might have physic powers, cybernetic enhancements, genetic modifications, and random technobabble that may as well be magic. In any case systems for all this would be worked out either in world creation, or as the game is played if the players are discovering their magical abilities in game.

Because I'm not a big sci-fi fan, I'm big on the Faerie Court plot (mainly because some of my fav books as a young teen dealt with this mythos), or "Wizard School" cuz, again. Books I've enjoyed, lol. But I think Faerie Court can lend for some pretty cool effects.

Cool, that all sounds like good stuff. I'm going to toss out a few character ideas that sound fun for a Faerie Court game.

* A "rules lawyer" who is good at spotting loopholes and dealing with 'exact words' trickery, but is severely lacking in social graces.
* A neo-pagan practitioner who thinks they know a lot about magic and faeries, but actually has it all wrong because they've only read modern sources.
* A dreamer who seems eccentric, possibly even insane in the real world, but in the faerie world suddenly starts to make way too much sense.
* A warrior or hunter who has great combat and survival skills, but doesn't know how to adapt them to a world that runs on a different set of rules.

Also, it just occurred to me that you didn't say where or when the mortals in this Faerie Court setting would be coming from. Modern world? Some historical period? Or a fictional world and time period where fantasy elements are already known to exist?

I think most of those concepts sound like they would work really well, perhaps not the hunter though as I'd like to keep combat to a minimum. It could still work though. Having a warrior learning to adapt sounds like a really interesting plot line.

I think this is enough for me to really start working on this game world. I think my major influences on this game world are also going to come from some of my favorite books too, the Elfquest series, Shadowmarch, everything Neil Gaiman. I'll be trying to work in quite a few themes I think: mythology, Jungian psychology, paganism, eroticism.

The setting hasn't been decided on at all yet though. I'd like for the player characters to be from the real, modern world. They might believe in magic and faeries, or something else, or nothing at all, but have no actual experience with the supernatural. They're taken to the faerie land somehow. I think it will be reveled to them early on they they're essentially pawns in a game being played between the Seelie and Unseelie courts, but what that game is, what the goals are, and even who they're playing for will be completely unknown to them.

From there I think the question is are they to remain in that world for the entire game, or will they occasionally phase between worlds? Both sound interesting to me. Thoughts?

I have enjoyed series like Dresden Files and Everworld where the mortal realm and the magical realm are interconnected in interesting ways. That doesn't have to mean that travel between them is common or easy. The important thing is that the relationship between the two realms provides ways to raise the stakes and generate motives that are more complex than simply "survive and find a way home."

I think so. I think a good way to make this interesting would be to have the worlds interact with each other in noticeable but perhaps unexpected ways. The way I'm conceptualizing this is that the fey world is essentially human's collective unconsciousness. If a disaster happens in the real world, that creates a lot of pain, sadness and fear and such. This sudden influx of feelings might be reflected in the fey world as a sudden blizzard with howling winds that blacks out the sun. Actions taken in the fey world would also effect the real world.

If reality itself is entirely subjective changing people's perception actually changes what's real.

I think we have enough here though, so I've gone ahead and created the game. We can work out more there and as we gather more players.