Character and Game generation for Farscape Fate - Part 2

How the Characters turned out

Well after the first session we now have four pretty much completed characters, with lots of good ideas for story hooks. There are still area's that need filling but as the game suggests these can be picked up in game as the story advances and you become more comfortable with the game.

Creating Characters in FAE

Making a character in Fate Accelerated is pretty simple the hardest part is understanding and creating good Aspects and stuns. While we all discussed the system and each of there character ideas, we quickly realised that it isn't something that immediately clicks as an concept especially if your used to the standard way of creating a character in a tabletop game. I can see a lot of the hardcore being put off from the start and not giving it the full appreciation it needs to become the system it is. But as my players are good friends and are willing to give something a try, we all decided that a lot of it will click while playing the game and we just pushed on with Character creation and see what happens approach.

Character are built up from upto five Aspects, one being your High Aspect and one being your Trouble. When you have at least your High and Trouble Aspect you should have a good picture of what your character can do. Aspects can be many things that give some form to your character and can be used in game to help. But the fundamental point of Aspects I think is that they create Factoids in the world, if an Aspect says you have magic then you can use magic in whatever interesting way you come up with, within the group of course. As every Aspect has to be agreed in some part by all the players and accept what it means within the world.

Approaches are next which replace skills and give you six words which capture a type of approach to a situation. i.e Careful, Flashy, Sneaky, Forceful. You spread some plus numbers ranging between +1 - +3 between these and then when playing these will be our bonus when rolling, the fact that they are approaches stops the player just using the highest one each time because you can't Forcefully hack a computer. It forces the player to also narrate his actions more incorporating the word into an action.

The last thing that is needed some thought over is Stunts, these are special skills that can either make you better in a specific area or break a rule of the system. The latter is usually some like 'once per turn I can do X' were X is decided between the GM and the player. All my players have taken one stunt at the start of play but they can take up to three with no expenditure. I'm glad they all did the same thing as the book suggests taking one stunt and picking up the rest within the game. I can see my players picking it up quite quickly and coming up with some cool stunts to add more to their character.

That is pretty much it for making a character the rest is just adding three stress boxes for damage and three conquences. Also starting with 3 Fate Points which can be spent in ways to make your Aspects even more helpful.

Meet the Player Characters...

First up is Rob (Maus) and after finally everyone quickly picking character that could never been the leader type he felt the pressure and crumbled into what I think will be a great character for him and the game. He has chosen an Nebari who is a Pirate Captain so works well in the theme of Farscape and will have reasons to pull the other player character together when needed.

Name: Zalach

High Concept: Infamous Nebari Pirate Captain

Trouble: No guts no galaxy

Other Aspects: Legendary Cunning, Nebari on the Fence

Approaches

Careful: +0

Clever: +2

Fahbot: +2

Forceful: +1

Quick: +1

Sneaky: +3

Stunts

Fahbot Tactician - Because I am unorthodox in my tactics, I get +2 to clever rolls when creating a combat plan.

As you can see quite clearly from this he is going to be a fantastic Captain for Farscape and the group in this game. There is so much for me to use there to attract them towards interesting plots and crazy adventure. Also with the Nebari on the Fence we decided he didn't work for both sides of the Nebari and they both take offence to this. Rob said to me that he didn't want to be the leader in this group because he was doing it in another group and didn't want the hassle. I think he will enjoy the hassle he gets in this game especially when he gets the Fahbot plan to work and all of them pull something amazing off.

Next is Karl's he went in an interesting direction when I gave him an entire universe not just the series to gain inspiration from, he decided to us the basics of a race from an old sci-fi and create a new race in Farscape, called Spacer's. The idea behind them is that they are created by another alien race to be their slaves and survive in the environment of space so that they can work on their ships and on asteroid mines. These creatures have a armoured plant skin which can seal when in a vacuum and self regulate air to breath. Karl has created a nice document for me after our discussion which I liked as he's put some thought into making an interesting race and given me more plot hooks. I will post this document in a later blog.

Name: 0 (Zero), originally he was Mk 2 / 116 but Spacers lose their number when they escape. 
High Concept: Escaped Spacer Slave.
Trouble: Trouble understanding other races and customs. 
Other Aspects: Technical Savant, Zero G Acrobat

Approaches
Careful: +3
Clever: +2
Flashy: +0
Forceful: +1
Quick: +2
Sneaky: +1

Stunts

1) Because I am a technical savant, I get a +2 when I Cleverly create advantage when I'm doing something technical.

Karl is a good role player and I hope will bring to life this slaver and make 0 into an interesting character to interact with. His character will be the main techy of the group and should have lots of fun in the game coming up with new and interesting ways of getting out of trouble. Also with the Escaped slave Aspect we have spoken about the race that created him called the Collectors that will be hunting him down. We haven't discussed it further but we decided that they are genetic engineers of some type.

The third character is Graham's the only one in the group that has only seen a bit of Farscape, but likes Sci-fi games so is very interested at giving it ago. He also because of his lack of knowledge of Farscape has gone for something made up, a experiment that has created a Doppleganger. He hasn't elaborated further so I think there's lots of scope with this for future plot hooks.

Name: Mim

High Concept: Doppleganger experiment

Trouble: Clueless

Other Aspects: Implanted knowledge, Monkey see, monkey do

Approaches

Careful: +1

Clever: +3

Fahbot: +1

Forceful: +0

Quick: +2

Sneaky: +2

Stunts

Doppleganger training - Because I copy everything I see, I get +2 to Careful rolls when mimicking someone.

We discussed this at good lengths to get the idea he can shift his body into any humanoid species that he has seen, he has implanted knowledge which he will use to help his mimic abilities but also I can use this has good plot hooks so it's a great Aspect. There is also lots we can do with his Aspects to add more story as he discovers more about himself and what he is.

Now last but never least is Suzi's character, the last couple of times she played the typical sexed up rouge Nebari girl but surprised us this time with coming to the session with a completely new character idea and pretty much got the rest that were in the old game thinking of completely new character. This time she is playing one of the dog race the Vorcarians which are great trackers and bounty hunters. She has come up with some dark past we will definitely be exploring with this game.

Name: Nuska

High Concept: Killed mate wouldn't share bounty and ate him

Trouble: Killed mate

Other Aspects: Do anything if the price is right, best tracker in the sector, I always get my target.

Approaches

Careful: +2

Clever: +0

Fahbot: +1

Forceful: +1

Quick: +2

Sneaky: +3

Stunts

It’s who you know, not what - Because I am an excellent bounty hunter, once per session I can use a contact to gain some information or the right tool.

There is still a bit of work needed on the Aspects but the idea is great and it will be good to have the female member of the party as the combat player. Also she will be the one that might betray the party so got to make it mean something or there has to be reasons they forgive the character if this does happen, these kinds of plots run throughout the series and I'd like to have them within this game. As long as we are good friends and understand that it's all about enjoying the story I think we can create some amazing stories. Unfortunately Suzi won't be able to join us at the first game and will join us next month so it will be interesting introducing her character into the party.

How the game will begin...

My ideas so far will be involved with a Shadow Base hidden within some asteroids surrounding a space anomaly deep in the uncharted territories. We quickly discussed some of this at the first session but was going to start the game after the attack on the shadow base with them all escaping together. Now I've decided that we will run this as the epilogue to how they all met each other.

The Nebari Pirate we decided was given a job to attack the base and steal something for his clients, the money was good and he wasn't told it was a shadow base. The doppleganger is on the base as an experiment and I was thinking that 0 could actually be from a parole universe. I want to bring the multi-universe idea from Farscape into my game and I see this as a great opportunity if Karl is up for it. My thoughts is the anomaly is in fact a unstable worm hole and as the Pirate attacks the base the Collectors are investigating the same anomaly on their side. My basic idea is something explodes or happens to trigger the worm hole and bring the Collectors ship into this universe, on this ship bring Spacer's and the Character 0 into the story. It's a very basic idea that I will develop more if the players are interested.

Tomorrow I start the first game with not much prep except lots of ideas and a few good role players. It will probably start off a little rough and not as engaging at first as we work out the system and the story. But I think we will get the hang of it and start concentrating on enjoying the crazy stories that happen in the uncharted territories with a group of misfits trying to survive.

I will post more about any system changes I come up with along the way. Also if your interested in the progression of the story game logs and player logs will be posted.