This will be using Roe's Ok ... its not really fantastic ... or awesome. It is actually quite basic when you really look at it, but it gets the job done Fantastically Awesome Character Sheet Template (in the spoiler below). This sheet creation will use the Full FATE Core Rules, which can be found free and legal via this link.
Now, FATE character creation is very open-ended and relies a lot on the setting, so we should define our setting! For this example I will use a generic fantasy setting with all kinds of weird races and any martial, arcane, or divine class tropes as options for inspiration.
Step 1: Decide what sort of character to play. (Class, Race, Level) (High Concept)
The bare minimum a player needs in order to start creating a Player Character (PC) is a base concept for the character he or she wants to bring to life in a particular RPG. The Game Master (GM) gives requirements and allowances in regards to what can be made. Example: The New Player Solo Games all begin with the standard skill allotment (peak skill at +4). Characters in FATE are quite competent at game start, but they aren't demigods by any means. This means the character has actually done some things (and actually it is part of character creation that we will get to later!), so this isn't their first adventure, just a new story in their lives. So let's consider the sort of person that might be out on a new adventure ... I know I want to play someone with some magical talent and I want it to be a bit outside the normal trope. How about a mage from a moderately isolated civilization whose power has outpaced her "small-town" life? She'll accept fame and glory by proving her magical prowess, as that comes with adventuring sometimes, but only by facing against common foes of the land? She'll be a strong, tough lady, sort of a scholar, and her limited experience with the world leaves her as not quite a "people person" yet. Yes, she's a little rough around the edges, but she's up for fighting the good fight.
FATE is wonderful in that there are no level adjustments for weird races, but I like the typical fantasy races so I think I will go with a dwarf. We get to keep some tropes - like isolationist dwarven clans - but push boundaries a bit by having a magic wielding dwarf!
With that concept in mind, I have to assign my High Concept - as the book puts it, what is this character's "job"? One of the things we have to consider is that the best character Aspects (this is what the general term for these descriptive phrases is) in Fate leave some room for negatives to come from them. I think I will go with a High Concept that encompasses everything we have talked about: Small-town Magi. This gives us some things to work with: she knows magic (probably mostly good, but there may be situations where it complicates her life) and she is from a small town (maybe she is really good with the commoners, but a bit naive and really intimidated by big cities). Let's pencil some of our details in now, but Fate is also collaborative and others may have suggestions on how to improve the wording of some aspects!
Quote:
Name: Rohilda Kettleforge Race: Dwarf High Concept: Small-town Magi
Step 2: Complicate your character! (Trouble)
Now we have an idea of who Rohilda is and what she is good at, but that doesn't make for a super complicated character. Think about your favorite book, or movie, or TV show. Good, complicated character have some quirk that gets them into trouble at the worst (or for the audience, best) possible moment. Fate characters get that too! Now we need to decide on a Trouble. Troubles should also have some double-edge to them, though they lean more toward negative than positive. I am thinking about my character and one option that springs to mind is "Naïve", but this is sort of already covered under the "Small-town" part of her high concept, so that doesn't add anything new. So, we move away from the naive, and I think I am going to stick with the dwarf trope a bit here and look for a Trouble like: The shinies! They call to me ...! It definitely has some complicating (negative) nature to it - picking up that shiny necklace and setting off the alarm because she just can't help herself! - but there may be some positive hidden in there too - she knows the value of jewels, so she can't be swindled when selling shinies! I think we can pencil this in as well:
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Trouble: The shinies! They call to me ...
Step 3: Your Adventure (and some background) (Phase Trio)
First, let's address a really important point: there are 3 part to the Phase Trio, however, rules-as-written you will only complete one of these parts by yourself. Some GMs may ask otherwise for PBP, but for this game we are going to follow what is asked of us in the book. Therefore, you will complete Phase 1 and we will collaborate on Phase 2.
Ok, so Rohilda needs a Phase 1 story. This should be a recent adventure that she had. It could be her first adventure, or it could just be the one that finally made her realize that she was capable of so much more. So, let's tell a short story about Rohilda using these guidelines:
Something bad happened. What was it? Did it happen to you, to someone you cared about, or to someone that you were coerced into helping?
What did you decide to do about the problem? What goal did you pursue?
Who stood against you? Did you expect the opposition you got? Did some of it come out of nowhere?
Did you win? Did you lose? Either way, what consequences arose from the outcome?
Quote:
Background: Just after leaving home while out on the open road (for the first time by herself), Rohilda came across a burning village. Villagers were fleeing and crying as a great ogre brandished a flaming club in the town center. Rohilda felt a rage well inside her. She raced to the side of some villagers who were attempting to thwart the beast. Despite her misgivings, they urged her to pull their loved ones from the burning homes while they held the beast off. She did as she was asked. By the time she returned the ogre had slaughtered five of the villagers. She helped finally bring the beast down, but always wondered if she shouldn't have stayed to slay the beast and then they all could have rescued the villagers.
A note about backgrounds: you should aim to keep the story short and leave some details vague because the next Phases bring another character into your story. If you have defined every detail of an event then another player will have some difficulty finding a place to insert their character. Above all else, remember that Fate is meant to be collaborative so be ready to be flexible in the name of a good story!
Step 4: Your First Aspect!
Ok, so I have my character's first story! Now, I need to distill some interesting aspect from that story to help define this character. Options to consider while thinking about my new aspect are presented in the Making A Good Aspect section of the SRD, and include questions like: Was the outcome important? Was a connection with someone formed? Is a belief or personality trait revealed?
Let's look at Rohilda's story.
-Outcome: Some parts of the outcome might be important. She had to let some people die to save others. Perhaps the outcome that she questions herself is important, too.
-Connections: There are certainly potential connections with any villager that she saved. Connections to the game world can be very rewarding, but also come with a downside - that person has to be around for the Aspect to do much. In a full blown campaign, a connection is a great tool for both the player and the GM. For the purposes of this solo game a connection to a non-descript villager will not be particularly useful.
-Belief/Personality: Rohilda certainly showed that she is brave and willing to rush into burning buildings and face off against an ogre. Those are great, but we expect those things of our heroes. I am not picking up any great belief or personality trait here.
This all leads me back to the outcome. She followed the pleas of others, but still questions herself because of the outcome. We could go with something like Haunted by failures, but that has a pretty negative ring to it. Can we make that more positive? What about Driven by Past Failures? That has the good of being very driven, but can also have some complicating factors when her drive overwhelms her better judgement. Let's pencil that in as well!
Your aspects will be a major tool in the game, but they aren't everything. You character also starts with skills. Skill assignment follows a pyramid structure and the value assigned to a skill provides bonuses to any roll you make related to that skill. We know some things about Rohilda now, but skills are also a great way to customize the feel of a character. Skills come from the standard skill list unless a GM specifies differently.
Ideally some of Rohilda's skills will complement some of her aspects (meaning if I roll poorly for those skills, I can invoke an Aspect to save the roll), but this is not necessary at all. I like to build a feel for the character, so I am going to just pick skills that make Rohilda interesting to me. We only get on skill at (+4) so sometimes this is an easy place to start; what is Rohilda the best at right now? I think she has an incredibly strong Will so I pencil this in. The rest is less clear, so rather than picking exactly where everything fits, I am going to pick out some of the skills that I think she should have. I like Fight (she stood toe to toe with an ogre!), Lore, Crafts (from her dwarven heritage), Rapport, Physique (again from that dwarven blood) and Empathy. This gives me 7 out of 10 skills. So what are the last 3? Let's assign the above to some of the open slots and see what we have. There isn't any particular rhyme or reason as to where I assign these other than a tone for the character (e.g. I don't want her to be super-fighter-magi, but I think she wields a weapon better than Average):
Great (+4): {Will}
Good (+3): {Lore},{Crafts}
Fair (+2): {Fight},{Rapport},{}
Average (+1): {Empathy},{Physique},{},{}
Ok, so I have 2 average and 1 Fair slots left. What do we give her here? Sometimes this can be a really interesting way to create deeper character concept ideas. The first thing I will do is eliminate skills that don't fit my idea of Rohilda: Burglary, Contacts (she just got into the world and doesn't know anyone), Deceive (I just don't see her as being that type of person), and Stealth.
This leaves me choosing three of: Athletics, Drive, Investigate, Notice, Provoke, Resources, Shoot. I don't have strong feelings about any of these, so I might choose to make some interesting choices. Maybe I take Provoke because she has a fiery temper at times and can really get after someone? Yeah! That sounds fun, let's do that. I also like the idea that taking Shoot would give her a way to narratively use her magic without needing to use a stunt*. Just one left. I think Resources fits pretty well with the dwarven trope, so I fill that in for the last Skill. This gives us a skill pyramid that looks like this:
Quote:
Great (+4): {Will} Good (+3): {Lore},{Crafts} Fair (+2): {Fight},{Rapport},{Shoot} Average (+1): {Empathy},{Physique},{Provoke},{Resources}
*Magic can often be implemented as just a narrative shift - instead of shooting a bow and arrow, a Magi might "shoot" a bolt of energy from their staff! The exact rules of the magic system will always depend on the GM.
Step 6: Stunts
"Stunts change how skills work for your character." Usually this change is under very specific circumstances. Fate characters usually get 3 stunts for free to start the game (GMs are allowed to change things). For our introductory game, I have chosen a magic system that relies on stunts. Rohilda will need at least 1 magic stunt to take advantage of her mana stress track. For this example I will break stunts into two sections: the typical, everyman stunt and the magic stunt.
-Everyman stunt:
Before, I mentioned that maybe Rohilda is particularly in tune with the common folk. I think this is a great place for a stunt. Something simple like:
Quote:
Woman of the People - you gain +2 to Rapport when dealing with commoners so long as there are no noble types around.
-Magic Stunts:
For this particular magic system, I get an extra mana stress box for every 2 magic stunts I take. I will take the other 2 stunts as magic to get that third stress box. I am going to go very simple and take two example stunts that fit Rohilda pretty well:
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Focused Blast. Choose one of your magical attacks. Take one mana stress to gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls using said attack spell. Versatile Magic. Once per scene, you may take one mana stress to invoke your high concept as if you spent a fate point.
Step 7: Stress Tracks and Consequences
Stress tracks and consequences are essentially "hitpoints" in FATE. Every character starts with two stress tracks with two boxes each: Physical Stress and Mental Stress. Every character also starts with three Consequence slots: (2: Mild), (4: Moderate), and (6: Severe)
Now, some characters get extra stress boxes depending on the skills that they took. Physique adds boxes to physical stress and Will adds boxes to mental stress. If Physique is either (+1) or (+2), the character gets a [3] physical stress box; if Physique is (+3) or (+4), the character gets a [3] and a [4] physical stress box. I look at Rohilda and note that she has Physique at (+1), so I get an extra box!
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Physical Stress: [1] [2] [3]
If Will is either (+1) or (+2), the character gets a [3] mental stress box; if Will is (+3) or (+4), the character gets a [3] and a [4] mental stress box. I look at Rohilda and note that she has Will at (+4), so I get both extra boxes!
Quote:
Mental Stress: [1] [2] [3] [4]
Additional Consequence boxes are possible with Physique or Will above (+4), but these won't matter for beginning characters, so we can safely ignore that for now.
Step 8: Collaboration!
And here, my readers, is where we wrap up the tutorial. What you have here is a barebones how to, under the notion that Fate character creation is laid out well enough to where any questions that arise can be answered within the Basic Rules, or you can simply PM me as you see fit.
One last thing that I want to leave you with is this: Fate is intended to be collaborative! Rohilda is still missing two aspects! Why? Because those are meant to be filled in as part of play with other characters! Other players may have suggestions about Aspects that you have come up with. Take criticism of Aspects for what it is, which should be constructive (usually because someone doesn't fully understand the wording, or what you are going for).
Rohilda Kettleforge, Small town Magi
__________________ Status: No games at the moment ... but that really needs to change.
Last edited by Roekahs; Jun 27th, 2020 at 06:46 PM.
Sep 11th, 2019, 06:01 PM
Fantastically Awesome Character Sheet Template (in the spoiler below). This sheet creation will use the Full FATE Core Rules, which can be found free and legal via this link. 
