Right. A meaty question, Bane. Let's get to it!
The Bane:
Great! Glad to see this appear.
No problem. I don't profess to be the be-all rules-lawyer expert on FATE, you should know that, but I think I have a pretty good handle on the mechanics and some of the logic behind them. (Incidentally, some of the mechanics are better geared for FTF play... I'll point those out when I notice them.)
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So, initially I was just gonna pop together a character so we could have at it. But I had a question even before I got that far.
There are no stupid questions! Well, I suppose there are, but this isn't one of them. :)
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Is it usually character creation then setting, or setting first? I mean I could make a character and then we could discuss setting, I guess that's feasible, but say I assumed a genre and make one of my Aspects contain a race. Without a setting I am saying this race is 'a thing' if I add it into an Aspect. Something to be compelled or invoked. But how or why?
Interesting question character-first or setting-first. I hope you won't be frustrated by my answer -- but I've seen it all. In both face-to-face and PBP play, FATE can be used to run a "canned" background where characters are generated and dropped in, to build the *entire* setting from the ground up, and anything and everything in-between.
Examples:
I'm currently running a game here on rpol.net in an old fantasy setting of mine called "Swords and Banners." It's low-fantasy -- magic is very rare, dragons, giants, orcs and goblins are largely the stuff of tales told to children, and combat is very gritty. I have the "reality dials" preset for what I, as the GM, want, and the main countries & factions defined. I showed folks some material I'd already developed, they added in a few bits and pieces, wired their backgrounds together and we're off to the races. I was able to guide them around what races they could take (different types of humans), what professions / classes would be appropriate, etc. All in all, a pretty traditional setup that happens to use Fate.
At the other end of the scale is something like Diaspora, if you know that FATE game. Basically, it's about exploring space -- and the premise is that all the players come together to build the races, systems, planets, ships, themes, meta-plots, etc. It's the type of thing where it's really hard to make a character before you have the setting fairly well-defined -- which takes time.
So IMO, that's a strength and a weakness of these kinds of uber-collaborative games. Everyone gets their say, everyone is bought in, has stake in the game... and they can taken a loooooong time to get going. In fact, in my experience, these games die before they even get going, more often than not.
There's very happy and fertile ground in-between, as well. I'm just starting up joining a space-faring game largely inspired by Battlestar Galactica and the like -- humans encountering an overwhelming alien foe that is chasing them all over the galaxy. We have a framework to work with, including a year, the type of FTL travel available, a ship name -- but the players are sort of taking it from there. Do we want to play marines? Star fighter pilots? Civilian traders? With the backdrop set, we can be faster about putting the pieces together, and about then building characters.
And before I forget, for games with few players, and / or short games, it's plenty common to have a generic-ish character built, then grow the setting up around them. FATE sort of specializes in allowing you to get going without defining everything up front, but I've noticed that a number of people ignore that.
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Not that I think a GM/you would do it to me, but say I wanted to play using an Elf aspect - as an example - then I have imposed a Genre and a Race. I realize it is collaborative (narrative) storytelling but I don't know what the setting holds for Elves. The GM could say great, but be thinking, 'I hate dandelion eating Elves' or something similar. Then throw a Setting Attribute covering how Elves are despised throughout the lands. Now I have two Aspects that Compel against me and play is not how I envisioned playing an Elf would be...
You've just got to work through this sort of thing -- if it's not clear (because there's not a firm background, like a published setting, established), you'll need to collaborate with the GM and other players to figure out what tropes exist, how various elements may or may not be present, etc. For my S&B game, I make it clear there are no elves, dwarves, gnomes or halflings.
For a generic fantasy game like we're about to embark on, as the GM I need to be asking -- what do you want out of this game? High or low fantasy? Action-heavy? All the traditional races? What's the mood? Dark and dour, light and humorous, etc. You've correctly identified that everyone might not be on the same page -- I generally see it as the job of the GM to get everyone there.
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Too, I realize I may have more flexibility here than elsewhere on the forums. Your tailoring it to fit my noob-ness, but 'Looking for Players' is full of threads wanting Players for a specific setting. So, long winded post aside, should we discuss setting first, or characters? How is it done FtF?
In the "Looking for Players" threads, you'll find more established settings than anything else, though are -are- games that come up that are more along the lines of "let's build a world together." Rarely will you see "pitch a character and I'll / we'll brew up a setting, but once in a blue moon you'll see that as well. The Fate board we're in now is actually, I think, we're it's at -- because you can have all these discussions in advance. One other player was struggling on the "players wanted" games because he said he needed a firm background to grow his character ideas off of. I think that's easier to do here, than "in the wild."
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Dang, sorry, I probably am making this much harder than it needs to be, but figured I'd ask. If you want Character first, I can surely come up with something today...
Thoughts?
This is the wonderful two-way street. I'd written this: "You okay with generic fantasy to start? Think warrior / wizard / rogue / cleric type stuff. If so, I'm thinking you're in a human town on the north edge of civilization, a rough and tumble place where adventurers find work aplenty..." -- but if that doesn't jive with your character idea, I'm happy to shift to something that does and have you be a badass Elf fighting in the Great Orc war. :)
Bottom line: if you have an idea already occuring to you, pitch it!
