This series of posts will give some tips on how to take some pieces from the Fate system and add them to your FFG Star Wars game. Today, we look at adding in Dresden Files style character creation.
Fate, by Evil Hat Productions, is a great game that really focuses on character driven action, and covers a wide variety of games, from The Dresden Files to Atomic Robo, to a generic system that you can use for any story you want to tell, Fate Core (and its lighter version, Fate Accelerated). Fate uses character themes/taglines called Aspects and a point based economy (called Fate points, naturally) along with a skill system and dice to resolve conflicts. Fate system games are available here:
The description I gave above is of course, an oversimplification, but at its heart, Fate focuses on story and characters. I love that part of the game, and the Fate points can also be interesting (more on that in later parts of this series), but I find the mechanical aspects of Fate sometimes to not flow as well as I would like.
So, I decided to try to take some of the story driving parts of Fate and add them into the Star Wars system. Specifically, we used the setting creation rules from the Dresden Files RPG, as that didn't have any real mechanical changes we would have needed to integrate. Now, the first time I tried it was with a Fantasy campaign using the FFG Star Wars system (See the Fantasy conversion we used here: http://hackingtheedge.blogspot.com/2016/02/fantasy-conversion-rules.html), but it works just as well in the Star Wars setting.
The Dresden Files, in the book Your Story (available for as little as $13 in ebook form at the time of this posting), discusses how to create a city to use as a backdrop for your adventures. The most important part of this is that it is done collaboratively as a group, instead of the GM coming up with everything themselves. It is done at the start of the game, before the players have finalized what characters they want to play.
The Dresden files book has a much more detailed version of the process, and walks you through it step by step (and also assumes you will be doing this for a real world city with a supernatural side), but the gist of it is as follows:
1. Determine the overall themes and threats of the setting/campaign- What will the players see over and over in the game? What will the tone of it be? What are the major problems that the players want to deal with? This can be as specific as you want it to be. My players came up with a city that is dealing with internal strife, a wererat problem, an overzealous church, and repelling an external invasion. For a Star Wars game, these are usually more general and deal with the tone and goals of the campaign since the players are often traveling to multiple systems throughout the game. A good theme statement for Star Wars might be "Just trying to make a semi-honest living on the outer rim" and a good threat statement might be "The inquisitors will never stop hunting us."
2. Determine the factions and the status quo are- Who are the power players/factions in the setting? What is the current situation in the game, and which factions want to keep that the same? Which factions want to change it? In our fantasy game, we had the Duke who ruled the city, the City watch and City Guard, the Church, and the Thieves Guild (who were wererats, of course). For Star Wars, you usually have the Empire and Alliance, but it sometimes helps to be a little more specific, especially when it comes to the Empire- perhaps it is the local ISB cell, the aforementioned Inquisitors, or a specific warlord's forces. The status quo is the general state of affairs- a good statement for a Star Wars game might be something like "The Empire tries to continually tighten its grip on the locals and everyone just tries to keep their heads down." You then discuss which factions want to keep the status quo the same and who want to see changes happen.
3. Determine the important locations. Where will most of the scenes take place? In my game, we came up with the Tavern the players would frequent, the temple the cleric would pray at, the slums that they would frequent, and a few other choice places. In Star Wars, one should certainly be the group's ship, and also any planets the players will be likely to visit, as well as some places on those planets.
4. Determine the faces. For each of these themes, threats, and locations, who are the major NPCs the group will run into? What are their mannerisms and goals?
5. Determine where the players fit in. What are their relationships to the factions in the setting? Which of the faces do they know, get along with, or hate? What location do they call home?
Each of these steps can be as general or specific as you want. The important thing is to give the GM some interesting ideas to incorporate, and make sure that everyone is on the same page with what they want to see in the game. I encourage you to give it a try.
Next time, we look at ways to integrate Aspects into character creation.
Feedback is welcome- either by commenting on the article, by using the contact form, or emailing me directly at plarfem@gmail.com.
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