I'm unsure where this post goes, but this seems as likely a place as any.  I just joined the site, thinking I might run a game of Fate Core as a learning experience.  I plan to start up a tabletop game night in the fall (will be doing the midlife crisis back-to-college thing and it's my intention to maintain this one night per week for cheap recreation).  I'm drawn to the Fate system for a number of reasons and I've made the decision to set it in stone so I can move forward.

That said, I've only ever read the rulebooks for Fate Core and the Dresden Files RPG.  I've done tabletop/larp/pbem/computer/mmo/other rpgs for decades, but I've never played Fate.

So what I'd like to see is if I could find some players either interested in learning with me, or some experienced Fate players willing to coach along other new players (and GM).  A co-GM would be nice as well.

I'm particularly interested in the collaborative setting design, so that will probably be both a larger initial portion of the startup, as well as an ongoing thread used to flesh out the setting.  While I have a homebrew setting I'm building for the tabletop game I'll be running later, I don't intend for the game on RPoL to be a test run of that setting.  I will probably tend to favor similar themes, but that's all to be sorted out in creation.

I should add, I'm committing to the game on RPoL for as long as I can keep it running.  I'd like to see it go beyond a single plot or story.

So is there any interest?  Thoughts or suggestions?

I'm too full at the moment to sign up, but I might give a few tips. On forum/pbp games world creation tends to make the games die. At least in my experience. I find it more usefull to let the setting emerge during play by asking pointed questions. "So you are a blue wizard of the fifth inward circle of Magnanimus? What does that mean? How is he different from other wizards? Where does this circle meet? Is it secretive or openly known?" Like that. It makes the world grow together with the game.

If you want to focus on collective worldbuilding ahead of time, be sure to clearly state that, and that it might take a while before characters are made. Anyways, I wish you the best of luck. Fate is an awesome system.

Very interested, actually! I have I guess a fair amount of experience with FATE Core.

I would be very careful with collaborative anything on PbP, that's a great way to kill a game before its first IC post. I'd recommend letting people make their characters as soon as they join in, concurrent with the collaborative stuff, keep an early-IC roleplay thread open (maybe assign players NPCs to control instead of their own characters, as a kind of game prelude) and limit the whole process to at most a week after acceptances start.

I've never played FATE, but I'm always interested in learning a new system.

I'm in a very similar boat with FATE. I like it, I know it, and I've done a few successful one shots. I'd be willing to assistant GM / play. Co I feel is a strong word in this case, as your players in a way are your co gm's too. You can get a lot of the setting creation that's actually important done in some simple definitions of what is and isn't something that should exist.

1. Lots of magic / little magic
2. Wizards in droves / a couple
3. Monsters monsters everywhere / a single goblin is terrifying.

etc, and that's ridiculously simplified, but you get the gist. Rather, you could pick say, 5 things that define the flavor of the game you wanna do, IE, here's the five I picked for a tabletop I'm running:

1. Here be dragons! (What sorts, amounts, and facts about monsters is very limited to the people of the world, As is where or why they might live somewhere.)
2. Magic has a price. (And not just a spell slot. Magic users don't light up hallways with light spells, magic is dangerous, powerful, and costly, using it to light your surroundings is like using a pistol to flip a light switch on. A terribly stupid idea.)
3. Sovengarde Song (The theme from skyrim, evokes a norse sort of idea, paints a picture of the geography and culture without me writing a bunch of crud, the players can help me do that in the game to make up the details, and withing this bound they actually get to make things more closely fit their ideas.)
4. All it takes for evil to succeed, is for good men to do nothing. ( Moral ambiguity, because I like heroes to be a personal trainwreck and still step up to the plate to save the day. People, gifted and brave, but still people.)
5. Hey fool, there's a war on! (The realm is currently repelling an invasion from a more roman-esque and larger civilization, terrain and climate keeps the skirmishes fairly even, and the skirmishes flair in the summer for a big battle or two with skirmishes throughout the rest of the year from minor to petty.)

These five points probably give you a decent idea about the setting, and it's not even that much to go on. Put  a story arc or two behind it, and before long you'd have a novel's worth of setting detail.

I'd love to play / assist. Let me know!

I would like to participate, lots of RP experience but just a little bit with Fate.

I must echo GhostRedux in that it is better to have a broad general direction for everyone to head for, rather than nothing at all.

Sharper focus can then be gotten to as the players set up the first three phases.

As someone with no experience with FATE this sounds like a great idea. Also to GhostRedux love that advice.

As I am currently trying to learn the fate rules count me in.

That's all fair advice.  I had not considered how play by post could slow down the process and risk attrition.

So here's a start.  It's a bit more than broad strokes, but it can all be tweaked while providing ample base material to build from.


There are seven nations which occupy the continent of Talan, each their own sovereign though in times past the borders were often negotiable and more than one would-be emperor set his sights on uniting the seven nations under one banner.  Some legends claim there is another continent, from which came several waves of settlers to Talan, but no one now knows its location.  Talan is a land of diverse cultures and histories - and more often than not their histories are at odds.  It is a land of merchant lords, pirates, knight baronies, reclusive monasteries, adventurer scholars and robber kings.  Too there are castes - the Warrior, the Scholar, the Peasant, the Clergy, among many others, which share common codes, beliefs and even loyalties among members which can sometimes cross political lines.

Social status is separate from caste, though often the highest rungs are closely associated with one or a small number of castes within a given nation.  Honor is highly valued regardless of nation or caste, but the definition of what is honorable also varies from nation to nation, caste to caste.  Status is also tightly bound around one's accomplishments rather than one's ancestry.  Most cultures within Talan are highly patriarchal, with a tremendous disparity in the rights and social expectations between genders.  Suggesting otherwise would mark a person as simple or naive.  But even the lowest offspring of members of the most humble castes have pride, honor and free will.  Slaves have none of these, and the institution of slavery is commonplace throughout Talan.  Indeed, it is considered one of the more practical spoils of a defeated enemy, and one of the better reasons for conquest.

Concurrent to this setting of politics, war, skirmishes, intrigues and other social dramas there are those things which are inimical to all: Dark Ones.  These creatures are the stuff of both legends and horror stories told to children to keep them in line.  Some are almost ubiquitous, like the goat-snatching bunyip.  Most are mysterious, unknowable, like the ghostly Grimbane which monthly hunts the largest of cities like a well-laid buffet.

Magic is likewise prevalent, but mysterious and unknowable.  Few are those who can claim to know it, and all such are viewed with distrust.  There is no caste of magicians, or schools where magic is taught, but no one doubts the existence of magic.  It is both subtle and powerful, and almost always dangerous to those who callously call upon it.  There is a tremendous body of myths and legends regarding magic.  Second only to the stories of Dark Ones are the cautionary tales of men who sought to use magic and were destroyed.  Or worse.



In frantic waves, messengers of the Herald caste spread the word: almost a month past, Malarai was destroyed.  A population of millions simply disappeared, along with its great stone palaces, brick and slate roads, warehouses and docks, cathedrals and caste halls.  It is as if a giant hand scooped the city and all its contents from the earth - but no one saw it, can explain how it came to be.  In a moment, the span of a breath, it was gone.  The largest of the cities in the eastern nation of Markand and one of the most powerful city states in all of Talan, the great city of Malarai left a vacuum of power and a tremor of fear throughout the continent.  The Presidi of Markand issued a call for heroes to investigate the outlying villages and the vacant, ruined crags left remaining in search of answers.  Rulers and caste leaders throughout the continent are gathering their resources, tightening their borders, shoring up reserves, with one eye towards Malarai and another on their neighbors.

This is not necessarily that story, but it is a very tumultuous time in Talan.


I'd like to have at least four players before starting, with the hope of gaining a couple more before the story gets rolling.  If everyone here would still like to get this rolling (please reply!) then I'll put on my GM cap and start it up.

I'm definitely interested.

For the sake of expediency, I've created the game forum and am starting on the basic threads.  Feel free to request into it if you're still in.

link to another game