I've been gifted a room!

It's all for you :)

My character: Adrian "Flurf the Acrobat" Grymace

Is there any kind of shared high concept?

Like for the setting/campaign?

Aye

I'm thinking about The Enchanted Forest.

Literature?

It's every magical forest in every fairy tale.

Ah

Specifically I'm taking inspiration from the Enchanted Forest Chronicles series of books, but you don't really need to know about that.

Heh. I like that.

It's a place where you should be polite because you never know if that frog is a talking prince, or if it just met a couple and picked up some things.

It's a good place to go questing --find a princess, find your honor, lose your nephew so you can get membership in the Right Honorable Wicked Stepmothers' Gambling And Debating Club (Stepfather's Division) (though it's mostly wicked uncles).

(In a forest where ALL the stories are true--for values of true which may feature very poor reporting--things get a little silly... but not the people involved. Everyone's problems are serious to the person who has them.)

How about a disgraced wizard stripped of his powers and looking to reacquire them?

That's very similar to Charlin's backstory. Could dovetail nicely.

invoke When I Was A Wizard... +2

And "Get off my lawn!"

Now, in the book series I'm loosely basing this on, the casters called wizards are a very specific kind of caster: their staves absorb ambient magic (which makes dragons sneeze), and they store it as spells in their staves to use later.

Disgraced by losing his staff, then?

There are MANY other kinds of casters, but none of them want to be called wizards because wizards are almost universally kinda dicks.

(Probably comes from absorbing magic instead of making it themselves.)

A redemptive character arc, perhaps?

Lost his staff when someone melted him (wizards melt in soapy water with a bit of lemon, but it's not permanent; just takes a few days to put yourself back together) and hid his staff to slow him down. While questing for the staff, he meets Our Heroes and joins up with them.

Melt... in soapy water.

With a bit of lemon.

Very well.

On the plus side, the soap makes for easy cleanup!

ha

(One person alone in the forest attracts less attention, but something always notices you eventually... and when it does, you'll be happy to have companions to deal with it.)

Don't worry, soapy water with lemon juice isn't a commonly known weakness, nor is it easy for people to lug around in buckets through the forest.

Stay away from the village on cleaning day, though

It's narrative-level power and would not be leveraged casually if at all during gameplay.

No, I like it. Makes things interesting.

I always carry a bar of soap and a slice of lemon in case I need to make a... clean getaway

puts on sunglasses YEAAHHHHH

Bad @Problematic. No cookie.

Makes things complicated during rainstorms, though

Make sure it's a whole lemon, not a wedge.

You'll be fine.

True enough

(Witches may generally melt in water, it's never shown in the series. The only witch we see very often has such a clean house that she doesn't melt in soapy water, at the very least.)

Well, it would explain the Wizard of Oz

Perhaps not as dramatically as Wicked did, but still

(She has nine cats, and a sign over her door that says NONE OF THIS NONSENSE, PLEASE, and she grows apples that aren't poisoned or anything.)

I like her already

(every now and then she gets nasty letters from more traditionally-minded witches, suggesting that maybe at least one of her cats could be black.)

Yeah, the Forest is filled with people who are fleshed out enough in their own right, and tropes and stories that are generic and familiar enough, that just wandering around I can throw stuff at you and it'll aid or complicate your plot just as easily as it would anyone else's.

So long as your character fits into some fairy-tale type of concept and has something he's looking for (physical or metaphysical), he should fit in fine.

So, question: does the staff make the wizard, or does the wizard make the staff?

I guess that's a question I'll be answering during gameplay

Canonically, wizards and staves are unique to each other but we never learn the details.

(And it could be that wizards don't use each others' staves just because wizards are so paranoid that a staff usually has a half-dozen REALLY nasty protection spells on it.)

But yes, I'm just using the book canon as a loose inspiration point.

So whatever we come up with during play!

Plot twist: the wizard is just a projection of the staff, like a useful appendage

head asplode

....That would make a LOT of sense, actually.

When a wizard unmelts, he can always find his staff; you can only put it in an inconvenient place to slow him down.

Are staves destructible?

If a wizard's staff is destroyed, people freak out and start backing away from whatever powerhouse managed it.

...fire witches, and the Sword of the King, can manage it on a good day.

Fire witch magic is, for reasons unknown, incompatible with wizard magic.

Trying to absorb a fire witch's magic tends to give everyone involved a bad headache if they're very lucky.

And the Sword of the King is the symbol of office for the King of the Enchanted Forest. The Sword itself is tied directly into the power of the Forest and basically is the Forest for most purposes.

How do you determine ascendancy in a place where princes come out of the woodwork?

Sometimes literally

Well, the King's family is the only royal family in the Forest proper.

All the other dozens of princes, princessess, dukes, nobles, wicked regents, and so forth are from kingdoms outside the forest.

Because it is every fairy-tale forest, that's a lot of kingdoms.

Ah, got it

Oh, while I'm remembering: is there room for another in the game? I have a friend that has expressed interest.

The King's current wife was a princess from a neighboring kingdom who ran away from an arranged marriage. She volunteered to be a dragon's princess, and met the King while she was trying to save the King of Dragons.

Um, sure?

I've never done a PbC before, so I have no idea.

Roger that

Also, I am shamelessly off-ripping the template that the other two character sheets I've seen are following

Heh.

This is a DFRPG character I made as a test a while back, if you'd like to see a different kind of format/approach.

So, my high concept and my trouble seem to be the same

@Problematic This is a common issue for people making their first characters. Both I and Maurycy struggle with it also.

Well, maybe my trouble is that I still run my mouth as though I had my staff

Here's one way to think of your high concept:

If two people were talking, and one asked the other "Who's <your PC>?" how would the other respond?

"Oh, he's a Wizard Private Eye." "Him? He's the Local MacGyver."

Hmm.

So "disgraced wizard" isn't a bad start

Not at all.

"Disgraced" is a bad trouble, but a decent part of a high concept.

Maybe add one more thing to it.

Is he an underdog wizard who does what others tell him to? Maybe he's a Disgraced Lackey Wizard. Is he in his dotage? Might be a Disgraced Wizard Past His Prime.

And remember, you can imply things instead of stating them outright. If he's a Disgraced Blue Academy Professor, you've implied that he's a wizard if we know something about the Blue Academy.

But you've also said a lot more.

Is there any concept of wizarding lineage?

Vaguely. Two of the major villains were father and son wizards.

But not wizarding houses or anything

Antorell was the Head Wizard of the Society of Wizards (which would probably also be his high concept), and his son Zemenar's high concept would probably have been Bumbling Son of the High Wizard.

Nothing to say there aren't proud families of wizards.

Disgraced Hedge Wizard, maybe

His underwhelming magic has always been more of an annoyance than anything to the other wizards, so they melted him and fired his staff into a volcano or something.

Nice.

Of course, for the first session or two fiddling with your aspect is fair play.

....he got hazed?

As it were.

That is brilliant.

kind of changes the concept I had originally, but I think in the quest to retrieve his staff and prove himself, he could really come into his own

We'll have to come up with some appropriately dickish place for them to have put his staff.

Like maybe there's a reason for his underwhelming magic beyond just that he's not a very good wizard

The King of the Enchanted Forest's umbrella stand, or something.

I like that, or maybe some suitably nasty beastie is using it as a fancy toothpick

Maybe he's not Disgraced, but Humiliated or the like?

Aye, probably fits the concept better

Also explains why his Trouble is that he's always running his mouth

"If I Only Had My Staff..." a good first run at a trouble?

Hmm.

How do you see it being used as a compel? How can I constrain your actions to complicate your life with it?

Pair of royal guards that I need to talk my way past to get where I'm going?

Okay, I'll give you a scenario and you think of a way to complicate it with the Trouble concept you have in mind (not necessarily the specific aspect you've written down).

You step into a clearing in the forest and hear weeping. A comely princess sits in a patch of clover, her skirts pooling prettily around her as she sniffles daintily.

"Woe is me!" she exclaims, looking up at you with watering dark eyes, "for mine is a terrible plight! I was to meet my paramour --handsome and strong, with a shield as stout as his heart and a sword as shining as his wit-- but he has not yet come! I fear he has been devoured by some beast! Wilt thou aid me in my distress? For mine is a terrible plight!"

Hrm. I see your point.

Your Trouble should be such that it can be used to constrain your character's actions so they complicate his ability to achieve his goals.

Charlin the Mundane is Rejected by Destiny. I'll compel him to eagerly accept a chance to be part of a romantic tale, or to be envious of a couple so obviously destined to live Happily Ever After.

Flurf gets compelled to rifle through her purse, as It Was Just Lying There.

"Because <trouble> is true, it makes sense that you'd <complicating action.>"

Hmm

I guess I could be compelled to overpromise on our abilities?

That would be an excellent compel for an Enchanted Forest campaign.

Promises are Serious Business in fairy tales.

Maybe your trouble is something about proving your worth?

That's what I'm thinking

Trouble: "I am NOT 'ineffectual'!"

There's a DFRPG premade adventure about some kids who dare each other to spend a night in a haunted house.

Every single one of the premade PCs has the aspect Not a Kid Anymore.

@Problematic I like it.

So troubles should be designed around offering good compels, and aspects should be designed around offering both compels AND invokes?

All of your aspects, including your trouble, should be good for compels as well as both invokes for bonuses and invokes for effects.

How would I invoke my trouble, then?

But that's ideal, and aspects are good if they can easily be two out of three.

@Problematic When making checks to do things that prove you're not ineffectual?

Ah

basically, your trouble is set up to feed you Fate points which you then spend to be good at the aftermath of whatever I compelled you to do.

A trouble aspect needs to focus on the compel part though, because the purpose of a trouble is to be my go-to method of feeding you Fate.

Your trouble tells me a lot about the kind of situations and problems you want your character to deal with.

As informed by the high concept

Aye.

Okay, that makes sense

Altogether, a party's aspects tell me the kind of game you want to play.

So if I'm not a very good wizard, maybe my first aspect should revolve around the way I compensate for that

That'd make sense.

What are you good at?

Reading people? Hiding? Strategy?

Try going back to the scenario I gave you and think about how he could react positively, with his talents.

I want to say "knowing what the threats are," but that's kind of hard to reconcile with overpromising

Threats like whether she's trying to trick him?

Or knowing what may or may not have eaten the lover

So you're thinking bookworm, studying type talents.

Possibly.

Knowing that in this particular area of the woods, the guy was probably ensnared by fay and knowing that it's likely way over our heads, am I still likely to say "oh don't worry, we'll have him back by nightfall"?

So, something like If it's in a book, I've read it.

Universal Scholar.

I guess it could provide some comedic value to promise that we'll have him back, and as we're traipsing off into the underbrush, be telling the party all about the horrible things the fay do to intruders

Hee.

Maybe It's All Academic; I have the knowledge, but struggle to apply it practically

Oooh, nice.

@Problematic I shamelessly took the template from Maurycy, so...

Invocable in nearly any situation, because they're all academic, but compellable in nearly any situation where he thinks it's all academic.

That is a nice aspect! Tonnes of potential for invokes and compels.

Thanks.

It's very helpful to have a good sounding board, so thanks for that too

In this case, you want his inferiority complex to drive the plot complications, and his bookish worldview to be more of an asset.

Both can take on the other roles as appropriate, but by making one an aspect and one a trouble you're telegraphing the general shape you want your character to take.

Approaches == skills in Core?

Yes.

Approaches are skills, except they give bonuses based on how you do a thing instead of what you're doing.

You could sneak past a guard Carefully, Quickly, or Sneakily, for example.

...I don't advise doing it Forcefully.

haha

Ditto with picking pockets.

Unless you need to grab the wallet and it's more about making sure you've got it and less about them not noticing.

Although I guess that might not really be pickpocketing.

That's mugging.

I was envisioning ripping the pocket open, but you're probably right.

Clever +3; Quick, Flashy +2; Forceful, Sneaky +1, Careful +0

Having a hard time with approaches, actually

?

It's making me think about him in terms that I might not normally use

Ah.

I can foresee some juicy arguments with Charlin.

Out of interest, are we planning to one-shot this thing?

"Yes, your research is very interesting, but as one who has actually done it..."

@Aether [shrug]

In a PbC with a controllable pace, I'm willing to go as long as it's fun and I have the time/brain.

"Well, that's how I was told it would work..." :/

@BESW Cool.

@Aether "If only I had my staff, I would demonstrate."

@Aether This whole thing has kinda snowballed from an excuse to send Maurycy the Kickstarter pdfs.

Having read some of BESW's stuff above, Charlin isn't actually a wizard, but some other caster type.

@Aether You're free to come up with your own thing there.

@Aether Good point

In the novel canon, fire witches would fit nicely.

@BESW It's all about legitimisation :D

The rejected son of a witch

"Fire witch" is a gender-neutral term for people with hereditary fire magic.

I was just thinking of some hermit types who pass down their magic, generation after generation.

That works too. It's a big forest, and the world outside it is even bigger.

People visit, some villagers leave, but mostly they keep to themselves.

@Rob Hi!

Hey @BESW

So book learning won't be restricted to his non-existent magic, but will be a heavy focus

Makes sense; he'd focus on magical studies but would probably find it necessary to learn other things to compensate for his lack.

And how much different magics are the same or different will probably be a matter of determining through play

Aye.

In the source material, magic comes in many different varieties that are more and less compatible depending on which comes into contact with each other.

Building a game?

His lack of magic was a rather unpleasant surprise when waking up on his 18th birthday and... being unable to cast anything.

@Rob Aye.

I dropped into the wrong chat :)

Happy FAE ing :)

When I get back from Israel at the start of next month, we'll do a PbC FAE game.

So non-magic book learning was more general inquisitiveness than preparing for life without magic

Oooh. That's awkward.

Yeah.

Possible answers for why he's not magic include adoption, or someone miscounting his age :P

@Aether Okay, that last one? Is hilarious.

How's this for a stunt? "Because I Talk the Talk, I get a +2 when I cleverly create advantages when in-depth knowledge might be impressive or helpful."

@Aether or? Both.

Maybe.

On a more serious idea, the magic of his village might be tainted, and rather than being Rejected by Destiny, he might have been Protected by Destiny...

But he won't know that

@Problematic I like it.

So it sounds like we've got a plot focused on magic: a lost magic staff, a transformative curse, and a caster who isn't.

Makes sense for The Enchanted Forest, I think! :)

Indeed.

Framed another way, we're looking at lost identities: a wizard without his staff, a man without his natural form, and a youth without his family traits.

@ObliviousSage Hi!

howdy; havent done any FATE stuff before other than read the DFRPG books so i thought i might sit in and observe, unless thats a problem

No problem at all!

It'd be silly to do this in a Google-botted chatroom and get upset about the audience.

However, I really need sleep.

ttfn

Night

if only something being silly kept it from happening

laters BESW

@ObliviousSage I haven't done any FATE, either, outside of reading some of the books.

Likewise

I've only played one session of Dresden so far

I should look into the setting.

Sounds interesting enough.

The books?

Those too.

Wil of Renn

Comments welcome.

@Problematic I am not sure about compelling and invoking "It's all academic"

It could probably be compelled to make William act condescending

Then again I am not the best with this

@MaurycyZarzycki I think we decided something like, I can invoke it when I could use book-smarts in a situation, and he could compel it to mean that I have knowledge, but struggle to apply it, or dismiss something because it doesn't match what I've learned

Ah, okay

I've scanned the discussion above a little bit only

Aye; I think being condescending is probably definitely in his character, too

"probably definitely," yes.

"Ineffectual, bumbling antics" and "behavior unbefitting the title of 'wizard'" :D

@Aether Where is yer character sheet!

Charlin the Mundane

Yep