Character Creation: Full Moon

I felt like doing a character for a Fate game today, and lo.

The Game: Full Moon
The Publisher: Nothing Ventured Games
Degree of Familiarity: None with this particular game, but I'm well familiar with Fate
Books Required: Just the one, as it predates the Fate Core/Accelerated books

 

Full Moon was one of the first projects I backed on Kickstarter (long about 2012, I think?) and it's been something I've been meaning to run ever since. Often when I schedule one-shots, I'll include it as an option, and it tends to get just edged out by other games. I'll get around to it one day.

The short pitch for the game is "Deadwood on the moon," which I can't read without starting to sing it in the cadence of "whalers on the moon."

Anyway, the basic idea is that humanity has colonized the moon and you're up there for some reason. Part of play is establishing a community, and I have to say the "establish a community" section of the book could be a little better defined. As it is, if I were to run it I'd probably take a cue from Dresden Files and build the community that way, but there's a sample community in the book that I like just fine, so I'ma use that.

The rules of this game are Fate pre-Core, but post-Diaspora, so I don't have to worry about 10 different Aspects. The game does want me to do Skills first, though, which is fine. Well, actually, the first thing I do is come up with a concept.

In the sample setting at the end, the idea is that mining concerns came up, built this city-like structure called Cernan Station, but then the bottom fell out and the biggest corp basically left but leased everything to independent mining concerns and prospectors. Cernan Station has a central population, but a lot of folks live out on the lunar surface in their own structures (no word on whether they have bee-yoo-tiful robot daughters). One of the factions in Cernan Station are the "Big Dogs," remainders of a former mining concern called Sirius. Sirius is gone, but the Big Dogs remain as freelance peacekeepers and workers, and I kinda like them. It'd be fun to play a square-jawed, ethical type in this quasi-Western setting. I want my character to have family in Cernan Station, and to be generally well-liked by those that know him, but to have some darker roots and ties to the uglier history of the community. His name is Algernon Coombs, but folks call him "Allie."

I'm meant to answer five questions about Allie in order to get the basis of a concept (there is no spot on the sheet to write these, booo).

• What is my character good at? Allie is useful in a dust-up, knows his way around most machinery, is a decent card player, and if you're looking for a chili recipe you could do worse. He's kind of a jack-of-all-trades, but he's known to be dependable and honest.
• What kind of background does my character come from? I'm gonna say that Allie is a lunar native (Cernan Station is about 40 years old, but hit financial trouble 25 years ago, so I'll say he was about 5 when shit started to fall apart). His family worked for Sirius, and his dad died in a mining accident when he was 5 and his brother was 10. His family toughed it out for a few more years, but then his mother got sick and went back to Earth. His brother, then 16, kept Allie around, and Allie hasn't seen his mom since. 
• What drives my character? Allie started working for Sirius at age 8 (what, there are no child labor laws up here). He's always been dependable because he needed to be - he had to help support his family. That sense of responsibility is still his driving force, even though he and his brother are a lot better off just because they don't have anyone else to support.
• What stands in my character's way? When Allie was a kid, he wound up doing some work for Sirius on the lower levels of Cernan Station, what's now the Gray (maybe even Black?) levels where no one goes anymore. The work he did was mostly carrying stuff from one place to another, but there was also, towards the end there, some "crawl into this small space and get [thing]." Allie has weird, half-formed memories of this time, of people in blue hazmat suits with a logo that was decidedly not Sirius.
• How is my character connected to the other characters? This would normally involve other PCs, but of course it's just me, so I'll just note that Allie's big brother Josiah "Joey" Coombs is also a Big Dog and does the same kind of work Allie does. Joey, though, winds up taking work for the McKenna crime family sometimes - nothing horrible, of course, but it's not exactly savory either. 

Now Skills. I get 17 points to spend on Skills, and every Skill starts at Mediocre. So if I want two skills at Great, this eats 8 of my points. I don't have to worry about a pyramid like I do in other Fate games, apparently, so that's nice. However, I also have to spend these points on stunts and specialties, if I want. Hmm. 

Well, there's no equivalent of Contacts or Resources in this system, so I don't have to worry about that. I want Allie to be good in a scrap, but I don't need it at Great necessarily. I think I'll put Fighting and Athletics at Good. Actually, I think Mechanics needs to be Good at well. That's 9 of my points. 

I'll put Persuasion at Fair (11 points), Protocol and Survival at Average (13 points), and Vehicles at Fair (15 points). That leaves two more points, so I could buy stunts and specialties. Actually, I'll spend one of those points to put Investigation to Average, and then I'll put a Dependable Speciality in Persuasion and buy a stunt for Athletics (Joint Lock: If he gets spin on an attack roll to grapple, he can automatically put an aspect on the target.)

And that takes me around to Aspects! I get five, and they're supposed to line up roughly with the five questions from earlier. My first one should be Big Dog Jack-of-All-Trades, since that establishes me in the faction. To play off my background, I'll take Roots in the Community. 

An Aspect off my third question (what drives me) is a little trickier; it really should refer to family, but I know I'll wind up with another one about Joey later and he's my only real family. I'll take You Can Count on Me instead, that's good for getting into trouble.

Speaking of trouble, I'll take Saw the Black Levels to represent that I know something that someone doesn't want me to know.

Finally, I need an Aspect to represent my relationship with Joey. I'll call it We're Coombs, not McKennas (something that Allie reminds Joey of frequently). 

Allie is about 30 now, good shape, thick arms. He got a Sirius "Big Dog" tattoo on his shoulder when he turned 16, but hasn't gotten any more ink. He has a young face and bright blue eyes, and sandy brown hair. He doesn't carry weapons unless he's expecting to use them, but he and his brother have a small selection of firearms if he needs them.

And that's it!