Amber is a classic example that comes up in these discussions.

Intrepid uses playing cards instead of dice to resolve scenes and combat. For scenes, two people each narrate an outcome, and players vote on the version they prefer using red or black playing cards. A card is then selected and that outcome becomes the truth, so there is still an element of randomness.

In combat, each suit has a specific meaning for the ebb and flow of the battle, jokers change the scene, and the first person to draw the 4th ace wins the fight.

Most of Ben Robbins’ don’t have a random element at all and conflicts are resolved through procedure. Follow uses two coloured stones/poker chips/tokenswhich are drawn from a bag, similar to Intrepid. He also provides a “finger dice” system for getting dice-like results without using dice. On a signal, every player throws from 0 to 5 fingers, and groups of 5 fingers are eliminated. The remainder is roughly equivalent to a d6 roll.

I think you’ve done well with the concept! Solid history without being too ornate, lots of open room for development and questions answered, and sounds like you’ve already got ideas about how to highlight with mechanics.

The only piece of advice I would give is, in addition to thinking about leaving hooks open for the DM to work into the story, also consider the other direction: how is your character going to be moved, compelled, and changed by the broad strokes of the adventure they are going to get into and the companions they are going to be adventuring with? How can this character help set up other characters to do “their thing”? I’ve found the games I’ve played in to only be improved by having those dialogues with the DM and other players up front

It’s an excellent game, hope you get to try it out even if you don’t pick it for this particular venture.

Forgive some unsolicited advice, but if you ever do get around to it, the bit that was trickiest for us to wrap our heads around was the Touchstone role. They don’t have quite as many mechanics to interact with as Power and Perspective, so it can be easy for them to feel a bit sidelined.

The truth is, though, Touchstone wields an enormous amount of power. Played right, they decide if the Kingdom lives or dies. Power and Perspective should absolutely be trying as hard as they can to court/persuade/win over/cater to Touchstone at every turn, because that is the only way to get the people on your side. Perspective could be throwing out softball predictions with a clear right and wrong answer, but all Touchstone has to do is throw their weight behind the “wrong” choice and it still turns into an agonising dilemma for Power. Can’t rule over ashes.

I love Fate. I am using it to run what I’m calling my “sedition sandbox” campaign (there’s an evil empire, you’ve been sent to its capital as spies and saboteurs, now tell me how you bring it down from the inside).

It’s been working great. On our best nights, we hit a tone reminiscent of Andor as my players hit key targets, turn their enemies against each other, and grapple with just how far they are willing to go in the name of the cause.

Check out Kingdom! It’s a less traditional game, but it strips away just about everything except for the power, politics, and intrigue, and does it rather well, in my mind. It can handle scopes as broad as a galaxy spanning empire or as narrow as an after school fan club.

Do note that it focuses primarily on internal politics, in that all the players are expected to be members of the same organisation and want it to succeed. But they should have very different ideas about how to accomplish that or what success looks like, which drives the ebbs and flows of power

Yeah, it works well enough. I haven’t had any issues, at least. On Linux, I prefer something along the lines of Workspace Matrix to get a proper two dimensional layout, but on Windows, the built-in workspaces have been at least sufficient for game night and don’t require any additional setup

I use LogSeq to organise all my notes. My group meets in-person, but I use Foundry to put background art, NPC portraits, etc. up on a screen, as well as to manage any NPC character sheets.

It may stretch the definition of ‘tool’ a bit, but the other thing I do is set up my laptop with four desktops/workspaces (notes, Foundry, music, rules) so I can switch between them with Ctrl+Windows+Left/Right. It’s a minor thing, but I am constantly surprised by how many people I run into who don’t know that you can do it. Switching desktops feels like much less friction to me than Alt+Tabbing between windows for some reason.

Seconding Fate, the rules do a good job of supporting the fiction rather than encumbering it. I felt it very much supported that feeling of “I can do anything I can reasonably imagine.”

To help with the tyranny of the blank page, I’d recommend coming up with a pregenerated character to demo how it all works. Then, encourage her to change or adjust anything she wants to on the sheet. My players initially found it easier to modify something to their liking than to come up with something from scratch.

Magic can be as simple as “Roll your Lore skill” if you want or you can look up several more detailed add-ons that are out there, like Fate High Fantasy magic.

The rules are freely available here: https://fate-srd.com/fate-condensed.