Possibly a very silly question, but I find the best way to learn something is by doing, so wanted to learn the system by first building a character. Do you have to have a group to build a city, character etc, or can you do it solo? Is there any special rules to it?
There are rules -- as per the book -- but it can be certainly be done solo! I suppose one
could argue that doing it "solo" is doing it "wrong" (the rules specify a collaborative process)... but as a way to learn/explore the system, it seems very good to me!
Also, as others have suggested, one could "simulate" the multi-player method: do the initial steps for a city, and each of several characters, then STOP each one, and do the phases stepwise for the entire group, not going to the next step for ANY character until the current step is done for ALL characters.
The only downside, I would think, would the loss of the multi-person collaborative/brainstorming nature of city-and-character-design. It's pretty clear to me that several creative people brainstorming can quickly produce something more interesting than any one of them alone...
But for learning the mechanics? I think going solo is actually superior.
- Steve, the g33k