As it stands now you pick one nature, one strength, and one weakness with 3 cards for both strength and weakness. However if you want a broader concept or more than one way to succeed or fail at something you're out of luck. It would be nice if one of the options a Narrator could set at game start was how many strength and weakness cards a player could pick with a maximum of three unique cards in each category. So a player could start with one strength and one weakness that each get 3 cards, two strengths and two weaknesses that each have 2 cards, or three strengths and three weaknesses but each has only a single card. Not only would it make for more nuanced character creation, each setting would allow for different styles of play and more dynamic actions on the part of the player.

I would also like to see the ability to select at least one different Strength/Weakness card (the 2+1 model) at character creation. As it stands, one of characters is all "social" skills. I'd like to start the game off with a bang, something like a chase, fire, shipwreck, shootout, etc. All the social skills will leave him out of the challenge, well unless he burns his wild cards early.

The OP is exactly what I was expecting from the How to Play text and videos, where I thought all three static Strengths and Weaknesses were for simplicity of examples. For some characters, starting with 2+1 strengths just makes sense. A reformed rogue who learned magic is elegantly presented with the 2 Clever, 1 Sneaky, and 1 Wild starting strengths. A 3 custom strength, "Rogue turned spellslinger", just doesn't feel as simple.

Maybe this will seem like less of an issue for starting characters after I've gotten further in my first two games, and had more games. However, right now it seems like something I'd like for starting characters. (I came to Storium by way of Fate Core and Fate Accelerated Edition. To me, starting characters are just the characters at the start of the story. They needn't be low powered.)

Quadruple post!

Apologies if this is a repeat.

My idea is to allow the narrator control over what characters start with. It's possible they might want two Nature cards, or to require four different starting Strengths/Weaknesses, or even unbalanced numbers (3 Strength cards and five Weakness cards), or to start with 2 identical Strengths, one different, and one Wild; or two wild and two constant, etc etc etc.

Does that make more sense?

(Apologies if this comment is duplicated.)

Yes, that explanation makes the refresh rules more clear.

However, a starting character feels a bit like a one-note song with three identical Strengths and three identical weaknesses.

My suggestion is to allow the game creator some flexibility here with the number of cards for a starting charcter- one game it might make sense to have four wilds, another 2 identical - 1 singleton - 1 wild, another might want all four different and you have to earn the wilds.

Does that make sense as an idea?

That explanation does help me understand the refresh rules, yes.

But thinking through this, I suggest to allow variance when setting up a a game: If the default is 3 identical + 1 wild, perhaps other choices would be 4 different cards, or 2 identical + 1 different + 1 wild, or 3 different + 1 wild, etc.

Right now, a starting character feels a little like a one-note tune with such a high number of identical cards...

I'm still learning the mechanics, so that explanation does help.

It still feels like starting characters are a bit one-note with three identical Strengths/Weaknesses.

My suggestion is really that the starting hands could be adjusted by the Narrator- maybe 3+wild, or four wild, or 2+1+wild, or 1+1+1+1, or whatever seems coolest.

Does that make sense?