Basic Overview
The first thing you should do is think about what character you want to play... everyone is human, though some have hidden animalistic characteristics (Wesen). Magic is a known and open thing, though only of moderate power (Tolkien has lets say low magic whereas DnD has high magic), and the depths of magic are hidden (think Merlin where magic was known, often feared, but also accepted if needed). Psionics also exist, and are known to exist only in that there are rumours of people who can read your mind or share thoughts, and of course mesmers who can steal your will, but are very rare and mostly hidden.
There are no predefined classes, templates, backgrouds, etc. You define you. The primary definition of your character are short statements you make about them:
High Concept (ie. failed thief trying to learn magic),
Trouble (ie. thieves guild and victim are both seeking me),
Background (ie. grew up in a sea salvaging family then moved to the city),
Hinderance (ie. trying to get Volo to take you on as a metalmancer apprentice), and
Stories (two past shared experiences with other player characters). These descriptions should guide your choices in the system, basically helping you select
Skills,
Abilites and
Advantages/
Disadvantages your character. Feel free to revise your descriptions so as your make your system choices build what you want while keeping the two aspects - description and system - consistent.
System
Choices that you make in the system are
skills,
abilities,
advantages,
disadvantages and
gear. You will have skills at various levels to choose and points you can use to buy abilities, advantages and gear. You can take disadvantages to get extra points to spend and help define your character's trouble and hinderances (in the example above you would have an enemy in your old thieves guild and victim and likely a duty to your mage master). Gear are special items you start with... not necessarily magic, but important and helpful to you. You wil also write a description of your character (appearance, manersisms, etc) and select any equipment and clothing they have.
Dice Pools
This system has the player roll a number (pool) of 10 sided dice (d10) to determine an outcome for their character's action. The outcomes success or failure and you can have a complication to deal with or depending on the roll, to give to someone else.
Skills
You have a number of skills to choose at different levels (1-4, 0 is untrained), that are in a pyramid (you can't have more skills at level 3 than you have at level 2). There are 19 skills to choose from so there wul be many you are untrained in. It is thus good to work with the other plays to make sure you collectively cover most skills.
Abilities
The abilities are
Magic and
Psionics; you cannot have both, and do not need to have any if you want to focus on advantages to improve how you use your skills.
Advantages
Literally ways in which you are better at things or can do things that others can't. You could be smart, have special training in a skill, be tough, have influencial friends or be very charismatic. Basically any helpful or positive aspect beyond the normal.
Disadvantages
The opposite of advantages, aspects in which you are worse off than average... enemies, nearsighted, ugly, weak. You get points from these, depending on how impactful they are, to spend on other helpful things.
Gear
Basically gear are special items that give you a benefit... lucky jacket your mom gave you that makes you feel great (improves your confidence), well made sword (lighter or sharper), special writ (gives you some questionable authority).
Equipment
You can choose what you wear, have, etc based on your wealth level (which is an advantage/disadvantage depending on the level). You can buy armor or weapons though this is not something you would openly wear in a city or town unless you had appropriate rank or status. Overall you equipment is covered by a
readiness level so you do not have to track minor or miscelaneous items.
