User:Cptn YARR/My First Nine Days: Non-Spoiler things I wish I learned sooner

First and Foremost, the Beginner's Guide on the wiki is really good.

Also, this was originally written-for and posted-in the #beginner-lounge channel of the game's official Discord server.

It has been digitally formatted to fit ~~this screen.~~ this wiki page.

All of this is pre-POSI (Person of Some Importance) / early-MYN (Making Your Name) content & advice. It may apply to your first week; it may apply to your first month or two; it depends on how you play & how often you play.

and here's some Things I Wish I Learned Sooner ...

Number 1! Heed the Warnings!

"Warning: bad things happen here. [...]"

This game don't play! I mean, ... it does, and it jokes, and it might often make you chuckle. But when it warns you something is a bad idea, it means it. Some of these bad ideas can be loads of fun. But having made the mistake myself, I would like to encourage you to heed the warnings for now and wait to try any bad ideas until later.

Number 2. Have fun.

"Don't be afraid to take actions that are difficult for you."

Good things are going to happen; minor bad things are going to happen; very very bad things are going to happen only if you ignore the warnings. Your character is new here; they are going to make mistakes; most of those mistakes are still going to help them, at least a little. Have fun with it.

There is a wiki: Fallen London Wiki

"You are HERE ↓"

Wiki's are inherently spoilerous, but this one does a fair job of only giving minimal information. If you feel the need to look up item stats, or find out in advance the mechanical effects of a choice you are about to make, or research "how in The Forgotten Quarter do I get to the Carnival!?", the wiki can be a good place to turn to.

Note: when the Wiki references "a Card", it is referring to your Opportunity Deck; when it references "a Storylet", these are the stories you can choose to play through in the various locations throughout the game. Tip 3b: Pay attention to your Opportunity Deck. Draw some Cards. There's a lot of interesting stuff in there.

{Note two: that was a twist on a common figure of speech, the Carnival is not in The Forgotten Quarter.}

Making Money (Echoes)

"Still wearing THOSE rags, huh?"

The primary currencies in London are items: rostygold, moon-pearls, dead rats, whispered hints, and other novelties. AFAIK, nothing south of New Newgate Prison is actually trash; you're generally going to want to not sell your things -- unless you really need the Echoes.

Or unless you have found a reliable renewable resource... Enter:

Mrs Chapman's Boarding House for Those Who Temporarily Have Nowhere Else To Go

Mrs Chapman's is a storylet in Spite that mechanically does only one thing: spend an action, get an item. Each week (real world time) will have four different actions to choose from. Because these are infinitely repeatable, you can quickly stockpile some items worth selling. In fact, in the early-early game (early-MYN), this is one of the simplest and most efficient ways to make a quick Echo. Finally, you can upgrade your inventory!
'Cause darling, that Pair of Scuffed Boots you're still wearing is not convincing anybody to take you seriously.

4b: When choosing your equipment

Remember also, the harder a challenge, the more experience you gain.
Sure, a 100% chance is guaranteed success, but this is only occasionally important -- and you only gain 1 point for any challenge above 90%. When trying to increase your attributes, aim for Low-Risk or Modest (61-90%, +2 Change Points per success) or Chancy (41-60%, +3CP per success). Tougher challenges reward more experience & even reward additional CP for failure. For example, my Dangerous grew quickly because I got reckless with it very early; but my favorite stat, Persuasive, has grown very slowly because my equipment made those challenges very easy.

Ya know what, on second thought -- just don't buy any clothing equipment -- not yet at least. You can if you want, but your attributes will grow more slowly because of it. Those Scuffed Boots may not be impressing anyone now; but if you keep wearing them, you'll be naturally more impressive when it matters. {It took me 10-11 days of playing and then editing this advice to finally realize that one. sigh-of-regret ; unequips-almost-everything}

4c: What to sell

Advice from @TheEmrys

[...] I'll add on that this is where reading the Locks/Unlocks list on an item's [wiki] page is useful (for items that are worth a significant chunk of echoes at least). If you look at the unlocks and there are too many to bother reading, keep. If there are some unlocks but they're all late game, I'll then check the Obtain list. If there are other sources I'll sell it, since I won't need to use the item for a long time, I need echoes now, and I can replace it later. If it's useful later but also super rare, I'll hoard.

Fast Actions for when you don't have time

"So much to do; so little time."

Actions refill at a rate of one action every ten minutes, until the candle is full. If your candle of actions is full, but you don't have time to play right now, consider stopping by Mrs Chapman's real quick to convert some of those actions to items.

Or, if you have less than 5 Renown with any of the Factions, you can rub elbows with some folks at the Carnival.

Then let your candle refill until you again have some time to sit and enjoy the game for a bit.

Renown does not matter -- until it does

"I'm sorry, who are you?"

You have two primary stats with each faction: Favours & Renown. Favours are useful to you now. Renown will be a little useful to you soon, and very useful to you later, and F.L. doesn't really give much heads up on that. Many players end up pausing their progress to grind Renown with one or more factions. {As I write this, I'm currently grinding Renown: The Docks.}

But you can get an early start on building Renown!
Remember that Carnival I referenced earlier?
Ya know that "Local Gossip" chap in your Lodgings?
{Yeah. It was that easy, but I had to research it to find it.}

The Big Top and The Sideshows are storylets you definitely want to visit. In fact, if you want to take a few of these factions (or even all of them) to Renown 5 real quick, it's not a bad idea. You don't have to, but it's pretty unlikely you'll regret it.

If you really want to start choosing sides now, some reasonable choices are:

• Constables v. Criminals
• The Church v. Hell/devils
• Revolutionaries v. Society
• Also, Urchins is pretty useful regardless of what you do.

Finally, don't focus too much on specializing in one or two stats

{Mine was Persuasion.}

There's four main stats; becoming a Person of Some Importance (POSI) requires your base + equipment be at least 100 for each stat. Fortunately, the checks are done one stat at a time, so you can change equipment as needed.

An excerpt from Savato's Classic Fallen London Beginner Tips™:

Fallen London has what I call "Skyrim Syndrome". Means even if you want to play a reclusive mage, you'll still end up leader of the Companions, Bards' College, Thieves' Guild and everything else. So you'll end up using all four Stats anyway - no need to focus on one.

Now go Make a Name, or four!, for yourself.

and Welcome to London, delicious friend.  👋😊

Addendum A: Unlocking Routes

Finding the Route page for the Carnival is how I finally got to the Carnival. One of the best ways to find out how to unlock a Route to some-place in London (or any of the other Areas of the game) is to search 👆in the search bar up top☝️ "Route: " followed by the name of the place you are looking to get to. This will get you some practice using the wiki.

A small shortcut: you can also check the Places guide.

A major shortcut: the following chart {currently a work in progress} lists each of the major locations on the London map (pre-POSI only), a note or two about each location's purpose, and a brief shorthand on how to unlock that location's route.