Gaming on Friday Night in the Antediluvian World
As mentioned late last week, the Friday night gaming group started their play campaign of the current incarnation of the Atlantis: The Second Age, now full of sword & sorcery goodness. I had a really good time of it with the players on Friday night, and they all seemed to enjoy themselves.
While the player characters had actually created their player characters for the Atlantis: The Second Age game almost a year ago, that was done using the playtest files as well as some material from the two earlier editions, Friday night's game session involved going through the character generation process with the rules from the Khepera edition book, and a couple of other sources as well. So this was more a matter of making the characters consistent with the actual rules, and just cleaning up the inconsistencies from those characters due to playtest document issues and the like.
Anyway, the players began the process around 7:20 pm on Friday night, and had a good time of it. I started off by giving the players a brief history of the game world (from the Atlantean point of view, naturally), talked a bit about the game mechanics, and then got down to character generation. In the case of Angela and David, this was their second experience with the game, but the other four players and Ellie had some previous experience with the earlier edition(s) of Atlantis.
The players created one character each for the Atlantis: The Second Age RPG, and it was an interesting process, to be sure. Simplified and definitely clarified somewhat from the playtest document that we had used the first time round last year. I went through each step of the character generation process with the players - Character Concept, Race, Culture, Profession, Walk the Life Paths, and Other Details - and the players did a really good job of it. Lovely stuff.
Here's a brief glimpse into what the player created for their characters...
*****
Kathy - She created an Atlantean Sorceress, Sahauviia the Green (from her decidedly odd eyes). The player ended up taking a couple of unexpected Life Paths, including having spent some time at sea and a 3-year stint enjoying some adventure. She's got an interesting character.
Nick - He decided that he wanted to see what the game system offered, and created an Erian Uluka (Owlman). Set up as a Scout, the character proved quite interesting in terms of how character generation proceeded, and his combat and movement skill abilities make him quite interesting. This is a neat take on the character.
Tom - The player who likes to play fighter types usually decided to go a different direction with his character, and created Sadikar al Tarnufeh, a Qaddani Scholar with a passionate interest in medicine and all things of the body. Should be interesting to see how he plays the character.
Joanne - She wanted to see what can be done in the Antediluvian world with plants, and created Calfuray, a Human Tamerac Herbalist. The character went that step beyond, having a few interesting adventures and finding that her combat skills became a bit more important than she had planned due to some of her life experiences. One of the neat things about Atlantis is the twists that the Life Paths can cause a character concept to have, and this was one of those instances.
Angela - She had a tough time deciding what she wanted to create originally, but settled on Koomara Hadansi, a human Galacean scavenger of First Age artefacts. She ended up with a modicum of magic as well, and found that she needed to add some Skills to be competent at what she wanted to do. Overall, a lovely character and I look forward to see her in action.
David - He decided he wanted to see what the apes had to offer :), so he created Orga Queld, a Lemurian craftsman exiled from his homeland for deeds too unspeakable to mention here, who found himself with a bit more combat abilities than he expected and that his adventures at sea weren't all that worth talking about. The character is interesting in sooooooooo many ways, and I'm looking forward to seeing David's playing the Lemurian.
and, finally,
Ellie - My goddaughter decided originally to try her hand at creating a character for the game, though she wasn't sure about some of the stuff involved, and hadn't changed her mind about playing now. She decided to create Melucene Pallermos, the daughter of a Hesperian Priestess whose mother attempted to sacrifice her to the Gods. The character seems interesting, and there will be some neat plots that I can have focusing on Melucene and the other players' reactions to what *really* happened.
*****
As you can see, an interesting group of characters with some neat ties to one another. The character creation process went extremely smoothly this time around, bolstered by the fact that we were using the actual rules and not the playtest materials and some other stuff. The players still complained a bit about the limited number of Professions (there are four, divided into four occupations each), which had caused conceptual problems with the characters originally, notably Joanne's herbalist, Angela's artefacts scavenger, and David's craftman type, but this was all resolved quite simply this time around with the fixed up additional occupations that I added in.
Overall, an interesting and highly enjoyable evening was had with the players in re-creating the characters, and all of them said that they really like the game and are looking forward to playing Atlantis: The Second Age. I'm pretty much looking forward to running the game at the moment, too! :)
While the player characters had actually created their player characters for the Atlantis: The Second Age game almost a year ago, that was done using the playtest files as well as some material from the two earlier editions, Friday night's game session involved going through the character generation process with the rules from the Khepera edition book, and a couple of other sources as well. So this was more a matter of making the characters consistent with the actual rules, and just cleaning up the inconsistencies from those characters due to playtest document issues and the like.
Anyway, the players began the process around 7:20 pm on Friday night, and had a good time of it. I started off by giving the players a brief history of the game world (from the Atlantean point of view, naturally), talked a bit about the game mechanics, and then got down to character generation. In the case of Angela and David, this was their second experience with the game, but the other four players and Ellie had some previous experience with the earlier edition(s) of Atlantis.
The players created one character each for the Atlantis: The Second Age RPG, and it was an interesting process, to be sure. Simplified and definitely clarified somewhat from the playtest document that we had used the first time round last year. I went through each step of the character generation process with the players - Character Concept, Race, Culture, Profession, Walk the Life Paths, and Other Details - and the players did a really good job of it. Lovely stuff.
Here's a brief glimpse into what the player created for their characters...
*****
Kathy - She created an Atlantean Sorceress, Sahauviia the Green (from her decidedly odd eyes). The player ended up taking a couple of unexpected Life Paths, including having spent some time at sea and a 3-year stint enjoying some adventure. She's got an interesting character.
Nick - He decided that he wanted to see what the game system offered, and created an Erian Uluka (Owlman). Set up as a Scout, the character proved quite interesting in terms of how character generation proceeded, and his combat and movement skill abilities make him quite interesting. This is a neat take on the character.
Tom - The player who likes to play fighter types usually decided to go a different direction with his character, and created Sadikar al Tarnufeh, a Qaddani Scholar with a passionate interest in medicine and all things of the body. Should be interesting to see how he plays the character.
Joanne - She wanted to see what can be done in the Antediluvian world with plants, and created Calfuray, a Human Tamerac Herbalist. The character went that step beyond, having a few interesting adventures and finding that her combat skills became a bit more important than she had planned due to some of her life experiences. One of the neat things about Atlantis is the twists that the Life Paths can cause a character concept to have, and this was one of those instances.
Angela - She had a tough time deciding what she wanted to create originally, but settled on Koomara Hadansi, a human Galacean scavenger of First Age artefacts. She ended up with a modicum of magic as well, and found that she needed to add some Skills to be competent at what she wanted to do. Overall, a lovely character and I look forward to see her in action.
David - He decided he wanted to see what the apes had to offer :), so he created Orga Queld, a Lemurian craftsman exiled from his homeland for deeds too unspeakable to mention here, who found himself with a bit more combat abilities than he expected and that his adventures at sea weren't all that worth talking about. The character is interesting in sooooooooo many ways, and I'm looking forward to seeing David's playing the Lemurian.
and, finally,
Ellie - My goddaughter decided originally to try her hand at creating a character for the game, though she wasn't sure about some of the stuff involved, and hadn't changed her mind about playing now. She decided to create Melucene Pallermos, the daughter of a Hesperian Priestess whose mother attempted to sacrifice her to the Gods. The character seems interesting, and there will be some neat plots that I can have focusing on Melucene and the other players' reactions to what *really* happened.
*****
As you can see, an interesting group of characters with some neat ties to one another. The character creation process went extremely smoothly this time around, bolstered by the fact that we were using the actual rules and not the playtest materials and some other stuff. The players still complained a bit about the limited number of Professions (there are four, divided into four occupations each), which had caused conceptual problems with the characters originally, notably Joanne's herbalist, Angela's artefacts scavenger, and David's craftman type, but this was all resolved quite simply this time around with the fixed up additional occupations that I added in.
Overall, an interesting and highly enjoyable evening was had with the players in re-creating the characters, and all of them said that they really like the game and are looking forward to playing Atlantis: The Second Age. I'm pretty much looking forward to running the game at the moment, too! :)