Pathfinder
A half orc barbarian with massive intelligence but no formal training in how to apply it (think of him like a pseudo-medieval/fantasy mythbuster who likes to pull things apart and blow things up).
A human monk with a penchant for hanging out in bars after recently leaving his order.
An elven wizard who focusing on herbalism and alchemy, who has decided to become the core of the region's drug empire (hoping to absorb other existing drug cartels into his ring, or annihilate them)
A gnome rogue who can diplomatically persuade and charm almost anyone, after spending almost an entire human lifetime on the high seas as a specialist in the piratical art of the "parlay"...and who rides a combat training giant gecko.
That's where we started. Character generation started at 7pm, and used a single copy of the Pathfinder rulebooks between four people (two of whom had never played a tabletop RPG, only computer RPGs...and a first time GM). By the time we had an understanding of who our characters were and vaguely how they fitted together, it was almost 11pm. But everyone was still enthusiastic and wanted to see how these characters might start working together as a team. It was 1am by the time we realised the time, and called it quits.
I can see why some people enjoy this type of gaming, it's not quite old school, it's very mechanical, it allows a lot of quirky options. For people who've come across from computer RPGs, it offers a lot of familiarity. The dice mechanisms are pretty simple, roll a d20, add a bonus, compare it to a target number. We didn't really see much combat... well, half the table (the elven wizard and gnome rogue) didn't, while the other two just beat up on one another to see who was the better warrior. We did get to see how most of the basic die rolls worked, I explained them from the perspective of a veteran D&D 3.0/3.5 player (which meant I got most of them right, but didn't pick up on a lot of the nuanced variations in Pathfinder).
I don't know how long we'll last with this game, but the group seems to have gelled pretty well, and character generation is such a long process that most of the players aren't going to want to go through it again in a hurry...and the new GM just laid out a hefty sum on buying the assorted rulebooks, so he's not going to want to switch over to some other system in a hurry. I'd love to show these guys something new and quirky, but we'll just settle into a groove with this first.
Besides, my character (the gnome rogue) was designated defacto leader of the group due to real world RPG experience, and in character Charisma of 20. I usually try to play the mysterious warrior or sorceror supreme, so trying the spotlight role should be fun. It becomes more fun when most of the new players just ran with "male" as their default gender while my"leader" had their gender randomly determined. Male Barbarian, Male Monk, Male Wizard...led by a Female Rogue.
Let's see where that takes us.
A human monk with a penchant for hanging out in bars after recently leaving his order.
An elven wizard who focusing on herbalism and alchemy, who has decided to become the core of the region's drug empire (hoping to absorb other existing drug cartels into his ring, or annihilate them)
A gnome rogue who can diplomatically persuade and charm almost anyone, after spending almost an entire human lifetime on the high seas as a specialist in the piratical art of the "parlay"...and who rides a combat training giant gecko.
That's where we started. Character generation started at 7pm, and used a single copy of the Pathfinder rulebooks between four people (two of whom had never played a tabletop RPG, only computer RPGs...and a first time GM). By the time we had an understanding of who our characters were and vaguely how they fitted together, it was almost 11pm. But everyone was still enthusiastic and wanted to see how these characters might start working together as a team. It was 1am by the time we realised the time, and called it quits.
I can see why some people enjoy this type of gaming, it's not quite old school, it's very mechanical, it allows a lot of quirky options. For people who've come across from computer RPGs, it offers a lot of familiarity. The dice mechanisms are pretty simple, roll a d20, add a bonus, compare it to a target number. We didn't really see much combat... well, half the table (the elven wizard and gnome rogue) didn't, while the other two just beat up on one another to see who was the better warrior. We did get to see how most of the basic die rolls worked, I explained them from the perspective of a veteran D&D 3.0/3.5 player (which meant I got most of them right, but didn't pick up on a lot of the nuanced variations in Pathfinder).
I don't know how long we'll last with this game, but the group seems to have gelled pretty well, and character generation is such a long process that most of the players aren't going to want to go through it again in a hurry...and the new GM just laid out a hefty sum on buying the assorted rulebooks, so he's not going to want to switch over to some other system in a hurry. I'd love to show these guys something new and quirky, but we'll just settle into a groove with this first.
Besides, my character (the gnome rogue) was designated defacto leader of the group due to real world RPG experience, and in character Charisma of 20. I usually try to play the mysterious warrior or sorceror supreme, so trying the spotlight role should be fun. It becomes more fun when most of the new players just ran with "male" as their default gender while my"leader" had their gender randomly determined. Male Barbarian, Male Monk, Male Wizard...led by a Female Rogue.
Let's see where that takes us.
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