creativeAll three of the players showed up just before 7:00 pm, and we talked a bit before getting started in on the character creation process, catching up a bit on the week, and talking about the weather conditions (5-10 cms of snow was supposed to fall last night; there were actually 11 cms that fell overnight). Once the players and I got down to character generation, we talked a bit about the Primeval UK tv series; Donna and David had seen the series, and rather enjoyed it, though they'd been turned off by the Canadian spin-off series. Kendall hadn't seen the original series, though she was somewhat familiar with Primeval: New World. She didn't sound overly enthusiastic about things, though she does have a love of dinosaurs, so I knew that in some ways I might have my work cut out for me.
I started off character generation for the Primeval RPG by going over the basics of the world of Primeval, the PRIMEVALverse. When I showed them the character sheets for the game, all three players loved the look of the sheets, and then I went over the basics of the game mechanics. The players loved the simplicity of the mechanics, but said they would judge more after we finished generating the characters. After I answered any questions the players had about aspects of the game world and the character creation process, we started in on character specifics. As the players built their characters from the ground up, they made some decisions about their game setting and had a lot of fun creating their characters.
Overall, I think the players came up with three interesting characters for the game, but I'll let others be the judge of that for now. :)
*****
Donna - Donna has been bouncing a couple of concepts around for the day (as she told me later), but after talking with David and Kendall, she made her decision. She created Dr. Paula Richardson, a married scientist (palaeontologist and morphologist) with a young daughter, working at one of the local universities, who will stumble into a situation that she shouldn't have.
David - David told me that he had several ideas for characters, and went over them with me. While all of them were quite good, David settled on Sergeant Charles Kinson, a former soldier in the military now working for a secretive organisation. He's got a couple of neat secrets, too, which will definitely come out in the game.
Kendall - Kendall didn't even bat an eyelash, as she told me that she wanted to play Joanne ("Jonie") Williams, a former street kid turned reporter and publicist, wtih a bit of a dark past and a gap in her memory that she can't account for. The concept is truly intriguing, and I'm looking forward to seeing what she does with the character.
*****
Once the players finished off their characters for the Primeval RPG, they did up some rough backgrounds based on their character creation notes, and then we sat around for about 10 minutes taking on a small group of Compsognathus, and learned some valuable lessons! All three agreed that it was the easiest character creation they've ever done for a roleplaying game, and that the mechanics really seem to lend themselves to the PRIMEVALverse. Kendall told me that she was now really looking forward to playing the game, and that she hoped her character wouldn't die too quickly! "No fear of that," Donna said, "you'll be scarred and marred well before you die!". So humourous, that woman. :) All three players are eagerly looking forward to playing the game now.
And to be honest, I can't wait to run this game again, either! :)