accomplishedPeter showed up a bit earlier than the rest of the players, and we were able to sit down and go through his character and he gave me his thoughts on the character's background. He's playing Omar Sachise, a merchant with a strong sense of right and wrong, who's going to be joining the player characters aboard the Ruby Flower as the story picks up from where it left off, so it'll be interesting to see how he finds his place among the characters and the change in dynamics. This session isn't a typical gaming session, so I'm presenting it as such.
CHARACTERS
Naima Saab (KathyB) - Trailblazer (Scout)
Hafisa darRouash (Angela) - Pilot (Freighter Pilot)
Zouma Abid-Arif (Ellie) - Stowaway/Ship Worker (Engineer)
Tafik Sharoun (Mark) - Scientist (Archaeologist)
Omar Mannash (Peter) - Negotiator (Peddler)
Game Date TBA
Once the other players arrived, we chatted for a little bit and caught up on the last month of Real Life(tm) for about ten (10) minutes before getting down to the game. Since four of the five players hadn't played Coriolis - The Third Horizon in quite some time (at least a year or more) and Peter had never played the game before, I started the game session by going over the basics, literally. I started with a light introduction to the universe of the Third Horizon, followed this up with key concepts and some of the central terminology of the game, and then answered what questions the players had - and they had a few, even the four who'd played the game before. Using the questions the players asked, I gave them some more, detailed information about the game universe and its various worlds. (Well, the Third Horizon, anyway!) :) The players turned the floor over to Peter, so that he could ask any questions about the game background, and some interesting elements came up, one of which surprised the four Coriolis players. Peter had seen one of the supplements for the game at a local gaming store, and was curious about one of the big secrets of the game; I just smiled, and told him that they'd find out the answer to that in play. He also asked some good questions about how the mercantile system in the Third Horizon works, as well as a little question about the effects of going through the portals. Good stuff! Finished this part of the evening with going over the Third Horizon universe Glossary.
When everyone was satisfied with the "refresher" on the game universe, we turned our attention to the game mechanics. I went over the basics of how task resolution is handled in the game, the dice mechanics themselves, the function of Darkness Points and how they work, and followed this with some practical examples of how dice rolling and game situations work together. I followed this up with a couple of (relatively simple) samples of combat, three one-on-one samples pitting two players against each other and one player character group combat against a set of foes that were meant to teach the mechanics of actual, involved play.
Since I had another twenty minutes or so before we were going to wrap up, I wanted to give Peter something to get his feet wet so to speak, so I ran the players and their characters through a couple of short sequences. The first involved selling a piece of hot technology in the souk in Dabaran. Peter's character did remarkably well, and the other player characters got a bit of haggling in (if they want to call what happened that!) as well. The second involved an encounter with some artificial mechanical men in a series of ruins on an out-of-the-way planet. This could have gone either way, but ended up turning into a combat situation that gave Peter a good grasp of how deadly combat in Coriolis - The Third Horizon can be.
This session of Coriolis - The Third Horizon went pretty well, considering it was meant to be a refresher for the players to the game, and in Peter's case, introduce him to the game and its mechanics. The session went for just about 4-1/4 hours, and was a lot of fun, though I felt somewhat hoarse when it was over as I had done a lot of talking. The players are quite looking forward to getting back to the game, and Peter admitted that he's fascinated by some of the mysteries the game universe holds and seeing the various cultures to be found in the Third Horizon. I'll be (re-)starting the Coriolis - The Third Horizon Friday night campaign when they play their next session.
Looking forward to it! :)