As mentioned in the previous journal entry, I'm creating the player characters for the both the Friday and Sunday groups for the Parsec RPG this weekend. The Sunday gamers arrived between 12:00 noon and 1:00 pm, and we got down to the character creation process. As with the Friday nighters, I started to talk to them about the Parsec RPG and give them the basics of the game universe and its history. Once I'd gone through the basics with them, I opened things up with them asking any questions they might have about the game universe, the game system and its mechanics, and the like, and when the players were ready to start in on it, we got down to character generation.
To say that character creation did not go very smoothly is an understatement. I guess it started off that way because none of the three player actually had any character concept in mind, and so created their characters on a wing and a prayer (as I like to call it), and see how the characters evolved as they went. In actual fact, the players didn't complete the characters, and still have the sections on their Passion and their Scars to go. Given how the process went and Tammy's...obstinacy, about certain issues, the characters are a bit of an uneven smorgasbord. The three players decided to take characters who are all from the fringes, barrens, or wastes of Earth, but then wanted to have characters who are spacers of some sort! Had to make gaping allowances for certain aspects of the characters, in order to "fit" with their concepts.
While the players told me afterwards that the Parsec RPG character generation system is intersting, none of them seemed really thrilled about it, and certainly didn't evince a great deal of enthusiasm for the game system. That may be due to the fact that they seemed somewhat overwhelmed by such an organic character creation system (something they've not experienced in the gaming we've done so far), and I have to say that I was a bit frustrate with Doug's exasperation with things (or so it seemed to me) as the afternoon went on. That, and Tammy's...single-mindedness.
In any event, I am looking forward to running the Parsec RPG at some point soon down the road, but after the experience with character creation today, I'm...somewhat depressed.