Last night's game session with the Friday night group was a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed it.

As mentioned in yesterday's blog entry, the Friday night gaming group started some playtesting of the Atlantis: The Second Age RPG character generation system. The game is the third iteration of this setting and game (as far as I'm concerned), to be published later this year by the good folks at Khepera Publishing. (You can go and support the A: TSA Kickstarter at the website, if you're interested in the game.)

Anyway, the players began the process around 7:15 pm last night, and had a good time of it. Using both the previous Morrigan Press version of the game and the rough manuscript of the Khepera Publishing game, I went through a bit of the background of the game with the players and then got down to character generation. In the case of Angela and David, this was their first experience with the game, but the other four players and Ellie had some previous experience with the earlier edition(s).

The players created one character each for the Atlantis: The Second Age RPG, and it was an interesting process, to be sure. 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 an idea of what the player characters created...

*****
Kathy - Decided she wanted to experiment with the game system, and created an Atlantean Sorceresss. Took a couple of unexpected Lifepaths, including spending some time at sea and a 3-year stint enjoying some adventure. Interesting character.

Nick - Decided he wanted to see what the system could offer, and created an Erian Andaman (Owlman) Scout, proving quite interesting with his combat skills and his movement abilities. Neat take on the character.

Tom - Likes to play the fighter types, but decided to go against type here and take a Gondwanan Scholar, with a passionate interest in medicine and all things of the body. Made for an interesting change in his character type.

Joanne - Decided to see what could be done with plants and the like, and created 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.

Angela - Had a tough time deciding what she wanted to create, but settled on a female Human scavenger of First Age artefacts from Europa. 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.

David - Decided he wanted to see what the apes had to offer :), so he created 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.

and, finally,

Ellie - My goddaughter decided to try her hand at creating a character for the game, though she wasn't sure about some of the stuff involved. Decided to create the daughter of a Hesperian Priestess whose mother attempted to sacrifice her to the Gods.
*****

As you can see, an interesting group of characters with some neat ties to one another. The character creation process went extremely smoothly and didn't really get in the way of the players coming up with some great ideas, but the limitation of the number of Professions in the game proved to be somewhat...detrimental to the players' conceptions of some of their characters and translating these into game mechanics, notably Joanne's herbalist, Angela's artefacts scavenger, and David's craftman type. Definitely something that needs to be addressed in the rulebook when it's finalised.

An interesting an highly enjoyable evening was had with the players in creating the characters, and all of them said that they really like the game and are looking forward to playing the Atlantis: The Second Age RPG. I'm pretty much looking forward to running the game, too! :)