Character Generation by email, impossible?
Ok, I’m going to run a pathfinder game. I think having the characters 99% done before game-night, gives you more “game-night”. I understand character generation is part of the fun, but who wants to slog through the nightmare that is Pathfinder Chargen. Don’t get me wrong it’s not that I don’t like it. I love it. I don’t yet fully understand it.
I’m still new at this!
I emailed the two players step by step instructions on what they should do. I’ve had to trust them not to cheat. But if they want to cheat, hell mend ‘em.
Neither of them have played pathfinder so I was expecting the usual Human, Fighter, Lawful good that I suspect is the overused default.
How pleasantly surprised I was to find human ranger and a Half-elf bard in my inbox.
The advantage I have found with this remote method is the masses of time it gives me to go through the rules, trying to work out which bonuses and modifiers go where. Perfect for a newbie. Now it’s all generated I can also work on an adventure, knowing what characters I have helps to lubricate cogs in the old ideas machine.
Here’s looking forward to a good game and great Christmas!
Merry Christmas and happy Hogmanay!
I’ve been bloodied, i’m now a GM.
I ran a little adventure the two of my friends who make up our motley game group. I chose the star wars D6 system. Needless to say I made a few minor errors but I enjoyed myself. Hopefully the players did too.
What I enjoyed:
I liked that familiar feel I got with the universe. We’ve all seen star wars. It was really cool to tell your own star wars story. I loved throwing hundreds of dice! One of the NPCs was a force user. He was really quite powerful; 12d6 for DEX is a huge number of dice clattering around the table. All roleplayers love chucking die!
I stole the wild dice idea from the 2nd edition rule set. I’m very glad I did. On a couple of occasions the characters attempted to roll against something really difficult to near impossible. The wild die managed to allow them even though they are not skilled enough to roll high enough to pass normally. I think this adds a great Cinematic experience. They are heroes after all.
What I didn’t enjoy:
Counting all the rolls, especially for the hugely powerful NPCs! I know that I will become much quicker in the mental arithmetic area, but it does slow the game down a little. In the end I just had to glance at the roll and judge on a scale 5 point scale of dud to excellent. Just to keep things flowing.
What I did well:
I managed to avoid railroading. The player who gives me a lift after the sessions really emphasised how much I should avoid this, so I put a lot of effort into open-endedness.
What I should improve for next time:
I don’t think I gave both players equal opportunity to fully use their characters. One of them was a Pirate and the other a Scout. The pirate was easy because he’s a Womanising, drink riddled gambling addict. The strong silent type was hard to play in this adventure. I will not let this happen again. It will balance out over the course of the campaign, but no one likes spending a 4 hour game session being left out. I will try to cater the adventures to get the most for both players.
Call of Cthulhu, a newbies POV
Call of Cthulhu it turns out has the ability to freak me out worse than any hollywood gorefest movie. The atmosphere, the strangeness of the characters and places all have the ability to freak me out good and proper!
Why does roleplaying effect me more deeply than movies or books? Is it the fact I am “in” the game, imagining the world through your character’s eyes, using my imagination, does this bypass the normal jaded hardnose filters, thereby reducing me to a state of childish whimpering? I don’t know but this game has totally blown my perspective of what roleplaying is.
In the short game i played last night (of which we are halfway through) nothing truly wierd happened. We saw some wierd-ish things. All of which our characters explained away. But it still scared the knickers off me.
I really enjoyed this game. It was a completely unexpected hit with me. I come from a history of mini wargaming, warhammer 40ooo etc. My personal literature, movie and video game preferences are fantasy, science fiction.
I’ve never been interested in horror.
I am now!
To buy or not to buy?
I like books, i like the way they feel, the way they smell. Generally everything about them. RPG books are expensive. £32 for the new Pathfinder book, its a lot of game time for your money i’m sure, but for me £32 is luxuary purchase. Especially when you consider the quality of the free RPGs you can get at
Today i ordered Pathfinder core rulebook. I can’t wait! But alas we have a postal strike here in Sunny Scotland.
I have loads of free RPG stuff to work through!
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