I'm 50 and have been roleplaying about 35 years. I've had some scheduling issues and frustration causing my last two campaigns to fail. I was looking at my bookshelf and thinking about its multiple purges. I vowed never to buy another system again. But... I am bored with cookie cutter D20 v3.5. Rolemaster and GURPS are difficult to teach people with busy schedules. Shadowrun, meh. I love the setting but not so much the system. My Traveler library is limited and I don't have time to create much of my own. A friend of mine will let me drop in on his FATE campaign and it might not fit my own players, so let's skip that. Also, my players are already familiar with v3.5 and want to get to playing quickly. I threw out my promise and stocked up on Pathfinder gear.
The campaign will consist of my two core players. I know this will require scaling of encounters. I've also allowed them to use the 6+2d6 character generation and two player guide traits to make them more heroic. I hope that by cutting to these two it will ease scheduling issues, eliminate absenteeism, last moment cancelations, and some other frustrations. These two are also my core roleplaying and storytelling players. I like that. After our first session, which was only character creation, we are very excited. I like Numeria and it's hint of cyberpunk. I love that my players didn't choose the standard classes. The environment and the advanced classes have brought back some feeling of discovery that I am very nostalgic for. Here is what we have after four hours over sushi.
- A female human swashbuckler. Her Iron Gods trait is local ties. Her low score is INT10 and her high score is CHA19.
- The other player threw out her original idea of a dwarf barbarian after seeing the Advanced Class Guide. She is now considering some kind of shaman. We'll sort that out before next session.
- To add some flavour I am using historical weather records from Casper Wyoming. Seems like a cold plain environment.
The next session is in a week and we will begin play. Wish me luck!
