Fate of the Norns

So I picked up all three rulebooks in October after a Skycon demo. Fell in love with the system, the art, everything. I have a core group of four players and we are doing character builds on Sunday, followed by a game a week or so later (timing!).

1) We will only have the one set of rulebooks. I can't guarantee that my players will be able to purchase even the pdfs online - at least to start. How difficult is it to run with only one set of books? Any tips for making it easier on a bunch of newbies (including me!) who don't know what all the powers, conditions etc do yet?

2) Can I photocopy the power/skill boards just for character creation use, so it doesn't take as long for people to make their choices? I figure that way they can each work on their own boards while I look up power/skill descriptions for them, instead of having to go one at a time for everything.

3) To start I'm limiting them to the Archetypes in the Core book, to make it easier on me and the players. I figured we could use those to learn the basics, and then move on to the other Archetypes as they build new Dwellers in the future. Anything I should be aware of, rules wise, for the core Archetypes, anything to look out for?

Thanks!

Sandra

Heya Sandra, welcome to the forums! First off, if you bought the book at SkyCon we had a promotion where you send us a selfie ([email protected]) with your purchase(s) and we'll send you complimentary PDFs. I think photocopying the archetype boards is a great start, and we have no problems with that kind of reproduction of the book (personal use). Once you guys are vested in the game, players buying the PDFs really help out an indie studio like Pendelhaven.

Are you guys married to creating your own dwellers for the first game? If not, might I suggest the Fafnir's Treasure pre-gens that have built in cheat sheets on the individual character sheets. These hold the players by the hand, and answer questions that they would normally be asked to the GM (who is trying to figure out their own stuff). The download is free and can be found here:
http://www.fateofthenorns.com/WP/portfolio/downloads-2/
Then once everyone has a handle of the 5 basic archetypes, they can choose to make the one that resonated with them.

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Thanks Andrew! I forgot about the promotion but I have lovely laminated play boards now I might share with a selfie.
I am super excited to run this. Of course, January is a perfect time to start a game set in perpetual winter.
PDFs are much more affordable than physical books, but a couple of my players are on fixed incomes, so I am aware that they won't invest in a new system until they've tried it. I'm hoping they love it, though, and everyone ends up with books of their own.