Operation: ShoreLeave 40 (part 1)

Last Saturday I attended the Shoreleave 40 science fiction convention, and I started setting up my table in the game room a few minutes before they opened the doors. One enthusiastic gaming friend that was at the convention last year was all ready to play right when the doors opened at 10am, and he had brought his old character and his own Solar Echoes Player's Guide. As new players began to show up, everyone started to design their characters together as a team, planning out who would cover each skill area. This is the best way to design your character in Solar Echoes, and it's a lot of fun coordinating your character design with others on your team to make sure you can contribute for the team and also have the freedom to do things your own way. “Do we have someone skilled at driving? Who's got Biotech (medic) covered? What about a hacker, do we have someone good with Cybertech?” Everyone coordinated, and a few players that joined near the end of this process decided to grab some pre-generated characters to fill the remaining gaps. One new player in particular noticed that the team didn't have anyone particularly skilled at Persuasion, so he took the Reln wordsmith character. There aren't character classes in Solar Echoes, and each character has 7 different skills at level 1, but because there are a total of 18 skills, it will take at least 3 different characters to make sure all bases are covered. Plus, it's always good to have a back-up, because if the only driver on your team gets critically injured, you might be at a serious disadvantage in a car chase!