After two cups of coffee, I'm finally awake. We began our 3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars game yesterday evening, and it went on until it was getting late. Very late. So, here are my first impressions.

1) Character creation does not take just five minutes, including explaining the rules.

At least over Skype and OpenRPG. It didn't take too long, maybe half an hour, but there are some pretty steep exaggerations in actual play reports over on the internets about the simplicity and the ease of it. Come on, there are some very profound decisions to be made: Energy rifle or Slug rifle, not to mention the wording of your reputation. The trooper's whole career, short as it may be, can depend on his (or her) reputation alone.

2) It is a bitch to translate and keep in mind all the military terms

Maybe that's because I went to the non-military service. But, come on, what's a trooper in Finnish? (I decided to use the mangled translation of a space marine, that is avaruusmerijalkaväen sotilas) How many troops are in a company, let alone in a brigade? A short term list would have made my job a bit easier and my descriptions a bit less faltering. So that's on my to-do list for the next time.

3) Combat and between the missions stuff seem rewarding and interesting

I think that most people with a traditional rpg background will want to triumph in combat. And the balance seems good, too, at the first glance. And of course they want to upgrade their weapons, stats and rank. It is the driving force of 3:16 and acn give a good basis for the things to come.

I'm reading Shock: Social Science Fiction rpg at the moment and I am veryimpressed by its world creation process.

In the same shopping trip that I bought Cartagena in , I bought a copy of Shock: The Social Science Fiction rpg. I've been interested in getting Shock ever since I listened to Robert Bohl's Independent Insurgency podcast with Joshua A.C. Newman , the author of Shock. And of course the fact that the book is an extremely beautiful artefact helped make the decision easier.

A big hand to Fantasiapelit , the Finnish rpg store, for stocking up on various indie games. According to their homepage, Arkkikivi's stock of Shock has been empty for a while and now I didn't need to go through the hassle of ordering it from the US.

I haven't read the whole of the book yet. It is not easiest English text to get a grasp of because of the numerous terms unfamiliar to me (and I've read plenty of scientific texts in English, too). So far I've been most impressed by the rules for the world creation stage of the game.