Emily hurried through the convention floor of the Jarvis Center in New York City, her progress hampered by a mob of people taking photos of two female cosplayers—one in a Night Elf Hunter costume and the other dressed as a Demon Hunter, both World of Warcraft characters. Despite being late for her beta test slot for the new game, Faltoral, she pulled out her phone and snapped a few pics of the duo, uploading them to her Instagram account. She then continued on, following the main aisle towards the auditorium that had the game.

Emily arrived to find stanchions set up and the area in front of the entry doors sectioned off. There were a few dozen people milling around the roped-off area, and there were two security guards on the inside perimeter of the area as well as a woman behind a table. One of the security guards removed the rope from one of the stanchions to allow her entry inside the barrier. A short, thin woman sat behind the table dressed as an elf; both her costume and tapered ears looked very realistic. She wore a name tag that read ‘Jenny’.

The woman smiled up at her. “Name?” she asked.

“Emily Stardust.”

Jenny scrolled through a tablet. “Yes, your group is already inside. I will need to see an ID from you, please.”

When Emily handed the woman her ID, she touched it to a scanner and handed it back along with a lanyard attached to a nametag that read “Isla”—the character name that she had signed up to use today. That was always her first choice when starting a new game, although she often had to add numbers after the name if it was already taken.

After Emily had placed the lanyard around her neck, Jenny held out her hand and said, “Phone, please.” Emily hesitated but ultimately surrendered her phone, which was placed in a plastic container and locked away. Jenny stood and motioned to one of the security guards, who opened the doors for them.

Inside, the room was partitioned by a large curtain that rose from floor to ceiling. The curtain was about ten feet into the room, and some of the onlookers who had begun filming made cries of protest when the doors were closed behind the group before the curtains were opened.

“What’s with all the secrecy?” Emily asked.

“We want there to be as few spoilers of our game available to the public as possible,” Jenny replied as the curtain parted, revealing a very large room with a stage at the other end. “Inevitably some info will get out, but if anyone is allowed to get a picture or video of the inside, it will be all over social media, and then the jig is up.”

They went towards the stage and approached an archway that had some sort of shimmer effect. It glowed a faint blue, and it looked like a reflective pool of water. Whoever set this thing up got full marks for the special effects. “Now, go on up and into the game room, and we will begin,” Jenny motioned towards the special effect arch. “Up the ramp and through the teleportation device.” She smiled broadly at this point. “You’ll be given instructions on the other side.” With that, she turned away and went back through the curtains.

Emily went up the ramp and put her hand into the archway. The surface didn’t seem disturbed by her action. She pulled her hand back out. It doesn’t feel like anything at all, she thought. She shrugged and walked into the light.

A small group was already gathered on the other side. “It’s about time, Isla,” said a tall, muscular man with ‘Maroftis’ on his ID. He had sandy brown hair and looked like he could be a model. “Always making us wait,” he continued, smiling broadly.

“This place is packed, and I couldn’t find the auditorium at first,” she replied.

A shorter man, Vultressant, scrunched his brow in confusion. “But there are signs everywhere,” he said.

“Ignore him,” said Taloc, putting a hand on Vultressant’s shoulder. He was almost a foot taller than the shorter man and even a few inches taller than Maroftis. Taloc was thin, with broad shoulders and a cleft chin. “Vult and Ewt are jonesing for their phones.”

Emily—Isla—gave a mock-exasperated look and said, “I know, right! What the hell do they need our phones for?”

“The woman at the entrance said that they don’t want us on social media,” Ewtain said. Ewtain was the youngest of their group, just a year into college, and he was a bit taller than Vultressant with east Asian features. Isla knew that he was born in America but didn’t know what country or countries his parents were from—possibly also America. Ewtain stood behind a blond woman in a wheelchair, Vanya, who rounded out their group of six.

“I’ve seen Ewt before,” she said, “but it’s nice to finally put faces to voices for the rest of you guys.”

“It’s good to finally meet you too, Isla,” Taloc said, smiling.

She jumped when a male voice spoke through unseen speakers: “Teleportation will begin shortly. When you arrive on Faltoral, you will be given further instructions. Teleporting in 10, 9, 8,... 3, 2, 1.”

The blue light that she had walked through disappeared and was replaced with total darkness. Isla heard Vanya gasp in surprise, but she was super-excited and let out a cheer, and then her hearing went. Well, it didn’t go away entirely, but it sounded like she was underwater. She started to feel light-headed, and even though they appeared to be in total darkness, white spots appeared in her vision.

She struggled with the feeling for quite a while and thought that she might pass out, but after a few minutes, the feeling subsided, and she could see light coming through her eyelids. She opened her eyes, which she had not remembered closing, and saw that she was standing in front of a small body of liquid. She thought it was water, but the color of it was reddish, not the typical blue or green that she was used to. The rock formations that circled the pool were red themselves, so that might be the explanation. What she couldn’t explain was the sky—or, more to the point, the fact that there were two suns. One was lower on the horizon and appeared about twice the size of the other one. Isla could feel the heat of standing in sunshine, and it certainly felt different than the sensations of the convention center.

“This can’t be the convention center,” Vanya said as she looked around in wonder from her wheelchair.

“How in the hell did we get here?” Ewtain exclaimed.

“This is just some fancy special effects. They probably want us to think that we went through some sort of stargate,” answered Taloc.

Ewtain looked confused.

“It’s like Rick’s portal gun on Rick and Morty,” Vultressant said.

Ewtain nodded and then looked at Taloc, shaking his head. “Why didn’t you say that in the first place? Always with the 80s references, huh? I know that you guys are older than me, but none of you were even alive during that decade.”

Maroftis came to Taloc’s defense. “I’m pretty sure that the movie came out in the 90s, and the main series lasted at least eight seasons and ran into the aughts.”

“Whatever.” Ewtain said. “I’m sure that Steins;Gate is way better.”

“The show is nothing like that anime, so they’re really not related at all,” Vultressant said. He looked around and shielded his eyes from the sunshine. “Hey, weren’t we told that there would be instructions?” Just as he said it, they all started as trumpets seemed to sound in their ears, and they lost peripheral vision as if they were wearing horse blinders. In front of each of them was what looked like a heads-up display with writing on it:

Greetings! You have been chosen to participate in the beta version of a real-life fantasy game. The planet that you are currently on is one that we call Faltoral, but depending upon which planet you hail from, you might know this planet by a different name. You will be allowed to create a character and live on this planet. Beware, adventurer: this planet is a dangerous place, and death is a very common occurrence for adventures. You will only be allowed two respawns following your deaths, and if you die without a respawn remaining—and we cannot stress this enough—YOU WILL ACTUALLY DIE. This information was added after there were several problems with our alpha-testers who thought that this was just a game, so you are welcome.

Proceed to character creation. For more information on a topic, simply focus your thoughts on the desired topic. There is also a “Help” button at the bottom of your HUD. To access your HUD, simply move your eyes from center to upper right twice quickly. To minimize your HUD, focus your gaze on the “minimization” icon and will it to activate. Similarly, to close your HUD, focus your gaze on the “close” icon and will the interface to close.

Vultressant made the eye movements to activate the heads-up display, and a box labeled “Character Creation” appeared in the center of his HUD. “Hey guys, did you hear the bit about the actual death?”

“I was stuck on the fact that we are supposedly on another planet,” Taloc replied. “We should pick a direction to walk until we hit a wall. This might be holodeck technology.”

Vultressant dismissed the box, but it just minimized at the bottom of his HUD. He then willed the display away so that he could better view his surroundings.

“What was all of that ‘depending on the planet that you came from’ stuff?” Isla asked.

“Not sure,” Vultressant said, “but if we are on another planet and we were teleported here, or we went through a wormhole or whatever, then whoever brought us here can probably do the same thing from other planets in the universe.”

Maroftis went over to the water, dipped his hands in, and took a drink. “It’s just water!” he exclaimed. “It tastes minerally, but it’s still just water. I can’t see how we could still be in the convention center.”

“I can’t believe that you drank that.” Isla said, cringing a bit. “You could get sick.”

Maroftis shrugged. “At least we know that we’re not in the convention center anymore. I guess that we could be on another planet; if they have the ability to teleport us, then why not to another planet?”

“Just because there’s water, doesn’t mean anything,” Taloc countered.

“Either way, we are going to have to drink something,” Vultressant said, “so our guinea pig going forward will be Maroftis.” His HUD activated and indicated that he had five minutes to begin character creation before it would be randomly done for him. “We better start making our characters.”

“Did you get the warning too?” Vanya asked.

“Yes, I got the warning. Let’s start making our characters and talk about what classes we’re choosing as we go. I don’t know how long it’ll take, but the warning says that we have only five minutes to begin, so I think that we should start now.” After hearing no objections, Vultressant focused on the minimized box for the character creation and opened it.

“I still think that this is just some really good VR,” Taloc said.

“Maybe,” Vanya said, “but this is really advanced.”

Welcome, adventurer! To create your character, choose a race, class, attributes, skills, and abilities. You can also randomize any or all of these to allow for a wider range of options. The choices that you make will be taken into account and impact the probabilities for any randomization. The program tries to allow for more synergistic results in your character, but given the vast number of possibilities, this will not always be the case. You may make partial random choices, but the more randomization that you allow for, the more options your character will have. Please make all choices and begin your adventure!

Vultressant opened the “race” tab to see only five options: Random, Human, Elf, Dwarf, and Gnome. He began from the top, focusing on the options and then reading the descriptions for each.

Random: Your race will be chosen for you. There are other races besides the standard four listed; the probabilities of the standard four races are higher than the other potential races in general, but randomization does allow for you to be assigned another race. Randomizing other fields may also increase that probability. Given your current (default) level of randomization, your character will be humanoid and of either medium or small size.

Human: Humans gain 5 points per level to distribute on attributes. Language: Common rank 10.

Elf: Elves gain 5 points per level to distribute on attributes, one of which will automatically be assigned to Dexterity. Additional attribute: Intuition; this will increase by one point per level, and other level points may be used to increase it further. Ability: night vision. Languages: Common rank 10 and Elvish rank 10.

Dwarf: Dwarves gain 5 points per level to distribute on attributes, one of which will automatically be assigned to Vitality. Additional attribute: Stamina; this will increase by one point per level, and other level points may be used to increase it further. Ability: dark vision. Languages: Common rank 10 and Dwarvish rank 10.

He wondered at the difference between night vision and dark vision, and the definitions for each appeared before his eyes. Night vision: the ability to see clearly at night where there is minimal lighting. This heightened sight diminishes at increased range. Dark vision: the ability to see clearly with no light source. This heightened sight diminishes at increased range. He was both excited and horrified that the help feature picked up on his thoughts. He supposed that the ‘will it to function’ aspect of this computer interface? was actually legit.

Gnome: Gnomes gain 5 points per level to distribute on attributes, one of which will automatically be assigned to Intellect. Starting Intellect: +5. Languages: Common rank 10, Gnomish rank 10. Skills: Tinkerer.

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Vultressant didn’t feel that he needed any additional information on these four races, so he went to the next tab, labeled “Class.”

In Faltoral, most activities can be performed by all players: a Warrior can cast spells, a Wizard can learn martial arts or fight with a sword, a Cleric can pick locks, an Assassin can learn healing magic, etc. Each class makes certain activities easier to perform and advance in, and some powers are unique to each class and dependent upon level. Some race choices will open up additional classes.

Warrior: A weapon fighting class that adds to weapon and armor abilities. Starting characters may choose two armor types and two weapons that gain additional bonuses.

Wizard: A spellcaster who has higher casting abilities for some offensive and elemental spells. Starting characters begin with three rank I spells.

Hunter: A weapon fighting class that has additional bonuses to camouflage, accuracy of range weapons, and perception. Starting characters begin with the skill Beastcraft at level 1.

Mender: A healing class that has enhanced beneficial spells, healing spells, and curing magic; starting characters begin with a rank I spell for each of these.

Vultressant was pleased to see that the class that held the most interest to him was among those that he could choose from. He had always favored spellcasting classes when he gamed, and the Wizard class was what his main character had been in several games. He selected Wizard, and some additional information appeared in his HUD: While you may excel at dealing magical death to your opponents from afar, wearing some armor types while trying to cast spells can have some adverse results. You will also have greater difficulty advancing in some armor and weapon skills due to choosing this class. This was not news to him, since this was typical for most caster classes in the games that he had played. “I’m going with a Wizard,” he announced to the rest of the group.

“Shocker!” said Maroftis in mock surprise. “I’m going full random. The given choices are really limited, and my luck is always great.”

Isla took her focus away from her HUD and looked at Maroftis with exasperation. “You could end up being some terrible race, like a Vampire. We might not be able to travel during the day—assuming that you don’t try to kill us all.”

“If I get to be a Vampire, you know that I’ll sparkle in the daylight.”

Isla shook her head at him. “Good luck with that.”

“Ten bucks says that he turns into Rocket from Guardians of the Galaxy,” Vultressant said. “Make sure that you change your name to Trash Panda if you do.”

Vanya raised her hand. “I’ll take that bet. I’m going with a healer type. We’ll certainly need one, and I’m good at it.”

“Screw both of you,” Maroftis said, “and my name’s already preset to Maroftis—I checked. I can’t seem to change it.”

Vultressant laughed and then accessed the next tab. Attributes: Attributes are the general makeup of characters, and they modify how well you perform tasks, resist harmful magic or effects, interact with others, etc. You have 30 points to increase your attributes during character creation, and no attribute may be increased over 20 prior to adding bonuses for race and class. The attributes available to him were Charisma, Dexterity, Fate, Intellect, Psyche, Strength, and Vitality. These were familiar to him, but he did access the description of Psyche to verify what it did. Psyche: Your connectedness to your surroundings. This attribute influences your ability to understand others, enhances mental resistances, and gives bonuses to casting spells that are healing or defensive in nature. Finally, this stat increases the rate of mana point (MP) regeneration.

After reading the Psyche description, he decided to check the Intellect stat as well. Intellect: Mental acuity. This attribute influences your ability to reason and learn spells and gives bonuses to casting spells that are offensive in nature. This attribute also contributes to your mana points (MP). All of the attributes were at ten, and he knew that he would need his Intellect to be as high as possible, so he spent ten points to bring it up to the 20-point allowable threshold. Vultressant often used a variant of the min/max strategy: he would always max out his primary stat, but try to keep his other stats reasonably useful. He had enough points to enhance four of the attributes to 13 and the other two to 14, but he could also try to just max out one or two other attributes. The problem was, he just didn’t know what to expect from this game, world, or whatever. He noticed that the random option was not grayed out, so he accessed it. Would you like to randomly assign your remaining points at character creation? Yes or no? He decided to accept the randomization; he had no plan, and he could always focus on the attributes that he ended up needing when he began to level his character.

The Skills tab was next: Your skills represent a variety of abilities that your character has, and in general, they increase in ability as you use the skill. You may choose 10 skills, and since you have chosen the Wizard class, you may choose an additional skill from among the basic elemental spell types. The Skills tab had several tabs within it: Armor, General, Languages, Spellcasting, and Weapons. There were many options in each of these categories, although some of them were grayed out. Among those unavailable to him was heavy armor; this was probably due to the fact that he had locked in his class, and Wizards shouldn’t be running around in plate mail. He went through the armor and weapons quickly and only chose bow. He also chose long shot, which increased his bow range. He knew that he would want no part of melee combat; fighting up close as a spellcaster was a recipe for disaster.

There were many languages to choose from, and ‘Common’ was already highlighted as known, so it seemed that every race could speak Common, or at least they all could understand it. Many pen-and-paper RPGs let people understand a number of languages based on their character’s intelligence or equivalent attribute. No such rule appeared to be in play here. He noted from the descriptions of the four given races, ‘Common’ was a known language for each of them. He wondered what would happen if he decided to use ‘random’ for his race. He did so, opting for humanoid races only, and when he went back to the skills choices, Common was no longer highlighted. I guess that Common is not common to all races, he thought, and he took off the random option for the race. Vultressant liked the versatility of knowing several languages, so he wanted to hang on to at least one skill point to learn a language. When he looked through the last two tabs, he counted well over ten skills that he wanted to get. He chose fire magic with his free skill for being a Wizard, and he also took wind magic. To aid in his casting abilities, he selected concentration, which by its description was used to prevent a spell from being interrupted by outside distractions, and he took decipher script for things like spell scrolls or books that might be found.

He spent several minutes searching through the different lists of skills. Most were pretty easy to understand, but there were others, like graphology, which was the ability to look at a document and be able to tell if a certain person wrote it, that he had never seen before. That one also aided the forgery skill. Other skills like spelunking, boozing, and take it like a man seemed like odd choices to make, but some gamers focused on the role-playing aspect of these games, so these probably were taken by some. Vultressant had four more skills to select, including a language, and he thought it best to focus on skills that might help the group. He chose cartography, which might be a waste of a pick if there ended up being some sort of automapping system here, but it was best to be safe. Getting around efficiently and safely was very important, and he had logged many hours in new games just mapping the zones. Some games used a fog of war on their zone maps, where the map was revealed as you explored, and then everything remained visible after it was revealed. Vultressant hoped for this result. He also selected travel sense to complement the cartography skill. He decided that he would take Gnomish as the language, since it was among the four available races and so must be fairly common in the game.

Saving the last two skills for later, Vultressant went over to the Abilities tab.

You will receive at least one special ability during character creation. While all abilities are possible, the more of your character that you randomize, the higher the probability that a higher-tier ability will be chosen for your character. You can choose the type of ability that you would like, or you can randomize that as well.

The categories were control, defense, mental, offense, physical, and utility. At this point, he decided to randomize his remaining picks. He chose random for the ability; he set his last two skills to random; and then he went back to choose a random race. When he accessed the race tab, he found that there were additional choices that he could make. There were now options for Half-Elf, Orc, Goblin, Sprite, and Smallfolk. He chose random, but he hedged by choosing humanoids only—he didn’t know all of the options, and he did not want to end up being some sort of animal character.

There was a notification that all choices had been made, and it asked him if he would like to finalize the process. He selected ‘Yes’, and a notification appeared: Welcome to Faltoral, Vultressant!

His HUD went dark for a second; when his vision cleared, he was standing in what appeared to be a wooded area. He was looking up at Taloc, Isla, Vanya, and some sort of huge lizard holding a sword. A notification asked him if he would like to join Taloc’s party. There were two boxes, one for accept and the other for reject. Vultressant focused on accept, and he joined the party. The names appeared just over the heads of each of the party members, along with their class, current HP, current MP, and current energy, with a red, purple, and green bar representing each, respectively. Taloc was a Ranger and appeared to be Human. Isla also appeared to be Human; her class was listed as Skirmisher, which was not among the options that he had seen during character creation. Vanya was a Spiritualist, and she was some sort of Elf. The giant lizard was Maroftis; he was of the Berserker class.

All of them appeared to be quite a bit taller than they had just moments ago, and as he tried to access his character information to find out what race he was, Taloc asked, “You take the Gnome race for the extra five Intellect points, Vult?”

“No, I put it to random humanoid. I guess it was luck.” The last came out as more of a question. Vultressant had been used to being quite a bit shorter than his two real-life friends, but the discrepancy was far more pronounced now. “I picked Gnomish as a language skill, so I may have wasted that choice since Gnomes already speak Gnomish.”

“Did you ask for the baldness?” Maroftis asked and began laughing.

Vultressant felt the top of his head to confirm that he was in fact bald on top. He then looked up at his friend and shook his head. “Dude, you have scales instead of hair. How are you feeling about that total random character now?”

“It wasn’t quite fully random; I put ten points into the Fate attribute in the hopes that it would steer the randomness in my favor. Now, I did think that I would be running a character in a simulation or something. Had I known that we were going to actually turn into our characters, I would have probably been a bit more careful, but the abilities that I have are awesome! I’m immune to fire and heat damage, and both apparently can heal me. I have HP regen and heat sense, and I can slow my metabolism. Also, the tail is more than just for decoration.” He swished it around for emphasis. “What did you get?”

Vultressant accessed his character information and read his abilities: enhanced power regeneration and language sense. The former allowed his spell points to replenish at twice the normal rate, and he could instantly fully replenish his spell points once every two hours. The long cooldown meant this wouldn’t be usable more than once in an encounter, but with his power coming back twice as fast, he hoped he wouldn’t need the instant ability very much. The latter ability allowed him to gain the skill for any language he encountered at a starting rank of three. He then checked the skills that he had gotten at random. Gnomish rank 10 and tinkerer had been added since he was a Gnome. The other three were Fae rank 3, Goblin rank 3, and direction sense. The two languages were wasted slots given his language sense ability. The direction sense seemed to be a bit redundant due to the travel sense skill that he had chosen, but he would look into it later.

Vultressant described his two abilities, and Maroftis said, “We should try that language ability out.” He then began speaking in a guttural language, and after a minute, Vultressant began to understand. A notification appeared in his HUD: You have learned the language “Koraken.” A Korak is a carnivorous lizard-based species of fierce fighters that love to impose their will on what they consider to be the weaker races, which is all of them save one, the Dracon. Vultressant checked his skills, and Koraken rank 3 was now listed among them. “I can understand, but how do I speak the language?”

“Just think speak it,” Maroftis said, or at least that was what Vultressant understood of what was said. The translation was likely off, given his rudimentary understanding of the Koraken language.

Vultressant thought about the lizardman’s language and said, “Swing your tail for me.”

Maroftis frowned, looked down at his waist, and said in English, “Yeah, I’m not swinging that for you, Vult.”

“I was trying to say ‘tail’,” Vultressant said, switching back to English as well.

“Whatever, pervert.” That brought laughs from the other three.

A strange popping noise began, and the others motioned for Vultressant to come stand by them. He did, and when he turned around, there was a disturbance in the air. A large black cloud appeared; it opened to reveal Ewtain before disappearing behind him. Vultressant received a notification that Ewtain had joined the group, and he could see his name and his class, which was Night Stalker. He now wore a hooded cloak. The hood mostly covered his face, but it was clearly Ewtain. The cloak was currently open in the front, so the short sword and dagger that he wore on his belt were plainly visible. They all had weapons, Vultressant realized.

“What took you so long, Ewt?” Isla asked as Ewtain got his bearings in this new area.

“I wanted to run an Assassin or something similar, so I messed with the randomization until I found the Night Stalker class. I think that it will be a good fit, but I had assumed that I would be managing the character and not playing myself.” He looked at Maroftis and shook his head. “I’m glad that I ended up with a Human. Wow! Just wow.”

Taloc spoke up before Maroftis could make a rebuttal. “The instructions said that we had three lives and then we would be dead, so apparently it didn’t just mean a permadeath in a game. It said that we actually die, and I had assumed that this was a game of permadeath, only with three lives instead of just one, but now I know what they meant.” He looked over at Maroftis. “We might have made different choices if we understood the situation differently.” While the vast majority of games allowed for players to die an infinite number of times and still be allowed to play, some games ended after the player died just once or another small number of times. This game stated that it would only allow players two respawns, so each of them would be allowed two free deaths, making their third death final.

“I regret nothing!” Maroftis exclaimed, which brought a few eye rolls from some of the group and smiles from the others. “I’m actually serious. This character seems to be pretty durable, so I should be able to survive better than most of you.”

“And the downside is that you are a hideous gecko,” Taloc said. “It could be worse though—you could have ended up as a Gnome or something.” Vultressant arched an eyebrow at this but said nothing.

Maroftis raised his hands, or rather his claws, and said, “By the names of your classes, I’m the only tank here, so it’s lucky that I did what I did.” A good tank was necessary in any good party because you needed some type of fighter to engage the monsters and have the ability to absorb damage. Maroftis certainly did seem to qualify for that role.

Ewtain looked at Vanya. “You can walk!”

Vanya beamed a smile. “Yes, we’ve been discussing that. Well, not Vult, who didn’t notice, but the rest of us have. It’s been years since I’ve been able to feel anything in my legs, and it’s wonderful to walk again. I had no feeling in them prior to character creation, so that process made the changes.” She hopped up and down, grinning broadly. “It also looks like all of our old stuff is gone, and we all have new gear.”

Vultressant felt his cheeks grow warm. He felt bad for not noticing. He was generally not the most observant person, but even he should have caught that difference. Vanya was now an Elf, but she looked much like she had before, only with pointy ears. She also appeared to be shorter than he remembered, although it was difficult to tell since she had been sitting. She was taller than he was, although not by more than a few inches. They were both much shorter than the rest of the group. He determined that he was maybe four and a half feet tall, so Vanya must be about five feet. She had said that she was a Spiritualist, but he was unsure what that actually meant.

“Well, Taloc, what do you think about this being VR now?” Ewtain asked.

“VR could make Vanya walk,” Taloc said.

“But I have feeling in my legs,” Vanya said. “How could VR do that?”

“No idea, but it’s still more believable than us being on another planet.”

Vultressant spoke up in an attempt to change the subject. “What sort of builds do we all have?” he asked to get a better gauge on their classes and skills.

Taloc took the bait. “My Ranger class is more of a fighter-rogue hybrid,” he said. “The game said that the class doesn’t really define who we are as characters in the way that we’re accustomed to in the role-playing games that we’ve played before. At any rate, let’s all take a look at our character information and discuss our strengths, so we can plan how best to run the group.”

“I’ve already looked through mine,” Isla said, “so I’ll scout around for a few minutes while you all check on your stats.”