Creating my First Character

[meticulousDemiurge]

I've never done this before, so this is me soliciting advice from anyone who'll offer it.
Here's what I have so far
Nestor Planck, a 19ish human boy, handle meticulousDemiurge, probably types in a shade of dark blue. For his specibus I'm leaning towards shovelkind or axekind.
In terms of personality he's somewhat introverted and, while not necessarily self centered, very very invested in self preservation. He's sometimes overemotional and occasionally a little clingy, but will stand by his friends (because he's terrible at making new ones). Before the game he was a college sophomore and lived alone in a moderately shitty apartment. He enjoys the accordion and can play it passably.
If I use this character he'll probably be going through his first session with online gaming buddies he met when he was a kid. One idea I had that I might not use (it's probably not the comedy goldmine I imagine it to be, or maybe it just doesn't make sense in the scope of the canon) is that due to shenanigans, he might end up in his first game with people who've already completed several sessions before and aren't too keen on having to carry new blood through the game.
I haven't thought of a title or aspect for him, or a land for that matter, so I ask you all: What would Sburb assign an overemotional coward who prefers not to try new things if he can help it?
(Any other advice or criticism is welcome as well)

[stanzicApparati]

There's no reason his first session couldn't have him tossed in with Replayers, really.

As for what the game would give a coward who tries to avoid new things...hm. Well, for Aspects, Dream sounds good - not only a creative aspect, but one where he'd have to think of something new and unique every time he wants to do something with his Aspect. Rain is also an option, although he'd be more than a little insane during the session as a result (but hey - we don't have nearly enough Rain players around). Mist is also an option - he wants to avoid trying new things? Well, have fun with that while he's being all the things. The impulsivity inherent in Breath also seems a good fit for what the game would give him.

Classes - probably one to get him to be less of a coward. Likely an active role, considering how introverted he is. Page, maybe; a Combat class to force him to get up and fight. Smith would require him to be creative no matter what Aspect he gets. Either of the Displacement classes would push him to looking for better (which, if he's been content to just live the way he was, he probably hasn't been doing). And depending on how hard you want to traumatize him, Waste and Grace are the "perfect" cures for introversion - kind of hard to avoid getting noticed when everyone in the know knows it's only a matter of time before you cause a session-wide Cataclysm.

[meticulousDemiurge]

Oh god Waste of Breath.

First he wonders why the game feels the need to insult him, then he wonders why none of the veterans will set foot within several miles of him. Nobody feels like getting chummy with the sboob who rolled "Walking Apocalypse" on his first session, whoever ends up UUing with him treats it as a cross between babysitting and a death sentence.

I think this might be what I end up going with.

Is there a rule for the way lands are assigned (as in are they influenced by personality or title, or are they more random)?

[tenaciousTheseus]

Space or the Scout/Guide would fit someone who's afraid to try new things. And as for the land, I just make random stuff up that might vaguely fit the aspect.

[tungstenTinkerer]

Hm.

At least originally cataclysms are something that were supposed to be incredibly rare - most veterans would go through their whole life without ever meeting a Waste. I realize, the idea of the "walking disaster" class is a compelling one. However Cataclysms are not the only ones causing shit, and I feel that with the number of Wastes and Graces is a little too high already on the fora as of now.

Generally speaking, I am starting to feel that cataclysm-induced drama is starting to be a little cheap. I don't want to say people shouldn't create wastes and graces anymore - but well, they should have a good reason and a compelling character arc to do so. (if you do, Waste away)

Other Really Active Classes are the Sylph, whose job is to shove their belief on other players; the Thief, whose job is seizing what they don't have; the Smith, who is supposed to be creative, and have enormous power at their fingertips; the Prince, who destroys stuff.

RE: Lands, no, there is no fixed rule to decide what the land traits are (except that Space players have Frogs) you can go with whatever sounds nice or use the random generator someone made a while ago.

[meticulousDemiurge]

Hmm. I'll dial it back a bit, I'm thinking maybe a Thief of Dream, in the land of Canyons and Hail. Maybe he always wanted to be an artist but was held back by his crippling fear of failure, and now it's time to doodle or die.

[digitalPark]

OK, this is probably a bit late, but it's relevant to the "first-timer session w/ one veteran".

In chapter 6 of the Glitch FAQ, FAQ Part 2 - The Adventure Begins, the "Serious business and worst cases scenarios" section has the question of "[QUESTION] I am being contacted by people who claims to be players in another session."

This is replied to by "It is normally impossible to contact other Sburb Players than your group of friend. Not in your first game, at least, which can only involves first time players. If somebody is contacting you from outside the session, then we are looking at high-level frog incestuous overlapping. This is generally caused by a game virus that spawns across session, a daemon to be more exact. The most dangerous kinds even use time manipulation . Please see chapter 25 on Game Viruses and Time Daemons in particular.

So, uh, just a wee bit of info that should help some people out! :3

[disasterAverted]

I think we've collectively been ignoring that bit, especially since it'd logically make finding the guide during your first session completely impossible. The formula we've actually been using seems to be the following:

*Lots of people get sessions full of entirely fresh faces and will never find out about this community simply because how would they find it? Since the game is unfair a lot of these people probably die.
*If they survive, they get tossed into an empty slot in a new session. These slots seem to often be "emptied" by a player dying before or during entry, but I honestly don't think we've been treating that detail with enough attention to believe that that's true in most cases (ie most people don't have an arc in the story of every session where the first-timers resent them for replacing their dead friend). So I think many or most people are just dumped into extra slots that were never occupied to begin with.
*If you're lucky, a member of this community ends up in your session and tells you how to find it. From that point on you've got access to the boards, the IRC and the guides, and thus have a much higher life expectancy.

Of course that's a guideline. I sort of cheated with my guys by having my Knight of Rage Rage at his internet browser until it miraculously found the information on the game that he was sure must exist somewhere.

[extravagantGesture]

Actually the whole replacing player thing is touched a bit with EG here, he's a first timer thrown in with several replayers. He was quite upset when he found out some of his friends were dead and replaced with people he didn't know. It can be a fun and interesting story arc if you pay attention to it. :3

[lucidChthonia]

The thing here is, Replayer sessions tend to be filled entirely with Replayers. Sessions in which not everyone is killed generally are allowed to limp along until everyone dies and/or the surviving player figures out the pendant thing and finishes the session themselves.

It was supposed to be rare, mixed first-timer/veteran sessions, at least the way grindinglyGodliest was writing it. The Founders session was such a big deal because there was one first-timer and five veterans (and four rerolls, but that's another problem entirely). LC's session had the reverse situation, that of one veteran being dropped into an odd-numbered first-timer session to complete the chain, and the information asymmetry there led to LC beginning her "accidental PK every other session" streak. (Among other things.)

If you're really set on it, we could always beg off and call it "version drift", but that's a copout and we all know it.

[meticulousDemiurge]

Yeah I ended up throwing out the whole idea of this character's first session being mixed, I looked at what I had and didn't really have a compelling reason to do it, plus it seems I misunderstood the mechanics of how it would (or wouldn't) happen.

[disasterAverted]

^^Really? Crud. That kills BOTH of the plans I had for second sessions for my characters, though the less-plot-centric of the two only requires one first-timer.

[tungstenTinkerer]

The way I feel in this regard is that dropping a veteran can be one of the ways the game has to deal with odd numbers (though the favorite is the nondoomed nonplayer) but it should be pretty rare. More thoroughly mixed sessions should be even more rare.

This is SBURB, the land of glitches and more glitches. Everything can happen for once. BUt it still need to be an excpetion.