Like the title says, I just ran my first game of Paladin tonight. Everyone had a great time playing. A couple of provisos first though- I used almost all of Paladin's ruleset, but with a couple of modifications. The mods were for my group and were mainly concerned with char gen and order gen, not because there is anythng wrong with the system as it is, but because they just didn't like what was in place.

Character generation; they like more, not less, so Paladin's simple matrix left them wanting more. My fix was a system that looks amazingly like Donjon- I know this cause I just recently bought Donjon, but I bought it after my changes...funny how that worked out.

Order generation changed while I was typing up a sheet of questions for the players to ask themselves while they were designing the order...It got me to thinking that the Order should have some game impact besides the Code. I added some elements that can add to the players in game dice pools, but these modifiers also add to the Order's description- they are developed as part of describing the order.

I used the Castillia setting and the Sword of Heaven order so we could get right into character gen and actual play (so we didn't get to try out my nifty new order design stuff- next session maybe?). I spent about 10 minutes going over the basic setting description, what Animus is and can do, who and what the bad guys are; we spent about 30 minutes total creating characters- even with my rule changes, I tried to keep the feel the same, I think it worked fairly well. Because we got a late start and everyone wanted to try a combat, I just used some aggressive scene framing and threw them right in. They really were suprised when, after they decide to charge into the enemy who outnumbered them 3:1, that they recieved a reward- one of the things I like most about Paladin is that the reward system is absolutely focussed- if you want Animus you either put yourself in danger for your Order or Code or you defeat Bad Guys. When they charged, they got their reward, re-enforcing the desired style of play...very cool. The combats turned out to flow pretty good, though the Gamist player had a hard time at first with the idea that position and facing and no initiative (I couldn't find initiative in the Paladin rules...did I just miss it?) weren't important to the style of combat- after they got over that, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. The rules for combining actions worked real well, and it flowed well in play.

At first, nobody wanted to spend their Animus, they were hoarding, just waiting for me- the GM- to screw them...I didn't- hell, I was handing out Animus like it was crack in the schoolyard, but I digress... the combat got real good when the big bad for this little scene tried to bail on the combat he was losing- he was going to use his Unliving as a meat shield to escape behind. 2 of the PCs had engaged him and the group of Unliving he was using as a bodyguard. After a couple of exchanges, he tries to leap away. The PCs want to stop him. I explain that since they are currently engaged in combat with the bodyguard they can't single this guy out to attack him. One (or both) of them would have to stop attacking (actively participating in the combat) and figure someway to resist this guys escape attempt. While one of the characters holds off the Unliving (single player vs multiple opponents worked well, too) another player used one of the Powers for the setting- the holy fire of Ai- to blast the guy as he was making his escape. He didn't get enough successes to fry the guy (what he was hoping for) but he did get enough to foil his escape attempt. The Big Bad dies quickly after that.

Now, because we used a pre-generated setting and Order, I don't have any nifty things to say about that, but next week I'm going to see if the players want to generate their own Order and setting.

A couple of extra points- the group playing tonight consisted of my wife, who usually doesn't like learning new systems- the ease of use for Paladin worked like a charm and will definitely make introducing another new game easier. The other two players were the GM from my Played D&D 3.5 for first time thread and his girlfriend- she called me evil assassin several times- she also thanked me for killing the cowardly cleric. I was suprised that the group I usually game with shut down the idea of trying out new game systems- actually one person shut it down, the wives tend to be a bit more indifferent about it. So I called up a coupe of friends and they agreed to play. GM is a Gamist, but he suprised me by being so willing to try other types of play. His girlfriend really seemed to like feeling empowered by her character as opposed to feeling weak and useless...or maybe just less than the other characters- not sure what exactly I'm getting at here, but I definitely noticed something different about her play.

Geek stuff-I can't wait to see if they want to design their own Order...I'm really curious to see if my rule ideas add anything to the game. I'm also going to have them try making up characters using the existing rules, and then ask them to tell me what they like and don't like about both methods.