Step 1: Read the Rulebook

While not absolutely necessary, reading the Rulebook will help you familiarize yourself with the game. No one (not even the Developers!) knows the entire rulebook by heart, but having a general knowledge of the rulebook is invaluable. Most important to you are:

1. The Safety section. Safety is critically important to the game.
2. Anything to do with your race, class or deity. Some combinations have more to know than others.
3. Effects, Deliveries, and Defenses - Knowing the basics of each will help you adjust to combat. Many people print out this chart and keep it with them just in case they need to reference something.
4. Life, Death and After. Knowing how your hit points and armor works is critical to know, particularly in combat.

Step 2: Create a character

Knowing what you want to play before you come to a game helps speed up your character creation, and allows you to think things over more before the Debriefing team asks you a billion questions about what you want to play. Having a character concept in mind is good even if you don't know specifics.
Some basic concepts:

Race: A character's Race determines certain aptitudes, personalities, and how the character looks (to an extent). Each race has certain advantages and disadvantages associated with it, but almost all of these can be overcome somehow. Generally characters (including NPCs) react more favorably to a member of their own race than other races, and some races openly engage in warfare against others. Race has minimal effect on skills or combat, but plays a huge role in determining how other characters react to you.

Class: A character's Class determines a character's Hit Points and what skills are available to him at what cost. Almost all skills can be purchased by members of any class, although they cost more Skill Points to classes that specialize in other areas. A Fighter can learn magic, but has to pay many more points for each Spell Tag than a Mage. A character's Class does NOT mean anything from an in-game standpoint - Someone in the "Fighter" class can still have any in-game profession they choose (even scholar or sage); Class is specifically an out-of-play mechanic to determine stats.

Religion: Religion in Scions is possibly the most important roleplay dynamic in the game. Some quests and roleplay opportunities are only available to followers of certain deities, and other characters may be wary or outright hostile to members of opposing religions. Due to the nature of the game, being an Atheist is impossible (characters regularly interact with Gods and their avatars) but characters who choose not to worship a specific God are classified as Agnostic. Overall, each religion offers roughly equal opportunities for quests, items and roleplay, but each has a dramatically different style.

After you've chosen a race/class/deity combination, you have to spend points on Skills. A character's skills define what the character is good at, and also determines a great deal of their ability in combat. Most characters start with 15 Skill Points, although in certain cases they may start with more. Contact your chapter's Debriefing Team if you're not sure how many you should have at start. Skill Points increase as you play, and "spending" them doesn't cause you to lose them; think of them more as "allocated" rather than "spent". Most people opt to take a basic weapon skill regardless of class, then specialize in their class's specialty skills for the first few levels. Early on, specializing is wise in order to give your character better survival odds, but like in real life as you progress you will probably find that getting a wide variety of skills will increase your options in most situations.

Once you've allocated your skill points, the last thing to factor is your Hit Points (HP) and Armor Class (AC). Charts are available in the Rulebook to help you with this, and your Debriefing Team will help you check before you start playing.

Step 3: Check-In (Initial Debriefing)

Once you arrive at the game site, the first thing you should do is find the Debriefing team and get yourself checked in. If you are playing as a PC (Player Character), the Debriefing team will get you set up with a character card (made much faster if you did Step 2) and check your weapons. You may also need to pay a game fee, this varies by chapter but most chapters don't charge you for the first time you play as a PC, and don't charge you ever as an NPC unless they have site rental fees. If your character has Production Skills (usually only Tinkers), you also use Debriefing to decide what items you wish to make for that day.

Step 4: Briefing

In your first game (and frequently afterwards) you'll have guides known as Scions that will tell you your basic mission objectives as well as help guide you in different things. All characters start the game in the "Waiting Room", an area in which all dimensions and realities converge. Your character will get a chance to roleplay with the Scion (represented by another Player known as an NPC) until both of you feel that you're ready to actually take part in the mission. This phase of the game is known as the "Briefing". In some cases (especially during your first game) you will get briefed alone, but in other cases you may be part of a larger group being briefed at once. Note that while it is outside the main "game", the Briefing period is considered In-Play and any words or actions inside the "Waiting Room" may still be acted upon by both the Scions and the other Characters.

Step 5: A Typical Mission

Once you've completed your briefing, you begin the main part of the game. During the game, different opportunities and situations will present themselves, and unlike other roleplaying games in a LARP instead of saying "I react by..." you actually perform the action. If you are playing a thief and you want to sneak around an ambush ahead of your party to surprise attack them, you actually have to sneak around the ambush in real life.

Encounters in Scions are divided into three broad categories: Roleplaying, Combat and Environment. Many encounters (especially Combat) have components of all three. Roleplaying encounters are usually presented to give the characters access to information or items, or just simply to add color and realism to the game world. Combat Encounters are predominately combatoriented, and are usually the result of or cause Roleplaying Encounters. Environment Encounters are anything that doesn't fit in the other two categories, and usually includes things like traps, barricades, obstacles and/or items to interact with.

As the game progresses, you may find yourself using or getting items. These are represented by small pieces of paper (often laminated) called Tags. The Tag will identify what the item is, and if necessary provide additional information about the item. Note that unless you have the appropriate skill, your character can't necessarily identify the item even if the tag is presented. This is most frequently noticed when dealing with Poisons; an unlabeled poison vial will have a tag attached, but even if you know out-ofplay what the tag represents you can't identify the poison without the skill Use Poison or Poisonmaking. Unless it says so on the tag (ie., "self identifies") the item is usually not identifiable without some special skill. Some things, like weapons, are easily identified (this is a sword) but if the weapon has any special enchantments or enhancements those aren't identifiable by an untrained eye. A weapon skill (such as One Handed Blade) allows you to identify basic blacksmithed/tinkered enhancements on the weapon as well as distinguish the rough quality of the weapon. All Production based items may be identified by anyone with the relevant production skill. All other items require a specialty skill in order to identify. Most powerful magic items can only be identified through special arcane rituals.

At the end of the game day, one of two things will happen to your character (assuming you lived through the day) - you'll either be taken back to the Waiting Room (if the mission was successful or if it is impossible to complete by then) and talk to the Scions again or you'll end the game at a point appropriate for the next game to pick up. Most game days are self contained enough that adding and subtracting players between games won't mess up the Plotline, but it's best for both your character and your fellow players if the characters who start off in a Plotline play every game through to the end of the "mission". Most missions are designed around a 1-3 game arc, but some are part of larger storylines that may take months or years to fully complete.

Step 6: Closing Debriefing

Closing Debriefing is a lot like opening Debriefing. Depending on your chapter, you may do character adjustments (although most chapters do this exclusively online), alter your character's inventory (if the chapter allows you to "bank" items) and turn in any character cards, tags or other supplies that belong to the Chapter.

Step 7: Between Games

Between Games it's a smart idea to visit the bulletin board in order to keep current on late-breaking rules adjustments, chapter announcements and other news. On Game Day mornings and especially prior to bigger Events it's also a good idea to check in case there is last minute information.

Once your character is inputted into the database, maintaining it can be done online or through your Debriefing Team. When you visit a game after your first, the Debriefing Team will have an envelope with all your stats, tags and other information ready for you, so you can be playing within minutes.