What are the best characters for people playing for the first time? I've coerced my family into playing this with me, and I'm determined to have them leave hungry for more. Since they don't know much about the characters anyways, I decided to pick characters for them in hopes of assembling the best group.

Which characters are the most fun to play? Any to stay away from?

Any suggested line-ups for me to run (six players, including myself)?

What characters are best for the person doing the teaching (i.e. me)?

Thanks for any and all feedback!

I've hosted two games now, both time with people who has never played before. The most obvious "fun" characters at the very begining would be pilotes as they can launch and fly vipers. It give them something concreat and understandable to do at the begining. Atleast that is what people I've played with wanted to do. But you can't have to many pilotes or you will be screwed on may skillchecks later on. Politicans has been the least favored characters and so they might be good for the host to pick.

I wish you the best of luck with your game. My experiance is the explaining of rules and first few turns will be very confusing for new players and they will feel a bit clueless and perhaps even bored. But at half way through the game they will be hooked as the game realy is great and it sucks you in good once you grasps the basics!

Following the selection rules usually allows for a good balance. I would suggest that at least one person take the support character. We played a five player without anyone selecting that character and the humans did not last long.

Hmm, how important would you say playing the Chief is? I worry that whoever gets the Chief will feel like the D&D'r forced to play the party's healer ;-)

Obviously it's a great game no matter who you play, but I'm equally certain that choosing the best possible spread of characters is a net benefit -- and I want to stack the deck in our favor as much as I can!

This is the characters I'm thinking of starting with at the moment:

Saul Tigh
William Adama
Apollo
Starbuck
Laura Roslin
Gaius Baltar (my character)

Can anyone think of a better spread? I feel like I should again emphasize that I'm not asking whether this is a bad spread, but instead I'm asking whether this is the best spread. Thanks!

There are other characters that have access to enginering cards, as well as the reseash labb and the politics cards that lets you draw from any skill. So having the chief is not that important IMHO.

It's hard to say anything about "best" complement of characters as you don't know who is going to end up being cylons any way.

It is much easier to list critera for "good" combinations and specific combinations are easier to figure out for 3-4 player games as then you really need Baltar and Lee.

For criteria

Politics: Arrange this so that you have at least the number of players minus one (you *might* be able to get away with minus two in certain circumstances, but I doubt it) of this available no matter who is a cylon.

Leadership: Have more of this than tactics, perhaps about as much as politics. It is good if all or nearly all players have it so that EO's can be used to maximum effect.

Tactics: Have at least as much of this as the number of players (three player games may be an exception)?

Engineering: At least two players should have it.

Piloting: At least two players should have it for games larger than four players, usually a good idea to have two players with it in 4 player games too.

If I were to pick 6 for a beginning game it would go like this:

Apollo (so that you always have a pilot in a viper)

Roslin (she helps avoid some of the really nasty crises)

Chief Tyrol (he will keep everything running)

Starbuck (another good pilot, she can take engineering cards, and can save the groups ass once per game)

Baltar (He has the best variety of skills plus the cylon detector)

William Adama (lots of leadership and he passes skill checks much more easily)

Honestly though, as long as you have every skill covered at least twice you should be fine. By fine I mean that you will be equally screwed (let's face it, things are never fine for the humans in this game). Just let folks pick their favorite characters (you will probably end up with a list similar to mine anyway), and then you can pick last and fill up any gaps that you find.