After our first D&D session I saw one of my friends from the group (one of the experienced players). He had overheard me telling our DM that I had a blast. He asked me what I liked the most about it. Funny thing,... I had a hard time answering him. It may have been because we had barely scratched the surface. It may have been because most of us hardly had a clue what we were doing. I basically mentioned a couple quick elements of the game that were fun but I knew it wasn't a complete answer. Throughout the rest of the night and since, I have pondered the question.
I wondered if I merely liked the fact that the game had happened at all. I knew I liked the fact that I had friends sitting around the table doing anything as a group. It's a group of guys that I really enjoy the company of. I liked that we managed to find some combat, established a small quest for the next session and started some role playing in the process. Even after all this, I still didn't have a good answer for my friend on what I liked the best about it, but I had my suspicions.
After two get togethers, I think I may actually be able to answer him and it is not as simple as "combat" or "adventuring/exploring" etc.
What do I really like the best about D&D right now?
I love the fact that the adventure is it’s own fluid entity. It’s not a completely set-in-stone narrative that we are just drifting through like a video game. Now, I know what you’re thinking… It is since the DM has designed the story, setting, quests, adventures, NPCs and monsters etc. I’ll even agree that you have a point but so far, the adventure feels more like something that is unfolding for all of us including the DM. Even though he has done the set up, there are 6 more minds driving the story and contributing actions. Add the fact that we are all at the whim of the dice, it really feels like none of us, not even the DM, has any real control over what happens. It’s a very strange, but interesting concept for me to get my head around and I couldn’t be happier about that.
Of course, you may just be saying "Well duh! That's what a role playing game is" but hey, I am a noob so... :)
Happy Gaming
-TND
Monday, December 7, 2015
2nd Session wrap up
Another session is in the books and my enthusiasm hasn't waned at all. I would have been surprised if it had of course. I was not nervous heading into this week like I had been about the first session which was cool. I hosted the first session and started everyone off with a shot of whiskey to celebrate the kick off of the campaign (and keep things loose) and it must have worked since the host this week did the same asking if that would be a tradition for us. Everyone seemed to like that idea so we have that going for us :)
Right from the start, it seemed like everyone was getting up to speed and into character quickly. No one has put on an accent but they started using the mannerisms, speech patterns and actions that their character's race, background and personalities would dictate. It was really fun to see that develop and increase over the course of the day.
There was some quick RP at the start to pick up where we left off after the last session. Our first battle was over. We were getting some heat from the local guard (who we were drinking with earlier in the night) for killing what now looked like halflings but were goblins when we killed them. We took care of that misunderstanding with a 20 from one of the party that was dealing with the guards. We couldn't do much more that night. None of us could do anything about the fire that the bad guys had started so we dispersed agreeing to meet back at the pub in the morning for our first full mission/adventure to get to the brewery to restock the pub of the "good stuff" since their last delivery failed thanks to a broken cart (part of a story hook for my character that caught my ear and got me to drunkenly agree to the job to continue the party the next night) After week one and thinking about that set up, it seemed slightly reminiscent of an episode of Titansgrave but I won't go back and watch it until we are done to see for sure.
Once on the road for our mission, closing in on the cart that we bought supplies to fix, we heard a call for help. When we cleared a hill in the road, we saw two humans down with arrows sticking out of them. I rushed forward (major trigger for my character) with our cleric close behind and made my first newbie mistake... Figuring my character would instantly try to save them, I burned one of my two spell slots on cure wounds instead of just checking them first. Big surprise, it was a trap. Goblins! Battle number 2 of our short career. You can see the map left. (our DM forgot his battle map so I improvised those as he was setting up. The clear plastic is the cart we needed to fix. the D6s were the bad guys. The other dice and minis were us. The big dopey wooden player piece is me. I had an extra piece and some sharpies so I figure that'll do until I can find a good mini. More goblins would come out of the woods but we made fairly quick work of them except for 2 that tried to bug out. I managed to capture one of them and interrogate it which revealed a little side quest that we are still in the middle of. It is one of the DMs favorite quests from back in the day and it seems fun so far. After burning through a protective thorny barrier (getting charmed and losing a couple weapons), we found some kind of goblin home/area in the woods that's kind of psychedelic with two big mushrooms that you definitely shouldn't try to jump through a window of as our barbarian tried... It didn't go well but it was funny. We killed a couple giant spiders and our cleric was almost taken out and that is where we ended for the day.
This post is going on a little too long so I'll just say, it was a fun day. We're still getting used to this whole thing but if we keep going at the pace we are, we should all be truly down rabbit hole soon and I'm real interested to see how that goes. I'm looking forward to everyone getting more involved, less tentative. Most of all, I'm really looking forward to learning everyone's back stories. We've kept them close to the vest so we'll have some things to figure out via RP and to allow some people that wanted to develop them as we figure out what the heck we're doing.
-TND
Right from the start, it seemed like everyone was getting up to speed and into character quickly. No one has put on an accent but they started using the mannerisms, speech patterns and actions that their character's race, background and personalities would dictate. It was really fun to see that develop and increase over the course of the day.
There was some quick RP at the start to pick up where we left off after the last session. Our first battle was over. We were getting some heat from the local guard (who we were drinking with earlier in the night) for killing what now looked like halflings but were goblins when we killed them. We took care of that misunderstanding with a 20 from one of the party that was dealing with the guards. We couldn't do much more that night. None of us could do anything about the fire that the bad guys had started so we dispersed agreeing to meet back at the pub in the morning for our first full mission/adventure to get to the brewery to restock the pub of the "good stuff" since their last delivery failed thanks to a broken cart (part of a story hook for my character that caught my ear and got me to drunkenly agree to the job to continue the party the next night) After week one and thinking about that set up, it seemed slightly reminiscent of an episode of Titansgrave but I won't go back and watch it until we are done to see for sure.
 |
| Battle Time! |
This post is going on a little too long so I'll just say, it was a fun day. We're still getting used to this whole thing but if we keep going at the pace we are, we should all be truly down rabbit hole soon and I'm real interested to see how that goes. I'm looking forward to everyone getting more involved, less tentative. Most of all, I'm really looking forward to learning everyone's back stories. We've kept them close to the vest so we'll have some things to figure out via RP and to allow some people that wanted to develop them as we figure out what the heck we're doing.
-TND
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