Post by blissinfinite on Jul 6, 2009 17:52:56 GMT -6
I've been wanting to get a classic D&D game going at a local RPG club here in town. Most of the regulars are pretty hard-core gamers and are totally into 4e. The whole prospect is a bit intimidating. I've been working on getting my DMing skills back as it has been a very looooong time since I played any type of RPG. To get my chops back, a couple of months ago I took a que from Chowiz and started a game with my wife, Christy, who has never played an RPG in her life although we did play NWN together for a while and she enjoyed that! I've kept her in the loop on the whole OSR happenings (we both like the DIY thing) and, of course, she's seen me pouring over my S&W and my Holmes book and so she was willing to give it a try (with not too much begging on my part).
She rolled up a character and ended up with with a Female Dwarf Warrior (with CHA of 5!) whom she named Maudlin! I rolled up Brother Harold a Cleric of the Brotherhood of Light to help guide her during play. Thought I'd start with a simple dungeon crawl and the adventure I pulled out was the sample dungeon at the back of the Holmes book which I've worked into my campaign setting I've been tinkering with.
I got things rolling by having two inquisitive townsfolk, Brett and Jermaine, having stumbled upon the entrance to Zenopus' ruined tower and exploring down the steps were too frightened to go any further. The two brothers headed back to town to seek out a couple of stout adventures to accompany them to the tunnels below. They didn't offer gold upfront but a fair split of any treasure found. Thus, Maudlin and Brother Harold joined up. After hiring a spear man named Dirk and a young torch-bearer, Murry, they headed off to the entrance.
Up to this point I kind of moved things along to get things going. At the entrance, I let Christy guide events. She had a little trouble figuring out how the game progressed and what to do to just enter the catacombs. I helped her along, telling her to set up a marching order, get some light going and just proceed from there, I'll tell you what you see, and experience from what you tell me you do and we just kinda go from there. It was a little rough and I perhaps I could have taken a bit more time to give her a more detailed example of play. But things slowly got moving.
The party moved north at the 4 way intersection at the bottom of the stairs and ended up at their first door. After listening and not hearing anything, they opened the door. Inside was a number of broken coffins and some coins scattered about the room but slowly coming at them from the shadows at edge of their torchlight were two walking corpses! Brother Harold stepped forward and raising his Holy Symbol of Light and kept the fiends at bay while the rest of the party gathered up the coins.
Exiting through a southern door, leaving the ghouls unmolested, the party traveled down a different southern passage. They entered a room filled with rubble and garbage. There were a couple of over-sized rats rummaging through the trash. The party eased their way around the trash and the rats and exited the door on the other side of the room and entered another room. The room was empty except for a large circle drawn in the floor with chalk and odd runes along the edge. Christy didn't know what to make of it but thought it best to avoid. They exited a northern opening which lead into a large room. Upon entering the room 4 skeletons stepped from hidden niches in the walls and attacked the party. Brother Harold once again held up his holy symbol, but alas, the animated skeletons paid no heed and overran the cleric killing him. Thus our first combat began which ended up with a wounded Dirk, a frightened Murry and four piles of bones.
Now the interesting part is that Christy felt bad that Brother Harold died and she made the suggestion to carry him out of the dungeon and back to his temple for a proper burial. I was impressed by her initiave especially someone who has never played the game before. She actually did pretty good through out the session with exploring the rooms. She did need some guidance and Bro Harold helped her along in that regard. Over all she actually enjoyed it and was able to imagine things happening quite well (no minis or markers or anything).
I did find it a bit challenging keeping on top of the rules (it's been a while) especially when I had to help Christy get the hang of the game. It was interesting that I DMed like I did 30 years ago which turned out to be a good thing! I never got caught up with skill checks and feats and all that stuff so it was all 'marching order' and 'what do you do now?' and 'how do you go about doing this and that?'.
So overall, a pretty positive experience. I saw a few things that I can improve upon running the game (since the session I've made a DM screen based on Chowiz's S&W version. Christy actually expressed interest in wanting to play again. We've had two more sessions since then and I'll add a follow-up post here.
She rolled up a character and ended up with with a Female Dwarf Warrior (with CHA of 5!) whom she named Maudlin! I rolled up Brother Harold a Cleric of the Brotherhood of Light to help guide her during play. Thought I'd start with a simple dungeon crawl and the adventure I pulled out was the sample dungeon at the back of the Holmes book which I've worked into my campaign setting I've been tinkering with.
I got things rolling by having two inquisitive townsfolk, Brett and Jermaine, having stumbled upon the entrance to Zenopus' ruined tower and exploring down the steps were too frightened to go any further. The two brothers headed back to town to seek out a couple of stout adventures to accompany them to the tunnels below. They didn't offer gold upfront but a fair split of any treasure found. Thus, Maudlin and Brother Harold joined up. After hiring a spear man named Dirk and a young torch-bearer, Murry, they headed off to the entrance.
Up to this point I kind of moved things along to get things going. At the entrance, I let Christy guide events. She had a little trouble figuring out how the game progressed and what to do to just enter the catacombs. I helped her along, telling her to set up a marching order, get some light going and just proceed from there, I'll tell you what you see, and experience from what you tell me you do and we just kinda go from there. It was a little rough and I perhaps I could have taken a bit more time to give her a more detailed example of play. But things slowly got moving.
The party moved north at the 4 way intersection at the bottom of the stairs and ended up at their first door. After listening and not hearing anything, they opened the door. Inside was a number of broken coffins and some coins scattered about the room but slowly coming at them from the shadows at edge of their torchlight were two walking corpses! Brother Harold stepped forward and raising his Holy Symbol of Light and kept the fiends at bay while the rest of the party gathered up the coins.
Exiting through a southern door, leaving the ghouls unmolested, the party traveled down a different southern passage. They entered a room filled with rubble and garbage. There were a couple of over-sized rats rummaging through the trash. The party eased their way around the trash and the rats and exited the door on the other side of the room and entered another room. The room was empty except for a large circle drawn in the floor with chalk and odd runes along the edge. Christy didn't know what to make of it but thought it best to avoid. They exited a northern opening which lead into a large room. Upon entering the room 4 skeletons stepped from hidden niches in the walls and attacked the party. Brother Harold once again held up his holy symbol, but alas, the animated skeletons paid no heed and overran the cleric killing him. Thus our first combat began which ended up with a wounded Dirk, a frightened Murry and four piles of bones.
Now the interesting part is that Christy felt bad that Brother Harold died and she made the suggestion to carry him out of the dungeon and back to his temple for a proper burial. I was impressed by her initiave especially someone who has never played the game before. She actually did pretty good through out the session with exploring the rooms. She did need some guidance and Bro Harold helped her along in that regard. Over all she actually enjoyed it and was able to imagine things happening quite well (no minis or markers or anything).
I did find it a bit challenging keeping on top of the rules (it's been a while) especially when I had to help Christy get the hang of the game. It was interesting that I DMed like I did 30 years ago which turned out to be a good thing! I never got caught up with skill checks and feats and all that stuff so it was all 'marching order' and 'what do you do now?' and 'how do you go about doing this and that?'.
So overall, a pretty positive experience. I saw a few things that I can improve upon running the game (since the session I've made a DM screen based on Chowiz's S&W version. Christy actually expressed interest in wanting to play again. We've had two more sessions since then and I'll add a follow-up post here.
